Edward Whittemore - Jerusalem Poker

Both of the unusual occurrences in the epic, sang the baking priest, seeing a genie in the last century and God in this one, took place while this long-term resident, an elderly item, was making his annual haj.

Here the informer interrupted his narrative to make a personal observation. There was no way of knowing, he wrote, whether Haj Harun went to Mecca every spring, as he claimed. He also disappeared at other times, saying he was off exploring imaginary caverns of the past beneath the Old City; something he claimed he had been doing for the last three thousand years. The informer then added a comment on that.

What is one to make of these extravagant claims that seem to pop up every time Haj Harun is mentioned? Can the old man be believed or is he suffering from terminal amnesia? Or perhaps from advanced dementia brought on by acute senility? If you want my opinion, it's the latter.

That's exactly what I think. This Haj Harun is definitely a strange one. And furthermore, I question the legality of anyone skulking around beneath Jerusalem for the last three thousand years. Isn't that against the law? Wouldn't it be a clear and present breach of some existing statute, perhaps the sanitation code, for example?

Nubar snorted furiously. They weren't going to get away with this. Immediately he made a mental note for another cable to Dead Sea Control.

ARE YOU MAD? WHY ARE YOU LETTING THIS INFORMER THINK? I WANT FACTS, NOT SPECULATIONS, AND I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING MORE ABOUT

SANITATION CODES OR LEGALITY IN GENERAL, OR IDLE OPINIONS.

ABOUT WHAT'S LEGAL AND WHAT ISN'T, I AM THE SANITATION CODE AND

WHATEVER I DO IS LEGAL BY DEFINITION, REMEMBER THAT. ANYTHING SAID TO

THE CONTRARY IS A SUBVERSIVE CRIME THAT AIDS AND ABETS THE ENEMY, AND

THAT CRIME WILL BE DEALT WITH AS IT DESERVES TO BE, WITH UTTER

RUTHLESSNESS.

THAT IS TO SAY, WITH CRIPPLING FINES AND PURLOINED MAIL FOLLOWED BY

CONSTANT SURVEILLANCE, BY OFFICIAL VERBAL ABUSE AND BREAK-INS AND

SHOOT-OUTS AND OPPRESSIVE HARASSMENT BY ALL AGENCIES, BY PERJURY AND

BLACKMAIL AND INSINUATIONS OF SINISTER FORCES AT WORK, BY SECRET

PHYSICAL BEATINGS WHERE POSSIBLE AND UNRELIEVED THUGGERY ALL AROUND.

AND LET ME MAKE ANOTHER THING PERFECTLY CLEAR. NO ONE IS GOING TO GET

AWAY WITH AIDING THE ENEMY. I REPEAT, WHAT I DO IS LEGAL AND IF ANYONE

ELSE DOES ANYTHING I DON'T LIKE, ESPECIALLY ANYTHING THAT IS IN THE LEAST

WAY THREATENING TO ME, I'LL GRONK THEM AND GRONK THEM GOOD. AND YOU

CAN BET YOUR SWEET ASS ON THAT YOU SHITHEAD ASSKISSING CUNTLICKING

ASSSUCKING CHICKENSHIT COCKSUCKING FUCKOFF ASSHOLES.

THAT'S RIGHT, YOU'RE IN TROUBLE NOW, BOY. AND IF I WERE YOU I'D STAND UP AT

ATTENTION AND START SHOUTING HAIL TO THE CHIEF AND I'D SHOUT IT AS LOUD

AS I COULD AND I'D KEEP ON SHOUTING IT UNTIL THE CHIEF TOLD ME OTHERWISE.

YEAH. YOU'RE NOT GOING TO HAVE ME TO KICK AROUND ANYMORE, YOU

BUNGHOLE COCKSUCKING ASSHOLES. BUT I MAY JUST DECIDE TO DO A LITTLE

ASSKICKING MYSELF AND HOW'D YOU LIKE THAT, YOU CHICKENSHIT SANITATION

FARTS?

