Joshua Cohen - Witz

Revived, and sticky with thirst, amid the trickle of waking, His having to go, Benjamin flings kicks at the partition, slings fists against the window inside.

Are we there yet?

And silence.

How about yet?

Which we ask when we’re nowhere, lost to the void to be mapped between dislike and hatred, betwixt irritation and rage.

To count the licenseplates, to bitch the taunting signs. Patience, patience, shalt thou pursue, to pacify, subdue. To memorize the miles, then recite their wear. Only the idle shall distract the idle, and none shall inherit the perpetual revolution of the earth. A tire, enumerate every tiresome turn.

Mada finally faces Him and says, be quiet, sit still…your grandfather’ll be waiting for you, we’ll be there soon enough.

I called him my PopPop — shows what you know, schmuck.

Mada taps down the window inside the limo, taps on the shoulder the shvartze seated up front.

And why didn’t he ride with us…I’ll give you one guess, you putz. Hamm, Mada says, we need more, another one quick — three ccs or so should do it, thinking, stat.

Thinking, too, He might not even remember. Both can only hope. It could’ve been worse, it could’ve happened to me.

I need to pee, Benjamin says and holds at Himself. A rummaging up front, clammy hands, a testicular bag. Hold it in, Mada says again, biding time, as if anything you want to hear’s already been said by better. Benjamim flails, turns to grope the stranger’s suit, His hands pale, His loins tensed. A rumbleseat, up and down as if to nod — it’s urgent.

Jesus goddamned, the shvartze says from his search his head down, we’re out of tranqs; must’ve used them all up just to get Him out of Florida.

I need to pee!

Who knew He’d be this big?

Now, I need right now — oowww, and Benjamin hits His head on the headrest in front; in pain scrunching His face so that His glasses pop from their ears’ safekeeping, to tumble to His lap.

I’m blind, my bladder, too — my everything’s complaining!

Heber from behind the wheel lowers the rear windows to let in the air and wet, the frozen issue of their unholy union. He’s like this little kid, who says, he does, and without taking his sunglasses from their mirror of the darkling road, who’s like a grandfather, too, His own, and with the worst qualities of both; the Mormon just making a suggestion — piss out the window, will you?

I won’t have Him urinating all over, says Mada and he ups the windows on his own, dusts the snow from his hat, which is still on his head despite the wind and his seatmate’s own gusting.

Hamm, when are we expected?

In this weather?

Heber tears the meridian, ripping the shift, and He’s either thrown or throws Himself along with the motion to wedge within the void of the window separating front from rear, not to be raised.

Another thing, Benjamin says from His hang with His body halved, I have to shed…it’s personal — you wouldn’t understand.

A flake, a fall — you would?

A sign flashes from out of the mist, and on Mada’s order Heber swerves from the Parkway exiting into the turn, through the lower lot then skidding to stall just in front of the northbound entrance to the concrete bunker reststop, with such force that Benjamin pudge and all’s set free, unstuck — sent flying through the void separating Him from the shielding’s sprawl, the wipering arms, the obscenities that madden the dash, His legs straddling the head of the shvartze thrown, His teeth gnashing themselves mourned at the wheel.

Hamm staggers out of the limo, then tugs Him after him by the feet, then the legs and waist.

I’ll take the kid, he says, spits, and then to Benjamin, better stay close.

Mada rises to smooth his suit then light a smoke against the weather; asking Heber, how are we for gas?

Middle of nowhere Joysey — a tongue of asphalt set amid a mouth of pine, gaping as it asks its questions of the sky. What is the nature of all this cement, this concrete and irresponsible tar — explain the modern, will you; its encroachment upon a wilderness despoiled…wherever there’s an interpretation, rest assured there are interpretations, many. And so while some hold that only now is everything the same everywhere the world over, from Joysey to Jerusalem and back, and so that all is a mere litany of simulacra, the bane of difference, enemy of the individual life, or even — say the mystics among us — it’s that we’ve all lived these lives already, ages earlier, eras ago, others hold only that Benjamin’s been here before, this reststop, just last week, this service-plaza, it’s that simple and on a swerve and stop of Wanda’s own discretion, for directions, bathroom’s coffee and a nap — and so explaining His familiarity, the ease with which He adjusts to all this sensing; the plexiamenity, the manicured shrubscrub, the silent language of Parkway plaquery, such signal warning: fluorescent construction, crossedthrough then struckout; and then, the red tree stop, the blue food & lodging, the white flower yield — set deep in snow over a rainbow of mulch He surfaces in His progress to uncover a path with insecure, recovering feet. Benjamin proceeds through the doors into the interior, is processed. A ringing of growths endowed by their Creator, of indeterminate corporation, with diversified outlets of fastfood left hastily shuttered, a newsstand dimmed with tragedy, and a souvenir kiosk, selling to no one the most transient of necessities: stuffedanimals, pins and stickers, maps to hats and shirts and swimsuits, commemorative spoons crazy to sup with, know what they’re worth, what they will be; then, to the right again familiar, its bathroom, the M’s — a week ago, it feels a weak season, that stopover with Wanda to fill up on shrunk food, gas for the rover, to take a seat and weep under the voice of the flush. Emptily immaculate now as then: no one’s used it in a week, perhaps, white as if snowedover, bright, clean, not a leak, a mirror without streak, disinfectant stings. Again, He heads His urge for the stalls, but this visit’s directed by the shvartze to a urinal adjoining.

You’re going to go? Hamm asks.

You’re going to stand over me the whole time?

That a problem…you don’t have those neuroses, do you, one where your kidneys all shrink, when you’re incapable of pissing with anyone present? and he shoves Benjamin up against the fixture as white as a tooth to gnaw at His gut. To pish, He pushes, tenses His thighs, crouches to clench the opposing faces of tush — they’re not on speaking terms, give them time — dimples their cheeks in the briefs of His father, one pair for each leg; then, shuts eyes to imagine: a kitchen faucet gunked green, rain from the tap, Israel pouring wine that Friday, Manischewitz melting a tongue from his lips, a grapeknot, a pinkening urinal wafer; palms His prostate, pulls, tugs each teste, rubs rolls His scrotum around, but there’s nothing doing, without drip, drops His hands, sighs. I’ll show you how it’s done, and Hamm leans a head over the partition of the urinal next, steps back a pace; only you got to be patient, takes a while to get it all out. He slits his zipper then goes rummaging around in his pants and shorts and then, wrangling a wangled grasp, gradually extracts length by majesty and hardening by the tug an enormous member unfurling, slowly, luxuriantly, uncircumcised as if, circumscribed by worms through which vein strained swells, steady pulses, the black beat of a lower heart. I keep it wrapped around the left, he says. Phylactery of the leg. Its roots to be found buried in great bulges, twinned, rising under the tightening pants. I’d take those out, too, he goes on, only they don’t like the zipper none. Teeth for tooth, a mouth. And then with delicate fingers, an expert tact, the ultimate retraction. A fascist helmet. Foreskinned darker. Benjamin’s awed, if awe’s to die amid torture. Angry, martial, there’s that familiar tattoo, a light rustle, tinkling on porcelain, then giving way, to heavy flow, a flood deluged in steam. Hamm fists his shaft then squeezes, shakes, ekes out a last spurt, a final drizzle.