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MO SMITH"What is your name?"
" Mohammad Ndabaninghi Smith."
" What is your age?"
" I really can't say, ma'm.""Where were you born?"
" I'm afraid I can't remember."
" Are your parents alive?"
" Is that a trick question?"
" Do you have a family anywhere? Have you ever been married? Do you have any children?"
" They are all my children."
" Do you profess any creed or religion?"
" I had them all, lady."
" Have you ever had a job? Do you have a social security card and number? Are you registered with any municipal or state or federal program? Are you registered with any medical facility or clinic? Do you have an attorney or a legal advisor?"
" I just have these here clothes I stand up in, ma'm. I'm just as you see me, there ain't nothing else but what I am in front of you now."
" Can you spell out your name again for me?"
" Moses Nelson Samooha."
" Now that is not what you told me before."
" I'm real sorry about that, ma'am."
" Now Mister, uhm, Samooha, do you want me to help you or not? Are you applying for assistance?"
" I really need a pair of new shoes."
" Do you wish to be housed? If you wish to be housed I can fill out a form now for the Housing Department and they can find you a place on an Emergency Program, which may be short or long term."
" I am already on an emergency program, ma'm."
" Is that so? Is that in another city?"
" That's in every other city, yes, ma'm."
" You're not making it easy for me to help you, Mister, ah, Smith. I cannot put you on an Emergency Program in this city if you are already registered in another."
" No ma'm. I ain't registered nowhere."
" Well, lets begin again from the beginning, shall we. Lets try and agree on a name. I would like your natural born name, if you please. The name you were born with."
" Adam Kadmon."
" All right. Adam. Cadman - how do you spell that? C - A - D - M - ?"
"Mitra. Mitra Noah Saidi."
" Are you putting me on, sir? Is this your idea of a joke?"
" No ma'm. I'm just trying to help."
" Well I can only put one name down here. Or I can put down an alias. Is that what you want me to do?"
" N. Elias. Sure, that should do fine."
" Can we get back perhaps to your parents. You must have had folks, who came from somewhere. A home town. Where do you come from?"
" I was a hidden treasure and I wanted to be known. So I created the world."
" Excuse me?"
" Man is the highest manifestation of God. So man is God. They were all born of me. Except those who still remain inside. They too are a powerful trouble, a living canker in the soul."
" Are you all right, sir? Do you want a glass of water?"
" I found the world complete on my arrival. And yet it was full of ruins."
" I'm afraid I'm not following your drift. I have a suggestion to make, sir. I would like to book you in for an emergency session with our therapist in residence. We have a very good lady in attendance today. Doctor Caroline Dexter. Would you like to have a word with her? Would you like me to fix you an appointment? She may be able to see you within the hour."
" Well ma'm, the problem is with these shoes. You see I have a long way to go."
"Do you have an appointment elsewhere? Is this at another office?"
" No, I just have a long way to go."
" I see, and you need the shoes."
" Yes ma'm."
" But you have to understand, Mister, uh, Smith, that I cannot provide an emergency discretionary grant unless I can properly fill in the form. Its not a complicated procedure. We can do it. But I need some straight answers and I also have to be satisfied that I'm not allowing you to neglect your other needs. You have to appreciate my obligation in this office. I can't help you if I can't understand what you're saying. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
" Oh ah yes ma'm."
" I'm not convinced that you do. Now if you just wait over in those seats there I will call you as soon as I have made the arrangement. There is a free water dispenser over there by the wall and there are soft drinks and sandwiches just by that counter over there. I don't want you to leave now or to think that we are turning down your request. You have to appreciate that I do need to establish an identity for you before I can sign over money for you to obtain the appropriate clothing, or anything else."
" I understand ma'm, you have to know who I am."
" Exactly."
" Well, maybe I ought to talk to the lady then. I really need those shoes."
