Milkbottle H, page 48
we understand
then let her use the goldstein line
were very sorry but nathan goldstein is speaking to his mother whats more important rachel emanuel yelps for a mother to speak to her son or for a wife to talk to her husband
Sparktears flyfall from Mrs Sherman’s eyes Silas Klein peremptorily barks at Mrs Goldstein You should get off the phone, for you can readily observe that fire and water dont mix.
But dont you love Rosa.
Yes.
Dont you want to hear what Lees complaining about?
In the dark, Silas has clapped back his snapbrim hat on his head. Mark is in the middle of one of his composed Silences. Rena’s grip tightens about the champagne glass. The wind whips incandescent snow through the room. The sun shivers goldenly. Lees parts cower under the bed, behind the mirrored closets as his cousin Jared wipes off his bloodied instruments. Fiona Nuri regretfully and quietly polishes her newest ceramic prophylactic diaphragm. Cornelius, approvingly, nods in her direction, whispering to Lee you see someday shes going to take care of me with millions of manufactured ceramic diaphragms and Ill be free to compose my music twenty-four hours a day. Rachel Emanuel mutters as she goes about looking for dust the maid has failed to clean My first son, and this is what I dont understand, is killed by a ball struck by an erected penisbat. Paul Moyle, fresh out of the Lincoln Brigade and the Spanish Civil War, shakes his sad brown eyes and comments in eight languages that the fascists are here. Minnie Doyle, her wild brown hair in angular extensions, very much like that of a company of modem dancers, inquires sweetly of her husband Charlie if she should lighten the tension by doing a comic dance. But he replies severely that shes going to have a baby and that if she does a split then the propelled foetus may well cause her to appear quite ridiculous by making her resemble a figure out of Hindu mythology: Do you think you could possibly balance yourself on the head of a newborn child? What sort of Middle Ages Jewish Angel do you think you are, to speculate on how many dancers can balance on the head of a new-born. And dont you think, Charlie, she gravely replies, that women give birth for precisely that reason, to see how they can dance on the heads of their newborn, and that they leave it up to the male to make the count? never preempting from him his basic philosophic role. Xena Ritchie, the slip and bra model, remarks that its time for her to turn into a female homosexual, in order to experience the joys of making love to a mother who has just given birth. By a caesarian section, of course, Flikker promptly suggests, and Xena prettily waves her pocketknife at him, pointing to it and saying Was it by this that you came into the world. Yes, by the smallest possible incision into morality, Flikker grins. Nina asks the monkey:
A penny for your thoughts.
Sy knocks the ashes from his pipe and carefully smears them across the tablebed: Theres no need for anyone to be ashshamed, he says. In the middle of the Cretin Labyrinth, Jay Grays suggests, is a Miniataur HBomb. Hoppy Zitin, the tiny jewelers apprentice of the redrimmed eyes and redrimmed forehead my brains are nearsighted, rasps that the music escapes him for the first time: I cannot identify the passage. Diane Valin joins Terry Shannon underneath the tablebed to collect, meticulously, all the squeezed blackheads and scraped freckles of their worlds. Harry Ring, in a thousand incredibly rapid mouthwinks around a marihuana cigarette, starts to laugh, slapping his ankles. Levi tries to tell them that a thin stream of watery milk has appeared under the door, but he can make no sound. Lionel Shafkin presses the button at the base of his throat, simultaneously masticating air, and hoarsely erupts What are we doing about Hitler, at which Harry Ring, collapsing, beats his palms in helpless laughter against the floor so that the squeezed blackheads and scraped freckles fly in all directions, Terry and Diane glowering at him, Well what do you women expect, Harry shakes with laughter, if thats the kind of thing you put away in drawers. Dr Newman slowly twirls a hymeneal hoop
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The ironjowled Melinkoff, he of the eight feet in height, he of the eight sons, he of the eightynine years of age, growls contemptuously at Levi, Now let us see your Dr Silver, Rabbi Jonah Silver, if he is still of value to the synagogue and to you, Levi Emanuel, let us see him return David Golem to the insubstantial parts from whence he came; let us see him reduce your Firstborn to a man no longer caravanning to this place and to that, from this city and to that upon the earth, so that he will no longer make decisions upon the earth based upon a little white baseball crossing the plate for unknown men in a nonJewish game. Eagerly, sealandotter Barry Handler cries to Lee, Surely now you must concede that the course of true love cannot run smooth under the auspices of