Are You Listening, Rabbi Löw

  ‘O christ I knew it. Just so his old friends couldn’t be at the crematorium. Poor guy couldn’t resist, he had to have his funeral in the celebrity limelight at that fancy crypt of his in front of all those Hollywood creeps in that big mausoleum they got out there. Sorry Matron, you wouldn’t understand, I’m just talking to myself.’

  ‘Mr Duke is not dead Mr Schultz.’

  ‘What. You mean he’s living.’

  ‘Yes perhaps not quite as vigorously as you appear to be, but in fact from the brink of death, his condition improved sufficiently for him to be flown out to be operated on in California.’

  ‘You mean he could get cured healthy again.’

  ‘It’s entirely possible. Mr Duke has a remarkable fighting spirit. Might one assume this to come from the world of show business Mr Schultz.’

  ‘You bet it does. Or you ain’t in that world long.’

  ‘Mention of your description to him seemed to suddenly stir him back into life. Although I can’t say that he was pleased to hear of your visit.’

  ‘Holy shit. Excuse the language Matron.’

  ‘Of course. We occasionally hear such four letter word used in this hospital, but not usually preceded by the word holy. And now may we get back to our rather present difficulty which I see, is an extremely awkward matter indeed. And how on earth could you have done this Mr Schultz. What do you propose to do Mr Kahn.’

  ‘Make an incision in the scrotum wall either side along the zipper which has caused severe abrasion to the dartos and external spermatic fascia. And thus with a cut, remove the undamaged skin from the zipper. There appears no penetration to the testicle spheres. There’s slight oedema. And suture.’

  ‘I’ve got a few moments Mr Kahn perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I observed.’

  ‘I’d be most grateful and honoured Matron if you would.’

  ‘Holy jeez I’m losing skin. And if suture means god damn sewing is there any risk to my balls with needles sticking in them.’

  ‘Not to worry Mr Schultz. We’re referring to a cut in a thin layer of the loose reddish tissue here which is amply endowed with contractility and which is of a very elastic and stretchable nature. And you can afford to lose some. In fact very much more than one could lose in a face lift which would resemble this operation. Please don’t be alarmed.’

  ‘Hey Matron pardon my conversation but christ you’re not going to face lift my testicles, my whole life is located down there.’

  ‘Mr Kahn I think you might be better able to discuss this with Mr Schultz.’

  ‘Yes Matron. Now Mr Schultz. Many of us are in the same position with our organs of regeneration. And I assure you that I will treat yours with the same respect as I would treat my own. Indeed a little tightening up will do no harm at all except for the testes being slightly more snug and hanging a little higher. Just as one might pull one’s socks up so to speak as they say in England.’

  ‘As Matron of this hospital, Mr Schultz I also assure you Mr Kahn is one of our very best suturers. Now put your head back. We put this mask over your face and you just count to ten. Who knows if you do as you’re told I might even have that previously suggested glass of champagne with you.’

  ‘OK Matron. It’s a deal. I obey.’

