Nick Bones Underground

by Phil M. Cohen

  “This is the part where we always get the new rules,” my neighbor said.

  Yitzi said, “I asked, ‘What is this news?’ The Rebbe reached into his pocket, and pulled out a scroll. Yes, a scroll.”

  A gasp filled the room.

  “It’s always a scroll,” my neighbor said.

  “What did it say? What did it say?” asked the assembled.

  ‘“Purim is coming,’ the Rebbe said to me. ‘The Feast of Esther. So very long ago the wicked Haman sought to destroy the Jewish people.’” At the mention of Haman, a powerful hissing filled the room.

  “‘Yes?’ I asked the Rebbe,” Menkies said.

  Menkies’s body moved to the rhythm of the music of the spheres.

  “The Rebbe continued, ‘To honor the Jewess, Queen Esther of Persia, you must redeem yourselves.’

  “‘How?’ I asked the Rebbe.

  “‘You must cleanse yourselves,’ said he.

  ‘“But how?’ I asked him. ‘How, how do we cleanse ourselves?’”

  Yitzi looked out, above our heads, as though the words were written high on the opposite wall. He stretched out both of his gloved hands, palms down, one grasping the cane.

  “Here it comes,” said my neighbor.

  “And the Rebbe opened the scroll and read from it, a proclamation for the ages.”

  Yitzi stood on tiptoes, hands aloft, eyes aimed high.

  ‘“Cleansing the body and cleansing the soul are linked, one and the same,’ the Rebbe said to me. ‘Bathe well before Purim.’”

  Some divine revelation. Take a bath.

  A hum of appreciation and acceptance filled the room as heads bowed up and down with apparent enthusiasm.

  Menkies continued, ‘“Is there more?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A gift everyone can buy for themselves or their loved ones,’ he said to me.”

  “Something just terrific is coming,” my informant told me.

  Menkies continued, ‘“Yes?’ I said, and the Rebbe said, ‘With the coming of Purim, treat yourself to a bag of Rebbe swag. A bag full of fun stuff. Candy, cookies, soap, pens, paper and so much more all packed in a lovely tote bag.”

  Piano music filled the air, followed by a female singer who sang,

  Buy a bag of Rebbe swag,

  a sack full of terrific fun

  Twenty-five bucks is all it costs

  To keep you on the run

  So that was it. That was the message: Buy a bag of junk in an impoverished world.

  “But wait,” said Yitzi to the crowd. “There’s more.”

  “There’s more,” whispered the crowd.

  “The Rebbe said to me, ‘Yitzi, tell your people that cleansing embraces giving, and giving means growing, and growing means bringing more and more people to Schmeltzer.’”

  My neighbor commented, “It’s often about giving. In fact it’s always about giving. We need reminding.” He removed his wallet from his pocket and pulled out his phone and turned on the UniPay.

  “‘How may we give?’ I asked the Rebbe,” Menkies said. “And my friends, the Rebbe removed his jacket, rolled up his left sleeve, and revealed a tattoo. I looked close, and, my friends, I beheld the image of the Rebbe, a Rebbe tattoo right there on the Rebbe’s arm.”

  Oohs and aahs filled the room and in unison 200 voices whispered, “A Rebbe tattoo.”

  “Yes,” said Yitzi. “Show loyalty to Schmeltzer, manifest your ISE by wearing him on your arm always.” Yitzi removed his coat, rolled up his sleeve, and there on his upper arm sat the image of Reb Schmeltzer, black fedora, white square beard, looking upward and leftward.

  “‘Imagine, Yitzi,’ the Rebbe said to me, ‘if all our devotees got the tattoo. We could identify ourselves to each other wherever we roam. All we’d need do is roll up our sleeves.’”

  “Roll up our sleeves,” the crowd whispered.

  “Roll up your sleeves!” Yitzi commanded, and 200 left arms were revealed. “Now point to your left bicep.” And 200 fingers pointed to 200 biceps. “There shall you have the Rebbe tattooed. Go to an Official Schmeltzer Tattoo Parlor and for just eight hundred dollars you can both give and you can receive.”