Western Capitalism. Lionel Shafkin, masticating his cancer in his final desperate efforts and spewing his breath inward, shakes the soft matzohball of his fist at Barry, But not under Stalinism either, no, you cant bury the axe of hatred in the loveskull of Leon Trotzky. The seared blondness of Mike Burroughs clasps the hand of his wife Myra who, frowning through her dark, one of her dark eyes on its knees, petitioning, If theres only a way we wont have to cross the country again, Mike. But theres possibility of work in Hollywood, my wife. But wintertime, Mike, wintertime, you know crossing Wyoming in winterti, Achille Volpes following us, telling us if were in difficulties we can drink the milk from his one white blind eye, and my own one dark eye wobbles. Myra Burroughs one eye wobbles in its socket, dreadfully: she says my eye is losing
its head my eye is
losing its (z
; behind my jockstrap, Vince Harrison assures the helpless young niteclub singer beneath him, is only a blind bat, and all you have to do is to be agreeable and hell emerge docile, you can stroke his tender little feet so he wont spread his wings too far
HAVE MERCY ON THE BLIND BAT OF MY LOINS Levi Harrison cries;
why dont you teach him how to say the name of Christine Novak, Rachel Emanuel pokes him. Why dont you? Yes, your husband’s bat is a parrot, Christine moans at the table, christ I need a drink, Im sooty from the Levi Coal Company, Lee youre smart to stay out of the business, all you get is a sootcaked cunt, the baggers tieing up your thighs and filling your womb with charcoal. Its wrong to give birth to carbon, maybe, Levi retorts. Washington, DC, yes. Clement Lichtenstein smiles a kink, from which the people are governed; truly, we have a lesson here in the functioning of democracy. My heart comes in from the people, Levi whispers. My heart flies over the people, Anne Kanovsky volunteers. I dont think Im committing a crime, Kanovsky smugly remarks, in making an industrial movie on the heart. Lloyd Engle, his hands about his ears, screams at Noah Hudsen to kill Vince Harrison’s jockstrap bat flying around the room, My dear, my dear, he says, its just too repulsive for words to see Rena attempting to capture it with her glazed pussyeye. Dont you think it monstrous of your daughter to so indulge, he addresses Mrs Goldstein. If I were you, he continues, Id run after her with a knife and teach her a lesson; theres nothing, after all, like a homosexual truth. Tell her, Noah, tell her doesnt she want her daughter? Dont you want your daughter, Lloyd’s voice does a softshoe jingle. I mean, really, those bananacolored thighs, bananas and cream, I just love them for breakfast did you notice Lee a discoloration on her thigh. From a thumbprint, I believe dont you want to hear what Nates complaining about? But Silas Emanuel never wears a hat. Oh youd better, theres a bat flying around the room angrily Dr Newman voices that Lee expressly requests that he perform a hymenectomy which makes me entirely innocent. And a little child shall rape them, I suppose, Rhona Lyrian sneers at the top of her voice as she mounts the diningroom tablebed, her legs akimbo. Sy Tarassoff puffs on a joke as he amusedly regards Lee, It seems like little Sammy had constipation so his mamma says to him Lissen I got to give you castoroil. Sammy looks very stubborn, but mamma takes out the castoroil, pours it in a spoon and approaches little Sammy. Sammy take, she says, No ma I wont take, he says. Her voices rises, Sammy take she says. No ma I wont take. Mamma bellows SAMMY TAKE. Finally little Sammy says ALL RIGHT MA ILL TAKE BUT I WONT MAKE. So, Sammy Emanuel? But Gail Greene’s constipated too, its the only thing that gives her any weight as she dies. Im very tall, Gail says puzzledly, Im six feet, but my hands, my hands are extremely tiny, I really cant fend anything off with these hands, dont you see? Apropos, Celia Renn turns to Sy, Ive got one for you, it seems like Mrs Gogol and Mrs Merrivale Cohen are old friends and they got a habit talking to each other in the tenement theyre living in when theyre going to the toilet, Mrs Gogol shouting down from the toilet on the ninth floor to Mrs Merivale Cohen on the toilet in the eighth floor right underneath, You heard about my son
oi, and she gives a grunt
my son Irving
oi,
he just graduated medical school
oi,
with top honors, nshumele cum laude, oi, was I proud Im telling you. Then starts Mrs Merrivale Cohen screaming up from her position on the toilet on the eighth floor MRS GOGOL
I can hear you, I can hear you, you heard from my son Irving. Yes, oi, oi
I heard, I heard, Mrs Merrivale Cohen shrieks. But lemme telling you from my son Hubert Cohen, oi, oi Mrs Merrivale Cohen groans on the toilet. My son Hubert just graduated Curtis Institute highest honors
oi, oi, oi
playing the Rach
oi
oi
playing the Rachman
oi, oi, oi
playing the Rachmanin
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo I
the Rachmaninoff Concerto she bellows triumphantly.
