Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The Weekly Screed (#568)

“We four kings of Orient are…”
(with Zero Mostel in the role of “Joseph”)
by David Benjamin

PARIS — By the time they reached the manger in the little barn behind the crowded inn at Bethlehem, the Three Kings were dog-tired and bleary-eyed from their journey. But when the crowd of shepherds, farmers and beggars saw the splendor of the Kings’ caravan and the richness of their raiment, they fell back, creating a path to the rude crib where lay the Christchild, wrapped against the cold in a strip of linen torn from his mother’s clothing.
As the Kings approached, they were amazed. The babe seemed to be wreathed in a celestial light. Their hearts soared, for finally they were certain that they had fulfilled their quest to behold the newborn King of the Jews. Refreshed by the child’s beauty, they knelt before him.
The fourth king, as usual, missed the whole scene. Before he could catch up to the three other Magi, the crowd closed again, leaving him in the muddy street, trying to peer between the burly bodies of shepherds and cattlemen.
The fourth king wasn’t surprised. This was the story of his whole trip. Even before joining the caravan of Melchior the Babylonian, Caspar the Persian, and Balthazar the Arab, he had lost his camel, which drowned crossing the River Eh, which separates the fourth king’s small kingdom of Ih from the neighboring caliphate of Eh. Forced to ride a donkey, breathing dust stirred up by the camels of the other Magi, the little king often fell behind, once far enough to be overtaken by a band of wandering brigands, who stripped him of everything he carried, including his gift to the Christchild, a beautiful crystal ashtray. The thieves left him only his satchel and his flea-bitten steed.
Now here he stood, a prince in his own land, but in Bethlehem a nobody shunted aside by riffraff and ankle-deep in icy mud. However, he had no hard feelings. Besides, he reasoned, the baby wasn’t going anywhere. Meanwhile, a nice nap couldn’t hurt.
Laying his beloved afghan on a patch of straw beside the barn, the small king curled up and swiftly dozed. He would have slept all night, except for a rumor that spread through the barn about the presence of a fourth king.
He awoke to the sight of a great husky man with a gray beard towering over him. The man scowled angrily down at him. “So, what do we have here?” he grumbled. “Another stinking, useless king? Where are you from, Shorty? And where’s your crown? Where are your jewels, your sword, your silver breastplate?”
As the fourth king struggled to his feet, someone whispered, “It’s Joseph. The father of the babe.”
Before he could say he was the King of Ih, Joseph shouted, “Aw, hell, I don’t care where you come from. What I really wanna know is how you guys got to be kings, huh? It can’t be your brains. Lookit this one over here!”
Joseph waved a hand toward Melchior, monarch of Babylon. “You know what this one brings for the kid? A chest full of gold! Oy gevalt! To Bethlehem, the poorest town in the poorest part of the poorest province in the Roman Empire, he brings gold for a baby — who can’t buy nothing? Gold? For Christ’s sake (this was, by the way, the first recorded utterance of this epithet), he’s a baby! All right, so maybe Melchior thinks Mary and me should buy something for him? So, who in Bethlehem we gonna get to make change — for a gold piece worth maybe 10,000 shekels? In this whole wretched province, you couldn’t get together 10,000 shekels! Oy, but now, there’s shekels. And we’ve got ‘em. Me and Mary. And we head back to Nazareth. You think every thief and cutthroat on the road isn’t gonna know this Mr. and Mrs. Shlemiel with the screaming baby are carrying a chest full of gold from Babylon? Hah! I should live so long. They’ll know! And they’ll kill us to get it! This Melchior? Maybe a nice king. But with baby gifts? He’s a putz!
Next Joseph directed his fire at Caspar, benefactor of frankincense. “Hey, I give it a chance. I light it up,” said Joseph. “Pretty soon, my God in Heaven! Already, you got the smell of cow manure, and chicken shit, donkey crap and sheep dung, plus the B.O. from what? — 50 shepherds and farmers and bums in here who wouldn’t recognize a bath if it bit ‘em on the tuchis. And on top of this, you light up this frankinfarshtinknener? And suddenly, above my baby’s manger, you got this purple cloud of oh-my-God that smells like — oy vay! I can’t even tell you — I’d rather a water buffalo sat on my face! So, Caspar! Your frankincense? Thanks, but ptui!”
Timidly, the little king asked, “And what did Balthazar bring?”
Joseph’s eyes flamed. “Myrrh!” he bellowed. “What the hell is myrrh? Does anybody know?”
Silence fell. Even the fourth king, although a king, had no idea. No one knew. Balthazar finally cleared his throat and tried to explain.
He said, “It’s — ”
“I don’t wanna hear!” roared Joseph. “I gotta damn baby here! If the baby can’t eat it, or suck on it, or wear it, I don’t want it. Kings! Hah! They’re worse than these farkakteh angels, with their horns and songs. You!”
Joseph was pointing at the fourth king. “Yes?” said the fourth king.
“Whaddya got for my kid?”
The fourth king, of course, had bupkes. He thought of explaining the trials of his journey, the dead camel, the intractable donkey, the band of brigands, the dust, the fatigue. But he knew that Big Joe was in no mood to listen to someone else’s troubles. The fourth king knew must leave, without honoring the newborn Son of God. Sadly, he began gathering up his few belongings — his satchel, his old afghan…
“Now that!” shouted Joseph, snatching the ragged afghan from the fourth king’s hand. “Is what I call a gift!”
The small king was stunned. He reached to take it back, crying out, “Oh, no. That’s just my old afghan, knitted by my grandmother.”
Suddenly, the fourth king found himself smothered in Joseph’s embrace. He lifted the little sovereign clean off his feet while raising the dusty afghan high for all to see.
“He brings me a family heirloom — to swaddle my shivering child!” proclaimed Joseph. “Now, this truly is a king among kings! All hail — er…”
Joseph had to stop. He said, “Say, who are you, little shaygetz?”
The fourth king, haltingly, replied, “Me? I’m, um, the King of Ih.”
“Huh?” said Joseph.
“No, Ih.”
“Eh?”
“No, that’s the next country over?”
“Eh?”
“Yes. But I’m from Ih.”
“Huh?”
“No. Ih.”
“Ah!”
“No, that’s up north.”
“Well, never mind all that,” said Joseph, as he led the fourth king to the manger and handed the well-worn but precious afghan to Mary. “Just tell us your Christian name, little fella.”
“My name?” said the king. “Well, I’m called Jesus.”
Joseph rubbed his chin. “Nu,” he said, “this is a nice name, Jesus. Mary, maybe we should name the kid after the only one of this whole mob who brings a gift we can use?”
Mary, who was expertly swaddling the child and laying him in the manger, replied, “Joseph, I don’t know. It is a lovely name, Jesus. But I was thinking we should name him Sheldon, for my rich rabbi uncle in Capernaum. He could do the boy a lot of good when he’s ready to break in as a preacher. A nice temple of his own on the seashore…”
“Mary, come on!” said Joseph. “Who needs your uncle Sheldon. We got a pot of gold here. We got frankincense. We even got this cockamamie myrrh. It’s gotta be worth somethin’. Besides, what kind of a name is Sheldon Christ?”
“Well, Joseph,” said Mary, “maybe, for once, you’ve got a point.”
“Good! It’s settled. We call the boy Jesus,” said Joseph, giving the fourth king one more hug. “Now, you boys! You mighty kings of the Orient! Melchior, Caspar, and What’s-your name! Don’t tell me you forgot to bring beer.”

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