a mayseh
Once there was a child what was called Reyza.
di mayseh iz avek.1
a beforemayseh
Once there was a jew what was called Gittl, and Gittl sat amidst a pile of her siblings what were called Anshl and Hendl and Zimml and Reyza. When the clan of death came, they took everyone to the forest except for Gittl and one other jew. The other jew was called Leyb.
Hawkchicken (an aftermayseh)
And so yoh, Cricket’s.
On his first time at Cricket’s, Leyb stood only at the edges of the room, overwatching the men what inpiled there every shabbes evening in philadelphiye, and what seemed to Leyb not so much amerikanish or even men, but rather as a single sunwarmed river, yoh, and Leyb imagined submerging into this evermoving clamor of bodies, and finding there only quiet, and he felt the surges of his tayve,1 and wanted for his tayve to merge into one of the many mouths of the Cricket’s river of grasping and stroking and drinking and howling and gasping and trumpets and smoke, but he found no such opening and so remained cornersome and dryish and he waited until Cricket’s began to fold into itself and become, in preparation for the six days of the week what followed, once again a place of nothingness, an emptyish building, yoh, or perhaps a sockshop, and then Leyb tohomewent alone.
On his second time at Cricket’s, a part of the river offtrickled to shtip2 Leyb in the backroom and the gold band on the ring finger of this man’s hand was cold against the skin near Leyb’s opening as this man, what was really only made from water, readied to inslide into Leyb, and Leyb was for a gathering of moments become gebensht3 with elektrish amerikanish upfilledness and an awayfeeling and, yoh, quiet.
On his third time at Cricket’s, Leyb met Charles.4
ikh gleyb nit az di gantze velt iz kheyshekh,5 Leyb quieted to himself after passing under the door’s lintel, not recalling from where precisely came this phrase, feeling only the way it slightly settled the dust what rose in him with each breath.
And a good evening to you, naye feygele, said a man what had inwalked just after Leyb, and was updraping his coat on the coatrack. He offtook his hat and towardtipped it to Leyb.
Despite having by this point passed most of his years in the belly of the goldene medineh, Leyb remained eternally greenbeast newcome, and so had failed to develop a fluent comprehension of modernishe amerikanishe eugenics. Leyb knew only to sense jew or goy by just opening his nostrils, and so, nostrils flared, Leyb did right away sense that the man what had inwalked just behind him was not a jew, lacking, as his scent was, in that particular underhum of mashed sevenfish.
You’re knowing to speak jewish? Leyb said in american.
Don’t look so farvundert, said the man.
I’m not surprised from anything, Leyb said. Only I wanted to tell you that feygele just is meaning bird.
You don’t say, said the man, upraising only one of his eyebrows.
Leyb searched the drawers of his chest for a shtikl of unjewsome american what he might place on his tongue.
I do say? Leyb said.
Alright, newbird, the man said, placing his hat among the sixteen or twenty other hats. How about you buy me a drink to make up for any potential iniquities? A big pinecone like you must have a few extra rubles. The man touched a hand to his belly. And I ought to be able to scrounge up a pound of flesh, just in case.
Leyb did not laugh. He was then only looking upon this man’s fingers, what were stained with ink, and what were neatly upscrolling the sleeves of his shirt, and at the softdance of tendons in the man’s nakedbecoming forearms, and inside Leyb, his tayve stretched and scratched at the back of his eyes. Somewhere else in the mainroom of Cricket’s, someone screamed, maybe with laughter, maybe without.
Lighten up, kid, the man said, searching for Leyb’s eyes with his eyes.
Copyright © 2022 by Moriel Rothman-Zecher
