Jews vs Aliens Read online

  – Don’t move your head.

  If I look from there I’d just see a symmetrical reflection of one side of his face, and he’d make a voice and go, ‘I am the alien.’ It calmed me down because it was, in is own way, terrifying. A more controllable horror. Because, I guess, when you imagine aliens you do imagine something with a mirror standing vertically in the middle of it, because you imagine something more symmetrical than a human. And so he did look like an alien. Like something not human.

  Because what looks human about you is that the mirror in the middle of you is not really mirror. It is water.

  It started as a family joke. Habit. A tic. Later it became a little more serious. After my bar mitzvah party he took me out to Burger Ranch in Haifa and said, ‘You know, there’s a lot to it, to the alien thing in the mirror. I gave it to you in the form of parable,’ and I said, ‘Sure, dad.’ I thought I knew. What could it mean? The only alien is in you or something. In your fear. Whatever. But as time passed he went on and on about the alien. He wrote Symmetry: A Mind Virus but no publisher wanted to print it. He kept talking about the alien long after I was too old to be afraid of aliens or cared to hear about them. When I was 15 he started losing his mind every time he went to work. He hated teaching. It didn’t leave him enough time to write. He blamed the job for the failure of his book. At night I would hear him cry to my mom, like, ‘I have so much to say, I have so much to say.’ But even when he did quit, no one published him until he started his own publishing house and published himself. By then I was 16 and dating Tania and already pretty far from faith. At first he didn’t think it was serious. He said, ‘The God you don’t believe in? I don’t believe in It either.’ When he finally understood I just didn’t care, it crushed him. It was so painful that he began to lose his own faith. Which of course made me doubt the strength of his faith to begin with, and so caused me to lose mine even more, and so on and so on. We had tonnes of fights about keeping Shabbat. You know how hard it is to not smoke or listen to music for a whole day and then convince yourself that this day is sacred? The jail-day?

  You’ve got it all wrong. It’s a day free of want. Want is the real jail.

  Aren’t they both jails?

  They are. But one has no walls.

  Six years after I moved to New York, he came to visit me. I wasn’t in the best place in my life. Mora had just left me, and I couldn’t afford rent, and I had to finish the mastering on the recordings, which I couldn’t afford. So I started au pairing for the Rosens on Devoe street. They were this rich couple. She was a vet and he an architect and vice versa, and they had —

  Do rich people live on Devoe Street?

  Rich for me. They had a five-year-old daughter, Shir, and wanted a live-in au pair. So I got to live in their basement, which was cool because I didn’t have to pay rent or buy food or drive to work, and I got paid, and I had a whole floor for myself where I could work on my music on my gear during the day when Shir was at school – What?

  I didn’t say anything.

  Then I got pneumonia. The fact that I couldn’t see a doctor because I didn’t have health insurance wasn’t so bad, but I was kind of confined to the basement. I didn’t want Shir to get sick too, so I stayed down there for two weeks. During that time, I listened to the album I was working on over and over, trying to figure out how to master it. While listening, lyrics started popping into my head. Words just appeared on top of the melody. And the album, which was completely instrumental before, became an album of songs. I was so sick, all I could do was sing. And in English, so it took me a while to understand what I was singing about. I sang about things I didn’t even think about. Apocalypse. The end of the world.

  Yes.

  The Rosens decorated the fence for Christmas even though they were Jewish, and I could see the fence from where I worked in the basement. I remember sitting there, working, listening to my own beats for the millionth time, totally sick, and suddenly getting drunk on nothing. Drunk on some sort of weird sense of victory. Like I was a general at the end of a war, and my army had won. As if I were at the finally silent battlefront, at the edge of the sea. Watching the last whispers of fire on the dark water, in the evening. The great sinking ships of my enemies.

  Sinking or not, they are comfortable. You will never be comfortable.

