Gandalph Cohen & The Land at the End of the Working Day (3 page)

“Right,” says McCoy, “so the driver considers who’s asking and he decides, hey, what could be the problem, right? The car will be safe enough and so he agrees. The Pope jumps into the driver’s seat and straight away floors the acceleration pedal throwing the driver onto the floor at the back.

“The limo screeches up Broadway like you wouldn’t believe, running red lights, scaring the bag ladies and the muggers and the pimps, doing nearly one hundred miles an hour. Anyway, pretty soon this prowl car sees them come by and pulls out in pursuit. After a lengthy chase that takes them almost up into Harlem, the prowl car flags the limo down.”

“One hundred miles an hour up Broadway! Shee,” says Jim Leafman. “Can you imagine that?”

“That’s fast,” says Rosemary Fenwick.

“That
is
fast,” agrees Edgar, saying ‘fasht’.

“So,” says McCoy, “the cop gets out of the car—there’s only one cop in there—and he knocks on the driver’s window. The Pope sheepishly lowers the window … at which point the cop takes one look and then goes back to his own car and radios the precinct. ‘Er, this is Car 16,’ the cop says, ‘I think I’ve got a problem.’

“‘Problem?’ says the guy at the precinct. ‘Yeah,’ says the cop. ‘I’ve pulled over a VIP.’ ‘Who is it?’ comes the reply, ‘not the Mayor again?’

“‘Nope,’ says the cop. ‘More important than him.’

“‘Not the Senator?’ says the precinct house.

“‘Nope, more important than
him
,’ says the cop.

“‘The President? Tell me you haven’t pulled over the President,’ says the precinct.

“Nope,’ says the cop. ‘It’s even more important than
him
.’

“‘More important than the President of the United States?’ comes the reply. ‘Who could be more important than that?’

“The cop says, ‘I dunno, but he’s got the Pope as his chauffeur.’”

The laughter mixed in with Herbie Hancock’s ‘Maiden Voyage’ and the hybrid sound of cymbals and piano and pure good times rings out in the dimly lit barroom and washes against the walls and over to the steps leading up onto the street, spilling out into the night air like a beacon.

And it
is
a beacon, of sorts anyways.

And it
has
been noticed.

For out in the wintry night sidewalks of New York City there is one more soul adrift in the night. And he is following the sound like it’s a clarion call and, staring into the dark skies awash with reflected colors, he senses the direction of the sound and adjusts his own path—not by much … maybe by only a few feet—and he crosses over the street.

“Yeah,” says Jim Leafman, “I love a good joke.”

Jack Fedogan nods and glances towards the stairs.

“Jack?” Edgar Nornhoevan follows Jack’s stare. “Something wrong?”

 Jack shakes his head like he’s coming round from a punch to the face. “No, just thought … just thought I heard something.”

McCoy looks around at the stairs and sees the darkness of the streets lying at the top, curled up away from the overhead lights on the stairs and, for a second, it reminds him that the world is waiting for him. Reminds him that the funny stories are only down here, down here in Jack Fedogan’s bar, and that up there he doesn’t have a job. Up there, funny stories are strictly for people who are in work. “Can’t see anything,” he says and looks back down at his beer and his highball.

“Hey, you’re thinning down, Ed,” Jack says, changing the subject. “I hadn’t noticed that before,” he adds, patting his own stomach and nodding to Edgar Nornhoevan’s. “You lost a little weight. Looks good on you.” He nods and takes a slug of beer. “You working out?”

Edgar pulls in a long sigh. “Tumor,” he says, letting out the air.

“Tumor?” says Jim Leafman. “That some kind of diet?”

Grimacing, Jack says, “It’s cancer, you dumb fuck,” hissing it. He turns to Rosemary Fenwick and adds, “Pardon my—”

“I know,” Rosemary says, “pardon your fucking French.”

McCoy Brewer reaches across and pats Edgar’s arm. “Where?” he asks.

“Prostate. Me and Timothy Leary.”

“Turn on,
tume
in and drop out,” says Jack.

“Oh, that was awful,” says Rosemary.

“Leave him be,” says Edgar. “He’s just trying to make me feel better.”

“He’s just a comedian, he don’t mean nothing,” says Jim Leafman, filling his glass from the pitcher, filling it right to the brim and watching the froth turn into beer and slop down the sides onto the table.

“I guess we’re all comedians tonight,” says McCoy.

