Approaching Oblivion Part 9

"How do you do?"

I figured it was the most polite way to talk to a rock.

"How did you know I was the chief Slave?" the Rock said.

"You had the longest tongue."

Slurp! A znigh on the wing, cruising by humming a tune, minding its own business, got it right in the punim, a tongue like a wet noodle, splat right in the punim and a quick overhead twist and squis.h.!.+ all over the Rock. It splattered on me, gooey and altogether puke-making. Definitely not the kind of individual to have a terrific dinner out with. The guderim was all over me.

"Excuse the mess," said the chief Slave. He really sounded sorry.

"Think nothing," I said. "That was a very cute little overhand twist you gave it there at the last minute."

He seemed flattered. "You noticed that, did you?"

"How could I help? Such a cla.s.s move."

"You know, you're the first one who's ever noticed that. There have been lots of studies made, by all kinds of foreigners, from other worlds, other galaxies, even, but never once did one of them notice that move. What did you say your name was?"

The bug ooze was dripping down my stomach. "My name is Evsise, and I'm looking for a person who used to be a person named Kadak. I was given to understand that he'd become a Rock a few years ago.

I have a great need to find this Kadak rock, he should drop dead already such a rotten time he's been making for me."

"Listen," said the chief Slave (as the remains of the znigh oozed down through the spongy surface), "I like you. Have you ever thought of converting?"

"Forget it."

"No, really, I'm serious. To Wors.h.i.+p The Rock is such an enriching experience, it really isn't smart to dismiss it without giving it a try. What do you say?"

I figured I had to be a little smartsy then, just a little. "Say, I wish I could. You got no idea what a nice proposition that is you're making to me. And in a quick second I'd take you up on it, but I got this one bissel tot of a problem."

"Would you like to talk about it?"

A psychiatrist rock, yet. I really needed this.

"I'm afraid from bugs," I said.

He didn't say anything for a moment. Then, "I see your point. Bugs are a very big part of our religion."

"I can see that."

"Ah, well. I'm sorry for you. But let's see if I can help you. What did you say his name was?"

"Kadak."

"Oh, yeah, I remember now. What a creep."

"That's him."

"Let me see now," said the Rock. "If I recall correctly, we threw him out of the order for being a disruptive influence, oh, it must have been fifteen years ago. He used to make the ugliest noises I've ever heard out of a Rock."

"Snuffling."

"I beg your pardon?" "Snuffling is what he did. A terrible snort noise, all wet and cloggy, it could make you sick to be near it."

"Yes, that was it."

"So what happened to him, I'm afraid to ask."

"He reconst.i.tuted his atoms and became just like you again."

"Not like me, please."

"Well, I mean the same species."

"And he went off?"

"Yes. He said he was going to try the Fles.h.i.+sts."

"I wish you hadn't told me that."

"I'm sorry."

I sat down. Settled my tuchis right down between my rims, drew up my legs, and dropped my head into a half dozen of my hands. I was very glum.

"Would you like to sit on me?" the Rock asked.

It was a nice offer. "Thanks," I said politely, looking at the last slimy ooze of the znigh on the Rock, "but I'm too miserable to be comfortable."

"What do you need him for?" he asked.

So I explained the best I could-this was, after all, to a rock, a piece of stone, even if it could talk- about the minyan of ten. The chief Slave asked me why ten.

So I said, "On the Earth, a long time ago...you know about the Earth, right? Right. Well, on the Earth, a long time ago, G.o.d was going to give a terrific zetz to a place called Sodom. What it was, this Sodom, was a whole city full of Fles.h.i.+sts. Not a nice place."

"I can't conceive of an entire city of Fles.h.i.+sts," the rock Rock said. "That's rather an ugly thought."

"That's the way G.o.d looked at it."

We were both quiet for a while, thinking about that.

"So, anyhow," I said, "Abraham, blessed be his name, who was this very holy Jew even if he wasn't blue, you shouldn't hold that against him-"

"I won't."

"-uh. yes. Right. Well, Abraham pleaded with G.o.d to save Sodom."

"Why did he do that...a city full of F1es.h.i.+sts. Yechh."

