Joshua Cohen - Witz

One of these Misses Clauses fellating a candy cane, another fellating the other end of the treat, they’re sucking away to kiss sweet at the middle without stripe, dripping drool sugary thick.

And yet another one, this their leader it would appear from the rear, the fat and old and the ugly, her face a rash of makeup, scars herpetic and of acne, too, black luck and its blue mutilation, she’s asking Mel…what you got in that sack of yours, you gimme a gift?

Just looted dog food, a can of beer, root root root another pair of shades.

One with a particularly heaving bosom leans up against Mel, grabs hands, presses them to the fuming insides of her thighs.

Busy tonight, Santy?

Any time for a lonely old Miss?

Twenty for a halfhour, thirty for the hour, I’ll ride your North Pole.

It’s a seasonal thing — a fire sale, don’t you know, feel how hot I am down there…my sleigh or yours?

Mel suddenly defects his hands from the granny’s panties, punches her in the mouth, loosening teeth whether they’re dentures or real to gnaw among his knuckles like miniature graves, without name. Blood splurts onto the premature white of his faking beard as Misses Claus goes down and out, and her sisters go chasing Mel down the street; dodging formations of troops, winding around stalled and honking jams of military jeeps, trucks and tanks, armored snowcats, huskies and convoys of bison, Mel’s cowbell clanging his escape with the slip of his stride in the deepening snow, south into an unlit quarter of the world known as Canarsie; the Misseses wielding their hoarded purses weighted with dimes swindled from shoppers in the good name of the poor, swinging them around to hurl at him as they clutch at their florid hems through the piling hoar.

Our sun rises as promised the next morning, Xmas — a covenant’s a covenant, and what’s death to annul it; though this rise occurs maybe spiteful, halting, reluctant, as if unsure of itself, the sun embarrassed by what’s happened in the hour it’s forbidden to light. At the horizon, gray; clouds assemble to breathe down flaming flakes. Medics, police, fire, National Guard goyim, US Army, Every Acronym (EA), Neighborhood Watch even and volunteers both organized and irregular, all the lineaments of uniformed disaster they’ve been mobilized, equipped then assembled with an amazing degree of expedition, and efficient professionalism given the hurry, though there’s just nothing for them to do except inhale, exhale into the freeze as if that’ll help any, but if it makes them feel better, then — as through the jammed caravan of patrol cars, miscellaneous emergency management personnel, and the triage that is local press with ambition, three survivors arrive at the Gatekeeper’s hut. One of them’s a shvartze, too, and though he’s the one driving this suggests not a few concerns, begging the profile — it’s standard policy to ask, I’m sure you understand, of all people…

Might be a delivery, maybe a poolboychick, a worker but what crew; he’s not a gardener, no exterminator, perhaps another species of hand hired but by whom and for what, none he’s ever known, the Gatekeeper going on ten years, and so a suspicion to report — that is, if there’s anyone left to report to. One of the three, not the shvartze, the one in the passenger seat in the hood and robe, with the staff that’s just the bough of a cedar fallen by lightning, he gets himself out of the metallic puke Lexus, a rental, keeps his door open and walks around the hood to the slit in the window, yells hoarse above the sirens and wails.

We’re looking for One Thousand Cedars, the Development, of course — tries to keep it light.

We’re catering the bris, though we seem to have lost our passes — it’s tragic, forgive.

What bris? the Gatekeeper wants to know, wiping at the rime of his eyelid, a tear.

A bris, a circumcision, the face under the hood gives a smile, you know: down go the pants, snip goes the tip…

I’ve been working here nearly a decade, says the Keeper, there’s no need to tell me what’s a bris, nu — what I’m asking is what circumcision, whose, who’s circumcising who around here? I’m saying, if anyone’s doing any circumcising, it’s me of you — get my drift?

Above, planes plummet, and police helicopters descend, metalplated locusts, upon the Development’s baseball diamond, the roof of the Rec Center’s pool, onto great rolling lawns: rotors flaying shingles and swingsets; the air, a mass of noise and flashes, microphones held up to megaphones, the violent frolic of doppler, you know him; corpses are stacked on the sidewalk one by one then laid one atop another when there’s no more space, later becoming laidout feet to feet along streets, their toes tagged with ID, their heads propped against the curb, mouths left hanging open; in shock, postmortem disbelief — it’s as if they’d be revived by the snow.

No, I haven’t heard of any circumcisions, Mister Bris, now disaster I’ve heard of, plague…

It’s registered, he’s oblivious or doing wonders for faking: we’d submitted the application eight days ago, as per your requirements, did the whole background check, got together our recommendations; God, we’ve followed every single one of your guidelines — I can’t believe you don’t have us on file.

Mister Simon Weizmann, plus two…check again, I’ll believe you.

Weizmann, I don’t know any Weizmann…

And the longer we wait, he’s not finished just yet…the more everything spoils.

Hard for anything to spoil more than it already has, he taps his scratched plastic pane to alert, and no, it’s not registered, understand — nothing’s registered, not anymore.

The Israelien family should’ve notified you in advance, made their wishes known — they only had Him a week ago, what’s to expect? Would it help to mention I’m a good friend of Alana Milfhaus? We did weddings together. She was in flowers.

You have any identification?

He hesitates. I seem to have left my license at the office. Anyway, it’s a little outdated. I’ve since lost the weight.

Maybe you want to talk with my supervisor. He’s dead. You want his number? Or maybe you’ll rabbi this out on your own?

It’s a party at Hanna and Israel Israelien’s, 333 Apple; it’s for Benjamin, their newborn — a boy, would you believe? Now how would I know that if I weren’t here with the lox and the spread?

The Keeper shrugs, reaches under his desk to throw the emergency switch, then realizes all the armed response he’ll ever need’s already here, and has enough emergency as it is.

We’ve reached our quota today, no more admissions; especially not for looters, fortunehunters…anyway, where’d you get that funny getup? he’s stalling, those robes? what’s with that?

Also rentals, you like? and he twirls the hood’s gold tassels.

Give me a moment, will you? the Keeper grunts, gulps at any medication then tosses its unlabeled jar to his desk, hobbles out of the hut and makes his way to stand before the robed tasseled figure and the rental Lexus, near to the face obscured by the hood. God save me for going offmessage, he says to himself and his whisper aches through last night’s two packs of smokes then the liquor redeemed from area cabinets and basements, stumbling on the numb of his tongue he says, they’re dead, then pauses to regain his face, its mouth, lips no longer trembling, you getting me, friend? he beats the breast of the robe immobilized in front of him, the visitor leaning up against the shine of the just washed, likenew sedan, and says again, they’re gone, all of them, as of last night, kaput, it’s over and done with, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but they seem to be out all over the place; he begins crying, a tear rips through his throat and he almost falls, Misses Herring, my supervisor, the Israeliens, too, a tragedy — what about me, I’ll be out of a job, I’ll be old and unemployed, uninsured, without a wife and…Mister Bris, there’ll be no circumcisions for anyone today, I don’t think, never again.