by Joshua Cohen
I’m Adam, the kid begins again, turning and straining up to face His lean against the scrollmarked jamb, Adam Steinstein…your name I already know, who doesn’t—Israelien, it’s nice to meet you.
Ben waves him come in, come in, what else to do…it’s the birthright of Hanna’s hospitality, an apology for the mess inherited—He leads him inside, asking feel like a bite of brunch?
Thoughtful but no.
Just dropping by to check in, Steinstein begins babbling, how you’re getting along…as if he’s trying to remember how he is himself—that’s wonderful, everything to your liking, and my what a beautiful robe…from down the block, you know, I’m new in town and yadda; it’s painful, this kid trying so hard, and why. Help me out, Ben, I’m supposed to be your friend. He follows Him in through the hall past the coatcloset, then to the kitchen’s nook, the table where Hanna had always received her guests informal, though today more like sloppy, slobby, filthing; them taking their seats opposite each other, across the round—the kid’s still in his coat and boots, has tracked in dirty snow over the mat without wiping, then over the tile to melt the frozen mud in tiny prints, where’s Wanda?
Your friend, Steinstein says again, yours: they asked me to be, last night, then they told me to be, I admit it, damn it…I can’t keep secrets, especially from you—we can’t have any secrets from each other, we’re supposed to be too close. They said: make nice, find out what He likes, baseball, chess, what have you…and as Steinstein talks he takes from a pocket of his pants a fold of shredded white, then removes the lick of paper inside, lays it on the table. Ben scratches Himself in the crotch. Says Steinstein, I’m no good at this, no good…they slipped me an envelope, under my pillow while I was out yesterday at meals. And then a note atop the pillow. It said, check under your pillow. Thanks, I thought, I did. I found this and opened it, no choice. Neither do you, while I’m at it. And I’m curious, no aveyra. I’m no expert at opening envelopes…I don’t unseal, I rip, I tear. Excitable, I guess. I’m not proud. It’s a check. For services rendered. Pay to the order of, it says, zero zero over a hundred and signed…but what I want to know is, how the hell am I supposed to cash it?
Steinstein is small and smart and healthily pale, with a ready receptivity and openness as if the whole world’s his for the having.
Tell me, what are you into, what’s your thing, relevant hobbies, interests, sports and girls, your shteyger…he’s innocent, inexperienced, all that recommends if you’re into it, the openfaced, the openpalmed, have mercy. Quick and happy to be in a house again after a week or so spent bunked. How old are you, and what grade are you in…what’s on teevee, have you recently taken any vacations whether alone or with the family? I’m lonely myself, I miss my mother. Steinstein, where He’d heard that name before He can’t recall…almost impossible that He could’ve, He thinks, as he’s Texas, Steinstein says, and as to exactly where within that enormity he says to everyone from Houston by which everyone should understand a exurb thereof, safe and removed and he knows it, too. Faroff, ranging. In his eyes, which are full plate round, as if headlights, or like those of the wildlife his father’s truck would hit and run and kill: the guileless, alienlike eyes of a boy who’s been allowed to develop an interest in anything, who’s been always encouraged, supported with hugs, kisses, and creditcard, clubbed silver, gold, sky’s limit. His mouth and ears are open only to the speaking and hearing of his own. And his skin, the skin of a boy who’s spent his entire short life inside. Amid the airconditioned. Here, the heating’s pulsing, coming steaming up from baseboard. They sit close to one another with the napkins in the middle and the salt and pepper shakers and the check. Their intimacy the immediate brotherhood bond of the fortunate, that of those bred to be mutually understood, understandable to one another and, also, to their God. It’s obvious, pitifully, that nothing’s ever been denied him, not even his dissatisfaction, not even the forthcoming brag: I’ve never wanted, how I’ve been totally without need until now. Nothing denied him, that is, with the exception of the darkness: the community of those who hate even their own conspiracies of hating, with their Development plans sixmillionpointed, both bulleted and less violently conspired—from lynch murder on down to forbidding you the favor of their sisters. All mostly memory, though, a telling: how my grandfather had found it difficult to find a house, a store; they’d burn crosses on his lawn and pinch his wife. As Steinstein talks, Ben less listens than stares at his teeth, it’s impossible not to: those white perfect drops of bone, like mints to sweeten the tongue and breath. And with his hair perfectly styled, slicked. His nails, pared round, refined. It’s envy, a jealousy they both understand, an animal covet: as Ben’s so obviously special, to Steinstein then to others more powerful than him what with their governments and money. Despite their mutual birthright, because for however short the kid had had a life. What’s it been, thirteen years. And Ben, born only weeks ago. A family loving, or if not that then living, even if Steinstein’s parents had been divorced and his sister she’d married Baptist. Possessions he could break. Relationships and shtum. Steinstein had had other friends before.