"How do I know? He was holy, that's all. So G.o.d must have thought that was a little meshugge...a little crazy...also, you know G.o.d is no dummy...and he told Abraham he'd spare Sodom if Abraham could find fifty righteous men living there..."

"Just men? What about women?"

"There isn't scripture on that one."

"Sounds like your G.o.d is a s.e.xist."

"At least, you'll pardon my frankness now, but at least he isn't a thing that lies in a valley for birds to make ka-ka on."

"That's rather rude of you."

"I'm terrible sorry, but it isn't nice to call the one true G.o.d a rotten name."

"I was only asking."

"Well, it isn't too cla.s.sy for a rock to ask them kinds questions. Now do you want to hear this or don't you?"

"Yes, sure. But-"

"But what!"

"Why did this G.o.d haggle with this Abraham? Why didn't he just tell him he was going to do it, and then do it?"

I was getting pretty upset, you know what I mean? "It was because Abraham was a mensch, a real terrific persona snappy dresser, that's why, okay?"

The rock didn't answer. I guess he was sulking. So okay, let him sulk. "Then Abraham said, okay, what if I can only find forty righteous men? And G.o.d said, okay, let be forty. So Abraham said what if only thirty, and G.o.d said, nu, let be thirty already, and then Abraham said what if only twenty, and G.o.d started yelling all right stop nuhdzing me, let be twenty..."

"Let me guess," the rock said, " Abraham said ten, and your G.o.d got really mad and said ten was it, and no further, and that's how you came up with ten men for the congregation."

"You've heard it," I said. The rock was silent again.

Finally, he said, "Listen, I like your idea of religion.

I'm not altogether happy being a Slave of the Rock, even if I am the chief Rock. How about if I converted and came back with you, and made the tenth for the minyan?"

I thought about that for a while. "Well," I said slowly, "the Talmud does say, 'Nine free men and a slave may be reckoned together for a quorum,' but against that is quoted that Rabbi Eliezer went into a Synagogue and didn't find ten there, so he freed his slave and with him completed the number, but if there had only been seven and he had freed two slaves, it wouldn't have been kosher. But with one freed slave and the Rabbi it made ten. So, clearly, as all agree, eight freemen and two slaves would not answer the purpose. But, if you just put yourself in my place for a moment, you're not, even remotely speaking, my slave. You're the Slave of the Rock. And besides, it takes a long time to convert. Can you speak Hebrew?

Even a little?"

"What's Hebrew?"

"Forget it. How about keeping kosher?"

"What are they? I'll keep them if it's part of the program. After all, when you've been a Rock, eating bugs all your life, keeping some kind of pet doesn't sound too difficult."

It was hopeless. For a minute there I gave it a maybe, you know what I mean. But the more I thought about it, even if I could summon up the chutzpah to go back to Reb Jeshaia with a rock, not with a Kadak, it wouldn't work. This Rock was a nice enough fellow, you know what I mean, but even as I sat there pondering, he shot out that ick tongue of his, and snared a buck-fly and whipped it in that move he thought was such a sensational thing, and splatted it allover the place, and started eating it. And clearly, very clearly, Genesis 9:4 forbade animal blood to all the seed of Noah, so how could I bring a Rock back and say, here, I freed this Slave of the Rock, and he'll be the tenth man, and then right in the middle of Adonai, out would come that crummy tongue and eat a bug off the wall. Forget it.

"Listen," I said, as gentle as I could, I didn't want to hurt his feelings, "it's a strictly great offer you've made, and under other circ.u.mstances I'd take you up on that, you know what I'm saying? But right now I'm really pressed for time and it would take too long for you to learn Hebrew, so let's let it sit for a while. I'll get back to you."

He wasn't happy about that, I could tell. But he was a real mensch. He told me he understood, and he wished me good luck with the Fles.h.i.+sts, and he let me roll away fast. I could see his point, though, and I was very sorry about his not being a possible. I mean, how would you like it to sit all day baking in the sun, with birds making pish in your face, and the best you got to look forward to is a juicy bug.

