To leave His home is to leave a boy behind, what He once was in a house handmedowned. The shroud of rooms and the embalming windings of the halls to be borne now, forever, upon another body…the new baby in its blush and chub, the newest affection, at her age, Hanna’s, an affectation with fists the size of tears, never to come swiftly crawling toddling walking a raw knee felled down the stairs then straight into the hallwayed arms of its mother, who once was His, had been — love for Ben cooling like Saturday’s soup, which is cholent sopped with the crusts of stale bread still bagged, storebought, which, too, had been the challah of Friday, the errant second loaf. Promise only vouches you so far, so distant, until old, unemotional, and moldy with mind: to grow up awkward and isolated, pimpled and alone, made witness to the probable stuff of youth, the toy guns and knives and other playthings never had, never allowed as inappropriate, unsafe, the tricycles and bicycles coming around in cycles, balls and blocks of wood and plastic and of plastic like wood with alphabets, presumptive — revived in the life of another, the objects themselves scuffed and dulled to dead now newly shined, once given son and so suddenly appealing again, attractive, put to fresh uses, fun He’d never imagined could be had, they could’ve had together: Os of wholesome cereal strung on the strands of His mother’s hair bewigged and dyed above but below as dark as milk, across the room living, family, or den, stuffedanimals strangled in the ties of His father arranged around the brunch table, perched atop chairs to referendum on the issues of the day, the fate of the family, punishments for Rubina’s pubescent misery…miniature houses of leaves and twigs and moss and nests assembled in the driveway, to be brought to collapse when Israel pulls out the Merc the next morning so early it’s almost still night, for work; he’s always working — the Israelien house left vacant, abandoned to what could’ve been. To be made Present Resident of the last house on Easy Street, taking into Manhattan the gravied train, the commuter’s heartquick circulation. Ben never to darken His own doorway again, to be humiliated a fumble at its lock, with the day’s close its shadow drafting reductive, immature. Feed for Him the fish we flushed long ago; water the houseplants, the weeping ferns of Babylon-by-the-bay. Do me a favor, and silence. An intercom hiss, the fuzzed tongue of the stairs. To sleep atop the sheets of His conception, with sisters He calls His own…
Across the Island He sits in the Registry, on a suitcase His father had once bought in Miami at the aeroport as extra luggage for the souvenirs he’d bring them home, anything he’d buy on impulse come his boarding: the blizzards of snoglobe, postcards never to send, that poseable pink flamingo. Here mourning the hold defiled, laid to waste in the process of such heldover His head nightly grief — which is talking, dining, praying in necessity’s urgent order, the priorities of the overscheduled martyr: slipcovers as if they’re flayed scholar-skin hanging from the arms of the sofas set with recliner matching, stuffing-spilled pillows slipped irretrievably into cracks behind couches against the paperpeeling walls, the chairs upended, unseated, the upstairs beds and even Wanda’s tousled by guests too drunk and Amenfed to have made it home alone, their smokes smote atop the carpet and, also, as black clouds upon the ceiling, the arms of the overhead fan broken, the emptied glasses smashed, plates pooled in a bronze sea of oil crossed by Shiva’s knives — bloodblunted, gristly, twisted in hands shook poorer of their nerve; protective plasticwrap smoothed and saved for nothing, foiled, with the drawers hanging open; to what would’ve been Hanna’s horror, no one’s bothered to cleanup.
Enough.
O, if only His parents would have died! It would have been enough.
If only His parents and His sisters would have died, it would have been enough.
If only His parents and His sisters and His PopPop would have died, it would have been enough.
If only His parents and His sisters and His PopPop and then all of Them, except the firstborn, would have died, it would have been enough.
