Joshua Cohen - Witz

A rousing, rustling later with Hamm waiting downstairs out of respect for modesty and even that that’s naked shame, atop a couch with his legs held apart widely and the flashlight between them ranging idly over the brick of the fireplace and the formica of the kitchen’s overhanging counters — a messmassive clattering of feet atop foil, snared on wrappers with a swish and a crunch, Ben hulking down the hall to the stairhead, trippingover the wash folded and stacked into its hamper thanks to He thinks Rubina, wasn’t there this morning…Him tumbling tush over head down the stairs, which are slotted, aired and so He’s rolling almost deliberately down them, His girth sticking Him in the spaces between each step, to bulge out from the slots, bringing Him to landing slowly, as if a gear turned upon the tooth of its paunch — clockwork, any mechanism of the darkened house, or yet another nightly appliance who knows what it does, reset. Landing reached, He raises a hand and gropes at the newel for support, misses and so leans on air to fall the descending remainder. Aright, Ben stands, tucks Himself in under His shirt, cinches His robe, which was His mother’s, over the bump, to face Hamm risen to stand at the foot.

About time, he’s holding out to Him His shoes, then dropping them on the floor and kneeling to His, genug.

I’ll help you with the laces.

What we’re really getting at is this…to Ben still a stranger now doing the talking, in an interrogation room of the Great Hall to which His escort’s been firm, but anxiously kind — a weird wrinkly shrivel of a monkey, and an egghead uncle to as well, at this hour of night marshaled in the appropriate constellations of clank, all these honors and that of his acquaintance, too, this goy whose bland and bald face He would meet in framed and encouragingly unretouched reproductions hung upon, now that He’s reminded, every available wall, and whose voice He would sleep through every morning, greeting reveille in windy echo over the PA. What exactly — he’s saying, Der — was your relationship to the deceased, with him, this Abel boy, I mean? Think hard. Take your time. Answer only when you’re sure.

Here they’re buried graves underground, strata down, amid a network dug from bedrock, retiform tunnels once used for the store of munitions, back when this Island had been a fort for the protection of those already alive and busy living in the city; an area still kept official, Gardenmaintained secure and offlimits, for emergency use only, as evacuation, escape, bunkers for the salvation of only essential personnel, vital support staff plus One, contingency adjoining the rumor of a Treasury — this hallway hewed and lit in trim leading under the ice and out into Midtown, the rising Temple-in-the-Park. What I mean is, Der squints, what’s the nature? and he knuckles his head. How would you define it? Acquaintanceship. Casual. Bestfriend forever. Closer even. Don’t tell me. I’m not sure I want to know.

Postmortems, interrogations about interrogations, investigations of investigations regarding, follows up and through, therapists to ask their own questions about the questions Der asks and the answers He on His own recognizance provides, which have been, as it’s suspected, in turn, provided to Him, but by whom — surveillance from within, an affair of the utmost internal, heartsick, spleeny. Below the hosting clock at table, amid the chairs, the glasses and pitcher (water only, though anything else can be requested, they tell Ben, in return for answers they want to hear, those they don’t yet know they want to hear — here they are, already), the Doctors Tweiss lean in to listen; their collars unbuttoned, same with their pants, with both sets of cuffs rolled up; they wipe their hands on their neckties undone, lick their nibs, flip blank pages on sloppy legal tablets, begin again. To stick their pens into their wrists, suck in a measure of blood. Weak ink, even ichor would be. The Nachmachen crosses his legs, Abuya uncrosses his. And then, the Nachmachen crosses to the other. How to know this would be so serious. His mother would’ve said, would’ve been right. He should’ve put on a suit, at least a jacket and matching slacks she’d called them.

Abel? Ben says, I’d have to think about that. Officially hard to place, I’m getting a name but no face. Off the record, I’m not quite sure. On the record, I’m even less. Better to keep quiet, which is the best ignorance. Maintain silence, hold fast. Open your mouth only to ask for a lawyer, a loan of a Goldenberg, Esq. O to have retained His father as counsel! Showtrial and error then purge, which is to say, to lie, to perjure: “I don’t know Him from Adam,” and so they go ahead and give Him His options — Adam Arnofski or Adam Arnofsky, Adam Borowitz or Borovitz, Cohen or Cahn? Whoski, Whatsky, Wherenik, Whenwitz, Whykrantz, & Howfarb, Attorneys-At-Law?

Maybe a hint. Sounds like, perhaps.

Steinstein — alright, He says, sitting in a foldingchair uncomfortably un-cushioned, Abel’s a friend of mine. Was. More like an acquaintance. How’s that you called him, casual. Just this kid I knew from around. When you live on an Island, who has the luxury of being estranged? He was cousins with Adam, first cousins, I think, and Adam’s a friend, a good friend, but — he’d been seated a table down from Abel when he passed, or so he told me, and when Abel hit the plate, this I heard from…you know, I’m still eating at home.

Apparently, Adam got a little gravy splash on the one shirt he has for Shabbos. Veggie stains on his good pants. Wanted me to ask when they’re back from the cleaners.

Yes, says Der, we’ve already spoken with your Adam…

He stands alongside sitting Ben, almost tonguing His ear — whispers being the encryption of memory; the softer he’s speaking’s the thought, the better lies He’ll calm down to tell.

But you can’t think why anyone would want to hurt him, can you? Did Abel have any enemies, anyone with a pretext, even the merest inkless inkle of a text — did he leave you a note, I’m saying, or a letter with Adam? Anyone with a bitter chip, a grudge. Held against. A hatred, seething. You hear anything, you see anything? unstoppable Der’s shrieking. As if to say, it’s fine by us to fink, to inform, to rat and rodent around — after all, we’re all old friends here, aren’t we? Chaverim, habibi. Ben springs from His chair. Metal clatters to the floor, uneven concrete, negligently poured.

I don’t know anything! He’s yelling, nothing. What are you talking about? I wasn’t there, Adam was, and he’s my friend, mine and not yours, you wanted him to be, for us, I mean…mumbling, bends over His gut to retrieve the chair, unfolds the rust to sit down again, tilting the metal against the rocky wall — and as long as we’re here, I should ask you about my mother’s cooking; it’s gone downhill, and fast. If it’s not being poisoned, it’s either horrible or humbling.

Don’t avoid! and Der paces, strokes at his lip with a gunkgorged nail. What have we told you, Ben, haven’t we warned you? They haven’t. And anyway, who’s we is what He wants to say. Friends, Der says, they’re probably not the best idea. Especially now, what with the…he hesitates, this incident.

He adjusts an epaulet hanging askew; his medals clink like chains, binding him to his tone, his speech, this public life; he squints, always squinting, as if this incomprehension’s the fault of the without, not the failure of his within, anyone but him; then, making sure his chin’s still around to think with, to think from the mouth above, he exhaustedly sighs, begins in on Ben again.

Contradiction, babble, tripletalk.

Keep your distance, hold your tongue. Rub your stomach then pat your head.

It’ll make it easier for everyone, dismissed.