And if I'd known what I had coming, what tsuris, I'd have gladly only, happily yet, you can believe it, taken that Rock back with me, bug dreck and all. Believe me, there are worse things than a rock that eats bugs.

I'll make a long story short. I followed the trail of that putz Kadak from the pit of the Fles.h.i.+sts (where I lost the use of my pupik, all my coin, the sight of one eye in the back, the second arm on the left side, and my yarmulkah), to the embarkation dock at the s.p.a.ceport where the sect called the Denigrators were getting on board s.h.i.+ps for that Bromios (where I got beat up so bad I crawled away), to the lava beds where the True Believers of Suffering were doing their last rites before leaving (where I suffered first degree miserable and such a pain you wouldn't accept over half my poor body), to the Tabernacle of the Mouth (where some big deal prophet that was all teeth bit off the tip of one antenna. G.o.d knows why, maybe out of pique at being left behind), to the Caucus Race of the Malforms (where I fit right in, as c.r.a.pped up and b.l.o.o.d.y as I was), to the Lair of the Blessed Profundity of the Unspeakable Trihll (which I could not, even if I had several mouths, p.r.o.nounce...but they punched and kicked me anyhow, really sensational people), to the Archdruid of Nothingness, always following that miserable creep Kadak from religion to religion-and let me tell you, no one had a good word for that schmuck, not even the worst of those heathens-and it was there, kayn-ahora, that the Archdruid told me the last he'd seen of Kadak was ten years earlier, when he had changed him into a b.u.t.terfly, and sent him out into the desert to hopefully drop dead in the heat.

Which is why, finally, I'm standing here talking to you, dumb creep b.u.t.terfly. So now I've told it all, and you see what a puke condition I'm in, don't for a minute think that Avram or those others will respect me for what I did, they'll only nuhdz me about how long it took, and that's why you got to come back with me. Not a word. Not a sound through all this. Not a flap or a flitter or a how are you Evsise. Nothing.

Look. I'm not going to tummel with you, Mr. I-Can't-Make-Up-My-Mind-What-Kind-Of- Religion-I-Want-To-Be b.u.t.terfly.

You think I stood here all this time, sinking in up to my rims in sand, just to tell you a cute story? I know you're Kadak! And how do I know?

Go ahead, snuffie like that again and ask me how I know!

Come on. You'll come either by yourself or I'll drag you by your wings, you know for a b.u.t.terfly you're not even a nice looking b.u.t.terfly? You're an ugly, is what you are. And as for being a Jew, only that by birth, such a disgrace to the entire blue Jews on Zsouchmuhn.

As you can see, I'm getting angry. You've gotten me raped, c.r.a.pped on, burned, maimed, crippled, blinded, insulted, run around, exposed to heathens, robbed, sunburned, covered with bug shmootz, altogether miserable and unhappy, and I'll tell you, very frankly, you'll come with me, Mr. Kadak, or I'll choke you dead right here in this !arblondjet desert!

Now what do you say?

I thought that's what you'd say.

"Here he is."

Yankel didn't believe it. Chaim laughed. Shmuel started to cry, his nose running green. Snodle coughed. And Reb Jeshaia hung his head. "I should have sent Avram," he said.

Avram looked away. Like a dead leaf it should fall off.

"Here he is, is what I said, and here he is, is what it is," I said. "This is your Kadak, may he rot in his coc.o.o.n."

Then I told them the whole story.

At least they had the grace to be amazed.

"This is what makes the minyan?" Moishe said. "This?"

"Make him change back, and that's him," I said. "I wash my hands of it." I went over in a comer of the shoul and settled down. It was their problem now.

For hours they went at him. They tried everything. They threatened him, they begged him, they implored him, they intimidated him, they cajoled him, they shmacheled him, they insulted him, they slugged him, they chased his tuchis all over the shoul...

Sure. Of course. Wouldn't you know. That rotten Kadak wouldn't change back. At last, he found a thing he wanted to be. A dumb creep b.u.t.terfly.

With a snuffle. Still with a rotten snuffle. Did you ever know how much worse a b.u.t.terfly snuffles than a person?