That you, Wan Lo goes on, have already brought us luck.
Not that we’re being nice to you just for profit, God forbid. Though profit wouldn’t hurt. Two or three of the who knows how many, if illegally, uniform the waitstaff here, they raise their heads to Him then sigh, let their lashes flutter.
Suddenly through the silence ensuing this dishwasher shrieks pong, a girl from the prep-&-line kings kong — B’s frightened out of His seat then turning around to stare at them gathered intimately at their green felt fourtop under the white tablecloth half cleared and bunched away with its little lantern, too, and the finechina cradles of sauces to accommodate the dipping of the rolls on special tonight as they are every night, for the hosting of their dealing, discarding, their bustly clatter (that and the distraction of their giggle allowing an unscrupulous waiter’s wife to cheat a chow: a meld made of three suited tiles in their appropriate order, hoarding the stray shards of what has to be ivory into her lap when no one’s looking, no, she doesn’t think), their amusement hand over mouthed, light as if to say to Him, don’t worry, it’s all just play, only fun and games goodnatured, we’re on your side, your team, you’re safe here. No one’s keeping score, Israelien. Thinking then, it’s not Him they recognize as much as an opportunity, a good turn, a mitzvah made to order — He thinks, just wait until I’ve merited their check. Mistrusting to the bitter end, the serving of His just desserts. But as closingtime closes in, with its receipts to tally to nothing and those grains of rice to count, inventory these cups to smash and bowls to shatter, then the counting of their pieces not privy to a game, Dim Sum brings to His table a treat, the sweet and dry house cookie: a brittle thing, lost lonely atop a dull green jaded tray. With one thumb to each of its nibs, He rips the thing in half. And inside’s a paper that lets slip a message. A fortune He owes in return — holding it up to the light of tables after empty tables of lanterned candles still lit festively, foretellingly, if guttering as if from the exhalations of His fear — thinking how much’s left from His pawn…it’s nothing, though — it’s free.
Today?
What does it say, what does it say, give it here…
…Happy Birthday, you happy now?
Suspicious.
B takes leave of the Orientals, helping to lock and shutter the restaurant behind its grate of shuddering metal…they’ll be closed all day Monday, Dim Sum says in parting, we’ll figure it out, everything works out in the end; he bows then, scraping — are you sure you don’t want any takeout, just asking, we have a little suey left, last chance as he lifts himself…25 % discount now that we’re old friends, in observance of your auspicious occasion?
To walk Himself wherever weathered, dry again, to drop no drip; B’s board halved, hung around His neck alongside a cross of chalk, what’s left that in the wind goes click against then clack again with every older step.
Oneyearold in Year One, today being the age of the world; there’s only a week left until the anniversary of its creation decreated, the destruction that’s made possible our miraculous rebirth. After Israelien, 1 A.I. — let it stand for that for which He falls. In a window, the sweeping glass of a going Broome Street concern selling religious paraphernalia (siddurim, tallisim, tefillin, Get Your Mezuzah Examined — No Commitment Free Of Charge), He takes in His reflection: His hair, once so moppishly light now darkly thinning, His glasses wrecked their earpieces lost held on only by the scrunch of His nose, wrinkled, His face old already, lined as if one of His mother’s lists for Wanda, his mouth a severely windreddened check marking all for off and finished, the milk and bread brains and that nose, a sack of potatoes. As for His form, it’s as fat as ever, forming fatter; waisted down His skirts His foreskin still occupied with its genethliacal growth and shed, cyclical and constant. He’s still in that old housecoat of His mother’s, her perpetual maternitywear, secondhanded but lacking pockets, then a mitten for the lefthand, a glove unfingered for the right. They hold the keys to residences untold, duplicated triplicates, with the alarmcodes combinatorials of His name, 18 18 18, B-E-N=21. He knows the routes to every safehouse, their attic and stagey trapdoor hides, Mitteltown nests and outerburrows…the homes of previous owners, masters otherwise known to Him as hosts when they’re treating and kind now summering in the winter of freedom if just to say they’ve done their part (He has all the key-chains, too, swag from Garden interests found among the trash — they’re loose; He hasn’t found the time in which to get attached). Under the housecoat but over the thermals designer from the dumpster, that Shabbos skirt, its ruffle ripped, tucked into His socks, sapped of their dressy dark from His shvitzy stray, stuffed with addresses to zips: pages ripped from phonebooks halved, revised, crumpled then crammed into His shoes for insulation (the heels made flats, pumps deflated), He’s shod in wads, too, of other people’s mail — a heatingbill from where, gas and electric invoices, then urgent warnings to Register, unofficial promises confirmed by governmental threats, the latest moon’s issue of a tznius periodical, homiletical home, lifestyle, or feminine hygienic (on negiah, on niddah), subscribed to in support of the yeshiva of a nephew; New Year’s greetingcards fallen from sukkah walls, and a lacy, stiffs-tocked invitation to a bris He’s missed, not His; a pidyon’s a redemption…feet are worn and numb, toes ten dreams of feeling. Despite, He stoops low against the wind down the street, littered with tattered fliers.
UNAF Must Register By Date Of Anniversary By Order Of The Mayor, is what they say, if you’re interested or scared.
Minding His feet and the papers flying about them like miniature lost tablecloths, or napkins, unsated souls, the ghosts of uninvited guests, B steps from the sidewalk and into the street, directly into the bleating progress of a flock of sheep crossing against the signal who knew still even worked: wool over His eyes, they’re herding way above the posted limit; their shepherd’s laughing kindly, then through his teeth whistles them together, his happy tune to harmonize with the bells that tinkle from their collars; he nods at B as he passes from the rear, then waggles behind him his staff in gentle remonstrance. B makes it out of their way only to sputter gutterside, stuck with all manner of those papers gathered, wet, stands dumbly as the sheep schlep on, grazing at sidewalks’ planters and wrecked meridians, the trafficislands unlit, no passing vehicles to worry either, as they disappear Uptown and toward the tunnel then through it out to Joysey and its fields. He sets out to follow them Himself, a last straggler from the sewer to the middle of the road. Exactly which He isn’t sure, the stickler. As most of the streetsigns have been removed, their names moneychanged to protect the not so innocent, new signs not yet nailed and hammered down…bureaucracy’s overtaking everything, with offices closed or slow to respond, addressed so far out in the Bronx who can ever get to them by day. B raises His head to the poletops freshly flagged, then steps a foot down into a pail brimming full with paste.
Schm…
uck,
Schm…
endrick,
Schmo schlemiel schlub schmegegge…these two posterboychicks call them, they’re yelling at Him hobbling, brandishing their rollers in His face while calling Him these other names, their tongues too young to know from: Mutteringmamzer, Nogoodnik, who knows what worse, me, I couldn’t say…trying new epithets on for fit of mouth, a spit. B steadies again, hauls His foot out from the paste, pries Himself away from their pursuit, fast but fat and older — Uptown, He thinks, and sopping; apparently, the direction the two posterboychicks had just worked down from: