Of Ministry (Redactor’s Addendum)

There is something strange about television humor, don’t you think?

You know what I mean. Everyone does.

The laugh-ins, the variety shows, the situation comedies.

Unless you’ve somehow managed to avoid ever watching television at all, you have no doubt seen this sort of thing. It’s hard to miss. If you switch your TV set on—on any day of the year, at any hour of the day—you will not have to spend long surfing the channels before you find something which purports to be funny.

Something which, on the surface, seems like it is trying to make you laugh.

Invisible signals are sent shimmering through the air, at all hours of the day and night. They pass through our bodies, continually, without our notice.

These signals are constructed with great care, and at immense monetary expense. Every aspect of them was deliberately chosen, by someone who appreciated the weight of that decision.

What do these signals contain?

Set aside the news and weather broadcasts, and consider what remains. What fraction of it is comedic in nature—at least on the surface?

Twenty-five percent? Fifty?

Remember, too, that there are more than twenty-four hours in the televised day.

You could not watch all the TV that is broadcast on a given day in the course of that day alone. You could, at most, watch what is broadcast on a single channel.

But there are many channels. Hundreds of hours pass each day, without our notice, in the signals that shimmer over our bodies and TV sets.

And twenty-five percent of that—or even fifty—is comedic in nature.

How many hours of comedic material are broadcast, each and every day? More than twenty-four, surely. The true number is most likely in the hundreds, I’d guess, if I had to guess.

There is more television humor than anyone could possibly witness, no matter how hard they tried. There is simply not enough time. Television humor is being created more quickly than the days and nights of our own world. It races ahead of us, and gets further ahead with every passing day.

It would seem, from the look of things, like the men who prepare these signals are trying very hard to make us laugh.

You would think, wouldn’t you?

You would think that.

But as I said, there’s something strange about the whole state of affairs.

Isn’t there?

I’m not trying to lay out some rarefied piece of media theory, here. I admit that Vincent’s way of talking has rubbed off on me, and I can’t help but channel him a bit, when I’m writing about media. But I’m trying to make a simple, obvious point. Not the kind of thing it takes a Vincent Vierge to notice, and conceptualize, and put into words for the first time.

You know what I mean. Everyone does.

How much comedic television have you watched? How many hours? How many days, or weeks, taken together?

How many times have you actually laughed?

Oh, I’m sure you have once, or twice. Or many times, even.

But you know what I mean.

The TV set is so often comedic, and so rarely funny.

It spends so much time trying to make you laugh—or appearing to do so, anyway—and yet, if we take these efforts at face value, a shocking fraction of them end in complete failure.

As a rule, television humor is not funny.

Everyone knows this simple fact. Everyone has grown accustomed to it. Except for Vincent, and his viewership, no one takes much notice of it.

But it is strange, isn’t it?

When you do think about it?

It’s not like this could be a matter of mere incompetence, after all.

It’s not difficult, really, to make another person laugh. We do it to one another, every day.

What was the last time you went an entire day without laughing even once?

The TV set rarely makes you laugh. But your classmates? Your brother? Your favorite newspaper columnist? If they want you to laugh, then laugh you will. In this respect, you are their plaything. Helpless putty in their hands, aquiver with giggles.

The preparers of the TV signals possess immense sums of money, to be spent as they see fit. These TV men can hire whomever they wish to hire; if there is any such thing in the world as “comedic talent,” they can compel the world’s whole stock of it to do their bidding. They wield the power of the purse, which is the greatest of all the powers in our world.

If they want us to witness the landscape of an alien planet, then we will witness that landscape. If they want us to witness the earth as it was five hundred years ago, or five thousand, then it is that earth we will see, and not our own. In this respect, we are their playthings.

They bring us along on journeys through the stars. They entangle us in the sordid, convoluted dealings of earthly criminals. We forget our own selves, and imagine—for the sacred span of thirty or sixty minutes—that we are the spaceman, or the mob boss, or the conquering lothario, or his latest love.

The world’s whole stock of musical talent is redirected, by the power of the purse, toward the aim of making us feel—at each and every moment—what the TV men wish us to feel. Their hired hands have devised melodies, and methods of playing them on the violin and the cello, which bring tears to the eyes of anyone who hears them. It is a wholly involuntary process; we respond like marionettes, and weep on command, on schedule.