 “Yeah,” Rosemary says, “it feels special alright. You feel that? Can you feel something special about everything?”

“How special?” Jack slides his hand across the table and shakes one of Rosemary’s cigarettes out of the pack, then lights it.

“I thought you quit?” says Edgar.

“I did.” Jack takes a pull on the cigarette and blows smoke, smiling.

Rosemary shrugs. “Dunno. Just special.”

“It’s cos we’re telling jokes,” says Jim, “cos we’re comedians, like Mac said.”

Jack Fedogan says, “What was it Lenny Bruce said about comedians?”

Grunts from everyone. Nobody knows what Lenny Bruce said about anything.

“He said something like a comedian is someone who makes up his own material, not someone who just repeats other folks’ stuff,” says Jack, remembering hearing Lenny interviewed by Studs Terkel on WFMT back in ’59, when he lived in Chicago. “They’re just echoes.”

McCoy turned to him. “Lenny Bruce said that? Echoes?”

“No … well, I don’t recall him actually
saying
that, but that’s what he
meant
,” says Jack. “He meant they’re not the real thing.”

The sound on the stairs happens right then, McCoy, Rosemary, Jim, Jack and Edgar pulling themselves back from the table like they’re resting on an oven surface or a barbecue grill, staring at the table, feeling those same vibrations again, like the granddaddy of all trains is moving right under where they’re sitting, but they’re unable to take their hands away, each of them holding their hands flat on the table’s surface like they’re trying to stop it rising into the air. And then they all glance across at the stairs, from where the unmistakable sound of feet descending can be heard.

“Now
that’s
the real thing,” says Edgar, saying it quietly, like he’s saying it only to himself.

Coming down the stairs, looking around the room like it was an Aladdin’s cave of treasures, is a man. At first glance the man looks to be old, but then the assembled patrons of The Land at the End of the Working Day see that the man’s long hair and beard are probably only discolored by the city, made gray by the traffic exhausts and the cooking smells, and that they don’t actually relate to his age. For his face is completely unlined. It’s dirty, sure, grimy and greasy-looking, but the man’s eyes are bright and wide open, taking everything in. He stops a couple of steps from the bottom and puts his hands on his hips.

In one hand he carries a dirty leather satchel, its contents bulging the sides out though there does not appear to be anything of any significant weight in there as it swings by his side effortlessly. He stands around five eight, five nine, a long black coat coming down to his shins, its sleeves rolled up to make thick cuffs which even then, with his arms bent, cover most of his hands. On the coat, either pinned into place or stitched—he’s standing too far away for the quintet at the table to be sure—are a series of signs and shapes, some of which are clearly moons, crescent moons, and stars, the kind of stars you see in children’s story books, five points and a fat center. The only thing that’s missing on these are faces, though McCoy wonders to himself if they weren’t there, once upon a time, and have merely been stolen by the city and the night.

Around the man’s waist is a makeshift belt which appears to have been constructed by several neckties of various designs and colors, its knot lavishly fashioned into an elaborate bow. Beneath the coat hangs a pair of trousers, gray and flecked, which culminate in a series of ruffles at the man’s ankles, resting on a pair of scuffed training shoes bearing the unmistakable motif of
Nike
on the side. But it is his headgear that makes for the most striking item of his clothing.

For on top of that veritable explosion of lank and matted hair sits a cross between a tall, conical hat and an old leather flying helmet, its tapered end bent so that the point hangs at a right angle to the rest of it, ear-flaps hanging loosely at the sides of his face and the whole affair similarly lavished with symbols and drawings, all of which are faded and scuffed and somehow altogether tired looking.

“
Bon soir, mes amis
,” the man’s voice booms, and he lifts his hands as though he is a benign ruler addressing his people. Taking the final three stairs onto the floor of Jack Fedogan’s tavern, he sees the five people all holding their hands flat on the table and says, “Hey, don’t tell me … ‘Seance on a Wet Afternoon’, right?”

They stare at him in silence.

“Okay, maybe you’re enacting one of those shlocky slice’n’dice features … like maybe ‘Evil Dead 7’ or ‘Halloween 24’, something like that?” He waves his hands in the air and looks to the ceiling. “Is there anybody there?” he says in a deep wavering voice, dragging the words out to three and four times their length. “Aunt Jemima, tell Uncle Frank I’m gonna look after his stamp collection.”