  Then I got better and my father flew over. I came to the airport to pick him up. When he stepped through the entrance gate he hugged and kissed me, but he looked pale. Terrified. In the taxi I asked him what was wrong, and he said, ‘It’s here. The alien is here.’ I tried to keep up with the joke, so I said, ‘I thought it was in your bedroom mirror.’ He didn’t think it was funny. He looked scared as shit. He said, ‘But here it’s all around.’ Then he remembered that he’d brought me a present, dug around in his bag and gave it to me. It was an old Sandisk MP3 player. I told him my cell phone plays MP3s, so I didn’t really need it, and that I’d upload songs on it for him so he could use it instead.

  Don’t touch your face. It’s a Water Mirror coming out of your body to your eye in order to create small infinities of light straight into the retina. It’s good.

  I sublet a room for us on Driggs. We went to parks and museums. It was freezing cold. Everybody started saying ‘selfie’ all of a sudden. Everyone in New York was taking pictures of themselves with their phones. My father couldn’t stop pointing at them. In restaurants, on the street. ‘Look, there’s another one!’ he’d say, and I’d have to push his arm down and be like: ‘Shhh, stop it.’ I spent a whole day uploading songs on his MP3 player, but when I gave it to him he said he’d listen to it on the plane. He wanted to talk. He bought me lunch and asked: ‘Do the Rosens know how old you are?’ I said, ‘No. I told them I was 23.’ He asked me why, and I said, ‘Because I look 23!’ ‘But why did you lie?’ he asked. ‘They’re 31,’ I said. ‘I can bear the fact that I’m only three years younger than them, and by the time I’m their age there is no way I will have their car or house or clothes or career or family or anything. But I don’t think they can.’ My father stopped eating. ‘Are you protecting everyone?’ he asked. And I said, ‘Yes. Do you have a problem with that?’ He said, ‘On the plane ride here, they showed us a movie about emergency procedures. And they said in case of a drop in oxygen in the cabin, one has to put an oxygen mask on oneself before helping one’s child do the same. One has to save oneself first. Otherwise one might actually kill both oneself and those one is trying to save, or at least allow them to be saved by a dead man.’ I said, ‘They said all that? Really?’ Later, back at the apartment, I was taking a shit and I could hear him pacing by the door. I couldn’t take it after a while, so I said, ‘What the fuck, dad?’ He stopped right in front of the door and said: ‘You are not an artist. You don’t even know how to digest food,’ and I said, through the door, ‘What did you just say?’ and he said, ‘You’d rather shit than eat. You’d rather give than take. But if you don’t eat, what is it that you are shitting? Nothing. You are laying more and more layers of nothings where there should be something. Where you should be creating something out of nothing. Where you should be sucking shit through your bodies, and puking it out of your mouths as beautiful, nutritious food.’ I was just having a terrible constipation so it was hilarious on many levels.

  I would have thought he’d be a little harsher regarding your lifestyle. You try hard to portray him as a poor teacher, but in the last 11 years of his life, he was a pretty respected rabbi, and your life –

  – Of course he wanted me to take over the publishing house. He said I could learn how to run a business this way, so later I could open my own label and publish my own music, like he did with his writing. I said something like, ‘Who taught you how to say “label”?’

  Ha.

  He said, ‘Who taught you how to say “who”?’

  Right. Right.

  On his last day in New York we got into a fight. We were walking to a subway station near Bryant Park, and we passed an Arab homeless woman with a
child. I gave her a dollar. My dad shook his head, like he was deeply disappointed in me. I asked him what his problem was, and he didn’t answer. I said, ‘What, because they’re Arab?’ and he said, ‘No.’ I told him, ‘You never give money to anyone,’ and he went: ‘I only give money to street performers.’ He said it like it was a mitzvah only he was aware of: ‘I only give money to people who do something.’ A couple of minutes later we came across another homeless person. He was sitting on a wheelchair, covered in rags, and he didn’t have any legs or hands. Just a head. We took the train home in silence. At dinner my father looked depressed. I asked him, ‘Are you sorry you didn’t give him money?’ And he said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘What did you want him to do? Play the harmonica, hands-free, like Dylan?’ And you know what he said? He said, ‘He could still sing.’ I got so pissed off I told him I was going out. I needed a drink. It was his last night, and I knew he was hoping we’d sit down and talk. He wanted to show me the last draft of the Second Book.

