Great Kisser by David Evanier

Author:David Evanier
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497641631
Publisher: Open Road Media

III

On a Friday morning, a new directive came from the twenty-fourth floor of Jewish Punchers. Montague was burning. He and I were now to work with four files instead of two: “Very Good for the Jews” and “Very Bad for the Jews” were now added to the earlier categories. It meant doubling our workload. Montague muttered to himself through clenched teeth: “Scum. Gestapo.” All the drawers of Montague’s desk were already stuffed to the gills with documents he had hidden rather than read, and scores stuck out of the drawers. He was so angry that morning that he clipped only one newspaper story, an innocuous account of a bar mitzvah. (“Good for the Jews.”) Pleading a headache, he took out a cake and ate it.

The head of the department, Bart Stone, came in as Montague was licking his fingers. Bart always looked as if he had just come off the golf course, with his white seersucker jacket, white shoes, white hair, ruddy pink complexion and American flag lapel. He sucked on a candy and walked in a jerk-like way. Bart xeroxed every document six times, lest it be lost. “Gaps, there are gaps,” he said, gritting his teeth and sniffing the air ominously.

His fists were clenched. “Montague, you have clipped only one story today. And it’s about a bar mitzvah. What about civil rights, politics, anti-Semitism, the Middle East, Congress? Montague, be reasonable.”

Montague tried to stand up. “Those animals on the twenty-fourth floor … sons of bitches … fascists … memo … beast of burden …” He could hardly speak.

Bart was turning beet red. “Montague, what are you talking about?”

“They’re like trained dogs. The masses are asses. I hate them … I …” Montague looked around wildly, picked up his chair, and threw it against the wall.

Bart bounded backwards. He held up a hand. He was really a pussycat. “Calm down, Montague. You’re upsetting yourself.”

“Kipp can stick those files up his ass, that opportunist.”

“My dear Montague,” said Bart, “You’re dwelling in the past. Please calm yourself.”

He closed the door gently.

“That racist,” said Montague. “I wouldn’t care if the South African blacks slit the throats of the whites indiscriminately. It would give me great satisfaction. They’re all racists here.”

In the afternoon, when Montague returned from having his lemon in the cafeteria, he was in a much better mood. He gazed at the hole his chair had made in the wall. “Oh dear,” he said with a mischievous look.

He reminisced about the Communists in Manhattan in the 1940s: “In those days, they were heavily into folk songs. Women with Slavic blouses, closely cropped hair and earrings would sing on the third floor of not very durable buildings on the Lower East Side. Those songs were very sad, so those who listened to them sat with their faces drooping for hours. And they had tiny folk song hang-outs in the Village, where most of the women were named ‘Manya.’ They had poetry readings too.”

“I went to poetry readings later,” I said. “In the

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