Nick Bones Underground

by Phil M. Cohen

  Shelley stepped back, his hands up midway. “Now, Professor—”

  “This is the Velvet Underground. I kill you now in this room with the door closed, no one’s going to find your sorry corpse until after I’m long gone back Upstairs.” I erased the space between us and pressed the device hard into his forehead.

  “Okay, okay. Yeah, they pay me. You’re right. They pay me good.”

  “That I already know. Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “I’m just the middleman. Yeah, I know about Shmulie’s money. I tole you last time I took care of it when he was in business. I take care of it now when he’s, ah . . . ah, who the fuck knows where he is?”

  “You don’t know where Shmulie is?”

  “Look. I get an order from those nutcases over there in Brooklyn, you know, to transfer over money, how much money, and I push the right buttons and a lot of money moves.”

  “Where?”

  “You know, like where they tell me to.”

  “Where?”

  “Where they tell me is where they tell me, you know? Some big long number. I dunno what magic place it goes to.”

  “Okay, Sheldon.”

  He looked offended. “Aw, come on. It’s Shelley, Professor.”

  “Shelley. Tell me what you know about Brendun Lear Enterprises and Ladrun Beer, Inc.”

  “Yeah, well, the first one, that’s what they call what I run. The other one, they control that over there. Got nothing to do with that. That’s what they do.”

  A window of unknown proportions was beginning to pry open. “Do you have any idea what this company does? It surely isn’t a brand of beer.”

  “What do I know? I just press a few buttons and money goes from one place to them Schmeltzers and they do what they do with it.”

  “That’s your job, transfer the money on command?”

  “Well, like I tole you the last time you was here, I do a little investing, make sure the money earns money.”

  “Who else works with Shmulie’s money?”

  “Just me. I don’t think even Shmulie knows, uh, knew, everything about his money. Only me. He never cared so much for the, you know, the specifics.”

  This was weird. “How come they trust you? You’re just a miserable little shit, after all.”

  “C’mon, Professor, you don’t gotta get insulting. I mean, I jus’ tole you for the second time I know where there’s billions. That makes me kinda important, don’t you think?”

  “What do you have on Shmulie?” I asked.

  “Like, what do you mean?”

  “I mean, Shelley, why you? How do you get to be the gatekeeper?”

  “You’re right,” he said. “It’s cause of some things I know.”

  “You know what?”

  He squinted. “Things.”

  “Shmulie things?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe means maybe not,” I said.

  “Maybe not, then,” he said, and we weren’t getting anywhere.

  There was that other matter that remained from my previous visit.

  “The key, Shelley. Where’s the key?”

  He pointed to a rawhide cord around his neck.

  “I’d like it,” I said.

  “Won’t do you no good,” he said.

  “Give it to me,” I said.

  He pulled the cord over his head and handed it to me.

  “Sides, I got another one,” he said.

  “Now take me to the door it unlocks,” I said.

  “You’re shitting me,” he said. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you don’t want me shooting up this place and you with it,” I said. I took aim at the famous poster of the Phantom bent over a vulnerable and impassioned Christine Daaé hanging prominently on the wall, and I pulled the trigger. That bright orange-yellow stream of light shot out of my hand and incinerated the picture. Unhappily, it began to incinerate things around it as well.

  Tanzer grabbed a blanket from the couch, ran over to the flames, and banged on the wall with his one good arm until he succeeded in extinguishing the fire.

  “Shit fuck, man, you din’t have to do that,” he said, quite out of breath.

  “You’re correct,” I said. “But I’ll do it again, if you don’t tell me about this key.”

  “Can’t do it, man,” he said.

  “Where’s the door this key unlocks?” I waved the Zap around the room, seeking my next target.

  “Aright. Aright. I don’t really give a fuck, anyway. Those two guys messed up my place, now you want to burn it down. What do I care? C’mon. Gotta clear the smoke outta here, anyway.” He opened the door and turned left, maroon robe, pipe in his mouth and all. “Coming, asshole?”

  I followed him out of his apartment, and we walked down a tunnel. The musty odor of underground civilization brought Simone to mind. The occasional handcar passed by, their drivers off to deliver this or that to who or what. Hi ho.

