Jay Fox - THE WALLS

She continues to look to me, expecting a response and, at the very least, a modest show of gratitude — not because she needs it, just because it's custom. “Thank you,” I say. “Do you know how long ago he moved out?”

“Naw, dude. She couldn't say. She moved out of here back in ninety-eight…nine. I don't know. She went up to Vermont because she thought the city was sucking the life out of her. She came back, like, three years later. I don't remember exactly. Turns out Vermont has just as many fucked up people as the city — per capita, of course.”

“Was he still hanging out in Van Gogh's?”

“No, he was long gone. No one really remembered him, either.”

Again an apparition, a phantom just short of identifiable. It's a peculiar trait among humans — that our vision does not become just more attuned when we focus upon stationary objects; rather, the object changes — its normal dimensions become slightly disfigured; its utility becomes far more difficult to pigeonhole. It's not that the image loses its original meaning; it's that the context becomes more intricate. What begins as a loner at the bar, a piece of furniture almost innocent in his absence of features, ceases to be the only identity available to the man. He becomes defined by his potentiality and his past, which are limitless as they are both unknown.

“She didn't get a name, did she?”

She smiles: “Mordecai.”

“Seriously?” Tomas squints. He motions to the bartender and points to the empty pint of Guinness in front of him.

“Yeah, Mordecai. No last name, but his first name is Mordecai.”

“That's kind of an odd name.”

“Biblical. Old Testament shit.” She pauses. “You Jewish?”

“No,” I respond.

“Well, it's kind of a funny story — Purim, that is. Do you know anything about it?”

“Not especially. I know that people eat those little triangular pastries during it. What are they called?”

“ Hamantashen .”

“ Gesundheit .”

She laughs again. “Do you know why we eat them?”

“No.”

“Long story short, the King of Persia, who was apparently Xerxes—”

“—Scissor me, Xerxes,” Tomas adds in an impersonated voice.

“—but not the one who launched the war against Greece — it was his father or grandfather or son or something — I forget — he had a right-hand man by the name of Haman, and Haman hated the Jews because one of them, Mordecai, refused to bow before him.”

“The king?”

“No, before Haman.”

“Why would he have to bow to Haman?”

“It's irrelevant, dude. Anyway, so Haman gets the king's signet ring, and he draws up a decree that allows people throughout the empire to kill all of the Jews.”

“What?”

“Yeah, the decree basically says that random people throughout the Persian Empire will be allowed to kill anyone who's Jewish for, like, one day only.”

“What fucking sense does that make?”

“I know, I know. But listen: So Mordecai is in the king's favor because Mordecai saved him, the king, from assassination; but the king doesn't realize that Mordecai is a Jew until after he's given Haman permission to carry out the genocide. Now, Mordecai finds out about the plot one way or another, and he goes to his cousin or niece — I always forget which one — who is the queen. Queen Esther. This is all in the Book of Esther. Anyway, so Mordecai goes to her and lets her know the shit that's about to go down, and she decides to…um…like ask, but not just ask.” She puts her thumb and forefinger upon her chin. “Lobby. She lobbies the king to stop the bloodbath by inviting Haman and Xerxes to a feast—”

“Wait; she's the queen, and she has to invite the king to dinner?”

“Well, he has more than one wife.”

“I see.”

“That shit's allowed in Judyism?”

“Hell, lotsa shit's allowed in my fucked-up religion.” She shrugs. “Dude! Fucking ‘Divine Hammer’? I love this fucking song!”

“I haven’t heard this in years,” Tomas replies.

“Okay, so she has the two of them to dinner, and nothing happens. But then she asks them to dinner a second time, and on the second night she informs the king that she's a Jew—”

“The king doesn't know?”

“No.”

“Are you sure you're telling the story right?”

“Look dude, I know this story, okay.” She pauses. She's not upset, simply frustrated. “Anyway, so Esther tells the king that Haman wants to kill all the Jews, including both her and Mordecai, who the king loves because Mordecai foiled an assassination attempt. The king becomes outraged, I mean just fucking furious that Haman would try to pull shit like this, so the he, the king, has Haman executed. Oh yeah,” she begins with a slap on the forehead, “I almost forgot. Haman had built a…um, what's that thing called that you hang people from?”

“A scaffold?”

“Scaffold? That's the shit they put up at construction sites.”

“Gallows?”

“Yeah, gallows. So Haman built this fucking gallows that was like a hundred feet tall in front of his house, and he was going to hang Mordecai from it the following day, but the king has Haman hung there instead.

“But the problem was that the decree, which allowed Haman and all his buddies to kill the Jews, could not be revoked.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know, dude; I guess the king couldn't go back on his word. He couldn't…what's the fucking word. You know, like go back?'

“Renege?”

“It’s like that…but different.”

“Contradict?”

“Yeah; the king couldn't contradict himself. Anyway, so the king allows Mordecai to write his own decree, which says that the Jews can rise up in self-defense, and kill whoever they want. In the provinces, they were allowed twenty-four hours to slaughter all of their enemies. In Susa, the capital, they were allowed forty-eight.”

“So the Jews kill all of their enemies.”

“Yup. And that's what Purim is all about. Now, the cookies, the hamatashen , are eaten because, apparently, Haman wore a tri-cornered hat.”

“That's a pretty fucked up holiday,” Tomas says as he takes the first sip of his fresh beer.

“I know dude, right!” she says as she slaps Tomas' arm. “But I like it because it's one of the only times in the Bible where God doesn't really do anything. You know, He doesn't need to because the Jews can handle themselves.”

“I guess this was a few years before bulldozers and refugee camps,” Tomas mutters.

Luckily, she ignores or doesn't hear the comment. “So that's where the name Mordecai comes from,” I conclude.

“Yup.”

“So why does your friend think this Mordecai person is Coprolalia?”

“Apparently this Mordecai dude was reading an article on Coprolalia one night. He just kept saying that the guy who wrote it didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. He — Mordecai — kept pointing out things in the artwork that you wouldn't know just by looking at it. He knew way too much. So my friend figured, maybe this dude actually is Coprolalia.”

“Do you know if the article of which he was derisive was written by Sean Westchester?” I ask.

“Of which he was derisive? Couldn't tell you,” she responds with a shrug and a look to Tomas. Tomas chuckles. “Detroit Rock City” is suddenly audible. She pulls her phone out of her pocket, studies it, and then looks back to me. “I have to take this. I'll be right back.”

Her beer is placed next to mine. She disappears.

“So Mordecai, huh?” Tomas laughs. “Should we call her Esther?”

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: Nothing.