For the Record, then: this dead Abel isn’t Abel Bernstein (alias “Feel the Burnstein,” AKA “The Burnt Teen”); no, he’s still among us, still sniffling around, waiting for his father of blessed assets to come back to life, to resurrect his reputation from the vault that’s the grave for the sole purpose of helping his son make headway into the business, as he’d always promised; that indefinite media career: publishing, music, or film — he’d had the contacts, you name it, he’ll make it, facetime, a conference call with the dead; the kid always thought opportunity like weather fell from the sky, that money grew evergreen on trees; if not that, then still waiting for his inheritance to come through, to get processed, always, tied up in litigation’s the delusion maintained — cheap chintz visor stuck on his head even when sunset permits eating and at stool, leaving the bared to premature bald for the yarmulke he’s forced to — enumerating his windfall, accounting wildly, fingering the interest and dividends, even in his satisfied sleep oblivious, dreaming through every denial; unable to admit to himself and his bunkmates who once they find him alive continue to rib him, to haze and harass, that Der had, or is, already spent or spending it all — the whole bubonic cancerous lump sum of it on his own room and board, along with its waste upon a host of other if they’re necessarily more clandestine interests, offshore investments the particulars of which, even their most vague sheltering structures, Garden, Inc.’s accounting would never divulge: imminent Messiah perks, (re)Affiliated infrastructure (privatizing the public schools, revising curricula, contracting, too, with dispersed hospitals and clinics), securing the oil reserves, the water supply — just name it, it’s true. Many think it’s Abel Eckstein, until they realize he’s not dead, just introspective, reflective, modest, quiet and sad, still mourning his mother who’d always said she loved him so much she could die, which she eventually did, leaving her son to slink around the Garden, spending idle mooning hours in the showering facility (known as the Shof, if you’re a regular, winkwinking), gutter-to-gutter, hopping its drains on one foot in an attempt to cope or cop a mope; consecrating his mornings to the sin of Onan, which is masturbation, spilling seed, lathering his nether putz when he doesn’t suspect anyone’s spying, hundreds of FBs at a time shoved in together too close to know, to want to know his hard as slippery as wetted soap. And then the rumor has it as Abel Nagstein, which is ridiculous if you asked around, an eminence of thinking wishful: the Nag’s always shtepping everyone as to his presence; taking up space, precious air, exploiting, too, his position as a disgraced lab employee slash janitor, trying to sell premium fresh urine that’d pass any test to anyone who’d offer their favor, lording his gainful over the unemployed mass of FBprofessionals: lifeinsurance salesmenschs finding no takers for their policies offered in monthly installments growing easier and more affordable by the day, letting them go for less than a kiss, a hug’s discount embrace, or only a word in kind; lawyers mourning their billables ticking by, plotting late night tort suits v. Garden, Inc. and its CEO Der if we could just remember his former, Unaffiliated name; codefendants in a class of actionable all to themselves, they’re naming everyone: the government, higherups in the Administration, President Shade, even God It or Himself, despite being an unknowable entity, if existing, surely One of a limitless liability; doctors pining away for their bonebroke skichalets, half paidoff, shedding tears to freeze in the eye of the mind into virgin slopes trickled down the nose; moguls without moguls, briefs without a leg to stand on; architects and developers dreaming what they’d do were this Island to be privatized to any of their own concerns, what they’d put up here and why; remember the malls, like irradiant jewels in settings of parkinglot tar…the Great Hall a rejuvenating lifestyle spa, with residential space up top past the sun, or a hotel pent above three stars, lavish barracks through the clouds — luxurious condominiums ranging higher than a heaven in which none of them can still believe.
