Golem Read online

  GOLEM

  by

  Wayne Kyle Spitzer

  Copyright © 2019 Wayne Kyle Spitzer. All Rights Reserved. Published by Hobb’s End Books, a division of ACME Sprockets & Visions. Cover design Copyright © 2019 Wayne Kyle Spitzer. Please direct all inquiries to: [email protected]

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this book is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Why did I do it? Because I was meant to. Because that’s why I had been allowed to live. This was the whole of the affair in one simple statement.

  Memory, of course, can be a dodgy thing: why else would my recall of the Benton Boys—and how Old Man Moss had brought their reign of terror to an end—have lain dormant for so long (forty years, to be exact), right up until that moment I saw what I’d at first taken to be a man—but quickly realized was not—ascending the tower crane just beyond our encampment?

  The obvious answer is that a lot can happen in forty years. A man could go from being an innocent kid in Benton, Washington (population one-hundred and seventeen) to a scary homeless dude in Seattle—Belltown, to be precise—just as I had. But there’s another answer, too, one we don’t talk about as much, which is that some things get buried not for any lack of a mental space to put them but for their very unfathomableness and steadfast refusal to make sense. For me, Old Man Moss’ handling of the Benton Boys had been just that, something I’d sublimated completely in the years following not because the event—the events—had been forgotten, but because I simply hadn’t the means of processing them up until that night; the night I climbed the massive tower crane in downtown Seattle and came face to face with the brute. The night the string of gruesome murders that had plagued the city for months had, at last, come to an end.

  “I don’t see anything,” said Billy the Skid, his boozy breath seeming to billow with each syllable, as he stood beside me and squinted up at the crane. “Who would it be? Construction’s been halted for months, even I know that.”

  “I didn’t say ‘who,’ I said ‘what,’ as in what is that, right there?” I pointed to where the gray figure could once again be seen (ascending not the ladder inside the scaffolding but the tower itself, like some kind of huge spider). “Do you see it? Like a man, and yet somehow not a man. And look, it’s got someone thrown over its shoulder. It’s right there, damn you!”

  Billy only shook his head. “Whatever you say, boss.” He chuckled as he made his way back to his shopping cart. “Someone thrown over his shoulder. I say if you can’t handle Thunderbird you ought to leave the drinking to me. Who the hell did ’ya think it was? The Belltown Brute? Ha! And I suppose he …”

  But I wasn’t listening, not really. I was still watching the gray man, the gray thing, ascend the tower—the hammerhead, I’ve heard them called—its tail swinging like a cobra (yes, yes, it had a tail), its ashen skin seeming to catch the lightning and throw it back, its cone-shaped head turning to face me.

  Yes. Yes, it could be. Still … was it even possible? Well, no, to be frank—it wasn’t. But then, everything about the summer of ’79 and what had happened to the Benton Boys and Old Man Moss’ ancient Jewish magik had been impossible. That didn’t change the fact that it had happened—and it had happened—hadn’t it?

  I didn’t know for sure, no more than I knew whether the entry point to the crane would be locked or if I had the courage to scale the ladder or if lightning would strike as I climbed killing me just as dead as the Benton Boys. In the end I was certain of only one thing—one thing alone as I gazed up at the tower crane and watched its great jib swing in the wind. And that was that if what I suspected was true, I was at least partially responsible—for the Benton Boys, for the string of murders across Seattle and the so-called “Belltown Brute,” all of it.

  And that meant I had a responsibility to do something. Indeed, that I was the only person who could.

  They’d had names, of course. Rusty, Jack, and Colton—otherwise known as the Benton Boys. But their individual identities had long since been subsumed by the group, the pack—I’m sure if you would have caught any single one of them alone they’d have been just as agreeable as could be. The rub, of course, was that they were never alone—that was something those who challenged them learned quickly. I learned it the day I was to meet Colton at the flagpole after school to settle our differences and he didn’t show; which left Aaron and I to hoof it home feeling both victorious and relieved, at least, that is, until we rounded his block —and found them waiting for us. All three of them.

