Unscrolled : 54 Writers and Artists Wrestle With the Torah (9780761178743)

by Bennett, Roger (EDT)

  Mom and Grandma always left one thing out of the conversation, making it seem like boys come after you, and you bat them off like flies on cheesecake or something. Leaving off what you do if your body begs for something so strong and desirable that you don’t even know how to describe it, so you don’t even try when you write emails to your best friends about what New York City is like.

  *********

  AVI: How do you even know, she’s only been here a week.

  SARAH: It’s just a feeling.

  AVI: I remember you had these feelings before and they turned out to be wrong. Remember when you wanted to buy the loft downstairs to expand into and it ended up having all that water damage?

  SARAH: I guess.

  AVI: You kept saying, Avi, I have a feeling.

  SARAH: Mmm.

  AVI: Izzy loves her.

  SARAH: Izzy is just barely getting to know her.

  AVI: That’s what’s so crazy: It’s only been a week, and Izzy already begs to go places with her.

  A beat, then—

  SARAH: Doesn’t her diamond cross drive you bananagrams?

  AVI: Of course not, my God, it’s a necklace, what is your problem?

  SARAH: I don’t know, honey.

  A beat, then—

  *********

  When Avi and Aggie got together, I knew. Avi and Aggie got together the same day I was trying to send Aggie on an errand to get my sandal strap fixed at Louie’s on 86th and Lex. I promise you I didn’t mean to be mean to Aggie when I had to give her the instructions over and over again. My dog chewed into my sandal strap, the other sandal strap is fine, if Louie needs to make two brand-new sandal straps to make the sandals match, then Louie should, but if he can make only one new one to match the one that the dog didn’t eat, then that’s fine, too. I have been told I have a hostile listening face when people are saying things that I don’t like. I think of it as my thinking face. I was deep into my thinking face, staring at Aggie’s dumbshit face as she was asking me for what felt like the millionth time, Okay, wait, do I tell the man at the shoe place you need one new sandal strap or two?

  Aggie, are you even listening to me?

  I wanted Aggie to take the sandals in so I could play with Izzy, I always want to play with Izzy, but then it seems I never have time to play with Izzy unless I make time. This time, this day, 3:30 p.m. on a perfect, crispy November Thursday, I had sketched out two hours to play with Izzy. We were going to go to the park and Aggie was going to take my sandals in, better that than sitting in the living room watching Buckwild. She can’t cook, so she has to do something.

  Then screw it, I said, lemme just take Izzy with me. Izzy and I will go on a subway adventure to the shoe place and we’ll be back at six. We can order in, I said, my thinking face saying, because you never offer to cook and I don’t know why the agency didn’t tell you that if you find yourself with nothing to do for the family, cook for the family. Don’t just sit there and watch Buckwild.

  *********

  We husbands have a way of talking about it. If the wives could hear how we talk, they’d be—accch, I dunno how they’d be. Look. There’s no point saying what everyone knows, that you can feel it when there’s a new young girl around. My buddy Barry did Ayahuasca. He said forget all that gender equality crap, on Ayahuasca he could see that men had green and blue light around them and women had red and orange and pink light. Simple as that.

  The wives, maybe they talk about it, what it feels like to have this new young girl around taking care of your kid. If they use the word jealousy or not, who knows. The husbands, we talk about it. But the husbands and the wives don’t talk about it together.

  I came home from work early, and there was Aggie, a name that should go on some ugly fatass, but no, it was put for God knows what reason on this blonde shiksa milkmaid. She shoulda been a Kristen or Kirsten, but she was Aggie, and she was sittin’ on our couch, clicking through something.

  AGGIE: Hi.

  AVI: Hey.

  AGGIE: Sarah and Izzy went on errands. They won’t be back till six.

  AVI: (It’s four fifteen.) (Thought not said.)

  AGGIE: You wanna watch TV?

  AVI: (Sits next to her, quiet, too close to her leg.)

  AGGIE: This sucks. You can put anything on.

  *********

  I never said anything, I just felt that thing that I never found a way to ask my mom and grandma about. I didn’t move my bod as I watched Buckwild. Nor did I twitch or twist even ever so slightly to give him a clue that I was hot as hell for him. But then his hand was on my leg, his left hand, which was the hand closest to me. Then his other hand, his right hand. Then Avi and everything sandalwood about him filled me up, and we were both wood, a raft on a tide that was bigger than Riverside Avenue and the river out the window and all of New York City.

  And there we were, looking at each other, wondering what had happened.

  *********

  We pay people to take care of our children. I had miscarried right before Aggie came, did I tell you that? I don’t know if I told you that. I was pregnant with a son—okay, no one told me, I’m making that up, but when I found out I was pregnant, I knew it was a boy. This was my gut, not my anxiety. I knew the difference. Of course I could have taken care of Izzy while I was pregnant, but I knew that I would be barfy and tired and to hell with it, I just wanted a summer girl. To be with Izzy from four to seven, that stretch where the afternoon demons laugh because you haven’t made dinner yet, and they know you just want to hide and die. The afternoon demons make you take a nap so you can wake up and make dinner, and pregnant, I knew it would be worse, so I got Aggie. Does it sound like I’m blaming myself? Well, I am. Even after the miscarriage, Avi gave me an out, he asked me, Do you still want the summer girl from Florida? Yes, I said, I still want the summer girl from Florida. I wanted an out. I could spend the summer afternoons sick in bed pregnant with a boy or sick in bed mourning a baby who was going to be my first boy, a baby the size of a bean when I lost it, so why do I keep crying? Yes, I said, I still want the summer girl.

