Witz полностью

As for the office, it hasn’t much changed; not the layout, only the furnishings. Inevitably, a sheaf of magazines have folded, or have been desubscribed to, stolen or moved around, flipped through then restacked again out of issued order; the glass has been replaced out front with another slab of blank clarity because they couldn’t add etch to or scrape the names from the old convincingly, or cheaply. Though Goldenberg, Goldenberg, that walled sign over reception still reads, then & Thronrauber in a different font, pretentiously with serif, Attorneys-At-Law—at your service. Call it continuity, despite. Nobody by any of those names has lately hung a hat here. I’m Mordy, but when you’re calling ask for Guy. Too early in the morning and with no brunch in Him, recently sleepless what with the fear inspired by the little He’s asked in return for His bed and board, miserly, too, and provisionally He thinks in spite, He’s leftover the holiday attempted to an exhaustion matched only by that of His purpose, both as mated to those of this family’s most demanding personalities (mother, wife) and, as well, in light of a present piety that’s damning of all senses and ambivalent toward dream…B’s arrived here with the proctologist and his wife, and her dressedup something like a weddingcake already, a healthy portion: with an icingly pink pillboxhat over pinker wig, frostpowdered face, the bride and groom of her bosom sweetly perfumed, and their daughter whom they’ve been calling Eli — you might’ve missed her, don’t beat your breast about it: anyway, how she’s been too shy to tell Him her full name, whether her new name or old, anything about herself, really, also she’s not quite allowed to be alone with Him for any appreciable time — that is, not until, we’re hoping. Holdingout. Eli who’s crying because being here’s mortifying, and how He wants to know why, suspicious, but every time He leans around her mother to mouth entreaties at her eye her mother keeps leaning forward, her lips sloppily filled with complimentary jelly and curd, asking B if He’s feeling well, hungry or thirsty and Him not understanding, only how much He doesn’t want to…what’s He here for is what meddles, only that the proctologist had forced Him into a doubled doublebreasted suit he’d managed to impromptu along with a cardboard belt and tie ensemble, then a cart down to Mitteltown to take care of some things, he’d said, a bit of paperwork pertaining to your status, get you legal, keep you safe, secure, and how He thinks — no problem, the mensch’s been good people so far, so good, soso, and how the daughter’s not tootoo…until now, Him ending up in this office, which hasn’t even merited a plaque: keep waiting, it’s on order.

Though not just any office…B doesn’t even know He’s in it, how deeply what this was, His father’s, what could’ve been, all His with tasteful lighting. The lobby’s plush if haphazard: the looting of a year ago’s still in evidence, desuetude, loopholes and gaps; the furniture had been purchased all in a lot to replace the antiques Israel had selected over the years, Empire in its Americanly acquisitive origins and devolutions both decadent and proper, staying seated if occasionally refined, preEmpire, nearEmpire, once risen conference curios by the time of their disappearance, fallen, wingchairs become clipped, corrupt, today made a host of the foldable, cardtables collapsing to the filed thinness of pending suits: seats unpadded, but the tabletops, they’ve sprung out extra makeshift legs to warranty such vinyl. Stacked reference materials, stools of crate and barrel. A bell rings from down the hall and this mensch emerges from behind nothingness, just a foldingchair unfolded from the grooves where the receptiondesk had been, asks B and the proctologist to follow him, right this way and huffily selfimportant: taking their leave of such a worried, Hadassah/Sisterhooded wife with a tongue like a subscription renewal insert (busying Solitaire with her membership cards, just now too concerned with her cascade), her reddened, promised daughter, then down a hall whose walls are still white if, could it be, snowed a little brighter, and this despite no new wash or coating, if only in relation to the stain retained of photographs removed; a coatrack wilts in a corner; the watercooler’s empty, webbed with the industry of spiders. A grove of plaintiffly withered plants scattered about here and there along with sorry files, paperaeroplaned whiles, with no bargain pled of access or negotiating passage, they have to compromise high toe heel along their ways. To avoid a slip and fall, them suing, a settlement for loss. Bad shape, and that’s my closing statement. The prosecution rests, to honor shiver.