Joshua Cohen - Witz

Auslander, Dattelstrauch, Hymen-Slutsky, Israelien, Jakov-Jablovsky, Lipschitz, Osterthal, de Quadros, Rothweißblau, Steinstein, Witznitz, ben Zona ; Levitansky, McJohnson, Normal, Oppenstrauss, Putzl (though those answering aren’t the twelve answerable, not most of the time, anyway; rather, they’re impostors employed to provide a semblance of reassurance to the public, hand-holding while the real waste away, counting days on the calendars of their fingers, sequestered in Tweisstwinning psychological interviews ideationally intended to mitigate the trauma of Shade’s inquiry, subsequent interrogations, really interrogations about interrogations, dumped to the Garden’s files; their representatives, presented to the public as wistful, nostalgic, resigned, having been ordered to a certain number of responses created to ensure satisfactory variance among them: yes, no, black, white, anything but gray; I was a father of three, a restaurateur, a farmer, a famous television personality myself, if you don’t remember); of them, then, how many can most accurately be described as far-shtink-en-er , merely fer-shlug-gin-er ; are you terrified or just settling; ready or not; please keep your answers as brief as possible, as briefed; are they up to the job, talk to me here — we want qualifications, a program, resume and references, too; all questions though in truth One, which would be the twin father of any survivor: are they prepared, any of them, to assume the mantle, to bear the crown — constitutionally; able to direct the maternally heavy flows of power, to overlord the hierarchies of delegating angels, arrayed beneath the thronewomb, birthwrought of living fame: supplication arriving on the Friday late, put off until next Monday, late afternoon at that, winged lazily around the meeting room that is Heaven, which is stocked with a hundred different salvations, alphabetized how in portfolios iconoclastically embossed with amulets, accessible only to those who know how to invoke the proper memoranda prayer; and we all say, let there be strategy, and there is, and it’s damn — passable. Leave it be.

And then there are ten…who — in the spirit of the season, it’s said — are to be destroyed by the Angel of Death, that killed the butchers that slew the ox, that drank the water that quenched the fire, that burned the stick that beat the dog, that bit the cat that ate the kid our Father the Holy One Blessed Be He had bought for two zuzim, the first zuz and the last zuz as it’s been said, then drunkly sung since for lifetimes…a quorum in wild ferment, a destroyed slain drunk wet and burnt beaten bitten eaten then bought minyan, survivors barking and clawing their prayer now unto the Holy One Whosoever He is, or was, praying for their lives in nasalized whinnies and whines, without words, as they’re unknown to them, have been forgotten, but it’s the thought that has to matter in this mess, isn’t it, is the matter, the alephbet stammer, the heartword beginning with yod hey vav hey…only the most superlative of intentions — to make peace with ignorance; settling down on coffin pews to daven their mincha, silently, a ma’ariv for the night of their souls oseh shalom to you, too. Ten menschs, full grown almost to death, tripping over the straps of their phylacteries, tangling in the filigreed knots of their fringes, tying more out of superstition, worry, holding their siddurim upside down then holding them right side up but opening from the wrong end to mispronounce their words if only in their mindful hope left to right to left, with blind fingers and mute palms destroying the spines of the books, and their own, too, in their abject, groveling shuckle; mourning to themselves that there’s not even a rabbi among them, none to slam shtender, keep order, no more; as if they would have listened to one had he been still, even she. Auslander, Dattelstrauch, Israelien, Jakov-Jablovsky, Lipschitz, de Quadros, Rothweißblau, Steinstein, Witznitz, ben Zona ; Babel, Masterson, Nitzwitz, Yarmolinsky …