If only His parents and His sisters and His PopPop then all of Them, save the firstborns, and then even Them, and then even the saved firstborns they die, dayeinu, Gottenyu, it would have been enough…to say, this’ll probably futz you scarred for life, what did Israel call Him, boychick, and then would say along with Hanna, this hurts us more than it hurts — nu, you’re thanked then praised, almightily. And not just that and living and unharmed, which are as lentils flung to the spring’s harsh wind, the lost half of the afikomen sharded small in the light of His parents and people dead, it’s that He’s safer now than ever, emerged bathed clean, roofslept, and with His fortune secured, the return’s reward, the birthright collecting interest…enough to say, stop that kvetch, but me no buts, I’ve had enough of all your whine. This geshray and bitch bemoan. That nothing’s enough. Nothing’s good enough for you. An only son, how He’s an only Messiah, too, and whether false or not no matter as so far unopposed — hymn, He’s thinking, and that’s supposed to be a pass, a snowday, a Florida vacation taken off from the mind and its daily duty. What an overprivileged pisher. Taking each breath for granted curse. You’re never satisfied. Impossible to please. But this, it’s not His fault He was faulted this way. Brought up to expect so much more of Himself that He rages that better others fail. Responsible, that’s how He’s raised, that’s how He would’ve been at least then college, career, a wife with kinder of their love, themselves to be bathed clean, roofed, and sleeping rich in a house of their own that didn’t have to be recreated as consciously as here, as He would’ve bought that way, they would’ve. Nextdoor with weekly suppers simple. And then adjacent plots with matching stones, opposite His parents, her having taken the Israelien name, the veil of His mother that is the oven’s hood. Graves visited monthly and wellmaintained, we’re talking. Again, remembered with a rock.
As the prophets always say, He’s not getting off that easy…
Above the Hall’s portico, Ben stands facing the islands offIsland, the city to come, over the railing reclining into weather. In the freeze, a squint of reflected moon. Out there, it’s quiet, corpsed in hush: all five boroughs and the sixth of the ice pierced with regret, with even Joysey in mourning, from the beaches up through the pines and the smokestacked clouds; businesses have been shuttered; minds have been closed; churches lie smoldering, rubble neglecting even to fall…Manhattan, a cincture of cinder. Shiva, once its success has been proven over an extended engagement at the Israelien household, is taken national, then worldwide, spends itself from hurst to wood to burg, to glen to city, yadda, each discharging its public rites, the performance of municipal ablution with media assured; solidarity, shtum. All ends on a Sunday, the day of the rising, of Hosanna and olden unction…the Sunday of palms holding its day weeks prior to Easter, which’s been forgotten, too, as if a gust’s direction, its windy directive, Easter, go Easter and Easter — weeks more waxed a wane down through their days, inked through the boxes of the calendar, ticked off nick by prick upon the face of the stovetop, its timer and that of the microwave deprogrammed and unplugged, to what once had been that fake or falsest of days if with true intention, marketed for the honoring of Mothers. O Hanna, He’s forgotten your Hallmark, your slippers over the rugs soft and sinking, your heels on the hardwood tapping impatience, anger, displeasure with yourself the punishment of rage — the weight of your approach, the force of your presence, your warm and sucky flesh; knows only the posthumous linger, the cold breath of your skirts and your blouses in the closet once mirrored in Him, that smell of perfume #5 you’d shpritz to your wrist; how the sweetened flowers — last year’s irises — would’ve been delivered with a card signed with Israel’s name to wilt then die in a vase in a hall, now shattered, glued, reglued, and then shattered again; Wanda would’ve made sure, Wanda who never forgets, marks the boxes on her own calendar a recreation of the one hanging from a loosened tack upstairs at the wall scuffed by the slammed opening of the frontdoor, the archivists and the historical maids, such experts; watches the clock an eye for an eye, watches her watch, which was a gift given to her by Israel and Hanna for a holiday she didn’t observe; on break, how she reminds Israel an entire Friday before; gives him a second call at the office, notice ample like breasts, following up urgently with his secretary, a final warning, get her a gift, who, your wife, whoever you might’ve married While You Were Out, as it’s dated, timed, a slipping pink, a scribble; Loreta running off a form, a replicate, yet another rejectable settlement in triplicate, and demanded ASAP, puts her on hold while she waits for the feed, then through to his extension, his voice; Hello, you’ve reached Israel Israelien, I’m not able to take your call, but if you would please — leaves a message, hangs up.