Gandalph Cohen & The Land at the End of the Working Day
Page 4
Everyone shrugs.
“No matter. But the point is that the City is keeping them away.”
“Why?” McCoy asks quietly. “Why does it want to do that?” Even as the last word of the question leaves his mouth, McCoy Brewer wonders whether he has had too much to drink.
“It doesn’t need them.”
McCoy says, “But it needs us?”
Gandalph Cohen nods. “It needs them that need it the most. Tonight, you five need the City in the worst way. Tomorrow night, it’ll be other people; last night it was others still. And so it goes on.” He slaps the table. “But, enough talk … we have work to do.”
“What work?” asks Jim Leafman.
“We have to enjoy ourselves and perform the handover.”
“Hey,” says Rosemary, holding her hands palm out above the table. “can you feel it?”
“Feel it … I can see it!” says Edgar.
And, sure enough, the table seems to be shuddering, tiny, infinitesimally small vibrations that make it seem as though it’s alive, alive with expectation.
“What do we do?” asks Jack Fedogan.
“Well, mon ami,” says Gandalph Cohen, “I suggest you get us another couple pitchers of beer—and maybe a few pretzels or nuts? that would be good—and we’ll just sit around like the friends we are and we’ll make each other smile.
“Tell me,” says Gandalph Cohen, leaning onto the vibrating table in The Land at the End of the Working Day, “has anyone heard the one about the guy from the mid-west who goes on holiday to Scotland? He goes into this bread and cakes store and he says to the assistant, pointing at this cake-thing in the display case, ‘Is that a donut or a meringue?’ And the assistant, she says—” He puts on a Scottish accent. “‘Och, no, you’re right—it’s a donut.’“
Jack exchanges a quizzical expression with Edgar, and then his eyes light up and he starts to laugh. Then Rosemary starts to giggle, her eyebrows raised high in sudden understanding … and then McCoy Brewer. Only Jim maintains a frown. “I don’t think I get that one,” he says quietly.
“Doesn’t matter,” says Gandalph Cohen. “Keep it going. Every joke you ever heard … every funny story, every anecdote.”
“Okay,” says Edgar. “How about this one …”
As the night wears on, and the beer flows thick and fast, the stories come out … some stories the teller heard just the other week and some are dredged up from their deepest memory. Sometimes the stories get a laugh and sometimes they don’t … but the City accepts the laughter from all of them, drinking it in gratefully like a man lost in the desert drinking in droplets of soda from a discarded can. Eventually, a little after 11 pm …
Resting his hands on the table and sensing something has changed, Jim Leafman says, “The table feels different. Has it happened?”
Gandalph Cohen nods and places his empty glass on the table.
“It feels sad,” says Rosemary. “It feels like I just sat up all night with a sick friend and now … now she’s gone.”
“Not gone,” says Gandalph Cohen. “Just moved on to where she’s needed more. Ecoutez…” he says. Out in the darkness, outside the two-flight walk-down on the corner of 23rd and Fifth, a wind seems to have gotten up.
“So tell me,” says Jim Leafman, watching the others cocking their heads to one side, listening … smiling to themselves … watching them get to their feet and stretching, seeing them embrace and shake each other’s hands, “what is a meringue? Could someone tell me that?”
Gandalph Cohen & The Land at the End of the Working Day
Copyright Peter Crowther 2008 & 2011
The right of Peter Crowther to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Originally published in printed book form in The Land at the End of the Working Day by Humdrumming.co.uk in 2008. This electronic version is published in March 2011 by PS by arrangement with the author. All rights reserved by the author.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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