YEAH, SO WATCH OUT, BOY. BIG NUMBER ONE MAY JUST TAKE OFF THE GLOVES

AND COME DOWN THERE AND GIVE YOU DEAD SEA SHITS THE KIND OF REAM YOU

DESERVE.

YEAH. ASSHOLES.

NUBAR

FUCK SUCK KILL.

ULTIMATE LEADER AND SUPREME

AUTHORITY AT THE

TOP OF THE HEAP AND ALONE

THERE FOR ALL TIME.

Nubar felt a little better after that, but it only showed you could never relax your authority. They were all ready to go over to the enemy if you showed the slightest weakness, the slightest deviation from absolute iron-fisted control.

He brushed away something that seemed to be nibbling at his ear, an imaginary bat perhaps, then returned to the report.

Now the narrative was back in the Franciscan bakery, the pilgrim sprawled naked on the floor with his head on fire, the baking priest dancing around through the fierce heat bearing fresh loaves of bread in all directions.

Off to Mecca he was all right, sang the baking priest, just as sure as the wind will blow he was going to reach his Mecca, this elderly article on his annual haj in the first half of the nineteenth century. Well he gets himself well down into the desert that spring, well down into Araby and away from the customary tracks as is his custom when on a haj, when what does he find going on down there all of a sudden in Araby? What, you say? He finds the sky turning strangely dark one morning, that's what, darkly strange I say. And all alarmed he is and why not, since he's in the middle of nowhere where no man should be, and what happens then but he stumbles across an apparition of a man who's all of seven and a half feet tall, and what's this striking figure doing but sighting through some complicated astronomical instruments, by way of measuring heavenly bodies. Like it so far?

Nubar groaned. He closed his eyes.

Seven and a half feet tall. Surely not Ahura Mazda again?

He took a long drink of mulberry raki, coughed weakly and read on.

Well, sang the baking priest, clapping his hands and slapping his sandals on the floor, well and then well.

It's not exactly what an honest traveler would expect to run into out there, and with this apparition looming up in front of him with heavenly instruments and the sky so dark and all, well your man is just suddenly very frightened.

Why, you say? Because he knows a thing or two about the world and one thing he knows for sure is that this has to be a genie he's dealing with. But luckily for him this genie is a good genie who takes pity on him and decides straightaway to make things better, not worse. So the genie tells him right off why it's dark out there. It's dark, says the genie, because a comet is passing overhead. But no one knows about the comet except him, the genie, because of course a genie can have his very own comet if he wants one, and it seems this genie did. And now this genie was out there in the desert plotting his comet's cycle of six hundred and sixteen years, taking roundabout measurements of this heavenly plaything of his, so to speak. All this the giant good genie quickly relates to your man the elderly item.

The baking priest did a quick turn in front of the oven. His cassock twirled and he came up with an armful of bread before resuming his tale.

Well that's certainly something now, but although it explains the darkness of the sky out there, it also tends to mystify your man.

Exactly six hundred and sixteen years? he asks the genie, in a humble whisper of course, showing the greatest respect. Why exactly that period of time?

For a good reason, answers the giant good genie, who then goes on to demystify the situation at once. It seems, you see, that this comet he has discovered and made his own is related to certain unexplained events in the lives of Moses and Nebuchadnezzar and Christ and Mohammed, along with a few lesser known passages from the Thousand and One Nights and an obscure reference or two from the Zohar, those literary matters thrown in for balance and good measure.

That is to say, those events in those lives would be unexplained if it weren't for this comet the genie had discovered, which had come over at the proper time in those lives to do the job required of it, said job being to provide heavenly evidence that something important was going on in the lives just mentioned.

Do you follow me? The giant good genie's comet was up there to explain the inexplicable, although no one else knew it, and the genie was down there in the desert using his astronomical instruments to keep our heavenly historical affairs on course, as he always does when his comet comes over every six hundred and sixteen years, no more and no less and will you just imagine that? Will you now?