Fiction by Joshua Cohen, the author of “The Netanyahus”: You’re my famous cousin, the guy who wrote the book. Their little Jewish writer guy—they’ll trust you.
In a few hours, I’d have to get up in front of a few dozen dewy new students of the Survey of Soviet Literature course I should never have taken on, but instead of preparing by rereading Mayakovsky or Blok, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, or Mandelstam, instead of preparing by taking a sleeping pill, I was skimming the listings, constantly expanding my search criteria and clicking every pop-up that emerged like a panicked groundhog from the pixelated green—Fixer Upper . . . Victorian D.I.Y. Charm . . . Lake Adjacent Renovation Opportunity . . . Former Summer Camp Ready to Be Reinvented—alerting the agents, “I am interested in this property,” and on the drop-down menu where I could indicate my availability noting that I was free every day except Wednesdays, when I had to be at the university delivering my lectures.If they only had one country. But Jews can’t be like other peoples. We’re expected to be more ethical, more moral—suck my cock. Are they protesting what Russia’s doing in Ukraine? And what about all those Muslim wiggers they’re keeping out in those Chinese camps?After I closed on the camp in the Pine Barrens, negotiating the price way down by paying cash, I set about disbursing the remains of my windfall to various Gaza-affiliated charities, though it was difficult to know which were real and which weren’t—I didn’t want to meet the Palestinian or “Palestinian” version of myself and get scammed—and, among those many confusing nonprofits that struck me as not unlikely, I had no concept of which might be effective.If ever the home improvements threatened to overwhelm me, I could always sit out on the wicker rocker that Barbara, my real-estate agent, had got me as a housewarming token, or stroll out to the stream and along its wildflowered bank and breathe in the bright fresh air and delight in reminding myself that I hadn’t hooked up the camp yet and so had no way of going online, and that until I got back to the city the news to me would have to be the breeze rustling the trees and the water trickling blood-thick over the pebbles.