  Yitzi allowed the room to become quiet after the thunderous applause. Looking lovingly at his flock, he took a step back and opened his mouth. “Do you want to know what else happened in my dream?” Yitzi asked, as though the demand to get tattooed did not suffice.

  “Yes,” came the response drenched in reverence.

  “Usually the Rebbe’s message is it,” said my new friend into my ear. “This is exciting.”

  Yitzi said, “In my dream, I turned to the Buddha sitting in the lotus position so peaceful and satisfied. ‘Buddha, buddy,’ I said. ‘Yes, Yitzi,’ he answered. ‘Buddha,’ I said, ‘tell me. How do we get off the wheel?’”

  My neighbor leaned into me and said, “That’s the Dharmachakra, the symbol of life’s burdens, the means to escape the constant return.”

  All right, so this guy didn’t know I’d been teaching Buddhism for a couple of millennia and I knew that the concept of the wheel was just a bit more complicated than that. I nodded in thanks.

  ‘“Don’t think of it as one wheel,’ the Buddha said to me. ‘Think of it as two wheels connected by pipes and wires, which you ride through this world of suffering. You ride and you ride, around and around you go, where you stop nobody knows. But if you do your duty, someday you dismount. You will have arrived at the end.’

  ‘“The end?’ I asked the Buddha. ‘Yes,’ said he to me. ‘The end.’ Then the Buddha faded. But briefly he returned. ‘If I’d had one of those in my day, I wouldn’t have this,’ the Buddha said. He patted his belly; then he vanished for good.”

  Yitzi paused, then asked the crowd, “What do you think he meant by the end?”

  Silence.

  “I have not the slightest idea what he’s talking about,” my neighbor said.

  Yitzi said, “In my dream I was now in my old apartment and it was Shabbos. A knock on my door, and once again the Rebbe stood on the other side.” A vast oohing rose from the crowd. “He looked at me and said, ‘Gut Shabbos, Yitzi. This is what the Buddha said to me. We should all get on our bicycles and ride and ride around the park and strive to understand. We ride our bikes, we drink herbal tea, go underground, chat with our computers. If we’re lucky, we make our way to the end of the case and find our old friend.’”

  I raised my head and looked at Yitzi. He was looking at me, directly at me.

  My neighbor leaned into me and said, “That message was unusual. I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

  The deep voice that introduced the service now cut in and said, “Thank you all for coming. Please do not forget to make your donations on your way out. Today, in addition to someone taking your gift through the UniPay app, we will be pleased to sell you a bar of Rebbe Cleanser at the special price of only eighteen dollars. Now please rise for the Schmeltzerite Anthem.”

  Everyone rose. A short, aged figure with a pencil mustache entered and stood beside Yitzi. Dylan. Amazing. Dylan was going to lead the Schmeltzerite Anthem. Did he write it? He produced a harmonica, blew a clean C note, and as he began singing, with immense gravity, the crowd joined in.

  The Rebbe came, the Rebbe went.

  Then the Rebbe came back again.

  He brought us hope

  To help us cope

  within this world of sin.

  So we thank the Rebbe and we thank our God,

  whoever He may be.

  We perform the task

  Of which we are asked

  And we never disagree.

  We are the men and women of Schmeltzer

  We eat our pork and drink our seltzer

  And when the going gets tough

  We do our stuff

  For Go
d, for us, for Schmeltzer.

  Not exactly “The Times They are a Changin’,” I thought, but interesting enough in its way.

  People shook hands and hugged. Dylan hugged Yitzi. The room emptied quickly and quietly. Perhaps they were rushing off to the nearest Official Schmeltzer Tattoo Parlor.

  Buy a bag of swag and get a tattoo, today’s message from the other side. And, of course, get off the bike. None of it anywhere near as thoughtful as “Thou shalt not kill,” but people needed to believe; the more ridiculous, the better. It helped if it cost money—better if it cost a lot of money.