Do you really think the broadcasters couldn’t make us laugh, if they wanted us to?

It may look as though they are trying to make us laugh, in their “comedic” broadcast material. But that’s an illusion. Whatever they are trying to do, in all of this “comedy,” it is not that.

It is something else.

It takes the form of humor, but it is not humor. It is not funny.

Or, it is not humor as we understand it. It is not funny, to us.

Which should bring a question to mind:

If this isn’t funny to us, then—to whom?

How would a person have to be, in order to laugh at this?

This sort of “comedy” bears only a very distant relation to your sense of humor, or to mine.

A mind to which these “jokes” come naturally—a mind which produces such “jokes,” when it wants to make someone laugh—

Well, it would have to be a very different sort of mind from yours, or mine, wouldn’t it?

This is the line of questioning which comes naturally, when you actually stop to think about television humor.

And this very line of questioning, I think, is television humor’s true purpose.

 

 

I was thinking about all this when Herschel came into the living room, on Sunday.

This was on December 15th, the Sunday of the second week. Early in the morning, around 9 A.M.

I was sitting on the couch, I suppose. I was not thinking about my body, but it would stand to reason that it was there, on the couch.

A rerun of a situation comedy was playing, on the television.

It was not funny.

I could not even grasp what the joke was meant to be, half the time.

It’s possible that I did not actually understand any of the jokes, in fact. Where does one draw the line between not finding a joke funny, and simply not understanding the joke?

I would notice the shape of a joke. I caught the way that a line of dialogue, or a wordless mannerism, partook of the formal and superficial attributes of comedy. But I did not see any of the humor, inside that shape. Could it really be said, then, that I had understood these jokes?

I considered this.

I was not thinking about my body. But there was a sensation which I would call bodily, in me, then.

A sensation which ran alongside my train of thought, and alongside the bodiless characters and humorless situations of the situation comedy.

But was not my train of thought, or those characters, or those situations.

It was

Lately, I had been

Vincent

The weightier my thoughts became, the lighter my

No no no, they don’t GET to have it

HE doesn’t GET to

Although this is the Book of Miriam Schoen, and I am trying to tell the whole story of my December, th

I should note, here, that

No, no, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO

[ . . . [ . . . [ . . . [ . . . [ . . . []]]]]]

There.

There, there.

You see? No, no, of course you don’t.

That’s fine. That’s perfectly all right.

It doesn’t matter what I was thinking, or feeling, on the couch that morning.

It doesn’t, does it?

You are reading this because of my brother. You are here for my brother’s words, his papers.

I am valuable to you as a witness, a second camera, providing you with a different angle on Herschel Schoen’s December.

You are not interested in me, nor should you be.

And now, why, look!

Here he is, my brother, entering from stage left!

Cue the big lights. Cue the swelling soundtrack.

Here he is, ladies and gentlemen! The man you’ve all been waiting for!

[Canned applause.]

“Where is my Mother, Ruth Schoen?” Herschel said, sounding distraught.

[Canned laughter.]

“I cannot find her anywhere,” he said.

His voice brought me back into my body.

I felt the dull ache in both my arms. I felt the pins-and-needles numbness in my left foot.

On the couch, unfortunately, was a body, and in that body, unfortunately, there were bodily things.

I felt my bladder.

Damn you, Herschel, dammit, dammit, damn you, fuck you, I thought, but did not say.

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, I thought, but did not say.

I did not say any of that, then. I could easily have not said it here, either. I could have just not written any of that out, and you would have been none the wiser.

You’re welcome.

I felt a notebook on my lap, and a pen in my idle hand.

When I’m trying to, when I’m, you come in, when, I thought, incoherently.

I felt my hand as it moved the pen.

[ . . . [ . . . []]], I wrote.

[A man groans, loudly, in the audience.]

“Sister?” Herschel said.

He was standing right in front of me, now, blocking my view of the TV screen.

“Where is my Mother, Ruth Schoen?” he repeated.

I waved my hand dismissively.

It was a gesture of annoyance, almost stereotypically so; I made this very obvious, so that even my brother could not fail to see it.

I sliced off a tiny piece of the immense and monstrous irritability that filled me, at that moment, and put it into the gesture. What I put there, I made very obvious, but it was only the tip of an iceberg.

