A Friend, Post-Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bed-David Seligman

dead-man-walking style.

The only one who stopped was Carl. He ’d always been my favorite publisher. He had one kid and another on the way. He stood at my cubicle and announced, “Well, I got the e-mail!” all giddy with fear.

He told me everything he knew. It’ s not just Philadelphia, he said, it’ s Baltimore. It’ s New York. He gave me names, and the list kept going. -

That afternoon, I got a sandwich from the Wawa down Walnut Street, and the man who took my money was in his fifties, well-groomed, well-spoken. I could easily imagine him wearing a suit and tie, sitting in on board meetings. Perhaps a month ago, he did.

Outside the entrance, a woman sat on the steps - no way to get around her. The layers of jacket and sweatshirt, coat and sweater, made her twice as large. She demanded a dollar, real indignant.

And what will I do when it’ s me who has to beg? I wondered. There ’ s a million endof-the-world scenarios to choose from. Nuclear annihilation is the big one, of course, humanity forced into underground bunkers. I’d read all those books, watched all those movies. But maybe we ’ re all just meant to slowly go mad, slowly starve, slowly horde until everything is depleted.

On the other hand, why not imagine more utopian scenarios, wherein we turn our parks into massive gardens, feeding our families with all the food we ’ll grow? We ’ll use those green slips of paper - what in an earlier era had been known as “ money ” - to wallpaper our eco-friendly cob homes. We ’ll live in socialist collectives, contributing equally and singing Hosannas to the God who in His tender mercy allowed those corporate towers of Babel to crumble, so that a new world would rise based on love! Either that or cannibalism, hard to say. “Seventh floor, good morning!” The dumpster by the copy machine was half-full. Mounds of textbooks, folders, medical journals, pens, pencils, staplers, all thrown together in a bubbling cauldron, a button-down Oxford witch’ s brew.

People were no longer huddled, no longer whispering. They talked openly, stood around the proverbial water cooler. For two years, I’d passed some of them in the halls and never known their names, but a demonic presence had been lifted, we could all feel it.

“It’ s over, that’ s what I heard, ” said one.

“They ’ re done. ”

“We ’ re safe. ”

Later that afternoon, Judy and I went outside to smoke a cigarette. I hadn ’t smoked in six months. I called my wife and told her I was fine. It was over. For now, we were safe. The relief in her voice made me want to cry. Many phone calls had been made that day which had not brought relief.

My friend Saul once gave me some advice. “You should be fine, Jon, at your level, ” he said. “Just don ’t get promoted. ”

Blessed are we, the underachievers.

A Friend, Post-Treatment

by Ben-David Seligman

The problem is that I can ’t tell him what I think about the fact that he died.

I’ m against it.

I’d rather he inhale, exhale, repeat, et cetera, but, as things are,

his parents, sibs and others confront his worldly assets, including a slow computer, loose papers, and an awful car kept alive by his constant care.

It all may sit untouched for years while loved ones deal with more important things.

Ben-David Seligman was born in New Jersey, where he lives with his wife and two boys, and where he works as an Assistant City Attorney. His poems have appeared in The Anthology of Magazine Verse, Midstream, Jewish Currents, The South Mountain Anthology and Surgam. A number of reprints appear at www.highbeam.com.

This one time in Tennessee, Jonathan KemmererScovner sang songs with Pete Seeger. Then, years later, found himself brushing snow from Kerouac ’ s grave in Lowell, MA, and thought to himself, What is this? Why am I here? This was not long after he had strolled nonchalantly into City Lights in San Francisco and the sudden sight of an aged Ferlinghetti nearly led him to void his bowels. Jonathan has this theory that everything is a story, all human expression a form of storytelling, something like that. It’ s not very clear. Currently, he and his son make up stories together and tell them at the Glenside Farmer ’ s Market.

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