  An anaesthetist placing the mask over Schultz’s nose and mouth as he counts. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Holy jesus five again. Another deal I got. This time for a glass of champagne. Which I’m going to really need after I get over all this painful shit. Plus my cock also badly needs a sympathetic sucking. While I’m listening to Ave Maria. And there ain’t a single mouth left in the world I can find to either sing or suck. Al Duke on the third day rose again from the dead. And ascended to Hollywood while I’m twenty four hours later nearly where he was with the privacy of my privates invaded. And everyone looking at my testicles. Some grinning. Fuck it. Ignominy is becoming second nature to me. And the Matron’s face more alluring every second. Or maybe I'm just unbelievably hard up. Holy shit is she holding a big scissors. That looks like a fucking garden shears. Hey christ my brand new grey flannel pants they’re fucking cutting holes in. While I go out like a light they could miss the zipper and go snip off not only my prick but both my balls. After that who needs to wake up. My gonads could then go transplant in some duke. Add my prick for length and turn a useless old aristocratic fucker into a vital go getting impresario. Christ I’m still nearly conscious. Jesus I’m gathering an audience. A mob. And all you fucking English bastards better remember I’m an American. Hey Matron, you’re no West End beauty but without even a trace of makeup on your face, jesus you’ve got fucking attractive grey eyes. The way the lids drop down on them is gorgeous. I like even the starch of your uniform. Boss of this whole big monstrous hospital you could be ruling over hundreds of lives. Christ what fantastic authority. To have underneath you whimpering and groaning in bed. Could even make you my general stage manager. What’s gone wrong that I should think now of plugging my prick in women with power. Guaranteed to give you a fucking electric shock. Women naturally just have got the power over you anyway. The moment you start panting after their asses they can then start kicking you in the face. Till you go panting after someone else’s ass and then they try to kick you even harder in the face. Holy jeez. The nearest face. There she is. Matron. Among all the others looking down as if I’m some big hospital experiment. God. I’d love to fuck you. Hey goodbye. I’m going somewhere. Hey I hear a beautiful children’s choir singing. The lights are going out. Jesus with deals to do I’m now getting gassed unconscious. Hello excuse me, is this death. I’m fading. In a nude court case. Jesus there’s Priscilla waving a writ at me. Get her off my back. Her ass at least to others looks like sheer pleasure. But is one big fucking pain up mine. All she ever liked to do was sun on the beach by the ocean waves. Voices. The stitching is coming nicely doctor. Stitches. Holy shit. A wrench is unscrewing my balls. Hey where am I. In church. Who’s that. On the altar. Fucking Binky is there the cunt with a fire extinguisher. O there you are Louella. In veils. Holy cow you’re not getting married to Al. With his prick being wheeled up to the altar in a wheelbarrow. And with all these candles burning all over the place. Hey it can’t be me walking naked up the aisle behind you. Jesus it is. I’m going to protest and object. Can’t you see me. Hey Louella. I love you. Jesus hey I’ve died already. And I forgot to order underwear. With all these haberdasher fuckers dancing around me with sample materials. This is what they’re wearing this season Mr Schultz. Well fuck you guys. With everyone imitating my show all over town, it’s what I’m wearing this season that counts. And I’m going to sport spats and two tone pointy shoes. And a double tie like his absent minded Lordship who sometimes puts three on. Am I waking up. Jesus am I still living. Or am I bare assed heading for hell. Voices. Seven stitches. Suture. Clamp please. Cut this away entirely. What. Jesus what are you cutting. Leave something left to fuck a duck with. Matron has just begun to take off her clothes. God. Now that’s really beautiful. Watching her hands undo those buttons. Opening up her shirt. Lifting up her skirt. Reaching behind to unfasten her bra. Got to get her to the smoke filled bedroom of number four Arabesque Street. Her pearly white back. Can see the sweetly curved sloping side of her tit. What. Jesus I just thought I was just going to get laid. After weeks of celibacy. And here I am running up the fucking main street of Woonsocket. In the finish of a cross country race last year I won and now I’m losing in front of a whole god damn gang of high school classmates. What’s that. The scent of jasmine and mimosa. I’m going slowly sexually insane. His Lordship with his dozen castles with hundreds of empty rooms is going to waste time finding me a zoo. Fuck that. If I can’t find a palace of my own I’m going to go join the chimpanzees out free swinging in the trees of the jungle. Throw frenzied hysterical fucks and tantrums among the monkey proletariat. How the hell did I ever deserve to get born to struggling parents in Woonsocket in the first place. I could instead have been the contented son of a duke instead of having Irish giving me
fucking looks from the stoop of their houses and whose kids I beat the shit out of when they attacked me in a whole gang of micks. It was Zionism in action. They never knew what hit them when I beat the hell out of three of them and the rest of them ran. Put snakes pouring in one of their parents’ bedroom window for calling me a Jew one day. Christ when I said thank you they fucking look dumbfounded at each other. Imagine fucking primitive cro-magnon Irish calling me a Jew. I didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about. Said the first thing that came into my head. Hey didn’t you know the Jews invented the world. While the Irish still thought their pricks were amputated crow bars to lever stones out of the ground with. Twenty six garter snakes and a couple of big ones looked like copperheads.