I couldn’t let Herschel see how I felt. I couldn’t. Not when he was so fragile, so susceptible to the minutest fluctuations of others’ moods, so sensitive even to the things he would merely think that he noticed in others’—in others’ everything, in every little thing you did or said or didn’t do or didn’t say!

I hate you, I thought, but did not say.

I hate the way you, I corrected myself.

The way that I have to, whenever you’re around, I can’t, I have to, I thought, incoherently.

“Ma?” I said.

“She went to the city,” I said.

“She’s probably there by now,” I said, trying to sound only mildly annoyed.

“She is . . . ‘there’?” Herschel asked, not trying to contain his own irritation. “Where, exactly, do you mean?”

“You know,” I said.

“In the financial district,” I said.

“At the protest,” I said, trying to sound like an only mildly annoyed big sister, who was merely a little bit impatient with her kid brother’s needless and incessant questions, and just that, nothing more than that.

My brother’s large eyes went wide. He stared at me.

“My Mother, Ruth Schoen,” he said, “has joined the revolt against the financiers and the traders?”

[A dissonant musical sting, satirizing the stale conventions of suspense film soundtracks. Someone chuckles.]

“My Mother, Ruth Schoen,” Herschel said, “now throws her body into that awful maelstrom, whose ghastly nature is revealed anew each night for all to see, on all of the news programs?

“She does not see how precious her body is? She deems it of little value, and offers it up in sacrifice, as cannon fodder to be lobbed into the noxious mist?

“Not caring what happens to her body after that? Treating it as a mere lump of flesh, added into the mass of indistinguishable bodies that push onward, uselessly, into the walls of tape and policemen and news cameras?

“My Mother, Ruth Schoen, does such things? Is this to be believed? Is it to be borne, if believed?

“Please, Sister, tell me that I have misheard you, or misunderstood you!”

[Uproarious laughter.]

I rolled my eyes.

“Oh, Herschel,” I said, feigning big-sisterly amusement.

“You’re always so dramatic,” I said. “About everything.

“She’ll be fine, Herschel. For goodness’ sake, she’ll be fine.”

A mass of indistinguishable bodies, I thought.

Not even bodies, anymore, I thought. Only a moving mass, incidentally composed of human flesh and bone.

Pushing onward, I thought.

Towards the wall, I thought.

[ . . . []], I wrote.

“But anyway,” I said airily, “she has to be there. It’s a union requirement.

“The whole New York United Wordsmiths are down there, on Wall Street. Or they’re supposed to be, anyway. They’ll get kicked out if they don’t come, or that’s the threat, anyway.

“Ma told us yesterday, remember? At dinner?”

I was not actually sure that Ma had said any of this, the previous evening, at dinner.

In fact, I did not remember anything about the previous night’s dinner.

But it would have occurred. The dinner, I mean. My body would have been there, at the dinner table, I suppose.

It would stand to reason, that my body was there, at the dinner table.

It is momentarily amusing to think about such things. Give them more than a moment, though, and they’ll quickly wear out your patience.

I tried to bring myself back. I tried to carry on, in spite of dull aches, and pins-and-needles numbness, and little brothers.

I could not see the TV set. My brother was still in the way. I could hear the sounds coming from it, though, and I tried to focus on them.

I thought about Vincent’s most recent video essay.

I thought of Vincent’s face, under the harsh glare of his little home studio. I thought of his multifaceted words, which invited the viewer to re-watch and reflect, seeing new colors in them each time.

The riots make perfect sense, Vincent had said at one point, but only when read esoterically.

Truth be told, I did not want to read the riots at all, that morning. Not even esoterically.

It can be amusing to think about such things—but only for a moment.

Vincent knew that, of course. He and I understood one another almost perfectly. That video had not really been about the riots at all. Just as the riots were not really about pay cuts, or factory fires, or stalled negotiations, or even the ruthless accumulation of capital itself.

“Sister?” Herschel was saying.

“Sister?”

He was waving his arms, and moving his body, as if he were trying to get my attention.

Which he was, I suppose.

“I’m trying to watch TV,” I said.

I sighed, as I imagined a big sister might sigh, if she were trying to watch TV, on a Sunday morning. If she had become slightly exasperated, by now, with her brother. But only slightly, and only because she was missing the show, not for any other reason.

