Witz

by Joshua Cohen

  Now quiet down and pay attention, watch; what you’re seeing is upper-upper-upper-middlemeans, it’s said, classwise not too bad though taste is often the reversal of fortune—we’re talking six figures just a promotion away from partnering seven, with smart investment…late period Assimilation is it, and this despite the ostensibly religious nature of the event, the occasion Hanna’d call it, less a celebration than an observance, a catered cultic rite: the Israelien parents attending a function, was what Israel would’ve said, an hour after the synagogue, and so not a mitzvah bar or bat, but a wedding kashered with the ketubah, the contract writ upon the chuppah, which is the marriage canopy, then the heel that signs the break in glass: a wedding of whom it isn’t known. Whether family, most likely that of friends.

  Allegedly, the videographer had a problem with the sound—I’m sure the lawsuit would still be alive, if they were.

  CUT to the elevator, mirrored, marbled, its grand entrance, expected, that of the inlaws—or already the guests of honor finished with their quiettime snuggling sequester, the tradition of their intimate room, its connubial consummation…they’re lost or only unfocused, dim and rangy in this hall as if it’s unwalled, gorged on adornment, to dizzy, to right and steady now—lavish like ten, twelvegrand a night lavish, posh even far past the sofas, the divans and skirted chairs, the glossy white lacquer of another, different piano in the upper righthand corner, then a zoom past morbid flowers, the lilies bluepurple, occidentally called stargazers, Lilium orientalis, tightlipped white roses, they seem frosted sprigs of grass set in vases of glass so delicate, so fragile and thin, that to pour water in them would shatter all, it might; a mensch and his queenly wife head themselves like she’s his daughter, too, a princess if only for the day, the night, the happy arrival of the bride and her new husband, groomed again after that moment or so left alone in which to remember each other, today’s purpose, that and to break their fasts on one another, with snapped fingers and arrowed tongues…the bride and her father, or the parents of the bride or parents of the groom, they’re rethinking in how apart they are, alone, how it’s impossible to know them in their making their rounds, their public faces, the outward, untoward smiles, them receiving blessings, kisses, hugs in their seven circumambulations they’re counting through the lobby then a right through a doorway and breathlessly on, into another hall; she whoever travestied in a fresh clump of chiffon, him schlumpy however resplendently remade in bleached teeth and loosened bowtie, they enter the mix, become the swirl, apparently already intoxicated, as drunk as the camera, handheld then even with tripod, jerky.

  Inside, the tables are stacked with numbered placards, each area of them the family and friends, the coworking congregant strangers completely separated by a host of diaphanous screens decked in blue & white, the color scheme of the evening: Royal and Virgin to match the drapery, the tablecloths, the swaddled chairs backed with flighty silver bows, napkins ringed with gilding, the florid centerpieces, the bride’s dress, shoes, and purse—what does a bride need a purse for? especially when the line for handing over the enveloped and carded checks terminates with a bag held by this immense, unsmiling Palesteinian securityguard, onloan from the local skyscraper of the groom’s employment, his father’s, hers. Then, this not quite matchcut, back to glimpse Hanna across from that wife, or that daughterwoman, secondwife or ex, secretarylover among maybe fifty, sixty others circledancing, a paralegal hora; the groom up in a chair its legs unsteady in the unsober hands of best menschs; the bride holding a napkin its other corner held by him…Hanna holding hands with all these women circling women circling woman, of diverse ages and affected lives, the ravages of an aging time, its effects evident in the very faces of these dervishly circling feminine clocks, their hands clammed, their chests panting a mad heart’s tick, a pill’s tickle, wild now that they’ve managed to just themselves squeeze in, ringing off the inner enclosure of celebrants with their arrivals, fillingout the edge of its sacred courtyard, from the predatory perimeter pace of the minority waiters just beyond: they’re like dangerous foreign beasts, they can’t help it, like wellfed, sweetbreathed lions; how they’re all paws proferring their offerings of appetizer, trays of wieners, kabobs speared through on toothpicks of every rainbow’s hue; wraps, fingersandwiches, God! I hope you didn’t miss the stirfry, the meat and mixedvegetable; carvingstations heap blood to the left, savory altars.