  What a scene that was. They turned the lights on and started screaming at the snakes everywhere. From the moment I saw that happening on that bedroom stage I got interested in the theatre. Just from standing there on an orange crate looking in through the screen window. It was like listening to operatic music. Jesus fight back. Fight back. Gee Mom. Hey Dad. You fought the competition so hard over your lingerie, you nearly even got prosecuted for obscenity. Struggling to get profits out of fire sales, closing down sales, Easter sales, Christmas sales, even Passover sales. And all just to send me to at least a college that nearly somebody had heard of. But which was no fucking good I discovered after I graduated. It was tragic awful disappointment. To find out you’re behind the eight ball after four years of blissful dreaming that the fucking world ahead is lying at your feet just to walk over. I said, Uncle Werb my poor innocent fucking parents sent me to the wrong college. Uncle Werb drags two pieces of tissue paper out of his pocket opens them up and says see these, five could build a college, so who needs a college if you know how to buy and sell diamonds. Anyway in spirit I became an ivy leaguer. Plus putting on clothing I saw advertised in a magazine. And who in this rush rush world has time to ask anyway if you went to Harvard. Plus nobody but nobody gangs up on or pushes around Sigmund Franz Isadore Schultz and gets away with it. Plus I’m descended from some of the best rabbis that ever wore a yarmulka in Prague. Holy fuck who’s got me by the balls. Who. Who. Stop. Let go. You fuckers. Let go of me.

  ‘You’re all right Mr Schultz. Everything’s all right. Please now. Just lie back. Everything’s going to be all right. The zipper has been removed with complete success.’

  Schultz struggling to sit up. Hands holding him back. The Matron over him, a little gap between her front protruding teeth. Nice little lines around her mouth where she smiles.

  ‘Hello Mr Schultz. Do you know where you are.’

  ‘Jesus. Holy christ. O boy. Hello. Matron. Never mind me. My balls, my balls. Where are they. All I feel is bandage.’

  ‘You’re all right, Mr Schultz your testicles are securely and entirely intact. Mr Kahn has them exquisitely sewn up.’

  ‘Hey let me get up. I got to go. I got serious things to attend to.’ ‘Mr Schultz please you must lie back for at least a while in Recovery.’

  ‘No. Let me up.’

  Schultz propping himself up, pulling away from the restraining hands. Levering his legs slowly over the side of the operating table.

  Remnants on the floor of a pair of charcoal grey ivy league flannel trousers. Schultz standing unsteady on his feet. And peeking down in the direction of his private parts. A groan emitting at the sight of the large bundle of bandage over his balls with a circumcised prick perched on top. Jesus just like Al has decorations on top of his chocolate cakes.

  ‘I’m OK Matron. I can manage.’

  ‘I’m sure you can’t Mr Schultz.’

  ‘Hey Matron just let me go will you. My balls may be bandaged up in a bundle but I’m no cripple. Come on. I got to learn to walk again.

  Let go.’

  Schultz taking a swaying step forward. And suddenly reeling, keeling over backwards. His hand grabbing as he falls. A tray of instruments dumped with a crash scattering over the operating theatre floor. Upon which Schultz lands with a head cracking thump. What’s that big noise. Hello again darkness. I’m glad to be back. In nice calm oblivion. So gentle and kind. How did I get to this Greek island so fast. The pure crystal clear water. You can see all the way to the bottom. Louella sunning in her bikini. Gee I got to try to see all the way to her bottom too. Maybe I’m near Athens.

  ‘Mr Schultz. Mr Schultz. You’re here. In Celestial Pavilion Hospital. Now don’t move. I’m afraid we’ve got to have an X ray.’

  ‘Oh my god what happened.’

  ‘You got up off the operating table when you shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Hey this is the end of me, Matron. No shit it is. Sorry about the language. I feel I died about eight times already. All I can hear in my head are the howls of the lost spirits in hell. Is my skull busted or something.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Your pupils have returned to normal. But we’re taking these X rays just in case. We’ll have you right as rain.’

  ‘Jesus my butler said that recently after my house nearly burned down.’

  ‘Oh well, I’m sure your butler knew what he was talking about. I must go now.’

  ‘Matron. For Christ’s sake. Don’t leave me.’

  ‘I’ll be back, don’t worry. We’re going to keep you at least a day for observation. We have in fact Mr Duke’s room available.’

  Schultz under the X ray machine. Staring up into this knob staring right down. Now my brain is going to get rays through it. Jesus that Matron. Christ now she’s left me abandoned. She could save me from any new disease I could get. Having money was never meant to do this to me. Jesus I better lie back. Shut up. And try to get calm. And rise again. Like Al did from the dead.