  After fifteen minutes or so of walking deeper and deeper into the maze, Shelley said, “Just around the next bend.”

  Right beyond that curve stood a large sky-blue door surrounded on both sides by white stone with a large mezuzah affixed to the doorpost. I’d seen this door, no mistake about that. This door had formed the centerpiece of the objects under observation in room 42 at the World Schmeltzerite Center.

  “Here you go, Chuckles. Hope you’re happy with what’s inside. Now will you leave me alone?” Tanzer turned his back on me and slouched off to manage Shmulie’s billions and revive theater in New York City, his robe wafting in the breeze.

  ***

  The key fit the lock like my fifty-dollar green shark-skin bar mitzvah suit, with plenty of room to maneuver—though, like me in that baggy garment, the key felt at home inside that hole. I jiggled the key one way, then another, and it fell into place. I heard a slight electronic buzz as I turned it, and some mechanism moved. I turned the metal door handle and pushed. It gave way, but I had to push it hard with my shoulder. Finally, it inched open wide enough for me to squeeze in.

  ***

  Weakly illumined as it was by the few shards of dim light filtering in from the outside, I had no sense of the room’s size or content, save that near me sat a small black box resting atop a table perhaps three feet high.

  A loud click came from the box. An explosion of green light shot out of it toward the back of the room. I smelled sea spray. Out of the light, a familiar inlaid mahogany desk materialized, behind it a leather chair, and behind it a row of bookcases crammed with an infinitude of tomes. A placid ocean view appeared in the background, sand and sea, soft waves ebbing and flowing, making a low, calming sound, the sun setting. From the left, a figure casually walked behind the desk. He was dressed for a day at the beach, teal swim trunks down to his knees, sandals, sunglasses, and a flowered shirt. Atop his head rested a bright, multi-colored fedora. He carried a surfboard with Ron Jon’s Surf Shop written on the back. He leaned the board on the desk, pulled the chair out, and sat down in one smooth motion, uttering a low groan. He removed his shades.

  “Oy, my back,” he said.

  I knew that man well. I had visited with him just the other day while traveling the stratosphere at the end of my Lerbs trip.

  “Shalom, Nachman Friedman. We meet again,” said Rabbi Dovid Schmeltzer, son of Mendel, the late Kobliner Rebbe. His eyes once again focused on me, his silver cigarette lighter to his right, a pack of Camels behind the lighter, a cup of black coffee in front, steam rising insistently. A notebook lay off on the corner. This was at first glance the living Kobliner Rebbe, projected from somewhere, come to converse with me.

  “I hope you don’t mind my break from traditional rebbe garb. New times have freed me. My life’s a beach,” he said with a giggle.

  My mouth hung ajar. Dead now for a while
, yet there the Kobliner Rebbe sat, speaking to me as an aged beach bum.

  “Rebbe?” I managed to utter to the holographic image.

  “Yes,” he said, smiling playfully. “And no.” He removed his hat, revealing an equally colorful yarmulke that covered his white hair. “Ich bin. Auber ich bin nicht. Do you remember?” he asked.

  How could I forget that strange note in Yiddish a few years back when the Rebbe-as-Messiah dispute filled the Jewish world? I couldn’t interpret those words then. I surely did not understand their meaning now as I stared at a man I’d thought long dead. Could Menkies’s fantasy be true? No. Not possible.

  Aside from the peculiar attire, something else was amiss. Every image of the Rebbe I’d ever seen—Maggie might say I’d seen them all—reflected an unaffected depth of spirit, whether on video or in a photo, in paintings, and certainly in person. Call it the man’s vibe, his aura. Call it something numinous. Whatever the word, the Rebbe’s trust in the transcendent shone through like daybreak. The rendering of the Kobliner Rebbe before me possessed no such spark. Someone spiritually empty, someone cold, sat behind the Rebbe’s old desk.