  I wish I could say I was shocked that Aaron got the worst of it—it was my fight, after all, not his—but the truth of it was the Benton Boys’ race-hatred was well known, and they weren’t about to miss a chance to thrash a genuine Jew. Not when his idiot friend had created such a perfect opportunity. And so the racial epitaphs flew, faster even than the Boys’ fists—kike, shylock, yid, Christ-killer, a few I’d never even heard before—and poor Aaron bled, and by the time it was done we’d both suffered concussions and Aaron had lost a tooth and Old Man Moss had begun screaming—in Yiddish—from his door, calling the Boys chazers and hitsigers and paskudniks, and informing them the police were already on their way. Which they weren’t, actually, because Old Man Moss didn’t trust anyone in a uniform.

  Regardless, the Benton Boys promptly fled, and after a brief sojourn in the emergency room we were back in Aaron’s front yard—just sitting there on the porch with his parents and watching the shadows lengthen across the grass. That’s when I first heard his old man utter the word “golem,” which he pronounced goy-lem, drawing a stern rebuke from Aaron’s mother, who said, quickly, “Feh! And bring tsores upon us? Oy vey! Mishegas.”

  The Old Man only snorted. “It is Mishegas to do nothing.” He stroked Aaron’s hair absently. “No. An eye for an eye. A tooth for an actual tooth.”

  “Bubbala …”

  “No. Meesa masheena. So it will be.”

  And nothing more was said—not by the Old Man or by Aaron’s mother or by anyone present at all.

  By the time I saw Old Man Moss again, Spring was moving rapidly toward Summer and we’d been out of school for nearly two weeks—long enough to have already tired of jumping into the river and/or bicycling out to Shelly Lake; which, in case you were wondering, were the only things to do in Benton, during that summer or any other. I was luckier than most in that I had a lawn mowing business to occupy my time—mostly for friends and family, the Mosses included—which is what I was doing when Aaron tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I could lend he and his father a quick hand.

  “Is it out of this heat?” I remember shouting over the lawnmower—which was louder than most—the sweat running in rivers down my face and arms, “Because I’m dying here, and that’s no joke.”

  “It’s right here, in the garage,” he said breezily, but seemed uneasy as I killed the motor and sponged my brow. “Look … not a word about this, okay? And, please, don’t laugh. Whatever you do. He—he’s touchy about his art.”


  I think I just looked at him. It was fine by me; I’d no idea he was even an artist. “Sure, man. No problem.” I must have leaned toward him. “What is it? Some kind of naked pictures?”

  He blushed and stepped back. “No, man. Jesus. But it is—strange. Not a word now, okay?”

  “Not a word,” I promised, and gave him a salute.

  It’s funny—because the first thing I noticed upon stepping into the garage wasn’t the fact that Old Man Moss was holding what appeared to be massive gray arm in his hands. Nor was it the fact that in the middle of the room stood an 8-foot-tall giant—a giant which appeared to have been fashioned from solid clay and resembled not so much a man but a hulking, naked ape. Nor was it even the thing’s frightful visage or stoic, lifeless, outsized eyes.

  No, it was the fact that the room was illuminated by candles and candelabrums—as opposed to bulbs or work lights or sun seeping through windows (all of which had been covered with what appeared to be black sheets). It was the fact that the garage didn’t look like a garage. It looked—for all intents and purposes—like a temple.

  “Ah, Thomas, by boy! Vus machs da! You are just in time.”

  It was on the tips of my lips to ask him what for when he handed me the arm, which was surprisingly heavy. “I’ll need you and Aaron to hold this while I sculpt. Can you do that?”

  The clay was tacky and moist beneath my fingers. I looked at Aaron, who looked back at me as if to say, Just go with it. Humor him.

  “Sure, Mr. Moss. But—” I followed Aaron’s lead as he positioned the arm against the mock brute’s shoulder. “What on earth is it?”

