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F ICT ION
The Intermediary of Abraham By James Roseman
Although both brothers are in the house, neither is in the living room, which is where one traditionally sits when sitting shiva. Donald is in his room doing push-ups. Phillip is in the bathroom, alternating between scrubbing the porcelain cover of the toilet tank and snorting lines of cocaine off it. There’s a rip of fire up his nostril and then clumps of baking soda bitterness at the back of his throat. He was twelve the first time he heard of cocaine. A fat cop named Officer Rene had come to homeroom to tell them all about drugs. “This one is no good,” he’d said, “makes you all alert and twitchy.” Rene had said it and winked at the substitute teacher before clicking the slide projector forward. Alert and twitchy. Bullshit. A cup of coffee makes Phillip alert and twitchy. This is more like digging his fingernails knuckle-deep into the nape of his neck and yanking out fistfuls of long knotty fibers between the gaps in his vertebrae and jamming the frayed nerve endings directly into the terminals of a fucking car battery. The world