  To the right, three suited kinder loiter around an endtable splashed with a pinch of glitter, strewn with straws gnawed twisty white and soiled linen napkins, a surface used only to hold drinks both empty and not quite, interred glassware, alcohol displaced, discarded on the way to a drink ever fresher, a thirst new and on the rocks; sipping the remnants, they forsake the cold buffet for the hot microphone and into it mouth greetings foul to their hosts, private profanity, injokes; their younger brothers wave, make scrunched faces, make the twofinger alien ears devil horns antennæ sign, a resourceful panoply of other obscene gestures directed at the embarrassed bashfulness of their older sisters, half, a Shanda not their names but their very selves or at least their bodies, that they dance a dawdling shame with a number of older, balding menschs whose wives have already seated themselves at their assigned seats at their assigned tables and pout, moan, fight amongst themselves for possession of the plastic party favors, the Taiwanese novelty giveaways, grabbags’ swag, oversized sunglasses, glowing wizard wands. Favorite single uncles glide halfdistracted, smooth receding hair, combover, brusharound, pick at wedgies, loosen the knots of their neckties so as to give enough slack to hang themselves from the fans and fixtures in the event of extreme lonlieness or their paid escorts’ extravagant duress; other of their dates, these lesbian aunts, adjust their tight, waistteething undergarments with none watching save the assembled…a gape of mouths, set to drink, to eat and talk, with further drink to wash words down, without meaning save a warming gurgle, a bitchy burp; a fit of sneezes, croupy coughs, Gesundheit’s mouthed and thanked. A mensch obviously with the hiccoughs, his wife arrives at his side to scare him with a glass of seltzer; for her, an extra glass of ice to soothe her swelling, weepworn eyes, everything’s so wonderful, it’s just my luck, I dressed for a disaster. Other drinks more like melt are worryingly brought into balance, carried through the shot from the bar tended to upper left like the last standing wall of a godless Temple; interrupting conversations, occasional groupings of untuxed bowtie. Menschs in singlebreasts, doublebreasts, in threepieces, vested, invested to the fullest extent, as nothing’s ever optional: the invitation in one pocket, their placard placesetting in another. Who do you have to handle the divorce? You might keep me in mind.

  A mensch arriving directly from work, a doctor oncall, or that lawyer returned from emergency court, an ambulance fetch turned vehicular homicide, a businesscard dropped on a woman’s toe resulting in severe hematoma; excusing himself to the bathroom to change into his dressier suit: one arm in his shirt, one out, one leg in his pants, one out, he’s halved and hurried to let his wife know he’s here, she hadn’t noticed. Another mensch standing in the last stall, then sitting almost naked: as he ate and drank he’d spilled and food fell from him and his fork and he stained his clothing, article by item; each time he’s so klutzed with drecky luck removing himself to the bathroom and there removing under the sink and then in the stall whatever clothing stained, first his bowtie then his cummerbund, upon which he’d spilled wine, then his shirt, which he’d taken off when he’d spilled on it gravy, then off with his pants when he’d dropped his knife on them to cut between the legs, and so there he sits much to the humiliation of his wife now hurrying herself on home for another pair, a spare, without even a full meal in him or a drunk in the cooling bathroom, barechested, wearing only his underwear, womanly soft and fat.

  As for the women, their dress is formal and is called formal not for its style but for the way you have to wear it, seriously, straight of face, as a sarcastic smile or an ironic eye makes it seem all a laugh or flinch: two women in
the same dress in different colors, two women in the same dress in the same color, two of them in different dresses in the same color, then many of them in many different dresses in many different colors, laughing blush into the ear of a mensch himself struggling to hear, and to make himself heard over the din with the cocktail hour soon becoming two and the string quartet only just finishing and then overtime, they’re union…halfheard gossip, metropolitan pretense, obnoxious, mingling with Siburbia’s frustrations, quaint to most, the grip and gripe of the flighty, fleeing Developments; the dinging of silverware on glass, stemware raised then drained; a dropped tray of plates the caterers had been made to rent from the synagogue because who can trust their kashrut, what a scam; as the quartet becomes a trio, a duo, then a cellist solo; in the lobby, the pianist takes over, tinkles away with pathos enough to the cloakroom, the bathroom wait, then gives out the Gershwin like it’s money: “It Ain’t Necessarily So” not necessarily slow, though loud enough to mask the last glass and porcelain swept smash sounding at the threshold, attracting the irked attentions of the father of the bride, finally, it has to be him with his fury and forehead, then a hundred bridesmaids, a nosegay of them the bouquet caught redhanded, redfaced, the event planner and the synagogue’s socialhall manager himself to stand around and shriek tongues as if cancelled checks at the help, enjoying themselves as much as the guests, maybe even more.

