The Angel Abramowitz

      I was getting damn sick of having ghosts in the apartment, if you must know.

      I did not believe in them, did not invite them, and found the whole idea of them vaguely annoying.  Dead is dead I say and that is the end of it.

      But no.   Nothing is ever that simple.

      And now here was new one, a strange little fellow in antique shoes, an old suit from an undertaker’s yard sale, and a silly hat like a hut resting on his head.

      “Now what,” I said.  Not to him but to the powers that be, who are notoriously silent on such issues.

      “You are Alan, son of Ida, daughter of Nachum, son of Hyman, are you not?” he said.

      He had an accent that placed him somewhere east of the jewline that ran through old Europe.

      “Well, I guess…if you want to put it that way.  And who exactly are you?”

      “I am the Angel Abramowitz,” he said with some puffery.

      I snawfed…it was a kind of cross between a snort and guffaw which I wound up having to clean up.  But he did not seem to think that was funny.

      “Your name is Angel Abramowitz?” I said, wiping my nose.

      “No.”

      “Oh I see,” I said with mockery jacked up to full volume, “then you are actually an…”

      “Precisely,” he said.

      “And how exactly do you become that?” I said, challenging him to explain himself.

      “Same way you become anything.  Practice.”

      “Very funny.”

      “I’m glad you think so.  It’s taken me forever.”

      “So you’re a kind of stand-up angel,” I said, mouth round.

      “I knew your great-grandfather.  Hym Yuda.”

      I closed my mouth.

      “We were, shall I say, acquaintances back in the old country.”

      “You’re not suggesting that you are the so-called angel he met on the road,” I said, wincing at the thought.

      “The very same,” he said.

      “Okay fine,” I said because why the hell not?  I had written about him, talked about him, accepted the fable of him.   I just never thought it was all in any way…true.  “But you see, here is the problem.  I don’t believe in angels or any of this mumbo.”

      “And yet you search for my little gift.”

      “Oh that.  Just a game, you might say.  A pastime.”

      “Narishkeit!  Baloney!  You are obsessed with it.”

      “Well, I have been trying to find it, if you must know.”

      “Putz.”

      “What is your problem?”

      “Find it?  You are it.”

      “I what?”

      “Not you yourself exactly, of course.  You strike me as a bit of an schlub.”

      “I’m not following you here.”

      “See what I mean?”

      “Look, you can insult me all you want but…”

      “You’re not searching for the oytser; you’re creating it.  That’s the whole idea.”

      “Of what?”

      “Of my gift to your great grandfather who charmed me on the road that day.  The oytser for his family…that is what you are.”

      “What am I?”

      “You are their songster.”

      “Their whatster?”

      “The oytser is the words, these very tales that you have been telling.  This is the treasure that I gave to your great-grandfather.  That someone would come along who might keep alive the spirit of all those who have passed and those who will.  This life that is so precious, so painful, so lovely, so tiresome.  This is the treasure that I gave your Hym Yuda on the road that day.  They have been waiting – to the extent that souls can wait, that is – for you to come along and sing their songs.”

      “Their songs?” I said dimly.

      “Their stories, your stories.  The tales of mazel and so on.  This is the oytser.  I don’t know much about those who have passed but I would imagine they are quite thrilled – if that is the right word – that you have done this.  I mean that I would be.”

      “But I think I have made some of these stories up,” I confessed.

      “So, nu?  The important thing about stories is not whether they are true or not but whether they lead you to a truth.  Stories, like echoes, do not have to be right…they simply have to resonate.”

      “You’ve read the stories?”

      “Of course not.  I don’t have time for that kind of schtus.  I simply dropped by to say that our business is concluded.  The deal between Hyman Shapiro and the Angel Abramowitz is done.  Fartik!”

      And here in a grand gesture he swiped his palms as if to flick the commitment from dusty hands.

      “You mean there is nothing more for me to write?”

      “Write, don’t write.  What is it to me?  I’m an angel not a literary agent.”

      “And that’s it?  All this just comes down to these stories?  There must be more to it than that.”

      “Oh really.  Well then perhaps you would like to make a deal.  That, after all, is what your great-grandfather did to secure his oytser.  Perhaps we can make a new deal.”

      I thought about that for a moment.  Hym Yuda’s deal, apparently, was what had driven me through the family album to create the tales of mazel.  Perhaps I too should pass something on to someone else down the road.

      “What would I have to do?”

      “Make me laugh,” he said because of course angels, as you can imagine, do not have all that much to laugh about.

      “Like a joke?”

      “Heard them all by now.  Try something else.  Delight me.  And if you do, we can discuss a new oytser.”

      I thought for a moment.

      “Okay…well then.  Let’s start at the beginning with the story about Hym Yuda and the angel and see how far we get…”