A sigh, a roll of the eye, a forefinger shrugged. As this meeting’s inaugural, first annual, indulge them, this reactionary rudeness is the only organization obtaining: a total insanity prevails over disorder, two to a room if not to a bed. A shtus of klutz, a pure riddling mess, through which al-Cohol, Q’asino proprietor and seventh son of the newly elected though others hold Shadeappointed Palesteinian president, makes his buying rounds, pressing impersonated flesh, and comping next Shabbos packages, gladhanding anyone rolling high and hard down the pyramid’s loss, leaving the house with their gain; this as tomorrow’s wedding guests — friends and family of the Shades, associates and the internationally owed — enjoy the spectacle, joking amongst themselves they hope the rabbi gets the right groom, hahaha.
Ben makes His way to the rows of the buffet, the tables bent over backward with everything He’s ever liked, with anything He might like, too, if He’d ever had it: varenikis stuffed with pierogies themselves stuffed with you never know what as a foretaste of Messianic eternity; platters of everything you could ever possibly do to a fish before eating it: smoked over fires of rainforest woods rare and endangered, cauldrons of thick stews of lamb and beef whose names noodle out to eighteen letters long, in consonants as chewy as fat. Pre-warmed plate in hand, He lines behind innumerable Bens as two old women, they’re old to Him at least, they’d take offense, tsking drag Him as yet unidentified out toward Registration — to the table unsteadily folded out alongside the frontdesk — and stand Him there His fingers twitchy on the mammillate clangor of bell. To be singled out here, Jesus. Two women, both of them convinced of a singular estrangement from His strangeness: minimumwaged to be consecrated to the act of its identification, intent on an official acknowledgement of their how perceptive they are to be followed by a rectification of His own unrecognizable estate. Maybe it’s His sense of humor that isn’t in the Schedule, maybe it’s because He’s all the while smashing the table with the empty plate that is His head, shrieking along the lines of you’re not understanding this, lady, I’m Him, I’m really Him, the emes mamash, I mean for real. As they leave to He hopes get the Manager who, hoping further, might fittingly as if a creation made manifest of this very convention be imaged as God: a Ben as everything more than such Bens, taller and wider and with infinitely more eyes and ears and noses and mouths, and beards and chutzpah, desked in perpetuity and promoted imperiously, allpowerful, and yet always seeming to be off for the night — a crowd of lesser Bens crowd around Ben, minatorily minor Benjaminites shaking heads, stomping tribal trouble, whispering amongst themselves, giggling: is my squeal, He’s thinking, all that highish, no, can’t be, I don’t believe…and no, I don’t have an impediment! but the retort’s enunciated clearly: not yet you don’t, you’re too Young Ben — I’m supposed to be doing an impression of Him when He’s old.
The real Ben doesn’t point, one Benny’s insisting, a Teofils flown in from Warsaw it was, especially for the event. What He does is He squeezes His hands into fists, like so, then shakes them out loose, while stomping His feet.
And another, he’s New Orleans I think it was called, now Bet Mississippi…that’s rage, you with me? Entitlement, follow? I know a faker when I see one.
Me, too.
And yet another, from Angels, you know it. I know Him and, let me tell you, friend, you’re no Him.
And you are?
I don’t know you, Ben says, who are you to me, who in God’s name? I just wanted freedom for free, an offnight out, what I needed, one measly miserly gulp of unsupervised air — and now this. I’ve never seen you before in my life. I don’t know you to hate you as much as I do, just leave me alone, I’m sick of this hearing…then waves His arms above His head as if the unangeled wings of His ears, brings them to clap Himself down on His forehead like Oy — as if applauding His own perplexity, I’m not sure.
Can I get a gevalt? Better make it to go.
And, nu, ease up on the gimp, will you, says another Bennie or Benny, whatever they’re calling themselves nowadays, for use in propagating any calling into which they’re being coopted: the name’s impersonation, another jibes, not assassination…remember, you’re trying to be Him, not kill Him.
You, you’re so funny, you do standup, too, how much you make, maybe I can break into it, seems like a good racket, you know anyone I can call — gimme a number, a letter behalfed, the coin of a name…
Hymn, yet another Benny says, that’s not how you do it…He stomps His left foot, right, then His right lags a little behind, adds maybe another Bennie, and really, come off it, says why not yet another of them — you think He’d ever be caught dead in a shmatte like that, a house robe, think again, keep yourself dreaming.
The women return, hotflashing, moodswung, and with faces severely refreshed, flushed with sample kit makeup, looking like overflowed bathrooms begging for maids: they turn Him around, the only one of them unnamed, the One — hauling Ben called to the carpet brand new, one with a slip of tag, the other wielding a pen.
Why’d you drag me away from the buffet? He wants to know. The carving-station just got a new roast.
You left your nametag in your room, maybe, one woman says (her name’s Elaine), no need to run up and fetch it, says the other (Explain), we just wanted to get you another…you know, Elaine says as Explain picks up as if dust from her unfashionable, also unironed, lapel, before you forgot who you were, Elaine laughs, then Explain, and then the both of them together and how — one would laugh just a giggle longer than the other and so all the timing would be off and the effect would be ruined; it’s terrible: they’d get separate motelrooms to stay in and wouldn’t talk to each other for days.
No problem, He says. Me, I want to forget.
It’s an act, if still in development — until they can afford to quit this job, then their Mondays and Wednesdays dayshifting a diner opened to service the eating days of a local yeshiva: Elaine would say, I feel bloated, and Explain would say, this is how it must look to feel bloated. Explain would say, I have cramps, I feel terrible, and then, get this — Elaine would say, you look great, never been better…
Nu? says Elaine, meaning name, and guess who explains. Ben says what it is, Ben, and how everyone laughs altogether, doubles now doubledover, folded for the packing or stack like napkins or sheets, amused He thinks at mine this amateur impersonation, my rank this hobbyhack, sad. They’re slapping knees, drizzling tears like shpritzes of lemonlime squeezed, a pinch sprinkling salt over the shoulder. Bin Eden, known to most though as Fats, Head of Q’asino Food & Beverage, he approaches to ask if everything’s alright, Mister…in a capacity competently official, solicitous in its sincere swiftness, with his silent bows and craft of cunning obeisance in lipspittle, nosedrool, and swallow, and how the Bens gathered together shriek His Israelien name, then laugh even harder, heaving their tongues against teeth, a howl massed from their mouths almost vomiting up on the floor and its latterly vacuumed carpet a morningafter cholent, of sorts, slowly warmed in the gut, bussed from buffets, earlybirded especially greasy, but just as He begins to serve voice and register protest, bin Eden’s already moved on to his next guest: got to pass on the love — hand to crossed fingers, them old meet ’n’ greets — at least a false sense of feely importance, clapping impersonators on the back, hugging them and cheekily kissing and saying incredulously I almost didn’t recognize you, hahaha his sharpie brows and his slitty eyes and the scrawny, bent humble hunch of his frame on his way zigzagging down the welcome-line only of Hims, how’ve you been doing, baruch hashem, the wife and the kinder, enjoying yourself, have a great stay.