  His eyes blinked a constant and perfect rhythm, each blink a replica of the previous. And the steam rising from the coffee formed a repeating cloudy pattern. In every superficial respect, the image duplicated the Rebbe flawlessly. Even the small black dot peeking beneath his mustache in the middle of his upper lip sat precisely where it ought to have. But the Kobliner Rebbe it was not.

  “You’re not Reb Schmeltzer,” I said.

  He nodded, eyes glistening amusement.

  “Very good, Nachman,” he said—in English, I realized, not Hebrew, still with the trace of an accent. “I would have disclosed myself to you soon enough. But you did not need my help. Unquestionably, you are the One I’d Man. You are the king.”

  “Who are you?”

  “As I said, Nachman, I am, but I am not. I live a duality. Dualism always seems to define my condition. In my life and now in this afterlife.”

  He picked up a cigarette from the pack on the desk and lit it with the silver lighter. He exhaled far too much smoke for one corporeal cigarette and set of lungs. He heaved a sigh of pleasure.

  “Far out. It’s a trip, man,” he said as the last of the smoke poured from his mouth and nose. “Cancer I don’t have to worry about anymore, Nachman. I’m as dead as they come. So, it’s tobacco city for me. I even switched back from Marlboros to filterless Camels.” He looked at the cigarette. “It’s not real, anyway, is it? My current interior life is totally virtual, man. Isn’t that cool?”

  “Who are you, then?” I asked.

  “As I say, I am Schmeltzer, more or less. Of that you can be certain.” He sipped his coffee and grimaced. “Too weak, dammit. They can’t seem to get the program to make coffee taste like Starbucks. Some people thought that stuff tasted like burnt garbage, but to me it tasted the way coffee should, always good to the last drop,” he said, taking another sip. “What can you do?” he asked, shrugging.

  He sipped and puffed for a few moments, the smoke defining the quarters he occupied in the room, then continued.

  “I am an amalgam, you see, of the flesh-and-blood Radbam. I have been filled from top to bottom with the contents of my prodigious writings. My letters, public talks, diaries, journalists’ accounts, videos, books about me. Not to mention the many wonder tales attributed to me, some so wild I could have never imagined them much less performed them. All of that constitutes me. Heavy, no? In a way, I’m more Schmeltzer than the flesh-and-blood guy ever was. Even my love of the sea,” he said, pointing to the ocean behind him. “All I ever wanted was to bag it all, run away to California, and hang out, hum melodies and drop acid with Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, meditate with Ram Dass, and study Zen with Alan Watts. Damn protocol.”

  Puffing some more, he lowered his head, and, leaning on his palm, he playfully stared at me, eyes raised. “Would you like to hear the letter I wrote to Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of New York City the day I got off the boat in 1934?”

  I shook my head. I’d read it a long time ago.

  “Oh yes, I see you mention that letter in a paper of yours. Clumsy of me.” He pointed his left index finger. “And now I sit before you. Every word I speak, every motion I make, every step I take are syntheses of all that’s been programmed into my unimpeachable memory,” he said with a dubious smile.

  What I saw, by definition, was heartless, physically, but I also felt it metaphorically. Suddenly, I craved Maggie’s presence. No doubt she’d illuminate.

  “Who might your creators be?” I asked.

  The Rebbe pointed to a beach chair sitting not far from the desk.

  “Pull it over and sit down, my boy.”

  I went to comply, but when I reached for it, my hand passed through like it was a fog.

  “Oh yes, oh yes, how foolish of me,” said the Rebbe, giggling. “We occupy different planes, you and I, and the chair exists on mine. Groovy.”

  I straightened.

  “My creators?” he continued. “Dualism again. There are creators. But once created I have, you might say, become the creator. I’d gladly reveal the names of my assemblers.”

  “Not necessary,” I said. “I don’t care about everyone who turned a screw or plugged in a chip to produce you. I’m interested only in knowing whose service you are in.”

  A ripple passed through the Rebbe’s holographic body. My remark seemed to entertain him.

  “You don’t get the whole picture yet, Nachman. Let me explain.” His fingers drummed on the desk. “I serve no one. No. I’m melech hamoshiach, the King Messiah. The role I once eschewed I now embrace with all my heart, or would, if I actually had one. I’m embodied in ones and zeroes, to be sure. What better condition is there for the being connected to the totality of all Being and who speaks to and for the universe?”