  I lingered in the foyer, staring at the giant painting of the late Rebbe Schmeltzer as folks deposited their offering in his mouth, flabbergasted. A few minutes later, back in jeans and a T-shirt, Yitzi returned to fetch me. “Come,” he said, slapping me on the back like we were old pals. “We’ll go to my office for lunch.”

  He linked arms with me and walked me from the foyer to a room off the side. It was small, lined with bookshelves doubtless at one time filled with books, now nearly empty. On the shelves rested a compact, odd assortment of books of various religious traditions as well as some of their ritual objects, save that on the last of the bookcases sat a collection of books mostly in German, the most prominent of which was Mein Kampf. Several chairs were scattered randomly about. Yitzi gestured to a chair near the table. At the end of the line of bookcases was another door leading to some place deeper in the building. Above the door was the number 42. Odd coincidence, I thought. Directly to the right of the door hung a Chagall etching. I recognized it immediately, the biblical Moses kneeling before the burning bush, hand on his heart, with the letters of God’s divine name hovering above the Bush: Moses and the Burning Bush.

  I walked over; it was the original. I looked at Yitzi with amazement.

  “How in the world did you acquire this?” I said. “I have no idea what it’s worth, but this is no piece of art like you’d buy at an art show in the Village back in the day for a few bucks.”

  Yitzi smirked. “We have our donors,” he said.

  “Why isn’t it hanging downstairs in the foyer?”

  “It’s mine,” he said. “Some things I don’t share with my people.” He turned toward the table. “Please, sit. Lunch?”

  I was hungry and accepted the invitation. Menkies pulled out his phone, pushed a button. With authority he said, “The usual, times two.”

  When he replaced the phone in his shirt pocket, I asked, “Any chance I can have a peek at the tattoo?”

  “Of course.” He rolled up his sleeve to reveal an inky Kobliner Rebbe, that familiar pose, eyes gazing toward infinity.

  “Catch this,” he said. He flexed his bicep, and the Rebbe smiled. “Stretching the Rebbe I call it.”

  “You expect everyone’ll get this tattoo?”

  “They’re an obedient lot, my Hasidim. On Monday night the Rebbe says, ‘Jump.’ On Tuesday they say, ‘How high?’ I have followers all over the world, you know. Hundreds of thousands. With luck I’ll acquire thousands more.”

  “What about all the books laid out in the beis midrash?” I asked, recalling the great variety of material spread on the tables.

  “Fodder,” he said. “It pales in comparison to what happens Tuesday afternoon when I give ’em the word.”

  I considered the riches about to be generated by Menkies’s followers paying nearly a thousand dollars for a three-inch-by-two-inch tattoo. With that kind of dough he could buy all the original Chagalls he wanted.

  “You’ve written a book,” I said.

  “Oh, that thing,” he answered. “Yes. Can’t take credit for it, really. It’s the Rebbe’s doing. His return wrought major changes. I merely reflected upon them in my own hand, so to say. You’ve read it?”

  “Not yet. I only learned of its existence yesterday. It appeared on a shelf in my library as if by magic.”

  He smiled. “My book has the habit of doing that. You’ll read it?”

  “I imagine what I’ve seen here in the last hour is a good representation of the book.” Like lying to a gullible audience and ordering them to spend nearly a grand having their arms stuck with needles after they’ve taken a bath with Rebbe soap. And Bob Dylan? What luck.

  “Yes, but in the book I lay down the theoretical framework for all that’s happened since the Rebbe’s return.”

  “About the title—”

  “Yes?”

  “The Land of No-Mind. What does it mean?”

  A knock on the door interrupted our conversation. “Come in,” Yitzi said.

  A tall young man entered wearing a robe rivaling the biblical Joseph’s, bright colors in vertical stripes. On his head sat an equally colorful yarmulke covering his entire head. He rolled in a wagon bearing our lunch, two BLTs, each sandwich thick with Canadian bacon, as well as two teapots, and some pastries. He placed a sandwich and teapot before each of us.

  “That will be all,” Yitzi said.

  The man bowed slightly and left the room.

  I removed the bacon from my sandwich, scraped off the mayonnaise as best I could, and began eating my defatted vegetarian sandwich. Menkies eyed my activity.

