My wife spent a thousand bucks on my birthday present, the first one after we got married. I ain\u2019t big on jewelry\u2014a thousand bucks for a watch!\u2014and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a knock-off because she never bought knock-off nothin\u2019, plus that \u00adwatch is very thin\u2014which I am too because I watch what I eat\u2014except Sundays, Tuesdays, and Fridays when I shovel down her rice pudding with plenty of cinnamon, raisins, and whipped cream\u00ad. She\u2019d make it so she could tell me I shouldn\u2019t eat so much\u2014besides, I never wore a fucking pinky ring let alone a thousand-buck watch. But I\u2019m tellin\u2019 you, Moses, that watch is thin and gold\u2014solid gold\u2014and I ain\u2019t no prince, that\u2019s for sure. It has this leather band, snakeskin, and I hope it\u2019s knock-off leather \u2019cause snakes deserve to live too, and I ain\u2019t no snake, I\u2019ll tell you that, even though I wanted to knock her off a couple of times, and I never cheated on her, as far as I can recall.<\/p>\n
Besides, how do you tell time any different than what it is?<\/p>\n
I need a watch for that?<\/p>\n
It was sixty years ago we got married.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She got me all kinds of presents, like this fancy wool sweater with sailboats and big yellow buttons. Sailboats?! I ain\u2019t no Christopher Columbus, and look at what he did to the Indians, and do I seem like the kind of fella that goes for big yellow buttons\u2014whatamIaschmuck? And let me tell you, I\u2019m a stand-up guy and I don\u2019t like to hurt no one, so I wore it buttoned all the way up my chest in honor of the last anniversary we\u2019d have\u2014I didn\u2019t know it at the time\u2014and let me tell you my chest is hairy and very firm.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I put that watch away in a drawer under the purple silk boxer shorts she got me for our honeymoon. She wanted me to drag it around on my wrist. Be a big shot, she said.<\/p>\n
If I put the watch on, then everything will be alright?<\/p>\n
It\u2019ll never be alright.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I said to my wife on our first date, I\u2019m not a nice guy.<\/p>\n
She says, Yes you are.<\/p>\n
No, really, I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll make you into a nice guy.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t stuff two pounds of broken bones into a one-pound bag, I said. Some people hurt too much.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll make you into a nice guy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When my mother asked me what present I wanted for my Bar Mitzvah, I said, I don\u2019t know. Leave me alone. And who\u2019s my father anyhow?<\/p>\n
She smacked me in my mouth like she usually did, then she said I was a no-good bum, then she said she was sorry, and she didn\u2019t mean to hit me so hard even though she said she shoulda hit me harder, and she shoulda left me on somebody\u2019s stoop in a basket like baby Moses, and why did she have me in the first place, she said.<\/p>\n
Like she had a choice; it was a concentration camp.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Yesterday was our last anniversary. October 28th, 2023. She gave me this kaleidoscope baseball\u2014blue and orange\u2014because she knows I like to watch the Mets. I looked through the peephole, and all the colors were broken. Everything\u2019s broken, I said.<\/p>\n
You know what she says? I thought it would make you happy.<\/p>\n
I put on my sailboat sweater and sat down on the living room couch, and she sat next to me. I turned the TV on to watch the news about the war and pressed mute. I can\u2019t listen to people screaming, but I had to watch. Crying on both sides of the fence. Both sides. Nobody\u2019s gonna come outta this good.<\/p>\n
Then I said, I can\u2019t take this world. You shoulda never married me. I\u2019m too broken.<\/p>\n
She stayed quiet, then she got up and went to the kitchen. She poured water into the pot to make rice pudding. She set the pot on the stove, and she says, I\u2019ll make it special with rose water.<\/p>\n
I cried, and I\u2019ll tell you right now, I ain\u2019t no baby.<\/p>\n
Maybe they deserve it, she says.<\/p>\n
Who deserves what? I said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was eighteen the last time I saw my mother. She was going back to Germany to find the man who raped her.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m gonna kill him, she said.<\/p>\n
Then what? I said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I ain\u2019t no prince, but I never killed no one. Never will.<\/p>\n
Hey, Moses. You killed a man once, right?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I never liked that watch\u2014and I told her so\u2014but to make her happy, I wore it to her second cousin\u2019s sweet sixteen at Leonard\u2019s Palazzo in Great Neck fifty-eight years ago.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When you get old, it\u2019s hard to take a crap. My scrotum hangs in the toilet, and when everything from the last twenty-four hours comes out, it hits the water and splashes my balls then my asshole shuts tight. When I was young, it came out smooth and long, so there was no big splash from all the rocks I gotta push out now, sweat\u2019n and grunt\u2019n like I\u2019m having a baby, which I would never bring into this world because of all the shit going on.<\/p>\n
You think that\u2019s funny? Holy Moses!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll wear that watch to my funeral tomorrow. She woke up and found me on the toilet. I dropped dead, trying to take a crap\u2014I ate four bowls of her rice pudding with extra whipped cream. Be happy, she says. Have more.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t eat enough to turn off the screams.<\/p>\n
The first thing she does when she finds me, water dripping off my balls and my fat tongue hanging out, is to put that watch on my wrist.<\/p>\n
There, you look handsome.<\/p>\n
Then she combed my hair.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Now what, Moses?<\/p>\n
When will it end?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I said to my wife on our first date, I\u2019m not a nice guy. She says, Yes you are. I say, No, really, I\u2019m not. She says, I\u2019ll make you into a nice guy. I say, You can\u2019t stuff two pounds of broken bones into a one-pound bag. Some people hurt too much. She says, I\u2019ll make you into a nice guy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":19975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2593,3400,3398,3399,511,671],"class_list":["post-19410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-dark-humor","tag-existential-dread","tag-genocide","tag-holocaust","tag-humanity","tag-war","writer-joseph-weiner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19410"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19976,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19410\/revisions\/19976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}