  The help, they exist only in occasion, every day after night into morning’s cleanup and bagging detail, every sweeping function, life as event, as tidying up after those honored, never them. They’re tired, destroyed, just trying to save up enough to continue college, to pay off debts, loans and lovers; why not leave a tip: waiters, waitresses, tenders, and ushers who five nights a week observe only the happinesses of others, party strangers, are often even asked to participate, in saddening lieu of family or friends; they’re in all the period footage, with their hands heatscarred, with the same shiny knees and ragged cuffs and tarnished buckles, their upsets everfading, with the same listless, spent expressions for this woman in a purple minidress and pink mink stole her husband stole, how she seems to be invited everywhere, her husband not so much: an immodest neckline, her shoulders social out the ears, and, too, with an evident heft on heels so high her knees can’t breathe, a wisp of pearls she strangles with one stocky, shortfingered hand manicured in squoval, the other mauls a plate of miniaturized maize in a singularly nauseating glaze of sweet & sour…I shouldn’t, she mouths to a friend, I really shouldn’t, then crowding the tiered cake iced in her saliva: she’s on her diet again, for the love of a mensch across the hall not her husband but his brother who he holds a tumbler of water in his left, one of vodka in his right, or it’s the other way around, even he doesn’t know; they gesture lust to one another, the mating ritual of the properly insured, the sacred dance of the wellsalaried, choreographed just a step ahead of casting: all plates, knives, forks and spoons down to do the dance of the dividend, the propitiatory gesture of the seasonally bonused, yearended, quartered, the rump moves creditlined, lit and smoked with the mortgage burnt at candlelighting—them surging to the gathering of the now fed, drunk, cigarettebreaked orchestra after yet another set by the DJ whose idea was it to hire him, whose recommended references supplied…they’re playing our song, and, nu—have you heard the one about the Davidsons in B ? them liningup with their requests, fountainpenned on the napkins, linen and so costly, they’ll show up on the bill; the emcee finds a tambourine under a heap of fractured maracas; the hired dancer pulls a ham-string treyf; the plumed horses prance, knock knees, saddles slip to become leathern udders at which the magician’s bunnies suckle, they trip over each other to crash atop the impersonator and the caricaturist; the midget on stilts falls into the Vienna Table, rises to mime his survival. A glare passes over people shaking it to the silence ensuing: Hanna again, recognizable in reproduction, an embodiment of the eveningwear hangered off the rack in front of them at the front of this lesser hall—she’s busied tying a heliumed balloon within a balloon within a balloon to the back of her chair, while at the same time talking schools and teachers, standardized testing and homework tutors to her neighbor with the nose and portfolio, with the eyes observant, an orient of detail rumored, talented with such unkind acuity of gaze that could feel any face up and identify work, ID plastic surgery of what type and by which doctor at three counties’ remove.