Workers are finishing up around them, coiling the cords to drills, folding up their stepladders. A last team’s accomplishing the filling of the final high kitchen cabinets aside those of the finery, the flutes and sacral cups, the pitchers fancy and plain, silver polished only to dull, in the reflection of the vases Sabbath and weekly still awaiting their flowers, always, those for the hallways’s plinths and tables and those of pink plastic for use on the porch, above the webworked, gluehandled mugs for Hanna’s afternoon tea, Israel’s crapulous coffee dawn, rows of them with their handles arranged out displaying wonderful logo to the sides: I Heart My Aba, Wakawaka Securities—His father had gotten that one for free, as a special gift to our valued investors—First International Plenary Session on Lead Insult, which’d been held down in Atlanta, or maybe that was Texas, too, Dallas/Fort Worth, who remembers with Israel dead and nothing remaining save the giveaway junk, ask Steinstein. Two workers left, they’re removing what’s still to be removed from its swaddling, stocking future Kiddush into the cabinets beneath: the bottles, his father’s blood glassed in glass and boxed in wood, his Shabbos wine; Rothschilds, Carmels without bouquet, Herzogs and many Schewitz’s, too many of them red and white and blushing both, watered down, which was Hanna, who didn’t like gouty Israel to indulge, wouldn’t much encourage. Steinstein and Ben try their best to ignore them as they finish up and leave, disappear, some upstairs-upstairs, others to partially unfinish the basement below. All this help and still no brunch, no morning food and drink, it’s unexpected. A perplex. What’s the meaning, the purpose, how we’re both too young for that. Whatever happened to the life that a house like this would’ve promised, should’ve, we were sure. Negligible, perhaps, but it’s no small thing to feel secure. Here this Steinstein sits unknowingly in the seat of His father, Israel if he’d ever make it home from work in time for sitting, Ben in what sister’s He’d never know, them both just waiting to be served, they’ve never served themselves: everything’s always come to them, kept coming, was given, handedover; the placesettings, the where and who ate first and talked and daydescribed, in order, the culinary cosmology of courses and the breakages of silence, of bread and bad news, the table on the floor flooring the basement sunk deep to ballast a house on an Island, now uprooted, dispossessed; how they’re islands themselves, made victims again of splitting water and historical weather—and yet with such knowledge stolen from their brothers dead for sharing amongst they who would survive so chosen all Steinstein can give Him is this I’m lonely shtick, saccharined tea I miss my mother spieling, the coffee creamed and sugary snivelfather…him gesturing with his hands as if this isn’t his native language (this tongue and, too, his giddy innocence within it), asking Him what kind of name’s Israelien, Ben that’s short for what—saying, I’m just so excited about my upcoming barmitzvah…
I’m excellent at math, and once played
a solid outfield.
