Joshua Cohen - Witz

Telephone for you, sir, the Kush says and, is it important? is what Sure yells strangled, his ears sloshingly full up with scald, I gave specific instructions only to be disturbed if it’s important.

Is it important? the Kush asks into the business end, the receiver black and lost under the lobe of his ear, the glint of its enslaving stud. A moment of bated listening to the breathless way they still talk it back east, which Sure should be able to hear even from where he’s sitting suited, goggled, and waterlogged, at the lip of the pool with his feet dangling in the water it costs him don’t even ask what a fortune to heat. Keep it just at 100º. And then, it’s important, the Kush vouches, tucking the phone under his jaw.

Is it urgent, though? Sure asks as he towels his pecs, kicking up with his toes small waves against the filter.

One moment, sir, the Kush asks, is it urgent? another moment for the Kush to say, it is urgent , sir.

Hokey doke, says Sure, then on a scale of one to five, no, better make it one to ten, how urgent is it? With one being forget about it, and ten being my God is on fire. Ask him that, he says as if in challenge, a coldweather throw-down…tousles dry his hair, jumps in a regimen such as was once recommended to Rabbi Hillel, up on one foot then down on the other to unclog the ears as the Kush he goes and asks what he asks, on a scale of one to ten, sir, exactly how urgent is this?

A moment more of this loudly staccato and the Kush says, it’s urgent, sir, very — the party would have to rank it high in the millions.

Jesus H…. okay, collecting himself, haven’t had one of those before. But one last question, just to be sure: is it more important than urgent, or is it more urgent than, don’t worry, you get it and a raise…and so the Kush asks again, is the matter more urgent, and then he stops with the questioning answers before he’s finished to say, it’s both, sir, equally both, the Kush says the party says, all of them and more’s why he’s calling — consider this serious, a most plus.

Wowzer! in dialogue from roles their names reruns forgotten while their lines, they live on — quit your wasting the dude’s time, says Sure, and give the unit here…and the servant, what does he do, he goes and hangs up the telephone to wheel its cart over to his employer and before he has it rolling, nu, the ring goes ringing again, the Kush answers it and they, hymn, you know, having been conditioned to the rest, the spiel, it’s said, the speak softly but carry a big shtick routine, clocked calendrical almost, the ballagone whole — go through the very same ritual, and then and only then, only after Sure’s once more and for the last fully vetted this interruption following up, his delighting peevishness manifest in the swell of his neck, the tension of his temples, too, and that of his trademark chin bottomed like the tush of a newborn (kid or idea — clefted half his, half whose), does the Kush finally place the receiver this time upended atop the cart, rolls it over with plenty of corddistance, picks up the empty rosette plate that hosts only the residual grease of the meat of the pig and the pareve of the eggwhites and the silverware, which he places atop the plate in a cross, bows slightly to Master and Mistress as he’s paid to address them and heads on inside, through the patio and its glass doors, as Sure picks up the phone, cups with a pruned palm the business while nodding demeaningly to his wife to shuffle off to decorate the interior, to belittle herself with trifles: selfmedication at needlepoint, xword puzzles that’re the hidden study of Scripture (being the clue for 12 Across), mystery that ensures, too, her puckered pout and this, her shriveled slinking — then sits down at the landscaped edge of his mesa, his shivering legs to idle amid the emptiness, air, kicking feet through the sky shot through with cloudbursts: Sure speaking, he says, who’s this, whaddya want?

Lee, says a familiar voice, Billy Brove, STOP, long distance from parts east.

Brove, you old son of a bitch — why didn’t you say it was you? examining his pedicure over the drop, how the hell you doing out there?

Drop the formalities, STOP, the goy he talks like a telegram that refuses to sing, big news on this end, STOP, we found Him, STOP, Ben, STOP, now you want to hear I’m doing just fine, thank you, STOP, how’s the wife?

Israelien? Sure says, if I had a nickel, this is the tenth time today…you with your stops, pull’em out, ain’t no time to push me around: we’re lying low for the summer…anyway, I’ve got a houseful of unemployed producers with their consultant boyfriends telling me they’ve got masseuses with dreams, who’ve received visions, visitations, gotten tips, new information — let’s get down to it, how much you want from me, how much you need?

It’s legit, Lee. STOP. Take your hat off your ears.

Bill, you’re my friend but…

Buttinsky.

Don’t want to hear that talk, least of all from you…listen, Lee says, I heard the one, and Sure he’s heard them most, about the Affiliated, you know, how they’re hiding subterranean, I’m talking deep under the earth like in a hollow hollowedout for them through the agency of this worm, if you can believe it — and there holedup in small, definitely incestuous families, it’s said, and wretches that they were, that they are, they’re eating this worm, I mean like they’re feeding on it, drinking its essence, the blood, I don’t know what you’d call it, whether worms have blood or not, their only source of sustenance, right…STOP yourself, and that they hide there, guess what, plotting their takeover, the Final Days, Bill, the no nonsense End of Ends. I also heard the one in which they went off to settle this other planet, led by this mysterious, get this, Doktor Froid, left us in chariots of heavenly light, I heard fire, Bill, ascension with all the fixins, and — wait for it — that they’re planning to return, just waiting for the right moment, to zap the earth back to the ashes it sprang from. Zip, zilch, okay nada. Goddamn Bill, I heard that, and now you want me to believe this, which’ll be even crazier, won’t it: Israelien walking around in plain day, sunlight Sure as my name’s Lee, with a halo over His head and little yellow stars hung from His tits. Anyway, let’s out with it: you have Him, He’s being held, there’s a price on His head, you’re asking a ransom, He’s already dead…enough, give it up, Bill, what’s your deal?

About time, Brove says, keeping in mind STOP who’s paying for the call.

Is that what this is about? I’ll tell you…I have my suspicions, Bill, you cheapo Marx whatever the schmuck, if that’s how it’s said, I wouldn’t know — how do I know you’re not one of them, too?

He’s S/SW, Lee. STOP. Heading for Angels through desert STOP. Moving slow and in the open STOP. Three eyewitness reports STOP: latest in a burgerjoint just outside Tucson.

Why didn’t you say so before? gushing gosh. Don’t answer, rhetorical, say. Haven’t we done anything yet? Go ahead.

Thing is Der knows. STOP. Already sent — Gelt, Frank, alone.

Gelt? That goy couldn’t find himself even if both stood to profit. I got ten Mex working KP duty down here who could do his job in half the time…

For half the pay, says Brove.

And actually get their mensch, says Sure. Why not Mada?

Not his territory STOP, not his sort of people.

You have a point.

You had a few points there yourself.

Which means I’m winning, Bill, he always is, how Lee’s sure of it.

They’re two menschs, witnesses, any…affirmative; even offcamera, they’re always in pairs. In the paramount waitingroom, flipping through periodicals preposterously just a libration or so out of date: last Shabbos’ Times , recent back issues of the Weekly Affiliated , old Yinglish editions of Der Backvertz (a paper revived, Downtowned once again), anything to pass, riffling their ways upsidedown right to left through subscriptions in two names of a lawyer threenamed, H. Shy Lockermann of Corona, of counsel — they’d expire next moon unless he renews, unless they do in his name, as he’s dead. The two of them who, remind them, they’re waiting for what, a nurse, an assistant, any replacement receptionist, her desked at the door, chained to command in manacles made of bills bound small in denomination, and wadded tightly — anyone since Miss de Presser left her employ for pregnancy, moneygreener pastures, the free range of the oven; she’ll be missed. After smokes stubbed out upon the mediating arms of their twinned recliners, they take the liberty of announcing themselves to whichever Doctor Tweiss’s available.