  Schultz wheeled out of the door of the X ray room and passing down this familiar hall. A door with a sign reading Autopsy. The back of the hospital porter emerging pulling his wheeled cart and blocking the hall. Proceeding again on his round collecting bodies. Turning his trolley and doing a double and then a triple take, and scratching his head as Schultz supine goes by to disappear upwards in the elevator.

  Inside this door with letter A, Schultz propped up on pillows. Centre of a pale green wall, a photograph of the Queen on top of her horse. Christ now I got to receive royalty with my crotch out like a balloon. This place feels haunted with the ghost of Al. I feel like sleeping ten years and already the phone is ringing.

  ‘O Mr Schultz, it’s me Jorricks. Mr Sunningdale phoned to tell me. I’ve been worried sick.’

  ‘I’m all right. I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning. Buy me a couple of pairs of pants with buttons in the fly. Thirty two waist.’

  ‘How long in the leg, sir.’

  ‘Plenty long. And an extra bulge around the crotch.’

  ‘Very good sir.’

  Schultz sinking his head back on the pillows. An aeroplane crossing the sky. Whistle of train from the station. Here I am where Al was. How did the fucker ever get up and escape. And I’m down and hoping I ain’t out. Got to catch my breath before I ring Louella and either give her a laugh or a heart attack. The bump on the back of my head is as big as a baseball. Haven’t been to the box office for two days. They could be chiselling on the bookings and seats. That’s the difference between box office money and all other kinds of money. It is its utter purity. That comes out of people laughing and enjoying themselves watching a bunch of talented egomaniac exhibitionists getting up on a stage to be egomaniac exhibitionists while enjoying themselves. Jesus now that I think of it. I got to get out of that traitorous environment. Who in Sperm Productions ever did anything but fuck me up. With the exception of Rebecca. She’s a gem. With a fantastic figure. I should have made a bee line for her. You always can’t but fail to fall a little bit in love with faithful secretaries. Especially in the doom situations when you watch the rats run for their holes. And there she always was. Pencil poised ready even in the shambles of battle to go on. Even his Lordship who keeps his emotions to the minimum except when he’s breaking his guts laugh
ing at me, said that he was deeply fond of her. And jesus I am even more so. One evening let me tell you, after the banks were closed, when the gross on the brink of disaster had already teetered the wrong way, the theatre lobby entrance vacant, not a phone ringing in the box office. And I sat there up in Sperm Productions, my ass literally and figuratively in a slough of depression, a lonely night descending, my elbows on the desk, my head in my hands. I thought holy fuck even my mouth’s gone dry with terror all the way to the bottom of my spine. The office like a morgue, and everyone I thought gone home. I was nearly too worried to even go out into the outside world again. Even to find a pinball machine to play. Thinking any second that maybe, just maybe the phone could ring which could change the disaster already around my neck dragging me under the waves. To break the pall I got up and went down the hall to take a pee. Which I did without zipping up my fucking balls. And jesus, I got a fright. There was a light left on in an office. And I tiptoed and looked in and there was Rebecca. Christ her words to me are forever emblazoned on my mind. What can I get for you Mr Schultz. Is what she said. I fucking well went and kissed her on the forehead. Nothing honey, nothing, I said. Don’t be here, go home. She said no, I’d rather wait, I know things are so bad. A girl in a fucking million. With only one thing wrong with her. She worships every fucking inch of carpet that Binky goes up and down on his toes on and every paper clip he touches. And that son of a bitch doesn’t deserve even one fucking iota of her beautiful lovely attention. Jesus that’s a knock on the door. ‘Come in.’

  ‘Hello Mr Schultz.’

  ‘Jesus Rebecca. I was just this second thinking of you, no kidding.’ ‘We have some things for you.’

  ‘Boy I’ll say.’

  Binky’s chauffeur Swithins followed by two nurses, all their arms laden. Followed, holy cow, by the hospital porter who takes out the dead. Christ and he’s got a great massive cascade of flowers. Dozens of red, pink and yellow roses. Glass jars of chicken in aspic from Fortnum’s. Exotic fruits. Apples, oranges, tangerines and bananas. Figs. Marzipan. Jesus a whole piece of Gorgonzola cheese. A picture of a sturgeon on that nice big jar. Nobody has to guess what’s in there. Especially not me. Yummy. What a feast. I can’t believe my eyes. Could that be a little box of fraises des bois. It could. A humidor of cigars. Bottles of champagne and brandy and Madeira. A note on a card.