Pariah

goes out and walks around and what? She’s touched by an angel or something? Yeah, right. She’s a person, same as us. She’s got some kinda secret and I wanna know what the fuck it is and I aim to find out.”

“And how do you propose doing that?”

“You know, sometimes you talk all fancy and I just wanna flatten you, Mallon. You pull that lawyery shit on me one more time-one more fuckin’ time-and I’ll lay you out. Count on it.”

“Jesus Christ, Eddie. What’s gotten up your ass?”

“Not you. Not ever. Look, just get the fuck outta here, okay? I wanna be alone for a while and sort some shit out.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“And thus endeth the nagging,” Abe said, sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Ruth’s wrist. No pulse. No breath. Dead. Abe sighed and moved his grip from wrist to hand, his fingers meshing with hers, his posture defeated. He didn’t look at her face, just stared ahead at the floor between his feet, nudging ruts into the pile of the carpet with the toe of his slippers, then smoothing them with the flats of his soles. “Ai, yaaaaaaah,” he sighed again, stretching it out. He tightened his grip on her hand. It had been years since he last held her hand, just held it. They used to walk hand in hand all the time. They even had correct and incorrect sides. It never felt right when he held her left hand; something seemed unbalanced. With his free hand he stroked his freshly shaven chin, a small scrap of toilet paper stuck there by a dot of blood. He plucked it free and neatly placed it on the bedside table.

“Oy, Ruthie,” he said, then sighed again. In place of tears a lot of sighing was in the offing, Abe not being given to displays of emotion, even when there was no audience. No living audience, at any rate. With reluctance he turned to look at Ruth’s visage; her eyes were still open. He hesitantly placed his fingertips on her eyelids and attempted to press them closed, but unlike the movies they wouldn’t stay shut. Even in death Ruth was contrary. He pulled the sheet over her, debating what to do next. Tell the others? He supposed he’d have to. It seemed unlikely that Ruth would be springing back to life-or unlife, take your pick. She died the old-fashioned way, free of zombie molestation. She was clean. Well, sort of. Abe wrinkled his nose. Ruth had, as it was euphemized, “voided herself,” filling the air with yet another bad smell and the sheets with something worse. How very un-Ruthlike. “Oy, Ruthie, Ruthie, Ruthie.”

So much for the family plot, he mused. Ruth had made such a to-do over her desire to be buried alongside her parents and sister. She also figured he’d predecease her-so much for woman’s intuition, too. What was he supposed to do now? She’d want a eulogy, a service of some kind. She’d expect the Mourner’s Kaddish, in Hebrew, no less, and since his bar mitzvah he’d forgotten pretty much everything. Did she have a prayer book tucked away somewhere? Probably. He seemed to recall her filching one from her sister’s funeral. Hopefully it was phonetic. He’d look later. But if he was to respect her wishes, which seemed the right thing to do, silly though it may be-pointless, even-so be it. She wouldn’t be getting the whole megillah, but he’d do his best to accommodate her superstitions as best he could. He stared across the room at his reflection in the mirror of Ruthie’s dressing table.

“Avel, vhat can you do?” Abe said in comic Yinglish inflection. In Judaism the mourner was called an avel. It was a self-admittedly bad pun. It brought him no comfort. “There goes that second Social Security check.” Again the joke didn’t help. He was bombing to an audience of none. Miriam, Hannah, and David had never laughed at his jokes, nor did their kids. Ruth had seldom laughed at them. It had been ages since he’d even attempted mirth, except for the lame waiter joke at the celebratory dinner on the roof. Everyone else in the building was listening to music again, and watching TV. Those little screens hurt his eyes. Most of Abe’s music was on vinyl. And what he wouldn’t do to be able to listen to some of his comedy records right now. The best medicine there is.

On shaky legs, Abe trudged into the living room and dropped into his threadbare upholstered chair, parted the dingy chintz curtains, opened the dusty venetian blinds. Deja vu on top of deja vu on top of feeling beaten down and laden with wearied grief.

More deja vu.

A little Myron Cohen would be nice.

The door to 2B remained open at all times, that apartment being Mona’s point of entrance and egress from the building. Since taking up residence in 2A, she’d taken to keeping the door locked, especially when she was out on errands. Everyone agreed she was entitled to her privacy and security; after all everyone else kept their doors locked, so why shouldn’t she?

Karl’s knuckles barely grazed the surface of Mona’s door, his rapping so feeble even he could barely hear it. His chin mashed into the pit of his collarbone, his lower lip twitched in self-disgust. He was having such a hard time getting up the nerve to approach her. Well, duh, you think maybe it’s because you see her as some kind of heavenly force? Like some kind of earthly angel or at the very least some kind of saint or whatnot? It was absurd. Not that Mona was possibly imbued with some holy powers, but that he was petrified. She was mellow, Karl told himself. Fact was, Mona was mellowness incarnate. Nothing seemed to bother her. Not even the things outside.

Karl’s hair stood up all over.

Not even the things outside.

There was an angle he’d never considered. Maybe the things outside stepped out of her way not because she was imbued with the Holy Spirit, but rather was an emissary of Lucifer and her minions knew better than to obstruct her path, let alone devour her. It made sense. Everyone in the building was on death’s door, starving, dehydrated, vulnerable, then along comes this pristine, beautiful young girl-temptation made flesh-offering every secular comfort. Maybe in their final moments the denizens of 1620 would have found their way back to God, and here was this serpentine interloper, sent to obscure their potential moment of spiritual clarity.

She dressed in black.

She even wore black nail polish. She listened mainly to heavy metal. Oh Jesus, he thought. Oh Jesus Christ. How could he have missed this? Everyone was so blinded by her gifts that they couldn’t see her for what and who she was: Lilith! Or if not capital L Lilith, then lowercase lilith, which was still not good. Even her last name was suspect: Luft. Luft was German for “air,” a tricky name. Mona’s personality seemed lighter than air. Air was a sustainer of life. She was keeping them all here, alive physically, but spiritually dead.

He was at last seeing through her deception. He’d seen The Light!

And now it was his job to let the others know.

28

Ruth’s naked body lay on their bed wrapped in a clean white sheet, as dictated by Jewish tradition-it was the least he could muster since she’d have to forgo the plain pine box. In the back of Abe’s mind he seemed to recall something about no coffin and the body being laid to rest, face up, and then concrete blocks being put on it, but the memory was sketchy. Sweltering in his mourning suit, tie cinched tight at his collar, Abe petted Ruth’s “earthly remains” and chewed his lower lip.

He’d disposed of the sheets and mattress pad she’d soiled and tidied as best he could, masking any residual odor with copious amounts of Glade air freshener. It was not a pleasant task and his estimation of those in the funeral trade became more sympathetic as he’d toiled to prepare the body. It wasn’t Ruth any more. Odd how once the life force had departed the body it ceased to resemble its former occupant. Sure, the face was the same, but the slackness removed the humanity. Her eyes were still open, damn them, and had caked over. Her jaw hung slack and cocked at an odd angle. Disturbing. Abe didn’t believe in the spirit, but Ruth’s death had transformed her, in spite of the homely details. It was the peacefulness. The body had relinquished her driving, vital force. In repose she didn’t look like the bitchy yenta she’d become over the years. It was simple as that.

He’d told the others. Ellen and Alan said they’d attend Abe’s ad hoc service, as did Dabney and Karl. It came