For a moment, absolute silence, Celia nods her head. And then, from the toiletseat on the ninth floor Mrs Gogol shouts down commiseratively
Oi, Mrs Merrivale Cohen, dot was a hard piece
Silas sweats profusely, his head’s prognathous cube flushing Frances Goldstein’s kitchen crimson. Constipated eroticism, perhaps? Mark inquires softly, his ovoid lips swirling gracefully about his grimy white baldheadedness. The little redhead Hedda Myers sits reverently at his footpedals you need a little girl not a little boy
you need a little girl not a little
boy you
need a little
girl, she whispers, her missing front tooth beckoning to him, because Ive got a little space for you in my mouth where the front tooth is missing she begs him, oh fill the empty place of my toothheart, she entreats, with cockmuscles alive alive
oh
but Ive got six sisters as it is, Mark explains matteroffactly.
A seventh cant do you any harm, Hedda suggests, especially one having a missing front tooth
Pass me the filling, Lilly, Walter grunts. Oi.
No, you just wont do, Mark replies. My sisters are dancers while you on the other hand have aspirations toward the acting profession.
Oh, Mark, but Ill be crawling on my belly to you, Hedda assures him, on my white white belly down the MoylanRose Valley Road singing cockmuscles alive alive oh, and my breasts, while shapely, are quite small, Mark, let me be your boy, oh please let me be your boy Disgusting, disgusting, Danny Naroyan shudders, how women throw themselves at men, oh but I adore cuddling my brothers head in my lap Donna Zion cries playfully, St Russell Zion the Baptist THE DANCE OF THE SEVEN VEILS OF THE WOMEN’S FRENCH REVOLUTIONS, didnt you know? we carry little guillotines in our pocketbooks Donna adds in her cleftpalate caresses, and my brother cleaveth to the roof of my mouth, and my husband Roy Lindauer
Roy Lindauer hunts wild jockstrap bats at the bedroof table of the Mouthsteins. Donna laughs softly at Silas who mutters that Lee must come rescue him from Rosa. Its jolly, really, Russell Zion says, Ive no head left for anything after my sister: France once again will be stable, and the lawyers govern a nation returned to normalcy. The Daughters of the American Revolution, take note, have all become men. His fathers hips, we allude to Sidney Zion, have lost their head since the death of Bella Zion. I can see him, Bella nods mournfully, down there on the beach, his hips going round and round monotonously, first clockwise and then counterclockwise
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oh. My tumor is dizzy, Carla Coffman sighs. Please, Dr Jared, give it something to eat. I can lead my boyscout troop forever, Henry Feinstein, chief weigher and office manager at the Levi Coal Company, says, if I become a partner in the business. Jesuschrist Gene Hertzog thinks looking at Levi Emanuel in the deathbed, how the fuck can a man masturbate with his prick attached to a rubber tube: thats something to learn from, he says sentimentally to Lee, a son should learn from that; you and Dave. Yeh. Me and Henry Feinstein and Dick Emanuel, yeh, we run the business so were entitled to it. You and Dave gonna run it? Tell Esther Goldstein running after Rena with a knife you and Dave are gonna run it and shell stop chasing her daugher. Shes scared for her daughter. Whats Rena gonna marry if she marries you, you got nothin to live on, she wants Rena to get a commitment from you, thats all, thats what shes yelling about, answer her
ANSWER its a black day all around Donald Schwartz Lee’s cousin says the great sack of his nose falling over his mouth Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the greatest friend the Jews ever had Im telling you so when he dies his tears spattering hot grease over his face
ANSWER
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CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP
chirp chirp chirp chirp
chrp chrp chip
rrrp
rrp aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aasssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh
ovelling
