As The Ferret jubilantly canters down the sidewalk with his dukes raised up to his flabby chest, throwing air punches as he attempts boxer-like toe dances (except that he has cloven hooves) on his way to kick Kowalski’s ass – yet again – “I’m gonna kick his fucking ass…!!!” – Steve Kowalski tilts forward in an impassioned walk, leaning narrow shoulders into downtown Kyiv, having resolved to fight The Ferret and no turning back, come what may.
He forges forward as though with blinders on, seeing no one, surrounded only by the booming nigh deafening rush of blood pounding relentlessly into his head. If he gets beaten, and then beaten and beaten some more, he will not give up, he thinks. If he knows he is going to fight The Ferret, it is statistically impossible that he will land not one hit, not one punch, and hurt The Ferret not at all – for he will do everything, he is determined to do absolutely everything in his powers, as underdeveloped as they may be, to maim The Ferret, to kill him, if need be, to win.
“… to win, damn you to Hell, Ferret; to win… to win!!! For I did not come here to be bullied by the low-class likes of you…”
As Kowalski stands at a corner opposite Kyiv’s central synagogue, pulling a foot back up onto the curb as an SUV nearly runs him down, pink-and-white zebra stripes notwithstanding, his heart jumps into his mouth, which has dried out from nerves, as he suddenly sees The Ferret across the street, coming from the opposite direction, nearing the synagogue, now almost before it, leering, sneering, and laughing as in his turn he sees Kowalski – and he bounces up and down on his hooves, coming at him from somewhere below, aggressive and menacing.
There is no time to think – and Kowalski, after his shaking legs nearly collapse beneath him, just then somehow manages to harness all of his hatred and all of his anger and all of his tears into a powerful break across the street, horn-blowing traffic be damned, a hoarse cry of tremendous hurt and indignation rising from his throat, the world going nearly black around him as his mind and vision narrow to take in only the object, the target, of his crazed rage – for Kowalski has gone temporarily insane. All the thinking about why he must do something like this, all the fear and anguish over why it would be wrong had been something like a hundred years ago, and so irrelevant as to now actually seem funny. He’d been pushed into this, forced into it, given no choice in the matter, and that makes this wrong right.
Kowalski is nearly on top of The Ferret – or so, in his mentally distorted perspective, he thinks, as he is still actually about 20 feet away – when he stops, even in his insanity, even in his rage, to watch as The Ferret clutches his flabby chest with both paws and then with straightened knees fall forward, slamming his giant muskrat head into the cobblestone walk with a crunch.
The people all around stop and stare, but for some strange reason, like Kowalski himself, no one rushes in to try to help. Rather, it is as if everyone is expecting something else to happen with the grotesque, repulsive figure, the small knotty, lumpy heap littering the synagogue’s grounds.
And so it does.
For before everyone’s eyes, the small heap turns into a pile of very fine gray-black coal-like dust, which now only lacks a wind from God for its dispersal, which comes, the strong wind feeling both angry and benevolent to the people all around … and as it takes up the dust and blows it where it will, small mounds in powerful gusts, a piece of paper is freed out of what had once been The Ferret’s sports jacket pocket, and flies up and up and toward the street, and toward Steve Kowalski, who, unthinkingly, catches it, as his physical self and reflexes are still primed for a life-and-death fight.
“Do not look at that paper, Steve Kowalski! Do not dare read it!”
A very large Jew commanding tremendous authority and presence stands over me. His huge arm and fingers stretch out toward me and the paper, without attempting to tear it out of my hand, as though making it clear that my giving it up to him has to be an act of my own free will.
Without defiance, I do not give him the paper, for I do not comprehend any of this, but, as he instructs, neither do I read it or dare look at it.
Faltering, crying, I say: “But, Rebbe, I didn’t even… I didn’t…”
“You did, Steve Kowalski, you did. You beat The Ferret – nu?!”
“But I didn’t even…”
“For does it matter HOW you did it, but rather that you did it? That you didn’t throw a punch? So what?! G-d did not will this, for He knew it was not needed, for had you done it, the result would have been the same. And so, Steve Kowalski, was the effort then wasted?”
“N-no… No, I guess not. I guess it was… I guess it was, ah… ah…”
That’s right, Steve Kowalski – preserved!”
I think about this – I think about it for a while; for what may be a very long time, indeed.
I cannot get it all through my head, and I understand that for this moment, there is no use in trying.
“And this paper, Rebbe,” I finally ask. “What about this paper? What is so important about it? Was it… was it – The Ferret’s?!”
“For whether it was or it wasn’t, he’s got no more use for it now – it will do him no good! Therefore, from whence it came, thereunto it must be returned!”
Looking away, I stretch forward my arm, from between which fingers I am relieved of the paper, and a feeling of utter and complete freedom washes over me and I am indescribably happy.
And I perceive, without seeing, for I am not yet looking, this very large Jewish man concealing the piece of paper somewhere into the garb of his person, and when I look up to face him, I guess in what I expect to be some kind of farewell, his back is already to me and he is moving away, very quickly, down the street from where The Ferret had come, and now, most remarkably, he hops once and when he lands, it’s into a run, his massive legs replacing each other against the sidewalk faster, and faster, and faster – and then he is gone…
It begins to rain.
Filed by Steve Kowalski, March 1, 2019*
* Why is a story here dated after the collection was received from Krakow, Poland by The Mar-Jones Publishing House; namely, just after the New Year of 2019, as stated in the Introduction?
The answer is: It was written in advance. AWK