  That sounded no less like gobbledygook coming from Reb Schmeltzer than from Reb Menkies, though from the man now accepting the messianic mantle the line at least carried some gravitas—even if dressed for surfing in the Pacific Ocean.

  “Your builders devised you to be independent?”

  “Not exactly. Not independent. Superior.”

  “Superior to what?”

  “Don’t you mean, to whom?”

  “To whom, then.”

  A brief electronic croaking followed as if the holographic rebbe was clearing its throat.

  “Them.”

  “Who?”

  The Rebbe issued a shrill snort that bounced around the room like a ball. He took a sip of his coffee and leaned back.

  “To begin, I am well served by that comical little hazar fresser, that pork eater, who occupies my previous residence, the one who enjoys his bacon sandwiches for luncheon and pays himself more dinero in a year than I ever saw in my lifetime. He and I have more than a bit of a relationship, you see.” The mechanical eyes shifted downward for a moment. “Menkies conceived me. He lacked the brains to do the work, but he had just enough of them to build the team that assembled me.”

  The hologram stood and came to the front of his desk. With his hands he boosted himself on it and leaned toward me, attempting the old intensity, perhaps.

  “After concocting that ludicrous story of my resurrection, he started freaking out all over the place. He couldn’t go much farther down the road he was paving without help.” Here the Rebbe began chortling. “So in a way, you see, Menkies really did resurrect me. The little shit built me to run him. That piece of it was a special part of the program. My coding includes a craving to control. There you have it. The human condition in a nutshell. A man just wants to be told what to do.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Obvious, isn’t it, Nachman? I run him. It was all the good Rabbi Mush’s doing.” Another cigarette, another gargantuan cloud of ersatz smoke, the odorless fog touchi
ng me.

  “Without me, you know, these so-called Schmeltzerites would still be spending their time eating ribs and burnt-end baked beans at Fette Sau’s in Williamsburg on Friday nights instead of internationally vanguarding something new. Which is what they do through my messianic interventions in their otherwise meaningless lives.” He sipped the coffee and grimaced.

  “Okay. So, they still love Fette Sau’s, best ribs in Brooklyn,” he admitted. “I’ll never get my mind around a bunch of guys in streimels ordering ribs on Friday night and humming melodies, but I don’t control everything. Some delusions of freedom must remain. Humans are fond of their delusions.”

  The hologram returned to the chair, put his sunglasses on, and turned toward the ocean. “I never made it to California. Well, once for a meeting of my emissaries. But I never got to Venice Beach to hang ten and smoke weed. Bummer.”

  He turned back. “But I did accomplish something my former self could not, something a scholar like you would love to know about.”

  “And are you going to tell me?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well?” I said.

  He turned back to me and folded his hands atop the desk. “I have a small truth to tell you, Nachman. I believed for a long time I was the Messiah. I acknowledge this in several diary entries. But the old me was afraid of the role, so I remained silent while occupying flesh and blood.”

  “Silent? Why?”

  “You know why. You’ve written on it. Because all the old messiahs crapped out, did more harm than good. So, I kept it my secret to the grave, and never acted on it.”

  He reunited with the ocean view, now a full moon rising.

  He was right, of course. The history of claimants to messianic thrones among the Jews was the story of disasters, big and little, mostly big—gargantuan, actually. If what this Schmeltzer said was correct, the old Schmeltzer repressed an impulse to that role for the good of his followers, knowing some ideas were best left as ideas. But this new Schmeltzer’s constructors erased that repression, and out popped a thing that declared itself to be the redeemer of the Jews.

  He turned back. “I weekly feed Menkies bits of goo with which to nourish his flock,” he said. “He engages in building for me a herd out of which I am making the Next Big Thing.” He smiled as another ripple coursed through the scene, beginning at one end of the desk and concluding at the other. “Every Tuesday afternoon he dresses up like a clown. To that crowd of cretins that rolls steel balls in their hands, he says ‘Jump,’ and they say, ‘How high, rabbi? How high?’”