If she were missing the show, which she wanted to watch. Because it was funny.

Because it was supposed to be funny.

Is that why people watch situation comedies?

Don’t ask me. I wouldn’t know.

“You are turning, Sister,” Herschel said.

“Turning?” I said.

Perhaps in reaction to the word itself, I raised my eyes, and met his stare.

For the first time that morning, I looked at my brother’s face, and felt the way his body was in the room, along with my own.

Fuck, I thought, but did not say. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Fuck you for talking, I thought incoherently, talking like you do, like you always do, in riddles, in circles, never the same, always the same, so that I can’t

So that I can’t even, I don’t know, breathe, think, stop paying attention to you and your, and your, I don’t know, YOU, for a moment, for a MOMENT, for one second, for one morning

“You are turning away,” Herschel said.

Oh, I thought and did not say, well that clears it up, then, doesn’t it!

“You make me afraid, sometimes,” my brother said.

His face was earnest, plaintive, blameless. My hatred grew deeper, seeing this.

Why do I have to walk on tip-toe, I thought, always, and fail, and fall, and seem out of control, when you, when YOU—!

When you can do WHATEVER you want! I thought. And no matter what it is, it makes no stain on your pure and special little heart!

A slight change came over his face, then. I wouldn’t know how to describe it. There aren’t any words for it.

You would not have even noticed it, in the room, then.

It was a very small thing. A slight furrowing of the brow, a twitch in one eyelid. I don’t know.

No one else would have even noticed it, much less understood what it meant.

No one but me, I mean. Would have noticed, much less understood.

It takes a sister, to know what these things mean.

A sister whose brother cannot speak. Who has to resort to other means to know what he wants, and how he feels.

Who has to, because no one else will. Not even his own Ma.

Because he can’t speak. Because he is helpless, and alone. Because there is no Original Knowledge and no Original Creation and no riddles and no papers, only a bedroom, and a boy who cannot speak.

A boy huddling under the covers, in the deathly cold, with his still, corpselike eyes fixed upon a single spot on the bedroom ceiling.

Oh no, oh no.

Oh, fuck.

I was falling.

I was falling, from a great height, into my body, into Flatbush, into the dust and cold and the pain.

I fell, because my fucking brother pushed me.

My fucking brother, and his blameless face, fuck you, fuck you.

[Frustrated muttering, from the audience.]

He needs me, I thought. He needs me, now. Just for a little while.

I was Herschel Schoen’s sister, vessel for his waves, editor of his papers. I was nothing else.

I fell, and this is what I became, at the bottom.

It will only be for a little while, I thought, and then it will all be over.

“Herschel,” I said with feigned calm, as I studied the pained intensity on his face.

“Herschel,” I said, “I’m sorry.

“I got a little distracted, there.

“By the TV.

“I get a little wrapped up in it, sometimes, you know?”

“I have noticed,” my brother said.

[A comedic rimshot effect, followed by scattered laughter.]

“Herschel?” I said, contorting my face into an exaggerated mask of sisterly concern.

“Herschel, what happened?

“You were so happy, on Thursday. About Santa, and all that.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so happy.

“But ever since you came home early, the next day, you’ve been . . .

“I don’t know. You seem . . . sad, suddenly. Or . . .”

I cursed myself, inwardly. I knew already that whatever had come over him, it wasn’t sadness. I knew this, already, and I cringed in anticipation of the long and tedious monologue that was sure to follow, in which he explained (through the use of several interlinked parables) that he was not in any way sad.

“Not sad,” I said, trying to pre-empt the inevitable.

“I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean sad. You just seem, I don’t know.

“Like something happened, at school, on Friday.

“You came home early, and then you were yelling at me, about sex, and I don’t know . . .”

He stood very still, his wide eyes fixed on me.

“Talk to me, Herschel,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

He sprang into motion, suddenly, like a wind-up toy.

“Something did happen, at school, on Friday!” he said.

He paced as he spoke, and gestured grandly.

“I began my course of instruction,” he said, “to the little children of the earth! At school, on Friday!”

He whirled, at the end of the room, and faced me suddenly. His features—which had been so grave, so serious, only a moment before—were curled in a devious, knowing smirk.

