It’s named where it is, he says, what it is, holding the torn shreds in his old, unsure hands — it’s the world!
Unimpressed, the group from the dayschool leans up against the walls, futzes with the peel of the plaster.
But you’ve come for the Inhibition, no?
Follow me, he says with a tremor, singlefile, this way…
This here is PopPop’s unit towered down where the sun don’t shine, and this particular docent (an ancient stoop of a Miami native, a retiree, slippered, rippedarmchair historian who wouldn’t be made assistant to the least curator despite his appeals and the expertise of his simper), he guided on Mondays & Thursdays, then mensched the Information Desk on Fridays until sundown, at which position he’d give out only information about the desk: this is wood, he’d say, rap his knuckles atop, about two centuries old by the best guesstimate, mine…the tree, it was sawed down, wood planed, legs nailed into place, then all of it varnished; it was owned by a resident of this tower who died with the Rest, shipped Over Here from the Old World, Over There roundabout last millennium, midcentury or so before, though who knows for sure…one can’t accurately tell the extent of its use due to frequent restaining: a light red, I’d say, at least it once was or should be, a pity that now all colors come hard to me; it’s the old eyes, and the weather — but seriously (refers to his notes): handbrushed cherry almost oxblood’s its name with a nice fluted edge, two drawers and two leaves for extension, seats eight, I’m telling you, you couldn’t do better…
Here at PopPop’s, he shoes polish, a volunteer when no one else would, he’d often joke around to groups that he lived here, as if underwater, down in the foyer’s fountain, with a ram’s horn for a snorkel how he’d subsist on spare shekels, drinking his dwell, accepting donations and wishes in kind…
Restored some time ago thanks to funding Federal matched by the State from the taxdeductible Other, various recently reprivatized sectors guilted into writing it all off on the wind, this tower’s lately sealprotected, signedover as landmark, thing even has a plaque on its face that they earmarked for it to be polished by hand once a moon; and lately, its penthouse condo unit’s become a place of pilgrimage for dayschools, and for yeshivas, too, when their kinder do the work, put in the hours, seem to merit six goldstarred and four quarters straightA’d a vacation from the Law, their studies thereof — a firsthand field-trip to sacrilege: Isaac Israelien, is what the plaque says, Zeyde (Grandfather) To Benjamin Israelien, Inhabited The Top Floor Unit Of This Condominium Tower, 5735–5760, Hosting His Grandson Here Between 17–23 Tevet Of That Last Tragic Year, The Latter Date Also The Day Of Isaac Israelien’s Death.
This would be Arschstrong’s room, the mensch relates to the group, who remembers their history? Come on, don’t be shy, Arschstrong was the special poo poo friend of whom, anyone, anyone?
Nothing.
Of PopPop Israelien, right!
Wow, you boychicks sure do know your history!
Pity him, he never gives up.
And whose PopPop was PopPop Israelien? zeyde to whom? do you know? It just happens to be a young boy named Benjamin Israelien!
Not much younger than you are.
Isn’t that wild?
But there’s no response, nothing registering, payos twirled around pale fingers, poked into sockets staring, vacant: who wants to rent them, get in on the groundfloor?
Benjamin Israelien, anyone know who that was?
That familiar to anyone?
Anyone?
How he always stops visitors as they leave, detains them (only a moment) to show them a photograph, found in Polandland or thereabouts, ca. 5761 it’s been dated, asking them to identify the subject — and surely, it’s Him.
Inquisitioned, they’re given the following options.
Is it, he asks—
A.) Baruch Spinoza, you know him?
B.) Your Zeyde you never knew, so sad how he died before you were born?
C.) Your Onkel, I mean, but when he was young and with his beard black as night?
D.) All of the above, as we’re all of us just manifestations of let’s say infinite Substance?
E.) None of the above.
F.) No one special.
Thus far they still must be thinking, still weighing their choice though already chosen — the scale of their eyes & ears tipping the scales of the heart…the choice already chosen for them by their own ignorance, or by curiosity’s failure; if you think you know so much then just tell me, the docent’s waiting to hear, don’t keep us in the dark, it’s a sin…as no one’s yet identified Him, Him as He was or is still (though to be fair, the horns B’s usually depicted with, when He’s depicted, throw most off), in this passport photograph represented as one Jacobson, Esq., ripped, creased, corners bent, found down the well of a village sunk so far to the east, the Ost it was called that it might be all the way around the world west again, lost.