along the winter pavements on the Roosevelt Boulevard paralleling the highways outer lanes the micaslateslick surfaces of the gray mothwing ice slide along the black rubber slippersoles of the boy in the thick whiteblood of the blanch bloodwhite of the golden summer fireflyglinting new fluff ponderous snow sapphire-sliced horizontally and by sweatblack trowels of pacedoff maples blackboned vertically to a sun thumping along the schoolboys eye from a prismatic white strap he crouches. He loops a circuit. He jerks a thumb of pain up his calves. He hugs in a hoop of lung and he davidslingshots at a wobblelegblurt along the awkward-thigh lumbering and at the mothslick takeoff iceline, crooked leftleg behind the kneebent rightleg to the fore, his eye fearful at the far end of the micasheen, he abruptclenches the fist of his racegait and seesaws into a plumpboy scorch of a skid a slickanda-halffeet wigglewhizz till rightoe lockgrates into the freezerough, his rightleg lugs up a little spring and his left yanks up his tuckbody in a semihoop of gruntjump for an anklesting of a squarefoot clamping in a clump of the snowjamjar his arms at a goggleeye teeterbalance, he swaps sway for sway, sapphire for white, white for sapphire and both for maple sweatblack till, his clenchedback tumble a trickling tremble, he grimthrillsmiles at his nofall and crunches one foot ahead of the other to resume his digskip heartwalk to school, all icy surfaces his, all dangerously sliding mothwings his though he awakens in the morning to the raspseethe scraping up through the open cellardoor of his father thrusting, hands webgrabbed around the polished graygrained polehandle, the longhandled shovel into the grayplush bed of the thick fine ash on the cement bottom of the coal furnace. Winking white honeysuckles of awakening condense on the bedroom window on either side of the sleepswaying intersection arclight outside, the frosted glass lamp still micaaglowgold from the night-was. You dont have to curse the boy’s mother enjoins. But I can swear pops blind. The long low retchrasp of the shovelmetal against the gray ash of the white ash coal, this is the sound of a tongue on all fours, the tongue reversed and shovelling into the mouth, Gargoyle the Blind Dog
did you know that St Red that Gargoyle the Dog leaps the length of his chain, snapping it to arc three feet blindly into the air at the apathetic SeeingEye face of the blond girl, his mistress oh he knows her name mistress mine to strike her, fourfooted, the girl flicked off her balance and falling to the cement pavement, her skull abounce but once, but suffice, concussed stop it Red
stop it a batted ball not
a dog
a batte
d/not a my first dead Lee is a boy
I dont want you FOURFOOTED CATADOG YOURE BLIND AND IM CUSSEDBRAINED gargoyle the dog
is blind his sex is
blind my fathers sex is
blind dog dog dog Levi shovels the metal into the fine plush gray ash. Lifts and lets the ashes slide into the potbellied wooden basket, that in turn lifted and grimacelugged through the outside cellar entrance to the icegargoyled cement steps he sidles up, hoisting one leg after the other, the ponderous plush ash in the basket pendant from his arms pendant from his belly till in gray plush ashbreaths he raspretches down the basket into the snow to snag an iceslivered hiss of air in the backyard, honeysuckled frostings on the black garage window, theres a blind man down there the halfsleeping Lee swears, poundhooping his snowman arms against chest and belly under the gray SeeingEye, a praying mantis Golem rising in hissing breath behind the black hedge, film, the castle disintegrating in a holocaust of icy glitter, run for your life with the basket of ash, run for your life
blind man run for your life blind
boy Levi once again hoists the basket, grunts it through the open garage door and the honeysuckle smells of gasoline and oil and the attar of crushed washboard glass from the trashcan through the massive wooden doubledoors and out into the snowN’Muxt driveway to at last haggle down the burden on the streetcurb, thrice more the bellyash from the cellar, ten times thrice the metal seethe against ash and cement but quiltcomforting to the boy abed his retroedging colornesses slowly tearing off the honeysuckle condensations from the windowpane
LIFT, Levi, LIFT I want to hear my blind fathermen taking out the ash of the coal in the furnace that warms my body,
my father is taking out the ashes
my father is taking out the ashes singsongsingsong ten thousand eight hundred and twentyone Norma ascending through her hoopdress of the bellybasket ashes as Lee shaves off the frosted honeysuckles from the mirror and the thick latherash from his face, stripped to his belt, the blond woman pausing momentarily on the landingway, Lee resting a wet hand on the bannister chinning down, the train from Los Angeles, Chicago, Pittsburg pulling into the Philadelphia Thirtieth Street Station, pregnantwadded Norma preceding the little girl of the hoop, their daughter Stefanie, Lee grinds his teeth following them,