  I don’t know why Aggie needed Avi to know that she was giving their baby up for adoption. I don’t know why she had to tell both of us that she had gotten pregnant. I don’t know why Avi wanted to come clean that they had had sex. All I know is that I called the agency and had her removed less than one month after she got here.

  All I know is that she won’t think of her baby as a Jew. All I know is that whatever family adopts that baby won’t think of that baby as a Jew. All I know is that all I hope is that whoever that baby turns out to be,

  Let him not be a boy.

  God,

  Let this goddamned summer not come back to haunt us.

  *********

  My mom and dad are asleep.

  Aggie is gone—she left three whole months ago.

  I am six and I will be six for another three months.

  My daddy loves my mommy.

  At school today in science we learned about electric tails. They come from pulsing stars, and they live in the sky forever.

  “And He said, ‘Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights I will point out to you.’” —Genesis 22:2

  VAYEARA (“And he appeared”)

  Genesis 18:1–22:24

  Abraham is sitting outside his tent in the heat of the day when God approaches him in the form of three men. Abraham runs out to greet them, bows down, and eagerly offers up the customary desert hospitality of water, a footbath, and something to eat.

  Abraham sprints around, urging his wife, Sarah, to make some cakes with their best flour, and orders a servant to slaughter a tender calf from his herd so he can serve the guests. One of the visitors informs Abraham that he will return the follow
ing year and that Sarah can have a son. Sarah overhears this, and because she and Abraham are well past childbearing age, she cannot suppress a burst of laughter. God asks Abraham why his wife finds this funny, asking him, “Is any deed too astounding for God to perform?” Sarah, suddenly afraid, attempts to lie, suggesting she has not laughed, but God knows what is the truth.

  The three men then head toward Sodom with the ever hospitable Abraham accompanying them on their way. On the journey, he discovers that God has become outraged by the Sodomites’ behavior and plans to exact punishment.

  The three men head off, leaving Abraham to argue with God directly. He wonders whether God will punish the city collectively and risk killing the innocent along with the guilty. The two patiently negotiate the number of innocents God would protect. If ten good people can be found, the Lord agrees to spare the city.

  City of wrath

  Two angels arrive in Sodom at night and encounter Lot at the city gates. He offers them hospitality, which they initially refuse, agreeing only after Lot insists. Before they have a chance to retire for the night, an angry mob surrounds Lot’s home, demanding that he hand over his visitors so that they can sodomize them. Lot tries to offer up his virgin daughters instead, but this proposal only inflames the mob, who scream that an outsider such as he should not tell them what to do. As they prepare to attack Lot, his guests pull him inside the house and proceed to incapacitate the attackers by blinding them with a bright light.

  The angels tell Lot that they have been sent by God to destroy the city and advise him to round up his family and prepare to evacuate. Lot tells them he will seek refuge in a small town nearby; before he leaves, the angels warn him not to look back. As soon as Lot reaches the neighboring town, God aims a violent fire at Sodom and Gomorrah, obliterating the region. His wife cannot resist sneaking a look at the carnage; she is transformed into a pillar of salt.

  Lot finds sanctuary in a cave with his two daughters. The two of them, afraid that no man will impregnate them, hatch a plan to get their father drunk and then commit incest with him. Over the course of two nights, the women turn the idea into a re­-ality, and although the drunken Lot is oblivious, they both become pregnant and bear children.

  She ain’t heavy, she’s my sister, Part II

  Journeying once more, Abraham encounters King Abimelech of Gerar and employs his “Sarah is my sister” deceit again. This time, God appears to Abimelech in a dream and threatens to kill him because he has taken up with a married woman. Abimelech defends his behavior, confessing he has not yet touched Sarah and rationalizing that he took her only on the basis of Abraham’s misinformation. God gives the king the choice of returning Sarah or facing death.

  The king and his followers are terrified. They interrogate Abraham, demanding to know why he misled them in the first place. Abraham admits he has been afraid of being killed by those jealous of his wife’s beauty and reveals that he merely stretched the truth: Sarah is actually his father’s daughter by another mother.

  Abimelech bestows sheep, oxen, and slaves upon Abraham, reunites him with Sarah, and offers him the opportunity to live on his land. Abraham prays to God on behalf of Abimelech. God had initially sewn shut the wombs of the king’s wives and slave girls as a punishment. The sentence is quickly revoked.

  Mother’s Day

  As God has promised, Sarah becomes pregnant and bears a son with her 100-year-old husband. Abraham calls him Isaac. Sarah is sensitive to the fact that anyone who finds out that she has borne and breast-fed a child at her age will laugh. She also asks Abraham to cast out Hagar and her son, Ishmael, so there can be no confusion about Isaac’s place as heir. Abraham is uncomfortable with the request; after all, Ishmael is also his son. God advises him to do what Sarah tells him, as Isaac is to be his heir, while reassuring him that Ishmael will also birth a nation, as he is Abraham’s seed.