“And yes, Sister, yes indeed, my course of instruction did encounter unanticipated obstacles! Its course was diverted, setting into disarray all my orderly intentions, and instead presenting me with a succession of surprising and stimulating twists and wrinkles!

“Yes, Sister, you are quite right! I was not at all the same man, on Friday afternoon, that I had been on Thursday evening!

“For I was newly emended, and newly re-perfected. And I had come face to face, for the first time, with my Adversary’s full might, and the subtlety of the many devices he is using to deter and confuse and obstruct me!

“Every morning I say to myself, I have respect for my Adversary, and yet every day I am surprised anew by his prowess! And I would not wish it otherwise, oh no—not at any cost!

“My course is obstructed, and it twists, and mists come over it—and I am glad, and would not wish it otherwise!”

He shook his hands for emphasis. He seemed desperate to convince me of this rather mysterious point.

“Not for all the world, not at any cost!” he exclaimed.

“For it is precisely through this,” he said, “through the twisted and broken character of recent events, that my final victory shall be assured!

“Have no fear, Sister! Have no fear whatsoever in your heart, please, not now or at any point hereafter!”

“Oh, Herschel,” I muttered, but he did not seem to hear.

As if you actually care, I thought, about what is in my “heart”!

You’re not actually talking about me, I thought.

I’m afraid for our mother, out there on Wall Street, I thought, and I’m afraid for my helpless, insane brother, here in this very room. But if I weren’t, it wouldn’t matter, would it?

You’re not talking about me, I thought, or my fear. You are talking about a character in your little world, who is called “my Sister, Miriam Schoen,” and who has no relation to me whatsoever.

“Have no fear!” he repeated stridently. “Even though recent events have a twisted and broken character!

“For it is by breaking creation that the Intercessor has entered it, and emended it!

“The unexpected is his calling card!

“The absurd, the risible, is the discordant harmonic center employed by the victory march which was playing within his temple at the moment he revealed himself to me, and which plays in his temple eternally, and which will play in his temple in a time that is soon to come, at one moment only, at the exact moment when our utter victory is utterly secured!”

“Wow,” I said.

“Huh,” I said, feeling that he expected some kind of response from me, but having no idea what sort of response would be deemed appropriate or acceptable.

Walk on tip-toe, I thought, on tip-toe, always, always.

Because he is so fragile, I thought, and he has no one else.

Oh no, oh no.

He has no one else. And just look at him.

I wondered whether he was like this, at school.

I pictured him among boys and girls his age, without me or his Ma. Pacing and ranting in desperate fits. Making a scene of himself in class. Making himself a target for every gleeful bully on the schoolyard.

I went to that school, myself. I remember what it was like. The humorless teachers, and the way the bullies flocked and conspired. The mystifying, convoluted, simian social groups, which joined and dissolved on the flimsiest of pretexts, and were ruthless towards anyone who did not hew to their ever-changing borders.

Oh no.

No one would do anything for him, would they?

No one could. No one even knew how to read the changes on his face, besides me.

“Herschel,” I said slowly, gathering my courage.

“Herschel, when you say there were, um . . . ‘unanticipated obstacles’ . . .

“What exactly do you mean?”

He glared, and sighed theatrically.

“You ask,” he said, “about things which are of no consequence.”

“Humor me,” I said.

He sighed, again.

“It is not so simple, Sister. I fear that I will cast a mist over your mind, which will remain there forever after, in spite of all my later efforts to dispel it.”

“Herschel,” I pressed. “Why did you come home early, Friday?”

He threw up his hands, in mock defeat.

“I will tell you,” he said, “and cast a mist over your mind.

“I will do this only because I trust in my own powers, and in the other powers that have been lately appointed to assist me. And so I trust that I shall be capable of dispelling every sort of mist from the mind of every man, in days which are now very soon to come.”

He paced the room in rapid circuits, facing one wall and then the other. I could not make out his expression.

“I began to speak Truth in the first period ‘math’ classroom,” he said, “and the schoolmaster could not tolerate it. He raised his arms, to arrest my body and obstruct my heart.

“I fought with him, and was bested. My shadow, rather, fought against his own; in the shadow, I was bested; in a higher and finer sense, I was the victor.