  A wide veer into the fray again, the throng: amongst menschs dancing with menschs, this we’ve seen, but now unscreened, with the partition fallen, irreparably, a flimsy, heelholed Oriental divider, it’s also women dancing with women and with menschs, too, at first their sons, then their husbands and then their husbands’ friends and partners, dancing together to silence as if a reproach to all that’s mutual and forbidden; to effect a congaline, an enactment of an earlier reenacted hat dance and chicken dance and grind, encored by a sliding of the body electric, more chairs and most glasses raised, as the toast’s roasted, burnt, there’s smoke from the kitchen and outside the chefs stand and bum cigarettes from the dishwashers and accountants. The elderly sit still, aloof, they dab at their eyes and disapprove, check their reflections in the blades of their knives, test the sharpnesses upon their thinning wrists and throats. An obstructed view, a hollow column faux Hellenistic draped in the colors of the evening, weathered with crepe streamery, the slow snow of confetti thrown, cast banished, fallen from heaven. At the periphery of this the final shot, an ice sculpture of a swan melts slowly: people slip, trip, and fall, doctors are summoned, everyone’s a doctor, everyone’s always a doctor or is always married to one, or else knows someone who is and is a lawyer, too; the rabbi soon enters, to sermonize an argument with the help arguing with the rabbi, who rudely interrupts himself only to nod to the bride’s father who hands him an envelope the rabbi weighs for a moment then pockets, turns himself around and stoops to say a blessing over the slipped, tripped, and fallen body there, the puddled mother of the bride; the bride herself now, it has to be jilting a jolt up to her father, her lips to marry his ear and whisper pained, confide, beseech, help me, save me, I’m a little girl again…she touches his wrist, he withdraws it quickly, looks at his watch, holds it to one ear, looks at it, holds it to his other whispered then looks again, shakes his hand in a frenzy, then shakes hands all around. The film flaps through, reels out onto the floor, and the woman, the one here in this hall and dressed in the clothes Hanna would change into, maybe, tomorrow morning or upon arrival home past worried, handheld twelve, too late for her and with indigestion also, decaf dessert heartburn and its hearthlike, protective warmth for the kinder with the older sisters tonight entrusted instead of Wanda or the regular sitter, unmarried, who’d been invited to this wedding, too, along with her parents who were cousins, don’t ask her how—the matron hurls herself forward as if vomiting, to heap it all in her lap, the memory, vain tradition’s lit command: to consecrate time and space and image if only to their own furtherance, even if it’s just for purposes as obscure as hers, as this…as dark, as evil; the wall beyond is washed in white, deloused into a purity, annulled.

  Too early for morning, too late for regret, the air veined in lightning, the sun a clouded clot. Thunder. Gods are being born in the sky.

  This is why we left the Garden and moved out to Siburbia, as we’re always explaining, most of all to ourselves.

  My boy, look around you, listen, sniff the air and taste the bread your mother bought, you’re sure to understand: this is why we lit out, bringing only the candlesticks with us—why this dispersal to plot, this diaspora of the subdivision, such limitation of the eternal Development.

  Our sages say the following:

  If you have a house, you are safe. If you have a house with a lawn, you are safer; though a house with a lawn with a fence is still safest, with neighbors all around to tell you what is yours and what is theirs and to affirm that nothing will ever be both of yours, or no one’s. But if you erect a fenced and lawned house on an Island, you have
only created another Garden—and so there can only be another Fall. The familytree will be uprooted. Apples will turn to waxen wood, becoming mere ornament atop the table. A chart of the ABCs will burn. Plush dolls will lose their stuff to rage. Limbs torn from toys. And even the toys shall be allotted toys of their own to neglect. The hobbyhorse, thou wilt be lamed. LMNOPee. The crib has been moved against the window to make room for the bed, whose bedding matches the carpet, which is pink, brightened by the sun coming in past the gauzy tongue of curtain. A cedar chair cushioned in a fluff of white by the door, which even if closed is always open. A son who trusts in locks is no son of mine. A woman sits atop the chair, knitting a bootie big enough for the thumb of God; she whispers to her boy, a lullaby for the waking. Benny Cenny Denny Schlaf. If a baby lives in a room, that room is called a nursery, the knob to its door a willing nipple. Suck it in, suck it up, He’s our kaddish. Talcum breath, with hands of cream, clasped in benediction. Keep quiet. Tiptoe an inside voice, He’s sleeping.

  Without bells, or their jingling toll—the sleigh that’d brought Ben back from night and forest, its horrid, haunted, enchanted, and terrible wood, it’s a flatbed knockaround workhorse that’d been too rundown to haul a century ago; its wood unvarnished and splintering, it’s parked now in the garage below; its horselike dogs impounded from the pines romping puppy in the backyard, amid the snow of the sandbox overlooking the ice and the fieldstone, the gley and the marsh, the warehouses, the fallen stockyards and trafficlights wavering slow yellow in the wind. Across the ice, dawn rises to a vantage upon Bergen and Communipaw Cove, silence rents to own; a railway terminal with its switches abandoned, the grids of the parkinglot like empty graves stood sentry over by leaning watertowers, the lowing overpass of the holy drainage ditch, baptism by the irradiating verd of sludge—the skyways arching over the fallen industrial gardens of Joysey as if they’re the rainbows of a million different covenants, each fulfilled only at the deadend of the asphalt and its prismatic stains of oil in the miracle that is the city, founded to last any Apocalypse, as secular as steel.