“But how does she know for certain? Did she catch him or something?”
“Yeah, dick in hand,” Tomas pops in.
She laughs, a coarse series of plosive sounds that catch the attention of a few of the people standing nearby. “No, I guess she talked to him a few times. He was kind of a loner, and he always looked a little down, so she started something of a little…um, you know…that French word—”
“Rapport?”
“—Rappaport [sic.] with him.”
“What did he look like?”
“White guy, about your height. I don't know. She said he looked Jewish and always wore a gray sweatshirt. He probably didn’t in the summer, but…well, unless it was cold, of course. Yeah, so whenever it was cold he wore a gray sweatshirt. Not that that's too big a help for you right now. It's fucking hot as balls.” She pauses. “He had big ears, too. She said you couldn't help but notice the dude's ears. That's about all she could remember. Plus it was always dark in that bar, and it's not like she wanted to maow down on his dick or nothing.” I look to Tomas. He shrugs. “Not to mention that it's been about nine-ten years since she's seen him.”
“But, I mean…” and I trail off. I trail off because there's really no use in trying to push this woman for further information I know she will be unable to provide. We'll just participate in an incredulous repartee that ultimately leads nowhere. It's the same type of questioning that goes on in the immediate aftermath of some tragic event. The vacuum of information and fact is filled by baseless speculation and whys that are repeated over and over again until the question (why?) itself begins to constitute an answer or, at the very least, a mild level of participation in a dialog no one is qualified enough to be having. It's typically one of those three in the morning phone calls that revolve around a bad, but not fatal, car accident — the kind of catastrophe that has not been anticipated, just regarded as possible even if you tell yourself never to think like that because there's that little, superstitious voice in the back of your head that believes acknowledging a potential calamity is no less dangerous than wishing for it to occur. Still, it's there; you don't dwell on it or anything, but just kind of both avoid and ignore it like a fly upon the wall, which you spare because expending the energy to kill it is more of a deterrent than the respect for the sanctity of insectile life.
She continues to look to me, expecting a response and, at the very least, a modest show of gratitude — not because she needs it, just because it's custom. “Thank you,” I say. “Do you know how long ago he moved out?”
“Naw, dude. She couldn't say. She moved out of here back in ninety-eight…nine. I don't know. She went up to Vermont because she thought the city was sucking the life out of her. She came back, like, three years later. I don't remember exactly. Turns out Vermont has just as many fucked up people as the city — per capita, of course.”
“Was he still hanging out in Van Gogh's?”
“No, he was long gone. No one really remembered him, either.”
Again an apparition, a phantom just short of identifiable. It's a peculiar trait among humans — that our vision does not become just more attuned when we focus upon stationary objects; rather, the object changes — its normal dimensions become slightly disfigured; its utility becomes far more difficult to pigeonhole. It's not that the image loses its original meaning; it's that the context becomes more intricate. What begins as a loner at the bar, a piece of furniture almost innocent in his absence of features, ceases to be the only identity available to the man. He becomes defined by his potentiality and his past, which are limitless as they are both unknown.
“She didn't get a name, did she?”
She smiles: “Mordecai.”
“Seriously?” Tomas squints. He motions to the bartender and points to the empty pint of Guinness in front of him.
“Yeah, Mordecai. No last name, but his first name is Mordecai.”
“That's kind of an odd name.”
“Biblical. Old Testament shit.” She pauses. “You Jewish?”
“No,” I respond.
“Well, it's kind of a funny story — Purim, that is. Do you know anything about it?”
“Not especially. I know that people eat those little triangular pastries during it. What are they called?”
“Hamantashen.”
“Gesundheit.”
She laughs again. “Do you know why we eat them?”
“No.”
“Long story short, the King of Persia, who was apparently Xerxes—”
“—Scissor me, Xerxes,” Tomas adds in an impersonated voice.
“—but not the one who launched the war against Greece — it was his father or grandfather or son or something — I forget — he had a right-hand man by the name of Haman, and Haman hated the Jews because one of them, Mordecai, refused to bow before him.”
“The king?”
“No, before Haman.”
“Why would he have to bow to Haman?”
“It's irrelevant, dude. Anyway, so Haman gets the king's signet ring, and he draws up a decree that allows people throughout the empire to kill all of the Jews.”
“What?”
“Yeah, the decree basically says that random people throughout the Persian Empire will be allowed to kill anyone who's Jewish for, like, one day only.”
“What fucking sense does that make?”
“I know, I know. But listen: So Mordecai is in the king's favor because Mordecai saved him, the king, from assassination; but the king doesn't realize that Mordecai is a Jew until after he's given Haman permission to carry out the genocide. Now, Mordecai finds out about the plot one way or another, and he goes to his cousin or niece — I always forget which one — who is the queen. Queen Esther. This is all in the Book of Esther. Anyway, so Mordecai goes to her and lets her know the shit that's about to go down, and she decides to…um…like ask, but not just ask.” She puts her thumb and forefinger upon her chin. “Lobby. She lobbies the king to stop the bloodbath by inviting Haman and Xerxes to a feast—”
“Wait; she's the queen, and she has to invite the king to dinner?”
“Well, he has more than one wife.”
“I see.”
“That shit's allowed in Judyism?”
“Hell, lotsa shit's allowed in my fucked-up religion.” She shrugs. “Dude! Fucking ‘Divine Hammer’? I love this fucking song!”
“I haven’t heard this in years,” Tomas replies.
“Okay, so she has the two of them to dinner, and nothing happens. But then she asks them to dinner a second time, and on the second night she informs the king that she's a Jew—”
“The king doesn't know?”
“No.”
“Are you sure you're telling the story right?”
“Look dude, I know this story, okay.” She pauses. She's not upset, simply frustrated. “Anyway, so Esther tells the king that Haman wants to kill all the Jews, including both her and Mordecai, who the king loves because Mordecai foiled an assassination attempt. The king becomes outraged, I mean just fucking furious that Haman would try to pull shit like this, so the he, the king, has Haman executed. Oh yeah,” she begins with a slap on the forehead, “I almost forgot. Haman had built a…um, what's that thing called that you hang people from?”
“A scaffold?”
“Scaffold? That's the shit they put up at construction sites.”
“Gallows?”
“Yeah, gallows. So Haman built this fucking gallows that was like a hundred feet tall in front of his house, and he was going to hang Mordecai from it the following day, but the king has Haman hung there instead.