“Mrs. Rachel, the school psychologist, drew many inferences from this event, and drew me also into a protracted and confused discussion, in her office, which I feared might never end.

“It did end, however. With the news that I would not be permitted to attend the regular classes, anymore. I will be specially tutored by Mrs. Rachel, instead, for the foreseeable future.

“I cannot pretend that I enjoy this turn of events, Sister—not, at least, when I consider it as mere shadow-play, setting aside the higher and finer roles which have been prepared for it.

“But, as I have said, this is of no consequence!

“If you have any fear, Sister, that I will fail in my course of instruction—or, that I will fail in my contest with my Adversary—cast it away from you, entirely, now and forevermore!

“I am strong enough already, and now I find myself with unanticipated aid, from a man of great body and greater renown!

“When I ride into the fatal fray, I shall not ride alone! For Santa Claus is coming!

“And I am the reason he comes! And our horses will be decked in boughs of holly, as we ride together past the utmost limit, into the last rite and the last battle!”

“Oh, no,” I said, aloud.

“Oh, Herschel, no, no,” I said.

“Yes, Sister!” he cried, apparently under the impression that my “no” was merely a denial of his latest claim about horses decked with holly.

The way he said it, that was the worst thing.

“I began to speak Truth in the first period ‘math’ classroom.” I didn’t even want to think about what that could actually mean, in real life.

What can you do, for a brother who acts like this? Who talks like this?

“I’m worried about you,” I said.

It was not the right thing to say. It was the sort of thing that had no meaning in Herschel’s little system, and would pass indigestibly through the convolutions of his little world, making no mark whatsoever.

“I know you told me not to be afraid,” I said, “but you know what?

“You know what, Herschel? I am afraid. I’m afraid for you, and nothing you’re saying is making me any less afraid for you.

“You made a scene in class. You fought with a teacher, and got kicked out.

“And it isn’t going to end there, is it? You’re not going to start behaving yourself, suddenly, are you?

“You’re going to make more scenes, at school, aren’t you?

“You’re going to make a fool of yourself, at school. Talking about Santa Claus, and all that.

“I remember that school, Herschel. I remember what it was like, how cruel it was to kids who were only one tenth as weird, as . . . messed-up . . . as you are.

“I’m afraid. I’m sorry.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I’m sorry.”

I saw the change that was happening, on his face and in his posture. It was not subtle. Even you would be able to notice it.

His ebullience crumbled, all at once, like a house of cards.

He seemed very small, suddenly. He folded into himself.

He looked right at me, with an expression that I knew well, though he did not wear it as often that year as he had done before.

Everything about his face said: I am helpless. I can’t do it myself. I am in your hands, your plaything. Please help me.

Please.

“You are turning away from me, Sister,” he said.

His voice still retained its steely, sturdy presence.

“You are turning away from me,” he said, “at the exact moment when you should be most glad, and most ready to step at last into the light.

“As though you have understood nothing at all, out of all the lessons I have tried with you, in all my months outside the holy shell!

“As though you do not appreciate that we are already in December, at the Intercessor’s hour, and the hour of the last rite and the last battle!

“As if you cannot grasp that the time for forgetting is finally coming to an end! Though I have told you, and told you, and told you again!

“Now, at the worst moment, you turn away from me, and set yourself against me. You move away from me, into the television, and into Vincent Vierge, and into the thing you share with Vincent Vierge—the thing that is not coupling, which you nonetheless refuse to share with me.

“You efface yourself, saying you are a ‘vessel’ and not a creature of will, fashioned in HaShem’s image.

“You make yourself into something strange, putting fear in your own Brother’s heart—and then you profess that it is you who fears for your Brother’s sake, to confuse matters, and distract the eye from what would otherwise be plain to see.

“You barely seem to eat, Sister: do not imagine that this escapes my notice. You barely speak: that anyone would notice.

“You are turning away from me. Which is to say, you are turning away from Truth. Do not imagine I have not noticed the consequences.”

Fuck you, I thought.

As though you care what I eat, or don’t, I thought. What I say, or don’t.

All you care about, I thought, is that I appear to have something of my own. Something which is mine and mine alone, which has nothing to do with you.

And the funny thing, I thought, is that it’s not even true. I have nothing of my own. Nothing at all.

