Beware of God

by Shalom Auslander

  Simon & Schuster

  Rockefeller Center

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2005 by Shalom Auslander

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Simon & Schuster and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Title and half title art © Shepard Fairey and Studio Number One

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Auslander, Shalom.

  Beware of God: stories/Shalom Auslander.

  p. cm.

  1. Jews—Fiction. 2. Jewish fiction. I. Title.

  PS3601 .U85 B49 2005

  813′.6—dc22 2004051352

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-9140-5

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-9140-0

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  For Orli

  Contents

  The War of the Bernsteins

  Bobo the Self-Hating Chimp

  Somebody Up There Likes You

  Heimish Knows All

  Holocaust Tips for Kids

  Waiting for Joe

  Startling Revelations from the Lost Book of Stan

  One Death to Go

  The Metamorphosis

  Prophet’s Dilemma

  They’re All the Same

  Smite the Heathens, Charlie Brown

  God Is a Big Happy Chicken

  It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Supremey

  The War of the Bernsteins

  THESE ARE THE THINGS that Bernstein carried in the brown, broken suitcase he kept under his bed in the hope that the Messiah would arrive in the middle of the night: two pairs of black socks, one pair of black pants, a white shirt, one Book of Psalms, some rugalach, three yarmulkes, a spare set of phylacteries, two prayer shawls (one for weekdays, one for Sabbath) and a bathing suit because you never know.

  “In the World to Come,” the rabbis would say to Bernstein, “there will be eternal happiness and joy.”

  “In the World to Come,” Bernstein would say to his wife, “there will be eternal happiness and joy.”

  “I’m sorry you’re so miserable here,” Mrs. Bernstein replied from her post before the kitchen sink.

  Bernstein lived every moment of this life in hopeful preparation for the next. Forty-five years of Torah study had convinced him not only of the sordidness of this world, but of the perfection and euphoria of the World to Come. As he got older, and that world steadily approached, Bernstein became ever more careful. Just last month, he had celebrated his fiftieth birthday.

  “You’re halfway to dead!” joked the birthday card Mrs. Bernstein had left for him. Mrs. Bernstein had a suitcase under her bed, too, but it wasn’t packed for the Messiah.

  Bernstein decided that with half his life already over, he was running out of time to score points. From now on, every action he took and every deed he considered would be put through a thorough cost/benefit analysis of reward versus punishment.

  If he found himself to be too tired for morning services, he would remind himself of just how many rewards he’d receive in the World to Come if he could only get out of bed. He measured the lure of a one-time bacon double cheeseburger against the everlasting joy of love and peace. He weighed sitting in a buddy booth at the Show World Peep Center with an erection in his hand against sitting among the holy forefathers in the Garden of Eden with a crown of eternal love on his head.

  The spiritual mathematics consumed him.

  Was obeying a negative prohibition worth the same amount of reward in the World to Come as fulfilling a positive commandment? Would the inaction of negative prohibitions really be as rewarded as the deliberate action of positive commandments? If they were, could Bernstein simply not do those things that were negatively prohibited in this world and still be rewarded handsomely in the next, rather than actively doing those things that were positively commanded only to receive pretty much the same reward in the World to Come as if he had simply not done that which had been negatively prohibited? Would he actually be rewarded for not doing something, or would he just not receive the punishment he would have received if he had violated the negative prohibition? Then again, if the commandment was positive and he would receive punishment for not doing it, then would he receive rewards for doing it? Or was it just the not doing it that God was concerned with?

  It gave Bernstein a terrible headache.

  Mrs. Bernstein was only thirty-four years old last May, and was thus far more concerned with her lot in this world than with her lot in what was, in her own estimation, a decidedly dubious next.

  “Let’s go to the movies,” Mrs. Bernstein said one boring Sunday afternoon.

  Bernstein thought of all the cursing and immorality and nudity he might witness on the big screen, and how much euphoria in the World to Come it would cost him. Your nakedness will be exposed and your shame uncovered. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.

  “Nah,” said Bernstein.

  He briefly wondered if by renting The Ten Commandments he could be said to have fulfilled the commandment to fill your heart and mind with Torah all the day and all the night.

  “Well, if we’re staying home anyway,” Mrs. Bernstein said, “let’s make love.” She grabbed him playfully around his waist. “Right here,” she said, “in the kitchen!” Bernstein thought about how many rules of modesty that would cause him to violate, and how much ecstasy in the World to Come it could possibly cost him. And the Lord said, because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous.

  “I’m tired,” Bernstein said.

  Mrs. Bernstein decided that if Bernstein thought she was going to waste her life securing his front-row seat in the afterlife, he had another thing coming. And it wasn’t euphoria.

  She decided to fight blessings with curses, piety with profanity. For every commandment, there was a prohibition. For every reward, there was a punishment. For every mitzvah, there was an equal and opposite aveyrah.

  She bought a red silk nightie at Victoria’s Secret and wore it casually around the house. She would cause him two sinful thoughts for every pious one in his thoughtless little head.

  She bought jeans.

  He spilled his semen on the ground…. What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight, so He put him to death.