  His face beamed with pride as he worked the leaden clay. “Why, this is Yossele—but you may call him Josef. And he is what the rabbis of Chelm and Prague called a golem—a being created from inanimate matter. This one is devoted to tzedakah, or justice.”

  At last he stepped back and appeared to scrutinize his work. “And justice is precisely what he will bring—once he is finished. Once the shem has been placed in his mouth.” He took a deep breath and exhaled, tentatively. “Okay, boys … you can let go. Slowly.”

  I didn’t know what justice had to do with art, but we did so—the clammy clay wanting to stick to our fingers, its moist touch seeming hesitant to break contact. “Aaron, won’t you be a good boychick and bring me the shem. Easy does it, now. Don’t drop it.”

  I watched as Aaron approached one of the workbenches and fetched an intricately-crafted gold box.

  “Ah, yes. The shem, you see, is what gives the golem its power—thank you, son, a sheynem dank. It is what gives it the ability to move and become animated.”

  I glanced at Aaron, who only looked back at me uncertainly, as his father approached the golem and opened the box, the gold plating of which gleamed like a fire before the candelabrums. “This one consists of only one word—one of the Names of God, which is too sacred to be uttered here.” He withdrew a slip of paper and placed it into the golem’s mouth. “I shall only say emet, which means ‘truth’ … and have done with it. And so it is finished. Tetelestai.” He turned and looked directly at me, I have no idea why. “The debt will be paid in full.”

  Nobody said anything for a long time, even as the birds tweeted outside and a siren wailed somewhere in the distance. We just stood there and stared at his creation.

  At last I said, “So are you going to enter in the Fair, Mr. Moss, or what? How will you even move it?”

  At which Old Man Moss only smiled, ruffling my hair, and said, “No—it is only for this moment. That is the nature of Art. Tsaytvaylik. Tomorrow it will be gone. Now run along and finish your lawn. I’ve involved you enough.”

  And the next day it was gone, at least according to Aaron, and both of us, I think, promptly forgot about it. At least until the first of the Benton Boys turned up dead, Sheriff Donner directing the recovery while his ashen-blue body bobbed listlessly against the Benedict A. Saltweather Dam.

  It was June.

  By July, the body of a second Benton Boy had been discovered—my very own buddy, Colton.

  They’d found him in a stone quarry about fifteen miles from town—the Eureka Tile Company, as I recall—his limbs broken and bent back on themselves (“like some discarded Raggedy Ann,” wrote the local paper) and his head completely gone—which caused a real sensation amongst the townsfolk as each attempted to solve the riddle and at least one woman reported having seen it: “Just floating down the river, like a pale, blue ball.”

  But it wasn’t until Rusty was killed that things reached a fever pitch, with Sheriff Donner under attack for failing to solve the case and neighbor turning against neighbor in a kind of collective paranoia—for by this point no one could be trusted, not in such a small town, and the killer or killers might be anyone, even your spouse or best friend.

  It was against this backdrop that I was able to break from my lawn duties—which had exploded like gangbusters over the summer—long enough to visit the Mosses: which would have been the day before Independence Day, 1979. A Tuesday, as I recall. It’s funny I should remember that. Aaron’s mother was working in her vegetable garden—just bent over her radishes like an emaciated old crone—when I arrived, and didn’t even look up when I asked if Aaron was around. “He’s in his room—done sick with the flu. Best put on a mask before you go.” She added: “You’ll find some in the kitchen.”

  I think I just looked at her—at her curved spine and thin ankles, her tied up hair which had gone gray as a golem. Then I went into the house and made my way toward Aaron’s room, passing his parents’ quarters—upon which had been hung a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign and a Star of David—on the way. I didn’t bother fetching a mask; I’m not sure why—maybe it was because I was already convinced that whatever Aaron had, I had too. Maybe it was because I was already convinced that by participating in the ritual we’d somehow brought a curse upon us—a curse upon Benton—that it had never been just ‘art’ and that it could never be atoned for, not by Aaron or myself or Old Man Moss or anybody. That we’d blasphemed the Name of the Lord and would now have to pay, just as Jack had paid, just as Colton had paid. Just as Rusty had paid when they’d found him with his intestines wrapped around his throat and his eyeballs gouged out.

