Here, in the blocks of barracks, an exhaustion sprawls itself over time, a silence snores oppression…anything uttered, maybe only thought, echoes for what wastes like forever, longer than they’d ever have: maunders and murmurs, invocations and prayers, bargaining begged of rage, incriminations, passing through the emptying wings, the connecting classrooms and clinics, canteen, and mail depot; even the lounges vacant except for the puttering of a mensch his name’s Abe, or so he says, thinlipped, deepdimpled, and grave, he’s in a shiny vest and pants to a powder blue suit never his, a shtikel of black necktie, his hair’s parted in the middle; he’s stacking the roomful of foldingchairs to pass the time, foldingup battered cardtables to while away the hours; never a line anymore for pingpong, never a wait for pinball that’s the line that’s passed around — the other survivors remain in their designated areas, not laughing. And these are those thirtysix that remain: a butcher, who would sell meat to a baker, who would sell two challahs weekly to a chandelier salesmensch who did door-to-door, who was neighbors nextdoor in Forest Hills if you know it with a retired professor of history, who was uncle to nothing more than a pizza deliverer, who was boyfriend though to a daughter of a mailorder magnate, who was brother-inlaw to a woman who was the cousin of a maid to a lighting fixtures wholesaler, who once for fraud had to go in front of a judge here, who had once presided over the proceedings of a plaintiff here and a defendant here, too (though in separate cases), who was a brother to a mensch who he once worked for a producer here, who had an accountant here, whose mother knew a woman who was sister to three menschs here who’re no longer holding out to become accountants, one of whom was the husband of a daughter of a hotelier here, whose other son-inlaw’s friend was an HR representative here, who once had an uncle whose rabbi had fathered three attorneys here, one of whose secretaries had been friends with a maid who’d slept with two doctors here, one of whose mothers had a friend whose son was both a doctor and a lawyer here, his own, whose son’s friend’s friend’s squashpartner here had once failed both the bar and the boards on seven occasions under five identities (not all of them) different, whose uncle’s exwife’s new husband now widowed here was a stayathome father, whose third cousin once removed was roommates in college NYU with the son of the bridgepartner of a mother of a stockbroker broke here, whose proctologist had a dermatologist here, whose lawyer had an accountant here, whose accountant’s brother’s friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s father was a disgraced pharmacist here, who had an acquaintance of his father’s sister’s exhusband’s brother here who’d gone into hock for his numismatic obsession, whose father had grown up with this mensch who once ten years ago now though he doesn’t remember it had Shabbos dinner by the Friedmans the Roslyn Friedmans if you know them with a funeralhome director here, who once buried the sister of a friend of the thirdgrade teacher of a jeweler here, whose cousin’s boss once bought a car off a car dealer who also sold a van to the wife of a mensch whose mistress was also the lover of a realestate agent here, whose brother and sister-inlaw’s travelagent once met at the Mintz wedding the pilot here, whose plane once brought the family of Steinstein here to an uncle’s Panamanian funeral two years ago I think it was on a flight for them complaining blacked out from bereavement fare…Steinstein whose mother’s Hadassah President’s cancer support group leader’s integral yoga instructor’s cousin twice removed had one considered buying either the lot below or house above that Ben here was born into, which was then uprooted and removed here, recreated and kept locked now with Him inside to protect Him from this plague — Ben relieved only by hourly visits by the butcher here, to daub a bit more blood upon the door, until he doesn’t visit one morning with Ben waiting for him inside, and the jamb runs dry, and the stain remains.
And, too, the mezuzah.