  The spiritual mathematics consumed her.

  On the outside chance that there actually was a World to Come, she certainly didn’t want to sacrifice her own rewards in the next life just to ruin his. Mrs. Bernstein didn’t mind going to the Seventh Level of Hell, so long as she could walk to the edge, look down below and see Mr. Bernstein burning in the Eighth.

  Sin selection became critical: she had to make sure that nothing she was doing to cause him to sin was actually costing her more points than his resultant sin would end up costing him—committing murder, for instance, just to get him to turn on the light on Shabbos. A felony, if you will, just to cause a misdemeanor. But what if the punishment for causing a sin was not only the punishment for the sin of causing someone to sin, but was also the punishment for the sin of whatever sin she caused? That is, would conspiracy to cause masturbation see her charged with both conspiracy and masturbation? Of course, if the total punishment of causing a sin is a sin of causation plus the sin of the sin that is being caused, then shouldn’t causing a commandment to be fulfilled result in both the reward for the commandment of causing a positive commandme
nt to be fulfilled plus the reward for the positive commandment she was causing to be fulfilled?

  It gave her a terrible headache.

  Bernstein began attending prayer services more frequently, praying more fervently, believing more believingly.

  Fearing more fearfully.

  He walked the mile and a half to synagogue for every Friday night service, every Saturday morning service, every Saturday afternoon service and every Saturday evening service. He attended weekday morning services every weekday morning, and weekday evening services every weekday evening.

  He became president of the synagogue.

  Blessed is he who helps in the construction of a synagogue.

  She used nonkosher wine for Kiddush. She put milk in his coffee after serving him meat. She put pork in the chulent. She put bacon bits in his salad, and told him they were imitation.

  “Those who eat the flesh of pigs and rats and other abominable things, they will meet their end together,” declares the Lord.

  He hung a large framed picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in his living room, which Mrs. Bernstein moved to the basement, which Bernstein moved back into the dining room.

  Blessed is he who surrounds himself with the righteous.

  (Bernstein figured he got himself a double-word score on that one, as he had surrounded himself with the righteous twice with just one picture.)

  She set the alarm clock for Saturday morning. In his foggy half-sleep he would reach over and shut it off. Bam, Fourth Commandment.

  Anyone who desecrates the Sabbath must surely be put to death.

  The fool. He’d have to hang a hundred rabbi pictures around the house just to break even!

  Bernstein began slaughtering his own chickens because he didn’t trust his butcher.

  He began cooking his own food because he didn’t trust his wife.

  He wore his tsitsit out, his beard long and his peyis curly. He purchased a black, wide-brimmed furfelt Italian handmade Borsalino hat, for which he laid out a cool $365.

  Blessed is he who spends his money on fulfilling God’s commandments.

  Mrs. Bernstein didn’t buy herself a new hat. She wore the same frayed beret to synagogue that she’d worn for years.

  They rarely spoke—even in the few odd moments when Bernstein wasn’t at synagogue, doing charity work, praying or studying the Talmudic intricacies of who is liable to pay for damages if one man’s bull gores another’s (it depends who owns the field).

  They lived opposite lives in opposite worlds.

  One Friday night, after singing the grace after meals and reading the parsha of the week and saying the Shema Before Bedtime and kissing his tzitzit and touching them to his eyes and kissing them again and saying the Prayer Upon Sleeping and climbing into bed, Bernstein rolled over and tapped his wife on her shoulder.

  “Blessed is he who obeys God’s command to be fruitful and multiply,” he whispered gently in her ear.

  Mrs. Bernstein stared silently at the doorway. “I want a divorce,” she finally said.

  There was a long silence.

  Mrs. Bernstein sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  “ ‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord God of Israel,” threatened Bernstein. “So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith!”

  Beneath her robe Mrs. Bernstein wore her pink sweater set and white Reeboks. She stood up, let the robe drop from her shoulders and picked up her car keys.

  “The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing!” shouted Bernstein. “But the woman will bear the consequences of her sin!”

  These are the things Mrs. Bernstein carried in the tan leather valise she kept under her bed in the hope she would someday find the courage to leave her husband in the middle of the night: two pairs of black tights, the red silk nightie, her jeans, a makeup bag, a pack of cigarettes, the spring fashion issue of Vogue and a bathing suit.

  Because you never know.

  Bobo the Self-Hating Chimp

  AT 9:37 in the otherwise ordinary morning of May 25, Bobo, a small male chimpanzee in the Monkey House of the Bronx Zoo, achieved total conscious self-awareness.

  God.

  Death.

  Shame.

  Guilt.

  Each one dropped like a boulder onto his tiny primitive skull. He grabbed his head in his hands and ran shrieking around the Monkey House, overturning the water bowls and tearing branches off the trees. He threw himself to the ground, kicking and screaming. He grabbed a fallen branch and began chasing the smaller chimps around the old oak tree.