Jack stands up from the table and starts towards the man, waving his hands slowly in front of him. “I don’t know what you’re looking for pal,” Jack tells the man, “but you ain’t likely to find it in here.”

“Me?” The man’s face frowns and he places both of his hands on his own chest. “It is not I who am looking for anything, but you yourselves.”

“
Us
?” Edgar manages to say the word correctly and almost surprises himself that the drunkenness seems to have passed, at least for a while.

“For sure,” says the man, turning to Edgar Nornhoevan. “For is that not why I have been summoned?”

“We didn’t summon nobody,” says Jack. “And, like I say, we don’t allow no bums in here,” he adds, reaching a hand out to take hold of the man’s arm.

 “Ah, fear not friends … that is quite normal,” says the man, and he lifts a hand to straighten his hat. “Rather it is the City itself that seeks my help on your behalf,” he says, imbuing the word ‘city’ with a strange significance. He looks to the upturned faces and says, “It does that all the time.”

Shifting around in her chair, Rosemary Fenwick asks the man who he is, something that most of the others have also been wanting to find out.

“Me?” the man booms, “I am Gandalph Cohen.”

“Gandalph Cohen?” says Edgar.

“What kind of a name is that?” asks Jim Leafman.

The man turns a withering glance at Jim and says, softly, “It’s Jewish.”

“I think he meant ‘Gandalph’,” says Rosemary.

“Ah, of course, an unusual name I grant you.” The man smiles at Jack and shakes his elbow free. Pointing to the table, he says, “Might I join you?”

Without waiting for a response, the man pulls a chair from one of the other tables, drags it across to sit between Rosemary and Edgar, and plops down with a sigh. Jack shrugs and walks across to the bar where he pours a fresh pitcher of beer which, along with a clean glass, he brings back to the table. The man accepts the glass and McCoy pours the beer.

“My parents, God rest their souls, were Tolkien freaks,” he says, slurping the froth from his beard loudly. “The saga of the Ring and of the hobbits’ epic journey figured largely in their lives. When I came along, almost 39 years ago, the choice of a name was of no concern. The only problem was that the Rabbi misspelled it, so I’m Gandalph with a pee-aitch instead of with an eff. The full name is Gandalph Ara
gone
For
do Cohen. The man was a Philistine where fantastic literature was concerned but at least he spelled Cohen correctly.”

The man takes another drink and, resting his glass back on the table, lifts his left side—the one next to Edgar—from the chair and lets rip a loud fart. “
Pardonez moi
,” he says.

Astonished, Rosemary Fenwick bursts into uncontrolled laughter, quickly joined by Jim Leafman, McCoy Brewer and Edgar himself, though, placing a hand across his nose, he backs away from the man.

“Jesus Chri—” Jack Fedogan begins before he too starts to laugh.

“Why did you
say
that?” says Rosemary, still sniggering.

“What?”

“That ‘pardonay mwah’ stuff?”

The man shrugs. “Just being polite. It’s always polite to excuse yourself when you pass wind in public.”

“No, I mean saying it in French,” says Rosemary, unable to keep the exasperation out of her tone.

Another shrug. “I used to be French.”

 “
Used
to be?” says McCoy.

“Uh huh. I’ve been all kinds of nationality—French, German, Hindu, Russian …  you name it, I’ve been it. The French has stuck, though. Hard to shake off.”

“I thought you said you were Jewish,” Edgar says.

“Nope. I said my
name
was Jewish.”

“So what are you? What are you now?” asks Jack.

“Jewish. Been Jewish all my life … this one, anyways.” He takes another slug of beer.

“You just said-”

“Sorry,” Gandalph Cohen says to Jack Fedogan, “playing the old semantics game. The other nationalities were other lives … existences before this one. This time around I am most assuredly Jewish … but a little French here and there never hurt anyone.”

Jack, Edgar, Jim, McCoy and Rosemary sit looking at each other, exchanging frowns, grimaces and rolled-up eyes, side-glancing at the new arrival as he leans on the back of his chair and scans the interior of the Working Day.

“Nice place,” says Gandalph Cohen at last, turning back to face the others but nodding at Jack Fedogan. “Bet it’s expensive to run, yes?”

Jack regains his composure and nods. The truth of the matter is that it’s very expensive. Jack is currently fighting a foreclosure order from the bank, something he tries to keep to himself. But not for long. He figures he’s got one week.