  The Second Book was dedicated to you.

  I leafed through the first. It seemed mad. It was the same mystical religious bullshit that got him excommunicated from Beit Malka.

  It was all true.

  You know it's Gnostic thought, right? That it is forbidden?

  No no no no no. Not if you know the mirror is also made of light. Not if it’s built by human want. You think I am not made of the same infinite materiel that made you or wa —

  Anyway I didn’t want to hear about it, but when I was at the door he said, ‘Can I come with you?’ I acted like I didn’t hear him and left, thinking he wouldn’t follow because he didn’t have his coat on, but he ran after me in the snow, wearing nothing but his sweater. We walked down Metropolitan not saying a word until we got to Legion. It was too freezing to think. We got in, sat at the bar, got beers. He noticed this girl in the other corner of the room and went, ‘Go talk to her!’ I told him that the fact that he married mom when he was practically a baby didn’t mean he now had to fuck the rest of the world by proxy via his offsprings. He didn’t listen to me because he was staring at her body while she was dancing. I didn’t feel like sitting next to a religious 60-year-old drooling at the bar, so I got up and went over to her. She stopped dancing and sat down. We spoke for five minutes. She was cute. I can’t remember her name. Becca. After five minutes, my dad showed up and crammed in next to us. It was so embarrassing I had to act as though it was quirky and funny. Obviously I joked about him in English in front of her. He didn’t speak any English, so he just listened and smiled like an idiot while I told her what he believes in. Then we went out to smoke and he came out with us and asked for a puff. I don’t even think he knew it was weed. Later, when Becca was speaking about her friend who had to drive to work for two hours every day, she said, ‘So every morning she commutes –’ and my father just burst out laughing. I’m talking beer out his nose all over the table, unable to speak. I tried to calm him down, or at least to understand what had happened – like, ‘Dad, what are you doing?’ – and finally, when he caught his breath, he said, ‘Commutes!’ and cracked up again. I said, ‘What about it?’ and he said, ‘Is there really such a thing?’ And I said, ‘Commutes? Of course, it means –’ And he said, ‘No no no! Don’t tell me what it means! It’ll only ruin it!’

  Wonderful.

  But then something happened. We went back in, and suddenly this Becca goes, ‘Wait a minute, how do you spell your last name?’ B-A-R-S-K-I. Why? She put her left arm around me, and with her right hand, lifted her iPhone in front of us and took a picture. I stood there, watching, as she uploaded it on Facebook and tagged me. On the way home, my father asked me to explain what happened. I told him she had to take a picture of me and post it online so in case I have a girlfriend, my girlfriend would see it. And also in case anybody else she knows had anything to say about me, they could let her know. He thought about it for a long time. Then he looked at me and said, ‘Are you what comes after human?’ And I laughed and said, ‘How do you mean?’ And he said, ‘Have you moved to Higher Mind?’

  Like, the internet?

  I don’t know. I — Maybe like the cell phone is the new reflection of Self. The webcam is the first mirror in which our eyes don’t meet their own reflection. Where the image is not created through the infinite loop of light. That is why we look completely different in every picture. But these images are then shared online into the larger mind of the internet where they are viewed by many people, perceived by many intelligences, and therefore receive their Infinite, ever-changing, Water-like-reflection dimension.

  The Water Age is returning. It has been prophesised. Aharit Hayamim doesn’t only mean “End of Days” – it also means “The Return of the Seas.”

  Or it’s just another mirror. Because the internet is built through our minds – which are already infested by you – so it too has a mirror in the middle of it. Now we can either use it to venture into further infinity by viewing the contents of each other’s minds – all the art and libraries and diaries of the world are finally exposed – or we can use it to spiral into deeper solitude.

  Like porn?

  So is the iPad the ‘Mirror Which Does Light’ they were speaking about?

  The Mirror Which Does —

  You know, the mirror from Maimonides, the Maharal, the Shelah HaKadosh, the Malbim, when they speak about, ‘All prophets prophesised in a Mirror Which Does Not Light but Moses prophesised in a Mirror Which Does Light.’ Do you think it could be the iPad? I mean, the cellphone camera?

