Ben’s clambering over the slippery mount, atop, near giving up, balls giving way bumptiously under His effort, the righting rump; then, a last, lumbering thrash, and He emerges to hurl Himself over the pool’s far ledge — on His gut, slit, a fish floundering fluke, the catch of last days to fin up onto dry land upon two legs now to fly through the house (its screendoor, open, its door-door, open); then, as if Friday’s first course belated, through the blessing of a family’s kitchen, around its middle countertop and there parents and kinder gathered in their service of Havdalah, meaning To make distinct, to keep kadosh, or segulah separate the mundanity of tonight and its tomorrow from that or the sanctified of another tonight, that of its sacred today — Havdalah the candled conclusion of the Sabbath with its Elijah arrived as Him, scaring the gehenna out of this newest Affiliate, Ima, Aba, their two point five kinder, upsetting their braid of fire to consume the cabinetry, to tarnish with smoke the cups for Kiddush, its wine inflamingly holy, to incense the box of spices at which we nose at Shabbos’ end, as if to revive ourselves after an illness.
A few clicks up the high dry you bet Jurassic it once was a river — now only a moat without the water or bridging courtesy to freeze, a snowedover safeguard of the turreted monstrosity above: a forbiddingly outlandish stucco manse, pinkening with the dawn though perched resident heavens higher out on that thar mesa, which juts up majestically from the very middle of an enormous cañon sunk around it, a socket of this cold and blinded earth. This the estate of the legendary Lee Sure, a former Holywood actor, producer, director you name it who’d retired his own household name for a new home out here only a moon ago, deserted his career in its recent crisis to zone this plot his own; dedicating the future development of this scenic openness around him as a sanctuary for fellow moviefolk blacklisted for their refusal to convert. He’s a hefty and tanned goy, threechinned, fourbanked, presently a mere two laps and a length or so into his daily routine in his pool dramatically overheated when what do you know the poolside numberless telephone rings. His wife, Lara née Busch of the once prominent militaryindustrial Buschs, maybe you know them or better — she sits alongside the unit ringing without registering any interest, even awareness: a woman sunned to small under artificial lamps, pruned, heated to petite…the morning is, in her words to her Kush of almost every morning when and if the medication takes, perfect, am I right? Above the sun a yolk hidden forever within its cloudy shell, never to crack down upon us its warmth, though as she says she only eats the whites, dear, she reminds again her servant who she’s just sounding him out for the umptillionth time and only today, I only eat the whites…this the first day for her outside in a week: the new agoraphobia drug’s finally spaced her (a tumult, a whirlwind of late the reconstruction of its disaster psychologically requiring a host of special prescriptions and proscriptions both phoned in and forged: how they’d finally cashed out of the city, which’d meant Angels, last moon, headed out to the desert to get away from this next generation of players like Spielgrob, Kinoff, Joshuabaum, P. A. Yuccabaum, all the freest agency of their wives present and ex, to live heightened security and alone in this mansion they’ve been renovating forever, it already seems, what with memory, way back since the beginning of western time, ever since this mesa had been no more than a dunghill, and the immigrants laboring no more than dark scurrying dreams), she’s dulled insensate though perched purty in a freshly oiled chaiselounge under sunlamps set in the shade of the umbrellad highdiving platform facing her darting husband deaf to the telephone again with its insistent rattle, a needy baby cribbed upon an elegantly fineboned wicker cart to her side that also holds, on its topmost shelf, the remains of her brunch: bacon and sausages and slices of contraband ham for the protein, hold the salt, with blood pressure onefortysomething over a hundred causes heart disease served up still beating if slowing apropos a white plate trimmed with three eggs scrambled to the texture of her brains; dear, I only eat the whites (cholesterol)…can’t be bothered to answer the phone, too much trouble, how could she on a day as perfect as this, so stressfree, am I right, and so the Kush obliges — how can’t he and keep his employ, still run his illegal smuggling operation of goyim fleeing, running, swimming, over to Mexico out of the caves of the valley below; he drags Sure in to the concrete shore with a hook used to retrieve cocktail glasses sunk to pool’s bottom.
Telephone for you, sir, the Kush says and, is it important? is what Sure yells strangled, his ears sloshingly full up with scald, I gave specific instructions only to be disturbed if it’s important.
Is it important? the Kush asks into the business end, the receiver black and lost under the lobe of his ear, the glint of its enslaving stud. A moment of bated listening to the breathless way they still talk it back east, which Sure should be able to hear even from where he’s sitting suited, goggled, and waterlogged, at the lip of the pool with his feet dangling in the water it costs him don’t even ask what a fortune to heat. Keep it just at 100º. And then, it’s important, the Kush vouches, tucking the phone under his jaw.
Is it urgent, though? Sure asks as he towels his pecs, kicking up with his toes small waves against the filter.
One moment, sir, the Kush asks, is it urgent? another moment for the Kush to say, it is urgent, sir.
Hokey doke, says Sure, then on a scale of one to five, no, better make it one to ten, how urgent is it? With one being forget about it, and ten being my God is on fire. Ask him that, he says as if in challenge, a coldweather throw-down…tousles dry his hair, jumps in a regimen such as was once recommended to Rabbi Hillel, up on one foot then down on the other to unclog the ears as the Kush he goes and asks what he asks, on a scale of one to ten, sir, exactly how urgent is this?
A moment more of this loudly staccato and the Kush says, it’s urgent, sir, very — the party would have to rank it high in the millions.
Jesus H…. okay, collecting himself, haven’t had one of those before. But one last question, just to be sure: is it more important than urgent, or is it more urgent than, don’t worry, you get it and a raise…and so the Kush asks again, is the matter more urgent, and then he stops with the questioning answers before he’s finished to say, it’s both, sir, equally both, the Kush says the party says, all of them and more’s why he’s calling — consider this serious, a most plus.
Wowzer! in dialogue from roles their names reruns forgotten while their lines, they live on — quit your wasting the dude’s time, says Sure, and give the unit here…and the servant, what does he do, he goes and hangs up the telephone to wheel its cart over to his employer and before he has it rolling, nu, the ring goes ringing again, the Kush answers it and they, hymn, you know, having been conditioned to the rest, the spiel, it’s said, the speak softly but carry a big shtick routine, clocked calendrical almost, the ballagone whole — go through the very same ritual, and then and only then, only after Sure’s once more and for the last fully vetted this interruption following up, his delighting peevishness manifest in the swell of his neck, the tension of his temples, too, and that of his trademark chin bottomed like the tush of a newborn (kid or idea — clefted half his, half whose), does the Kush finally place the receiver this time upended atop the cart, rolls it over with plenty of corddistance, picks up the empty rosette plate that hosts only the residual grease of the meat of the pig and the pareve of the eggwhites and the silverware, which he places atop the plate in a cross, bows slightly to Master and Mistress as he’s paid to address them and heads on inside, through the patio and its glass doors, as Sure picks up the phone, cups with a pruned palm the business while nodding demeaningly to his wife to shuffle off to decorate the interior, to belittle herself with trifles: selfmedication at needlepoint, xword puzzles that’re the hidden study of Scripture (being the clue for 12 Across), mystery that ensures, too, her puckered pout and this, her shriveled slinking — then sits down at the landscaped edge of his mesa, his shivering legs to idle amid the emptiness, air, kicking feet through the sky shot through with cloudbursts: Sure speaking, he says, who’s this, whaddya want?