Joshua Cohen - Witz

How’d you spell escheat ? she asks the ghost…though we all know that ghosts only dictate, they never respond, don’t sign for anything, and — isn’t it true that, they never know to spell.

Israel never did.

¶ Deposition of…she types now, held at the offices of Goldenberg, Goldenberg, & Israelien LLP, 45 East 33rd Street, New York, New York, 10016, pursuant to Notice, before Loreta O. Strozzapreti, a Registered Professional Reporter and Notary Public of the State of New York.

9. EXAMINATION BY MR. ISRAELIEN:

10. Q. It is our mutual understanding that portions of this record may

11. be read into evidence. However, all objections except as to the

12. form of the question are reserved until trial.

13. A…typing out depositions of deponents long deposed of to the dead. Her tears tap the keys, sticking, jumblblbling…she types: hereby stipulate, types, pursuant to, then the ghost says again as she rewinds the tape to a garble: ottnaus …pursuant to our discussion, let’s talk Hanna would always ask, would demand, about the hours you’ve been keeping: her not suspecting him of infidelity, rather of the opposite, of being too faithful, too true to his work, fathering not their kinder as much as husbanding time, and whole sheets of the stuff as null as the day’s sky, turned down late into night — absent, the faceless face of the clock: how she’d kid stripped before bed when he’s coming home midnight from a meeting, I’ll get your partners to represent me, sue you for nonsupport; billing twentyfive hours a day, eight days a week, an hour for only a moment of thought in the shower, his practice fair or not: a consideration at towel’s length, contemplating the tie of a tie four in hand with dimple, or a shoe’s spit knucklepolish, then a quick kiss to his wife who she’s still sleeping and he’s out the door to his car or the train. Argument for its own sake, an appeal for the sake of appeal — him a lawyer at first for building contractors, for plumbers, autoaccident victims (his covenant, you will receive a cash settlement or I get no fee); he’d done personal injury, workers’ comp, liability, then moved himself into the corneroffice’s corporate work, mergers & acquisitions, late nights at the kitchen or even later into morning the diningroom table poring over his own scrapheap obsessions, Latinate and private, a personal edition of the most secular of Scripture. Notes on Promissory Estoppel in Collective Bargaining Agreements 1:1 . In the end, Loreta has to think, how it’s all estoppel, isn’t it, detrimental reliance, we know it as delusion, the enabling lie: taking certain measures contingent on the veracity of information provided, on the faith faithed in promise, assurance, oral contracts taken out on the given word we call them. Non concedit venire contra factum proprium, give me a break, who says. How she thought she’d had a future there, was once even thinking about trying out for paralegal, going for broke on a cooperative investment expecting a raise, if wishful — for the better, though, as the co-op, with the death of its management, it’s turned out to be a coop, like for chicks. Israelien v. Greater Miami Food Services at 9, she’d handled that; it’d taken months. Damages, I’m due. Too much and probably pregnant, too. And old. Either express or implied…how I’d buy Hanna flowers whenever Wanda would call to remind. Didn’t once forget to send even his father a card. I’d sign it, Loreta —he’d never. She’s crying, lights another candle on the counter in the kitchen, a line of them between her two dryingracks, the meat kept kosher from the milk. Seethe on your own time, but separately, if you can. How is it she still feels his presence, his eyes on her, and hears that voice…her new religion, if it even is a religion and not a, forget it, asks her not to ask; and how her husband who he’s her despondent, too, he serves then clears the courtroom of their distance, later at night and in bed reminds her, nu, we don’t even believe in ghosts anymore, not supposed to, not as such: more like possessions, hymn, as in dybbuks, incarnations or usurpations, but ghosts, no, I don’t think so, Leah, but I’m no rabbi, yet — that and in the morning when her brother down in Texas calls, he reminds her better, that before she converted she always said she hated the schmuck, it might be best forgotten. The again overtime, the weekend hours how he’d never work Saturday but she’d come in on Sundays, too — you think she ever got Shabbos off, forget it. She loved her job she says to her brother-inlaw, now named Israel, too (so few names with real kavod these days, true yichus or zichus she can’t remember which, and with so many people wanting them: her brother, he’d chosen late, last pick), who he’s still wrangling cattle but as of last moon for a kosher concern…and thinking — is what he says but she’s not and not listening either — about opening up a slaughterhouse outside Houston, if he could only glatt the backers into reviving a trusted brand; she did, though, love, don’t get her wrong, she liked: it paid well, her job, then the benefits, and Israel, though she might lionize him in death, as a tamer or taskmaster, he’d been pleasant enough, better than expected if only in hindsight, though her eyes are going what with the small print and miniature night type; she says to her brother, her brat, her ach: Evan wants me to burn the tapes, I’ll burn the tapes, I promise — tomorrow, first thing before I daven (tonight, she still has to summarize a brief); but don’t think I’ll ever stop hearing that voice — which would shriek down the phone though her desk had been cubicled just beyond the door.

As for the office, it hasn’t much changed; not the layout, only the furnishings. Inevitably, a sheaf of magazines have folded, or have been desubscribed to, stolen or moved around, flipped through then restacked again out of issued order; the glass has been replaced out front with another slab of blank clarity because they couldn’t add etch to or scrape the names from the old convincingly, or cheaply. Though Goldenberg, Goldenberg , that walled sign over reception still reads, then & Thronrauber in a different font, pretentiously with serif, Attorneys-At-Law —at your service. Call it continuity, despite. Nobody by any of those names has lately hung a hat here. I’m Mordy, but when you’re calling ask for Guy. Too early in the morning and with no brunch in Him, recently sleepless what with the fear inspired by the little He’s asked in return for His bed and board, miserly, too, and provisionally He thinks in spite, He’s leftover the holiday attempted to an exhaustion matched only by that of His purpose, both as mated to those of this family’s most demanding personalities (mother, wife) and, as well, in light of a present piety that’s damning of all senses and ambivalent toward dream…B’s arrived here with the proctologist and his wife, and her dressedup something like a weddingcake already, a healthy portion: with an icingly pink pillboxhat over pinker wig, frostpowdered face, the bride and groom of her bosom sweetly perfumed, and their daughter whom they’ve been calling Eli — you might’ve missed her, don’t beat your breast about it: anyway, how she’s been too shy to tell Him her full name, whether her new name or old, anything about herself, really, also she’s not quite allowed to be alone with Him for any appreciable time — that is, not until, we’re hoping. Holdingout. Eli who’s crying because being here’s mortifying, and how He wants to know why, suspicious, but every time He leans around her mother to mouth entreaties at her eye her mother keeps leaning forward, her lips sloppily filled with complimentary jelly and curd, asking B if He’s feeling well, hungry or thirsty and Him not understanding, only how much He doesn’t want to…what’s He here for is what meddles, only that the proctologist had forced Him into a doubled doublebreasted suit he’d managed to impromptu along with a cardboard belt and tie ensemble, then a cart down to Mitteltown to take care of some things, he’d said, a bit of paperwork pertaining to your status, get you legal, keep you safe, secure, and how He thinks — no problem, the mensch’s been good people so far, so good, soso, and how the daughter’s not tootoo…until now, Him ending up in this office, which hasn’t even merited a plaque: keep waiting, it’s on order.