  “I’m a vegan,” I explained. “Haven’t eaten meat in more than two years. First time I’ve had even a whiff of mayo for a long time.”

  Yitzi nodded sagely. “Can I have your bacon?”

  I pointed at the meat sitting on a napkin. “Go to town.”

  He inserted my bacon into his sandwich.

  “I prefer barbecued ribs, but they’re so messy, and there’s never enough meat on the bone. Always hungry for another rib,” he said as he chowed down on his sandwich. “The Land of No Mind,” he said with his mouth full. “We are the Land of No Mind, Nicky, right here in South Park Slope.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that traditional religious categories have been defied by the Rebbe’s return. The old ideas have fallen into irrelevancy.”

  “Such as?”

  “That truth underlies any religion. We live in postmodern times when true and false are, how to say, interchangeable. We believe that whatever one religion or another teaches is their truth. That’s what we celebrate here, the end of the truth and the beginning of the untruth.”

  “So, what do you mean by the Land of No Mind?”

  “It means that we must surrender our minds to something greater and higher.”

  “And that is?”

  “We call it the Untruth Itself, the UI,” he said, picking up a cloth napkin and wiping mayonnaise from his cheek.

  “The Untruth Itself?”

  “We teach the total surrender of our minds to a mind greater than ours, for we have brought them to the precipice of Mind beyond mind. The return has brought to us the New Thought Idea. NTI is about living in a time when nothing is true, except what Schmeltzer says is true.”

  In the distance I thought I heard a drummer making that sound they did ending with a cymbal crash to offset a bad joke on late-night television, when such things were still among us.

  “You advocate the surrender of independent thinking for the sake of living the untruth?” I asked, attempting to make sense of this gobbledygook.

  “The Rebbe wants us to think, just not too much and not about such things that he hasn’t said we should think about. Only what He commands is true.”

  Menkies leaned back, aiming his nose and eyes at me, rubbing his chin, an attempted display of raw intellect. But a philosopher or the Kobliner Rebbe he surely was not. He was merely Menkies.

  “At this stage in their development,” he continued, “the people are unable to grasp the NTI independently. The concept of No Mind means they must be open to All Mind or One Mind, brought to them through someone else’s mind. Like the male to the female, they enter the All Mind, and they are engulfed. To get there, the Rebbe directs u
s through sightings and my dreams, which they faithfully accept. It’s the only faith they need anymore. What I teach rests in the forefront of their minds.”

  He rose, flicked the crumbs off of his shirt, and leaned into his chair.

  I understood. Menkies was the male, and his followers were the female. Every Monday the Rebbe appeared to Menkies, and every Tuesday he fucked them.

  He pulled at a lone hair extending from his lower lip. “We are living in true messianic times. Nicky, we are bigger than the Kobliners ever were.”

  “And you are the conduit into Paradise, right?”

  “You might say that,” he said, modesty pouring from his lips like corn syrup. Menkies wiped more mayo from the sides of his mouth. “So, Nicky, it’s been, what, forty years?”

  I nodded.

  “Funny,” he said. “You walk in here and we recognize each other instantly. Two old friends from the yeshiva. You don’t look any different. I’m not lying, Nicky.”

  I beheld Yitzi. Short with small, mouse-like eyes and buckteeth. “And you look just like the old days, too, Yitzi. Time’s a funny thing,” I agreed.

  “So true,” answered Yitzi as he sat down, holding silent for a moment, perhaps contemplating the years we were now reeling in. His tone became darker. “All this time I don’t see you. You don’t email, call, text, or come over, even after I became the rebbe. You, the great analyst of my movement, you never seek an interview. Today, you waltz in off the street. It doesn’t take a sage to realize maybe you want something.”

  Time to get down to it. “I believe you might have information about Shmulie Shimmer.”

  Silence. He put his elbows on the table, and rested his head in his palms.

  “What do you want to know about him?”

  “I’m trying to find him.”

  “Find him?” He scratched his chin. “Isn’t he living in parts unknown?”