Nu, undeterred, so what about this one…and he goes and retrieves another snapshot out from under his snapbrimmed cap, passes it around, this photograph nearly identical to that previous save the black that’s now blond and blue and more of it up top, too, that and the weightgain and that innocence in the smile and the hope at the seat of the nose: hymn…is this Israel? he asks their shadows down the emptied sidewalk, the group returning to school and then home upon buses short and fat and chartered, and so no, he answers himself, he has to, but it was taken by him, Israel, upon a Friday and at the very last eighteenminuted moment before the Sabbath’s set, mil plag hamincha the night of the 24th of old December it’d been dated on the back, the eighth and last of their mingling existences soaked amid the developing solution of night, before the bris the next morning never to be — a moment posed Him alone and already standing on two legs and in a diapered once white Oxford buttondown of Israel’s, leaning against the stove he said oven she said in the kitchen and smile, Say Dairy! a moment before meat, before candlelighting, the savrei Kiddush, all that Blessed art Thou King of the Universe Who brings forth bread from the ShopRite conveniently located at the corner of Route 9 & W. Kennedy Blvd., then dinner, their last Shabbos’ last dinner in the company of last guests lately cometh, and then — their fill later, His eyes still dazzingly flashed — time for bed, and for a bedtime story, too, the eighth and last of the seven that Israel had delivered unto Him as if dreams…meaning, how He’d always fall asleep during the telling: not even a lip laid empty on His mattress where His father might sit and spiel, and so the story’s again delivered standing, In the beginning leaning up against the door’s wall then settling his he thinks old bones senior spine down in one of the two new matching chairs they’d just bought hospitality sidechairs solid hardwood you wouldn’t believe what they’d paid — one for her and one for Israel stained a blue and a whitish pink they’re standing again to end one week ago tonight, he says, and you Benjamin my boychick how you came into this world, Creation’s over already and I promise that tomorrow night, promise that every night I’ll have a story to tell you, you’re loved; wait, just you wait, I’m going to be gone a little while, I’m going to go to sleep, just a little (too, exhausted, but think of the wife), but then I’ll be back at your side, you’ll open your eyes he says and like poof! I’ll be there, I’ll never leave you, and ready again with a story another story always another they say the Shema now O Israel the Adonai our Elohaynu is One both Adonai and Elohaynu and Israel, how he pulls up the covers, comforting up to His nose, which is already haired, sneezing gesund, it’s a reaction to feathers, the goosedown, His asthmatic allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, whatever they’re not doctors we can’t all be His parents hadn’t yet figured that out, give them a break, cut them the slack of their jaws up past His ears to His eyes hiding beneath, fear, suspicion, paranoia this how do I know, that tomorrow, it might — it’s only been a week after all…Israel to kiss Him through the comforting covers, the sheets that’d been Rubina’s spare pair, to then go off to His mother, his wife, their masterly bed with its dimmed lights amid kindled candles, unscented paraffin jars, sensual yahrezeits in memoriam the first sparks, what initially attracted, romanticizing the plushed vault of their room (its purple throwpillows thrown to the vacuum’s threespeeded winds, Wanda’s gusts), to lie down on his side, the Side that’s always been his ordained since ever before time, to shoulder-sniff, kiss at the flush of her neck, Hanna’s, him to molelick, wenlap, rim with his tongue the bones of her collar, with meat teeth to nibble at her if singly pierced lobes…to knead her dimpled thighs for rising in the stove he said oven she said of dream, and then — to enter her there, even only a week after His birth how she submits to him, still, to pass himself through her gates, and there, inside, in the midst of that lowflowing river, snaking through the winter season of her garden to spend himself there, how he can’t help himself, that’s why he needs her, to seed yet another, wants only one more again, expected to enter the world around the month of the true New Year nine months from the turn of the false…one who’d end up revealing herself, her because the boy just to look at Him He’s justifiably a freak, just my luck, nothing more, only around the ten days that follow in mourning the Rosh falling Hashana failing itself already upon that night dawning next the Day of Atonement, gefailing, gefalling, gevalt — her to be birthed into the center aisle of the synagogue, between the pews, to be swaddled in the mechitza, separated from father and brother in the very cradle of curtain divisive, and there to daven for forgiveness, for what, for what else, upon her very first day, in her very first hour and still without name, to proclaim in the midst of her people her sin, her one and her only unnamed…to repent for her very own birth. Having had no choice in the matter, if matter ever she was or would be, unlike this one, here, this Redeemerette, His Savioress out of pity anointed in responsibility, arrayed in salary and spoils, pinched pennies and the rewards that come from getting reimbursed now without a receipt: Hava, in this room freshly wallpapered, “Spring Flowers” in bloom, who knows what kind flowers grown in this house just paid off.