Minding His feet and the papers flying about them like miniature lost tablecloths, or napkins, unsated souls, the ghosts of uninvited guests, B steps from the sidewalk and into the street, directly into the bleating progress of a flock of sheep crossing against the signal who knew still even worked: wool over His eyes, they’re herding way above the posted limit; their shepherd’s laughing kindly, then through his teeth whistles them together, his happy tune to harmonize with the bells that tinkle from their collars; he nods at B as he passes from the rear, then waggles behind him his staff in gentle remonstrance. B makes it out of their way only to sputter gutterside, stuck with all manner of those papers gathered, wet, stands dumbly as the sheep schlep on, grazing at sidewalks’ planters and wrecked meridians, the trafficislands unlit, no passing vehicles to worry either, as they disappear Uptown and toward the tunnel then through it out to Joysey and its fields. He sets out to follow them Himself, a last straggler from the sewer to the middle of the road. Exactly which He isn’t sure, the stickler. As most of the streetsigns have been removed, their names moneychanged to protect the not so innocent, new signs not yet nailed and hammered down…bureaucracy’s overtaking everything, with offices closed or slow to respond, addressed so far out in the Bronx who can ever get to them by day. B raises His head to the poletops freshly flagged, then steps a foot down into a pail brimming full with paste.
Schm…
Schm…
Schmo schlemiel schlub schmegegge…these two posterboychicks call them, they’re yelling at Him hobbling, brandishing their rollers in His face while calling Him these other names, their tongues too young to know from: Mutteringmamzer, Nogoodnik, who knows what worse, me, I couldn’t say…trying new epithets on for fit of mouth, a spit. B steadies again, hauls His foot out from the paste, pries Himself away from their pursuit, fast but fat and older — Uptown, He thinks, and sopping; apparently, the direction the two posterboychicks had just worked down from:
Welcome to the ghetto. Here, a world frozen not as much in time as in time past, amid the mud, down in the dreck. Now, all will know what to expect and, too, what is expected of them. Upon Penalty of Law not further specified, though, as a minyan of elderly uniformed officers, Unaffiliated Patrol, an allvolunteer, geriatrically vigilante Downtown unit of Metro Gestapo, stumble their beats, using nightsticks as crutches; their Law reigns supreme…over the old cemetery down at Chacham Square, the smichas of seminaries north, up past the mikvehs, the shuls and shtibls, yeshivas and, nu, you want the guidebook’s spiel: the Ed Alliance (197 E. Broadway), the Hanky Street Settlement and the Amalgamated Dwellings, the Yarmulkowsky Bank Building (TK admission price), the Klutzker Brotherly Aid Association (open Mon. & Wed. 9–5), which you might remember from, hymn…stores discount and department, the factory outlet tours for matzah and wine, with not even them leavening such ferment:
UNAF
Happy Birthday, Reb Israelien — the conversion is complete.