And then there are nine, and then the nine of them are not: Abe Weisenheimer who he owned his own business selling socks, a mensch who rented office space to the mensch who owned his own business selling socks, a mensch who ran the company that employed the mensch who rented officespace and storagespace to the mensch who owned and operated his own business selling socks, a mensch whose conglomerate owned the company that employed the mensch who rented officespace and storagespace and even furniture to the mensch who owned and operated his own business selling socks, a mensch whose bank gave a loan to the mensch whose conglomerate that it also had interests in footwear and ladies’ hosiery owned the company that employed the mensch who rented officespace and storagespace and furniture and other equipment/supplies to the mensch who owned and operated his own business selling socks, a mensch whose bank owned the bank and other banks too it took over that gave a loan at low interest to the mensch whose conglomerate into footwear and ladies’ hosiery and mittens and gloves too and hats owned the rental company that employed the mensch on commission who rented officespace and storagespace and other equipment/supplies and supplied even temp workers to the mensch who owned and operated his own business selling socks, a mensch whose governmental organization bailed out the mensch whose bank owned the bank and other banks too it took over and investment firms and brokerage houses that gave a loan at the lowest possible interest rate to the mensch whose conglomerate into footwear and ladies’ hosiery and mittens and gloves too and hats and plastic toys made in Asia and various electronic hygienic devices owned the rent to own company that employed the mensch on low commission who rented officespace and storagespace and other equipment/supplies and supplied even temp workers and maintenance illegals to the mensch who owned and operated his own business selling socks, a mensch whose governmental department confirmed the appointment of the mensch whose governmental organization bailed out the mensch whose bank owned the bank and many other banks too it took over and investment firms and brokerage houses and a company that affiliated a consortium of independent traders that gave an enormous loan at the lowest possible interest rate to the mensch whose conglomerate into footwear and ladies’ hosiery and mittens and gloves too and hats and tiny plastic toys made in Asia and various electronic hygienic devices and kitchen bathroom closetarrangement solutions owned the rent to own company that employed the mensch on no salary and the lowest commission who rented officespace and storagespace and other equipment/supplies and supplied even temp workers and maintenance illegals and tech support too to the mensch who owned and operated his own business selling socks, a mensch whose wife was sleeping with the mensch whose governmental department confirmed the appointment of the mensch whose governmental organization bailed out the mensch whose bank owned the bank and many other banks too it took over and investment firms and brokerage houses and a company that affiliated a consortium of independent traders to limit risk in speculation in India that gave an enormous loan at the lowest possible interest to the mensch whose conglomerate into footwear and ladies’ hosiery and mittens and gloves too and hats and little tiny plastic toys made in Asia and various electronic hygienic devices and kitchen bathroom closetarrangement solutions and replacement car parts and sheet metal and pitabaking and even seltzerwater bottling owned the rent to own company that employed the mensch on no salary and the lowest commission and without a phone or office of his own who rented officespace and storagespace and other equipment/supplies and supplied even temp workers and maintenance illegals and tech support and his daughter as a cashier too to the mensch who owned and operated his own business selling socks, who had employed in addition to that daughter as cashier, inefficient, possibly dishonest, two poor, perpetually underpaid when they’re not just unpaid salesmenschs dead, too, one of them known as Hill, the other as Shy of whom it’s been said he was anything but, waiting, just waiting…and then there are seven: a baubiologist and a color healer, then five in a developer of condops, and four his two copreneurs, an equalops equitizer and the poet who’d witnessed his postnup. And then there are three: Steinstein and, his name’s ben Zona…a stale, seedyeyed, bald marketing some hold second others hold third vicepresident for a munitions multinational once headquartered outside Tel Aviv. In the midst of this angst, they’ve given up, surrendered — their kibitzing, kibboshing; inspirational sermons, annulled; with no language in common communicating across the floor of their shared barrack, now the Registry of the Great Hall they’ve commandeered as their own as if in protest of their being avoided, ignored, by way of gestures, stroked hands, thrust fingers; then, forsaking their own beds hauled to opposite quarters of the Registry, ingathering the two together into one bedding down in the middle of the spanse, tucking themselves, each other, in under the same sheets, starched, staunching; then, the next night, which is three from the beginning of Passover they’re forsaking, too, for the comfort of only their blanket laid above the floor, and then the night after that, sleeping on the floor itself, naked without blanket: the other beds and their bedding having been auctioned off to other concerns — the Abulafias’ Palesteinian hotels, fivestarred it’s said as to rates they’re astronomical — have to make out, get out with as little loss as possible; they’re bundled near, lying far from the radiators, the thrones of warmth and the footstools of heat, exposed free from recreant shadows in the very middle of the Registry’s hulking arch, to huddle, tucked around one another, limbs intertwining, they’re moaning gums, problematic sinuses, sand on the tongue, stillborn dreams, until dawn, when only one’s woken. Attention! in an explosionary fuzz, and the boy turns over, farts his own announcement; feels his companion’s not there, that he’s alone and Godless with his mazel — which is to be consoled only in the company of guilt.