Paul Beatty - Tuff

“The Talmud.” Fariq rubbed his palms together and said, “Let’s break down that word, ‘Talmud.’ ‘Tal’ from the Dutch taal , or to talk. ‘Mud,’ a filthy, slimy substance. ‘Tal-mud,’ talking in a muddled way. Talk that confuses, abuses, and ruses the black man. ‘Hebrew’: He brew. He who brews. Brews, stirs. Wherever he goes, the Jew be stirring up trouble. I know my lessons, son. ‘Mint Julep’: Mint equals money. Jew lip. Lip, kiss. Jews kiss money. Kiss, love. Jews love money. ‘Ed-jew-cate’: Teach the ways of the Jew. ‘Jewlius Caesar’ …”

Using one hand as best he could, Spencer hurriedly flipped through his small book, searching for a calming aphorism that would also refute Fariq’s slander. “ ‘Accept your afflictions with love and joy’—Eleazar ben Judah of Worms.”

Silently, Fariq drained his beer. He removed the bottle from his lips with an audible pop. “Afflictions? How dare you say that to a handicapped motherfucker like me? That’s some typical patronizing Jew chicanery.”

“ ‘Chicanery.’ ” Spencer was momentarily taken aback, impressed by the vocabulary. Fariq continued, ignoring an obvious example of exactly the haughtiness he was speaking of, “Everybody got they little book — the Jews, the Communists. Well, niggers got a little book too.” From his back pocket Fariq pulled out a tattered, photocopied, and shoddily stapled book the size of a travel postcard. He shoved the book so close to Spencer’s face, Spencer could taste the grit of pocket lint and copy-machine toner on his lips. “I can’t read the title,” Spencer announced. Fariq pulled the treatise away from his nose until the title came into sharp focus —The Little Black Book of Sophism: Fucked Up Things Jews Say About Black Folk . Like warlocks practicing ancient witchcrafts, Spencer and Fariq held their tiny books to their chests, taking turns hurling their spells back and forth.

“ ‘I saw the best white minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the filthy, cum-stained, loud, over-sexed, Negro streets at dawn like Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzans looking for an angry fix.’—Allen Ginsberg.”

“ ‘If you truly are a Jew, you will be respected because of it, not in spite of it.’—Samson Raphael Hirsch.”

“ ‘Fee, fie, foo, fum. I smell the blood of a nigger!’—Andrew Dice Clay.”

“ ‘I am a Jew. When the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman [Daniel O’Connell, member of the British Parliament] were living as savages on an unknown island, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon.’—Benjamin Disraeli.”

“Hold up a minute — that ‘My people were doing shit while your people lived in caves’ is our line! ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger …’—Lenny Bruce.”

“ ‘I am a Jew because in every place suffering weeps, the Jew weeps.’—Edmund Fleg.”

“ ‘Shvartze, shvartze, shvartze …’—Jackie Mason.”

“ ‘Man’s good deeds are single acts in the long drama of redemption.’—Abraham Joshua Heschel.”

“ ‘Every prostitute the Muslims convert to a model of Calvinist virtue is replaced by the ghetto with two more. Dedicated as they are to maintenance of the ghetto, the Muslims are powerless to effect substantial moral reform.’—Bayard Rustin.”

“Fariq, Bayard Rustin wasn’t Jewish, he was black!”

“So what? He was probably working for the Jews when he wrote it. Besides, there’s a triangle by his name, which means he’s a homosexual — just as bad as being a Jew. Rabbi Kahane! Rabbi Kahane! Rabbi Kahane!”

Winston could see his plan to let Fariq badger the rabbi into leaving was backfiring. “Rabbi!” he yelled, rising up from the sofa and flicking on the television. “Fariq! That’s enough with the ‘Jew,’ ‘Muslim,’ ‘he say,’ ‘she say.’ Y’all giving me a headache.”

Fariq stuffed his book into his back pocket like a victorious boom-town gunfighter. “C’mon, Winston, you can’t tell me you never felt the Jew’s foot in your ass. Let that shit out, my brother. Ease your burdens.”

Winston thought a moment. “Naw, man, I ain’t got Jews on the brain like your ass. Really I never have no dealings with Jewish people.”

“Because the Jew is an invisible threat. I’m going to hip you to something called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Lays the Jew master plan thing out.”

“I don’t have to take this crap!” Spencer shouted, but he made no effort to leave.

“And you’ve had some Jews in your life.”

“Who?”

“The judge who sent you up on that shit that went down on Twenty-fourth Street.”

“Berman?”

“There you go.”

“And the one who tried get me on parole violation, when my public defender didn’t show, was he Jewish?”

“Judge Arthur Katz.”

“Damn, that’s two cases and two Jews. Smush, you better hurry up and tell them motherfuckers down at Muslim headquarters you’ve uncovered a new conspiracy.”

“You think I won’t tell the Minister.”

“That’s right, run to your leader,” wisecracked Spencer, seeing that Winston wasn’t entirely on Fariq’s side.

“This nigger ain’t even Muslim,” said Winston, pointing to Fariq’s crutches. “The Muslims don’t want this motherfucker. He too crippled. Neither Muslim headquarters or Mecca has handicapped parking.”

“Fuck you, Tuff!”

Winston turned to Spencer. “But Smush do raise a good point. Why are you here, Rabbi, for reals?”

Spencer looked shamefully down at the floor and confessed, “I became a Big Brother so I could write a feature article on ghetto youth for the newspaper. I didn’t know any ghetto youth, so …”

His honesty was welcomed with palpable resentment. Yolanda no longer felt the need to use Spencer as a sounding board for her problems with her husband. Under his breath Fariq spoke of a consortium of Jews controlling the world’s media.

“I’m sorry,” Winston and Spencer mumbled simultaneously.

“Winston, what are you sorry for?” Yolanda snapped. “Don’t apologize when you haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I know. But I just feel sorry.”

Yolanda and Fariq waited for him to ask the clergyman to leave. After all, Spencer was his guest. Winston stayed on the couch, hands clasped behind his head, lips pursed, eyes closed. Spencer’s deceit left a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth, and Jordy ran around the room in circles, a cherubic ladle stirring the soup of bitterness, disillusionment, and summer heat.

On his fourth circuit he picked up his See ’n Say, pulling the string on the plastic toy designed to teach toddlers the rudiments of farm-animal communication. “The cow says, ‘Mooooo!’ This is how a dog sounds—‘Woof! Woof!’ This is how a turkey sounds: ‘Gobble! Gobble!’ ” After each bark or bellow Jordy would stop in front of his father and try to reproduce the animal’s characteristic call. His quacks and meows were a welcome distraction. For a moment Winston forgot about the dreadlocked rabbi’s duplicity. “The rooster says, ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!’ What’s the rooster say, Jordy?”

“Thabba-thubba-ooo,” mimicked Jordy, yanking on the string.

Winston wondered, if the machine imitated a person, what would be the human equivalent for cock-a-doodle-doo?

Spencer, hoping to make one final stab at a partnership, broke the silence. “Anyone seen any good movies lately?” And Winston had an answer to his question.

“Jewboy, don’t you know when to be quiet,” Fariq said, his patience run dry. “Better yet, leave.”

Tuffy opened another beer. “Ain’t no such thing as a good movie. At least not since the price of a ticket went past seven dollars.”