Then Steinstein springs up—he can’t sit still and won’t stand for it, what his mother used to say—to make his way through the kitchen finished since and emptied of workers to pace in place opposite the mirroring fridge at the edge of the hall to the stairs: to open it on his ownsome, the fridge then the freezer adjoining and then the fridge again, there ransacking around for a moment then shutting the door so helpless. You know how it goes…the fridge’s full, and there’s nothing left to eat. He turns to Ben and smiles, blushing, I have to meet the rabbi soon, I’m supposed to be studying. He pauses, thinking: I’m supposed to stop by, supposed to say hello…I’m supposed to do so much of everything that you’d think my parents didn’t die, like everybody else’s. It’s all the rules without inducement, like what’s the benefit of being good anymore, what’s in it for me. I mean, look at the check. Eighteen dollars, can you believe. Cheap schmucks. I’m not a kid anymore, thirteen soon enough though I’ve lost track of days. I was once a Pisces. He turns to the display digitally greened on the panel of the microwave. Is that right? They even set the time? On the wall in the hall above a countertop with the telephone, the pads and pens, the calendar’s still tacked on to December, the twentyfifth is circled Bris; next week’s the dentist for Liv, then the optometrist, or maybe the opthalmolgist what’s the difference they always ask and their parents have to explain even though they’re not quite sure what besides more money and more schooling, with Rubina to head to Florida with friends for the New Year, a friend’s grandmother out in Boca or South Beach, they forget but maybe trust her. Rabbi Schneer, Steinstein’s talking as he flips through the weeks, their ribboned Monday to Sunday days still in their boxes, wrapped in blank for the mourning—you know him, he’s short, like about my height and always with the hat. And fat. Bad teeth. Insists on his ordination, swears he had a mega pulpit, though word is he was only a chaplain; you know, like he prayed for the Army. He has me going over the letters, the words…my speech, he calls them prepared remarks: Welcome one & all, I’m supposed to say, strangers & survivors…he’s quick with the praise, knows to keep it interesting with chocolate candy. Steinstein, a wonder—they gave him God and he goes and finds his own belief, a faith to keep Him going. His mother always said he was a good boy. He’d been the king of the eighth grade.
He stares Ben in the face, searching out His eyes, the watery, venous empathetic.
What do you think’s next—for us, I mean, a future?
We studied this the other day, and he’s twitchy, scratching himself a rash on his neck: that we’re the last of our kind, and that we don’t have any women, not anymore, they didn’t have to tell me that—that our women were what made more of our kind of our kind; they made us, they made us us. Steintstein leans back against the counter. Affiliated, what’s that supposed to mean? What do they expect from me, Affiliation? He turns to wander, not back toward the brunchnook, the lox and capering cranny, but out into the hall and around the house. Forcing himself to perk, don’t forget to smile. Show me your room, he says, your parent’s, everything—him even venturing down into the basement as Ben waits His shame at the stairhead to be told what’s to be found down there, then taunted because He’s afraid though gently. Upstairs again, talked out. Bored already in his mandate, his curiosity thoroughly discharged. Steinstein peeks into the familyroom, pokes into the livingroom, take the given-room, the den, grabbing from its mantel and tables framed photographs of His sisters, feeling them up in his hands and so getting his smudging prints on their glasses as he fills them out, too, in his mind, with his hands, tilting to light up skirts, then facing down as if to pocket waists and shadowed cleavage, to steal their images and so, immortal souls, making rude insinuations with his lips he apologizes for with the flirty lashes of his eyes. His eyes black, with theirs a flashy red. At Ben’s approach, he replaces them disordered but turned to the wall, then settles on a sofa alongside a scatter of last month’s unopened mail to tap a foot and wait.
In time, a telephone rings in the house, all extensions, and Steinstein’s startled, flushes…there’s a far voice—who is it…is it for me, and Ben would answer but the receiver gives only tone.
Steinstein rises to meet Him in the hall hanging up, then the two of them head together toward the door.
Again it’s the front, through which no intimate guest would pass whether in entry or exit.
Steinstein saying it’s been fun…actually, really, I had a good time, great to meet you.
And Ben says thank you and you’re welcome both, He’s not sure which might be appropriate.