  I didn’t think about it. I need to think about that.

  I will go blind if I don’t blink soon.

  Go.

  Yeah?

  Go, go. Dinner’s on in about five minutes anyway.

  I look stoned. I need to cover you up.

  Natan?

  What?

  I love you.

  NAMELESS AND SHAMELESS

  LOIS H. GRESH

  Lot scanned the Help Wanted ads nailed to the sign pointing to Ur. At 28, he had plenty of skills and could fill any number of these jobs. Jeroham-Shlem, the Overseer of Affairs, needed a courier to deliver mail between Ur and Babylon. For only one seah of barley for a day’s donkey rental, Lot could get an animal from Uriel-Shub the Donkey-Man by the East Gate. This would make the courier job a snap.

  ‘What do you think, Uncle Abe?’

  ‘You can’t leave home.’ Abe stroked his matted, grey beard, which hung to his waist. ‘Babylon can wait. I need you here. It’s important. It’s a mission from -’ and he mumbled a word that sounded like Adonai.

  Unfortunately for Lot, it had to be his uncle who was crazy, his uncle who started this whole ‘one God’ business, his uncle who smashed idols and raised all kinds of hell. Abe had to be there every Wednesday for the camel rodeo, didn’t he? Had to be the best rider, had to push his camel to try and throw him. The old man rode animals so fast, Jeroham-Shlem had instituted a camel speed limit all around the outskirts of Sodom.

  ‘What’s so important that it can’t wait a few months?’ asked Lot. He settled on the rock next to his uncle and stretched his legs under the sun. The warmth made him woozy. He wished he could sip some fermented juice, but ever since Abe got on this ‘one God’ kick, Lot was only allowed the fermented juice once or twice a year. Lot wondered if his uncle was secretly a wino.

  Abe lifted an arm and pointed toward the sand dunes and cliffs behind the tent. His eyes watered, maybe from drinking, maybe from senility – well, he was 99 years old – or maybe from the sun. ‘They’re coming from yonder hills, Lot, three tall strangers, and they’ve come to warn us.’

  ‘I’m tired of all this, Uncle Abe. I need something different to do with my life. We can’t all be you.’

  His uncle frowned, and a pang of guilt swept through Lot followed by a wave of shame.

  ‘You have news of Sodom, I take it?’ Uncle Abe asked. Startled, Lot looked up to see three creatures squatting by the tent opening. He hadn’t seen them come from
any direction – had they simply sprung to life right here in the sand?

  From his uncle’s tone, it seemed that Abe already knew these three... men.

  The furriest of them, the one with the extra-wide jawbones and the largest nostrils, grunted and said, ‘News? The only news out of Sodom is that it’s filled with freaks. Do you think our parents’ parents’ parents looked like us? God rest their souls, Hayim ben Saul ben Shmuel ben Yakov ben Hyksos.’ He wore a loincloth that did little to hide his fur, his muscles, and the fact that his hands lacked thumbs and his feet lacked big toes.

  The skinniest of the men, the one with the long nose and three eyes, said, ‘I see no good coming of this, Abe. We barely got out of there alive, and look what it did to us. You should see what they’re like back there.’ He wore a black robe with a hood, and Lot wondered if he also had fur, no thumbs, and no big toes.

  Perched high on the mountain overlooking Sodom, Lot had a clear view of the city. Even beneath the blaze of sun, Sodom sparkled like ten thousand jewels. Spires rose along the clay-stone walls, which according to Uncle Abe, were 24 cubits thick. The people of Sodom shrieked and laughed constantly, their voices a blanket of noise to the tent-dwelling families on the mount. In fact, the shrieks and laughter from Sodom went on all night and never stopped.

  Lot recognized the third man. He was Litvin the Barbarian, protector of the Hyksos in all these parts. He stood six cubits tall. He carried a club with spikes sticking out of it in all directions. His arm was wider than Lot’s torso. With a flick of his little finger, Litvin could easily snap Lot’s neck, but they’d grown up together in the desert and Lot wasn’t afraid of him.