But you can’t even tolerate my nothing, I thought. Because it’s mine.

[Canned laughter, much louder than before, marks the crowning joke of a lengthy routine.]

“Herschel,” I said, with hatred in my voice.

“You really would take the very last thing that I have away from me, wouldn’t you?” I said. “You really are that heartless, and that wrapped up in your own little world.”

My brother squinted at me. A blank look, of utter confusion, descended upon his bland, idiotic face.

“I have nothing—and you’d even take that away!” I said, very loudly.

I was almost shouting.

“I have nothing of my own, Herschel, I never have. I have never been anyone, or anything.

“And you know what? I had finally started to make peace with that!

“I had finally come to see how there could be something good, something grand, in that!

“In the carrier wave, and not only in the modulator!

“I am nothing, and I make nothing on my own. I am the pond, not the ripples in it.

“And you’d take even my very last choice away from me—you’d demand that it be you, and not anyone else, who first skips the stone across my surface, and sets the ripples first into motion!”

I really was shouting, by then.

“I do not understand,” my brother said.

He began to pace, again.

“But I must understand,” he said, “and so I will understand.

“If not through my own powers, Sister, then through another’s. Whatever knowledge is hidden from me, until the last day, will be given to me, on the last day.

“As a gift! From—”

“Yes, yes, from Santa Claus!” I screamed.

“That’s how you’re going to understand your own sister, huh? Not by listening to her, oh, no, there’s no need for that—Santa will come and explain everything!

“Do you . . . do you really . . .”

I paused, for a moment. I was so angry that it was hard to put the words together, one after the other. Everything I hated about him was blending together, in my mind.

It was all one thing, I felt. One awful, stupid thing.

“You know,” I said, “when you started to talk, well.

“I thought, maybe you were gonna start to grow up, too.

“Ha. Ha.

“What a fool I was! I really did think, maybe you were going to start to grow up.

“Instead of . . . digging in your heels, like you have. Clinging more and more to childhood, until it starts to become grotesque.

“The way you talk about babies, Herschel—it makes me sick, you know that?

“Because I thought, maybe you were going to grow up.

“But no, no. You talk like it was a mistake that you ever crawled out of Ma’s womb in the first place, and graced the rest of us with your high-and-mighty presence. Like you want to crawl right back in there, someday soon.

“Makes me sick.

“It’s not cute anymore, Herschel. If it ever was.”

His face was blank. It didn’t seem like he had anything to say.

I gathered my courage.

“I mean,” I said, “do you seriously believe in this crap?

“In this childish, embarrassing nonsense?

“Castles and phone cords in the sky? A secret that every baby knows, and oh-so-conveniently forgets, at the very moment when they become able to tell us about it, and prove you right?

“I thought that was enough, but no, no! You’re regressing before our eyes, day by day!

“Now you say you believe in Santa Claus, too.

“Seriously, Herschel?

“You’re sixteen years old. It’s not cute, playing pretend like this.

“It’s not cute, when a sixteen-year-old boy—a sixteen-year-old young man—goes around telling everyone that he believes in Santa Claus.

“It’s sick, is what it is.

“It’s just sick. It makes me sick. That’s all. I had to say that.”

I exhaled.

“I’m sorry,” I said, reflexively.

I wasn’t sorry.

“You are turning away from me, Sister,” Herschel said.

He used much the same tone as he had before, when he had said it for the first time.

I had never before voiced any doubt about my brother’s beliefs, except for a single time, on the day he spoke his very first word.

And I wasn’t cruel, back then. I just didn’t understand, yet.

I’d never been cruel to him, before. Not like that. Not until that morning.

But there was no sign, in his voice or on his face, that any of it had made any mark on him.

My words entered the pinball machine of his little world, his little system, and that machine could make no sense of them. And so they were simply ejected at the endpoint of the machine’s inner convolutions, whole and undigested, leaving no mark whatsoever.

“Sister?” Herschel said.

“I am going out, now,” he said. “Tie my shoes for me, please.

“You know I cannot do it on my own.”

And you know what?

You know what I did, then?

After all that?

I swallowed my pride, and I tied my fucking little brother’s fucking sneakers.

Because he really couldn’t do it, on his own. And there was no one else there, to do it for him.

There had never been anyone else, and there never would be.