He opens the door for him: the stoop’s descent to the lawn and its edging drive before snowedover, now cleared, and cleared of the firstborns, too, who are boys no more though working still. A brotherhood of the frozen, they’re more like white themselves, less boychicks young and healthy than a stranger species of globoid mutant idol: frost babies swaddled in a wasting crystal flak. His new friends, apparently, they’re supposed to be, though He recognizes none of them, why would He: these firstborns turned rolypoly, fattened with freeze, though still laboring with shovels, having saved the stoop and the path of slate and the double driveway of asphalt toward the triple garage from the very substance of which they’re presently made; the tripartite snow that rounds their legs and stomachs and their greatglobed, roughhewn heads…the flurry that holds their arms of gnarled sticks, that steadies them and their wet, tenpronged leafless twigs. Each of them is a making of three huge hunks of weather, all of them piled atop one another then packed hard and dense into a mensch; fraternally frosted golems drifted into animation, they’ve been made and put to work then destroyed, too, then remade again by the wind gusting thickly, pitiless; or else on orders of, maybe, a gesture of goodwill. They’re rolling low to hurriedly heave their last spadefuls, to scoop the final white away while savaging for themselves a handful only, a meager ball, a fruit’s mere clod this modest dig, with which to repack themselves ever tighter to withstand work’s unmaking winter, and to survive, also, the lowing, rolling effort of their shift. To rummage through the plastic inside the rubber, amid the trashcans rowed and stowed under a shingled hutch to the side of the house—in frantic search of button eyes, noses of broken parsnip, turnip ears, a mouth of scrapped tinfoil. The garbage rebagged, recanned. Trash taken out again for another pickup. To shovel the snow to the troughs of the sledges waiting just beyond the fence’s gate, which are then hauled by dogs far out from the Island and onto the ice that’s stilled the vale of Joysey, its hardened wetland rim—there to firm the icy stuff into the forms of other boys, companions: inanimate, whitefaced godlets; survivors made in the image most familiar…to ward off the crows, the flightless boredom, unwinged idle.
Steinstein takes himself down the carefully salted slates and out into the day, whistling as he passes through the fenced gate then greets with a soft Shalom and a tiny wave a small group of the larger, older boys—they once were. Snowmenschs now, working out toward the far rim of the lawn to the west, they’re bending at the knees, which are clumps of ice flexed warm with their effort, exhausting, the melt of falter, their heaving the little strip of Israelien sidewalk naked, their shovels scraping metal on tar giving way with the puddling of self to rubble into gravel: an access road approaching the Great Hall, the frontage of which has already been cleared and kosherly salted, too, to prevent a slip, a broken life. Rain is known: it’d caused the crops to grow as Eden, then Adam sent His widow Lillith out to bring in the sheaves of the harvest. These widows found us in the field and there they married us, and then we were made and grown. And the field became a lawn. But snow. As we are told, there are two kinds of snow. One is pure, it’s said, and the other that’s not. It’s from here that it’s understood, said in the name of forecasters to come. One kind is the stuff of the boys—the firstborns out early on a Sunday and working before brunch; it’s dense, it’s hard. As pure as it is real—an actuality, a world, its presence thorough, round and lasting. As for the oth
er, impure kind—it’s the favorite blanket, the comforting coverlet, the falsifying dust. That both are white is a matter of discernment. Of discrimination. A test of our very soul. From discarnate darkness, a lightning vein, then a shriek of thunder—the entire world is lit. The bunched and bundled boys turn to face the east, the quarter from which weather issues, the womb of the stillborn sun. All glare their whitest purest faces. Ben stands at His door above His lawn, raising His eyes from Steinstein’s cautious path, the gate in the fence, which is little and without latch, the sidewalk then up to the heavens, up to Heaven. West, He’s turned away. To nail a lid to a windblown cloud. A knife cutting flash the furthest dim. Far becomes near, and has always been, or hasn’t: the beaches cold, picnicbaskets blown…the benches overturned, the boarded summer cottages—then, the tankers floating out in the slushy open ocean: their cargo, blood, drained. Liberty stands. Her torch holds the lightning, smoke. From its reach springs a pillar of fire.
We asked the questions—and anything they answered we questioned again and again. And this was how it worked for generations, in every land and in all its languages forever. Call it a parasitic symbiosis, call it Ishmael—just don’t call it late for dinner, was the joke. Some years, some centuries, were better than others. America, for one. The here and now, the recently at least.
For us, no questions were forbidden—they were all our sons, and however they were born to us we loved them; we brought them up without an image, letting them take whatever form they would. As for our firstborn son, we named him Why? In every generation, he’s born beautiful, which is forgivable, and brilliant, which can be forgiven, too, but he’s also born blessed and chosen, and so is hated by the world. As he is pure and peaceful, he’s killed and dies without a thought. In every generation. We are proud, and loud with grief, and so we mourn him by praying his own name.