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06/24/09 - (1)
Barnaby Darkness
Whenever Barnaby Darkness left or returned home, After pulling the door shut or pushing it open, He'd kiss the chewed-to-the-quick fingers of his right hand, Touch the mezuzah, tacked, at a slant, to the jamb, And whisper, "From my lips to God's ears," As if performing the ritual would protect him, Endow all his sallyings forth and returns With safe and salutary outcomes.
In fact, whenever he encountered any door — Portable toilets, buses, delis, elevators, strip clubs, Cars, cafés, jets, jail cells, Turkish baths, gay bars — He'd do his "From my lips to God's ears" routine, Reasoning that he'd take all the extra help he could get, Especially since it was free for the taking, Just by his hewing to the superstitious rite of "passage" He'd learned as a kid, aping his Orthodox parents.
Even when he was asleep, those peopling his dreams (Assumably incarnations of himself) Would come and go, through various portals — Fun houses, slaughterhouses, crackhouses, gorilla cages, S&M dungeons, nude wax museums, women's restrooms — Lifting their hands, kissing their fingers, Pressing them to tramp-art or highly ornate mezuzahs, Muttering, "From my lips to God's ears."
Barnaby Darkness's ultimate departing gesture Took place at Rindskopf Mortuary Chapel, after his visitation, When all four mourners in attendance (As Rabbi Steinschicker truncated his CliffsNotes Kaddish) Bore witness to the deceased's stiff right arm Lifting from his burlap-lined, splinter-riddled raw-pine box, Unclenching its hand's embalmed digits, Nudging them to his faux-flesh-colored twitching lips.
Kissing his garishly manicured and glossy fingertips, He groaned, gurgled, choked, croaked, wheezed, and gasped, "From my lips to God's ears." Then his rigor-mortised arm shot up as if in a Nazi salute, Groping for what he was sure was nailed to the box. As it flailed, in vain, for the nonexistent mezuzah, It struck the spindly prop stick, and the lid crashed shut — From God's lips to Barnaby Darkness's ears.
06/24/09 - (1)
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