  The next morning, Abraham gives Hagar some food and a water bottle and sends them out into the desert. After depleting her water supply, Hagar places Ishmael under a bush; she cannot bear to witness his inevitable death.

  God hears the child’s sobbing and sends an angel to reveal to Hagar that she should have no fear; her son will in fact be the heir of a nation. Hagar immediately spots a well and satiates Ishmael’s thirst. He comes of age in the desert and becomes an archer, ultimately marrying an Egyptian.

  Abraham and Abimelech argue over ownership of a well, but are able to solve their problem by trading ewes and signing a pact.

  The Test

  Time passes. God decides to test Abraham’s faith by instructing him to take his beloved son Isaac to Moriah and sacrifice him on a mountain as a burnt offering. The next morning, Abraham departs with an ass, two servants, and his son. He prepares the wood for a burnt offering and sets off toward the place God has described. After three days, they approach the destination and Abraham tells his servants to wait, promising that he and his son will return after praying. Placing the wood on his son, he carries burning coal and his knife.

  Isaac quizzes his father about why they have all the necessary equipment for a sacrifice, except a sheep to offer up. Abraham dodges the question, explaining that God will provide one. Once they arrive at Moriah, Abraham piles up the wood, binds his son, lays him on top of the altar, and grabs a knife with which to kill him. As he does so, an angel’s voice shouts his name. Abraham answers, “Here I am.” God instructs him to do no harm; since Abraham was prepared to kill his son on command, his fear of God is considered satisfactory.

  Abraham then spies a ram conveniently caught by his horns in a thicket and offers it as a sacrifice in place of his son. The angel blesses Abraham for following God’s command and promises that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the beach. The descendants will conquer their enemies’ cities and be a blessing to all the nations of the world.

  Damon Lindelof

  SUBJECT: DESIGNATED A

  CASE FILE: 18-1-22-24

  FOLLOWING IS TRANSCRIBED FROM RECORDING OF INITIAL OBSERVATION SESSION

  [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

  Coffee?

  . . . Sorry?

  Coffee. You want some?

  No, thank you.

  A soda? Some water?

  Yes, all right. Water . . .

  We don’t have any fancy bottled stuff. Tap okay?

  That’s fine.

  Great. Good. We’ll get that for you. So . . . you know why we brought you in?

  I think so. Yes.

  And you’re sure you don’t want a lawyer? That’s your right.

  I’m sure.

  Because you could say something that’ll get you into a lot of trouble.

  Trouble with who?

  Heh . . . that’s . . . you’re joking, right?

  Not really.

  Oh. Okay. Well . . . then I guess . . . sure, I’ll answer your question. You’ll get yourself into trouble with the law.

  All right.

  “All right?” As in you understand?

  Yes. I understand.

  Good. Because there’s something I don’t understand. And maybe you can help me understand it. Do you think you can do that?

  I’ll try.

  Good. You try. And let’s start with this—and I apologize if I’m kinda just leaping in here . . . My wife says I’m a little . . . y’know, blunt? But here we go. I just want to know . . . I want you to explain . . . exactly why you tried to kill your son.

  But I didn’t.

  . . . What?

  I didn’t kill my son.

  You didn’t . . . well, crap. Crap, Abe . . . I guess you’re right. That’s why I said you tried to. In fact, it says here . . . it says that you were spotted tying him up—

  —Binding.

  Huh?

  I was binding him.

  Okay. Wow. Sure. You were binding your kid
. . . and then—and if any of this sounds wrong to you, Abe, you just speak up—but then you were seen putting your son . . .

  Isaac.

  Right. Isaac. You were seen putting Isaac on top of a pile of wood.

  He was meant to be a burnt offering.

  Excuse me?

  My son. I was told to make a burnt offering of him.

  You were . . . told.

  Yes.

  By who?

  God.

  . . . God.

  Yes.

  So . . . God. He told you to . . . light your son on fire?

  After I had killed him, yes.

  Sure . . . because burning him alive . . . that would be inhuman.

  It’s what I was asked to do.

  What for?

  . . . Sorry?

  God tells you to kill a child . . . your own child . . . for what? Why? What do you get in exchange for your “offering”?

  Nothing.

  Nothing?

  He had already given me . . . given . . . something.

  And what’s that?

  My wife—Sarah . . . she was way past the point of being able to get pregnant. But He said He would give us a child. And He did.

  This would be . . . God again?

  Yes.

  He gave you a son. So you could raise him. And love him. Then kill him.

  But I didn’t kill him.

  But you were willing to.

  Yes.

  Why?

  Because God asked.

  And you just . . . ? You didn’t . . . question it?

  No.

  Your wife . . . Sarah . . . what’d she have to say about this?

  I didn’t tell her.

  Of course you didn’t. And Isaac . . . I’m guessing you didn’t tell him either. You just walked him up that mountain and he had no idea what you were gonna do.

  That’s right. Yes.