  Suddenly he froze. Bobo closed his eyes and leaned against the tree for support. It was as if he had been somehow transported to the top of the tallest tree in the forest and was looking down upon himself below. Bobo saw a brute, a beast, a dim, half-finished creature using his newly acquired skills not to build or to better, but to brandish a weapon. He also noticed he was sporting a bright red erection. Shame filled his soul.

  Shame?

  That was new.

  The children who were gathered around Bobo’s cage began to scream and cry, tears streaming down their faces. Horrified elfin jurors, they pointed their little fingers at Bobo’s hideous primate penis.

  The mortified teachers skipped right over Explanation and went straight to Denial.

  “He’s just happy, children!” tried one teacher.

  “Happy, yay!” clapped the other.

  They quickly led the little innocents outside. Management had no choice. The Monkey House was closed for the day, and Bobo was sedated.

  The Monkey House is located a short walk away from the last Skyfari stop, just across the way from the World of Reptiles. For the past year and a half there had been the constant hammering, sawing and diesel-engine-starting of facility improvements. RV parking had been added near Wild Asia, and they had spruced up the water fountain outside Giraffe World with real Mexican tiles. Administration East got new computers.

  The Monkey House restoration was the most recent, and most elaborate, of them all. Those monkeys made their numbers. “They pull in the crowds,” said management.

  Renovations began in early March in order to be finished in time for the Memorial Day rush. The chain link fences were gone, replaced by clear, high-tensile strength glass. The first week many of the chimps smashed into the glass midswing, but soon learned. Gone, too, was the drab decor, replaced with exotic white birch trees, maple trees, an even grander, older oak and the crown jewel of the empire, Chimpanzee Bay, a freshwater pool that was built to look like an ocean, complete with a Deluxe WaveMaker 3000. Judging by the crowds pressing their faces to the glass on opening day, it didn’t seem to bother anyone that chimpanzees can’t actually swim.

  The humans outside the glass all seemed quite pleased with themselves, but for the lesser primates inside, the renovations caused nothing but anxiety. Beebee, Shirley, Topo and Sweetface were all on anti-depressants, Ladybird had mysteriously stopped menstruating and Koko had to be sent to a small animal farm in Northern New Jersey for recuperation. The doctors expected this.

  “We expected this,” they said.

  And so, when Bobo made the same astonishing evolutionary leap as our primate ancestors made so very long ago, the doctors quickly misdiagnosed it as posttraumatic stress disorder, discontinued his Viagra, and scripted him for a month of Paxil, five milligrams a day.

  Bobo awoke some time later to find himself in a small steel box. His head felt heavy. The front wall of the box was a metal grid, through which Bobo could see many similar boxes across the way.

  He wanted out.

  A lab technician at the far end of the room was enjoying her morning feeding and a cup of coffee as she read the New York Post. He would appeal to her humanity. “You and I are indeed different,” he would say. “But surely the awareness of our own mortality and the unique self-perception we share more than compensate for the fraction of a fraction of a difference in our physical genetic makeup.”

  Bobo’s mind may have
evolved, but his larynx had not. And so, in place of an impassioned plea for understanding, he grabbed the cage with both hands and legs and shrieked as loudly as he could.

  Bobo was sedated.

  The next morning, the zookeepers decided to see if Bobo could be safely reintroduced to the Monkey House. Bobo was no fool; he knew what they wanted. They wanted Curious George. They wanted Megillah Gorilla. They wanted Monchichi.

  They wanted Monkey.

  Bobo held the vet’s hand as she walked him back inside the house. They loved it when he did that. Elbows high, hands scratching his armpits, Bobo did an exaggerated chimp walk over to the food bin and peeled a bright yellow banana.

  “Ooo ooo ooo! Ah ah ah!”

  The zookeepers smiled, nodded and wrote on their clipboards.

  Bobo walked back and forth, scratched his ass and rubbed his crotch. He swung from a low birch branch. “Ooo ooo ooo! Ah ah ah!”

  The zookeepers smiled, nodded and wrote on their clipboards.

  He sat down next to a female chimp named Esmeralda. Esmeralda stood up and bent over. Bobo mounted her.

  The zookeepers smiled, nodded and wrote on their clipboards.

  “I’m sorry,” Bobo said to Esmeralda when the zookeepers had gone. “That was wrong of me.” He sat down and sighed heavily. Esmeralda moved behind him and began picking the bugs from his hair.

  “I know you probably don’t understand the concept of right and wrong,” said Bobo, “at least not in the Judeo-Christian sense of the words. I didn’t myself until just recently. Still, I used you. Selfishly. I objectified you. And for what? To save my own hide? Or perhaps still worse, out of some violent animus, some stubborn genetic trait of survivalism that even nature can’t filter out? Damn all my high philosophies! I deserve to be locked in this cage with you monkeys.”

  Esmeralda pulled a yellow-winged bug from Bobo’s shoulder, examined it closely for a moment and stuck it in her mouth. She stood up, brushed herself off and walked away.

  “Wait!” called Bobo.

  There was something about this Esmeralda, something in her eyes. Maybe she was different. Bobo wondered if they could someday leave this zoo together, get a place nearby in Rye, maybe Larchmont, something with a fence and a swing set for the kids.