  “Shut the door, please. Quickly,” said Aaron as I stepped into his room—immediately noticing how dark it was, and that the windows had been completely blacked out (with the same sheets from the garage, I presumed). He added: “The light ... It—it’s like it eats my eyes.”

  Christ—I know. But that’s what he said: Like it ate his eyes.

  I stumbled into a stool in the dark—it was right next to his bed—and sat down. Nor were the black sheets thick enough to completely choke the light, so that as I looked at him he began to manifest into something with an approximate shape: something I dare say was not entirely human—a thing thick and rounded and gray as the dead, like a huge misshapen rock, perhaps, or a mass of potter’s clay, but with eyes. Then again it was dark enough so that I may only have imagined it—who’s to say after forty years?

  “Jesus, dude. What’s happened to you? And where’s your dad? I saw a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on his door. Is he—”

  “Like me, only worse,” choked Aaron, and then coughed—wetly, stickily. “Listen. I haven’t much time. Do you remember the ritual … and how we inserted the shem into the golem’s mouth?”

  “Of course,” I said—and immediately started shaking my head. “Now wait a minute. You don’t really think—”

  “Shut up, man. Just shut the fuck up. This is important. The Benton Boys—what’s happened to us—it’s not a coincidence, okay? Dad—he created a golem … do you understand? Not a work of art—not what Ms. Dickerson calls a metaphor. But a genuine, animate golem—right out of the folklore. Now, my mother called Rabbi Weiss when the murders started happening and told him what she suspected—that my dad had created Josef to avenge the Benton Boys’ attack on us. And do you know what he said?”

 
“Aaron, Jesus, man—”

  “He said this type of golem would go on killing, that it wouldn’t stop with just the Benton Boys but would continue on to different towns and cities—for months, years, even decades. That it could make itself invisible—at least to anyone who hadn’t a hand in creating it—and thus go about killing with complete efficiency; and that not even bullets could stop it, only the hand of its creator or someone who had assisted in that creation—by removing from its mouth the one thing that allowed it to move in the first place … the Holy Shem, the slip of parchment upon which was written one of the secret Names of God.”

  He gripped my arm suddenly and I could tell by his cold, clammy embrace that it wouldn’t be long; that his flesh had become like clay and his blood had turned thick as mud. “It’s you, Thomas, don’t you see? You! Only you can stop it now, only you can—”

  But I didn’t hear anything else he had to say, for I’d scrambled to the door and burst back into the hall. And then I ran, ran as though the world could not contain me, faster and faster and further yet—across forty years and from every type of responsibility—into drugs and alcohol and the cold numbness of the streets. Into a dream of forgetfulness which ended only when I saw the man who was not a man scaling the ghostly tower crane near our ramshackle encampment in Belltown. Until I went to the base of it, and, finding its gate lazed open, mounted the ladder at its center. And began to climb.

  I was nearing the top—although still a good fifty feet away—when there was a sound, a series of sounds, actually, thunk—thunk—thunk, like a ham bouncing down metal stairs, and something sprinkled my face. That’s when I realized that what had fallen (and bounced off the beams) was in fact a human head. By then, of course, it was gone, and I was continuing my ascent: trying not to acknowledge how the city had become so small or that lightning could strike at any instant or that the shaft of the crane was swaying woozily in the wind. Trying and mostly succeeding—at least, that is, until I reached the top, whence I climbed onto the platform next to the operator’s cab (which was hanging wide open) and proceeded to vomit, although whether it was from a fear of heights or the smell of decomposition from the cab I couldn’t have said.