Ben, the son of a friend. Of the family.
And then there are two. Here to pay His respects, this a mitzvah in an hour of need. As much that binds them, cleaves; there’s an entire liturgy between the two, underspoken, unspoken, an understanding tacit, granted, taken; what’s to say, who would listen, who else would know to understand…and so they waste themselves and air and time, slinging shtick about girls, women, mnema, allowing the little history they have in common, the shared of the last couple moons: they tell jokes, kid, share boasts and bull. As would satisfy any justice, these witnesses are opposites (or it’s easier to represent them to be, now that it’s just them): one skinny and hairless, the other’s fatty and haired; one serious, relatively good with the manners, the other named petty or mean, though the word’s also loquacious; one of them intelligent, and the other not not, just uninspired, unmade or unfinished, not yet healed. Time, there’s still time, there’s stilled time in which to air. A repast reclined but underdone. It’s two days prior to Passover, two settings until Redemption, one for emptied each: they’ve been left alone; the guards have been withdrawn, perhaps on orders of, perhaps negligence, perhaps. Now’s a winged moment of facetime, a scheduled recess peace: a grave shaped like an ear, dug alongside a grave shaped like a mouth…they sit across from one another, fixed to the floor, as if already mourning themselves, what they had
And then the next morning, there are two of them again.
One is Moses and the other’s his brother — to stand at the throne of their Pharaoh, at the footstool and grovel for redemption, though silently, though disinherited again…the staff ’s lost, the tongue’s lamed: there are plagues, there is blood and there is black; nine of them would pass, to reveal the tenth, in which the firstborn are killed, sacrificed upon the altar of a People: the blood, the frogs, the lice, the flies, the hail and locusts and dark and death. Today’s the day all firstborns fast, though it’s only them along with nonessential personnel; and though required on pain of threat, of guilt, the public joins in, too: as the darkness settles in, to fill, to slake, to sate, and finally — to open your mouths, you two, get talking…If you die I get your shoes, if you die I get your hat, if you die I get your socks, if you, if you, your memory. All ears is still two. Remember the time we, once I, do you remember, one time I, and the time we, and then that time. I wasn’t a good friend, I wasn’t a friend, I never was, you were, what’s expected, who expects, what I always wanted was, what you never had was, who I wanted to, always — and, who I’ve become…Steinstein asks, what would your parents be doing right now, and yours, your sisters, how many you had, what did she look like, think I’d have a chance, any I’d’ve had — your brothers, what about them, what would you, wouldn’t you, we’d go to the, we’d sit on the, we’d stand at the, and just, and just, be together — the way Aba he used to, the way Ima she’d, how’d she look, think I’d have had a chance…we used to, would or should have, trips to Theme Parks, State Parks, Historic Battlegrounds, and the movietheater mall, the pretzeljar shoestore, summercamp sissy kissy and Sundayschool sickday blahs with the thermometer dipped into the pits to fever, it would’ve been, what would’ve been, what’s it to you, what’s not. I should have loved my parents more, I should have told them I loved them, more I should’ve more…why’d they die, why get a divorce if you’re just going to die, he worked too much, she worked too hard, I would’ve worked, too: why, if you’re just going to…what I’m saying is — what do you want to hear?
Two witnesses, only one of whom will live to sanctify the new moon: Steinstein across His lap, Ben as if a mother to a son, installed in the Registry’s midst, absolved of illuminated exits. They sit nosing. A heaven either awaits or doesn’t, don’t get me started, already have. Begun, and duly begged. In case of emergency, break the glass of sky.
You have a wonderful lap, Steinstein says to say anything, and what a sense of humor…I’m dying, I’m hungry, I’m thirstily tired — though he’s without suffering, they’re without pain; Steinstein’s only kvetch that of the holy imminent, the though sacred obviousness of oblivion. How I wish there were an afterlife after life, that I could believe. Me, too, like sign me up, put me down for one. Know any newer jokes. Setups. Punchlines with a swine kick to the gut. Or efficacious prayers. Then, a silence they attempt to eternalize by withholding from it breath. And from without, a thunderous whine.
You won, Steinstein finally says, gasping his face lit, no longer the son but the ram that inherited his fire.
His eyes ask, how’s it feel?
No one won, you stupid mamzer.