" Absolutely, sir. Just hold on there for a little while. Mildred, can you put me through to Doctor Caroline on three six six I don't seem to be getting an answer. Yes thank you I'll hold. Excuse me Miss can't you see I'm on the telephone, if you will only sit down and wait your turn I'll call your name, what is your name? Harris? Miss Harris I'll call you over in a short while. Is that Doctor Caroline? I have a male walk-in, aged maybe mid-forties to mid- fifties, wearing a U.S. Army surplus jacket, pants and hat, with khaki overcoat, you know the whole gear, apparently he is applying for a discretionary emergency grant for new shoes, but he can't seem to be able to give me a name. First he tells me his name is Mo-hammad Daba-gingi Smith, then the next moment its something else, then he said it was Adam Cadman.
He doesn't seem to be able to produce any documentation whatsoever, I just have these torn pieces of paper in front of me, there seem to be all sorts of disconnected words and phrases, some of it not even in English, I have stuff here that looks like Arabic or even Hindu or something, and some words in Hebrew even, I think I recognise them, but its doesn't look like the Hebrew on my courses, you know the stuff I took two years ago, with the Learning Annex, you know all those courses, How to Turn Your Walls into Works of Art, Learn to Play the Piano in Two Weeks, Design Your Own Jewellery, How to Turn Your Man into Putty in Your Hands... I would really've gone for that one, but you can't do everything you want. At any rate I can't make this out at all. There are all sorts of diagrams, five pointed stars, what do you call them, pentagrams, triangles, all sorts of I suppose mystic symbols.
Then there are some newspaper cuttings: Brooklyn Butchers, Cocaine Deal Goes Awry, One Hundred Million Dollar Army Offer on E-Systems, Tiffany Blames Japan For Slump. It makes no sense, he's talking some kind of religious stuff, I think he is definitely one for you to see, at least so we can establish some identification to put on the form so that I can give him a check for these shoes. His other clothing seems to be in reasonable shape but the shoes really are in a pretty shabby state we cannot let him walk out of here without at least addressing that issue. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uuuh-huh.
Well, he may be putting on an act you never know with these people but he certainly doesn't seem stupid he knows he only has to give me a name and I will sign a form for this item of apparel as a discretionary grant but I have to keep some kind of record or else we will just be buried down here. And I think he is willing to be helped and I think he does need help. He certainly looks like someone who has lived on the streets for some time we probably have him in our records if only we can pin him down to that name and then we'll have a better idea of how to assist. Uuh-huh. Uh-huuuh. Uuuuh-huh. O.K., that's eleven-forty, twenty minutes from now that's very kind of you, Caroline, I appreciate your making this window. Thank you very much.
Excuse me Miss I'll be calling you in just one moment please take a seat sir I do have your number with me and I will be with you as soon as I can. Excuse me, sir, Mister Mo-hammad? Er, not you sir, the other gentleman, sir, about the shoes: I have an appointment for you with Doctor Caroline Dexter for eleven-forty, that's only twenty minutes from now, she has a fifteen minute window, that may be a short time but you can establish a later time for a more extensive session if that is appropriate, I think she can straighten you out. Now listen, you take this paper here, don't lose the paper, and the identification form, and don't forget your cuttings, take the whole lot, down that corridor there, to the right, then you go through the glass doors and turn left, for a little while, then you turn right again, O.K., that's right, through the doors.
Then you go left then right again, till you get to the lift or the stairs to the third floor. I think only one lift is working so you might want to take the stairs if there's too much delay, if you do that you have to go through the glass doors again at the third floor, that's another set of glass doors, right, not the first, that's on the third floor, then you turn right down the corridor until the corner then take a left. If you get lost or have any doubts there are attendants and there is a policeman on every floor. He is there to help you so don't hesitate to ask for assistance. After you speak to the Doctor she will fill in this form and you have to bring it back here to me so that I can make out your check in order that you can get your shoes. Now just in case you have any problems getting back here from there here is a ball of thread.
If you attach the end of the thread to that faucet over there and just unravel it as you go you will be able to find your way back down here when your appointment is over. But of course you will not be able to use the thread if you take the lift so I would advise you in any case to use the stairway at the second turning after the doors. And make sure you don't lose this piece of paper because you will not be admitted to the Doctor's office without it, and if you return here before being admitted I'm afraid the regulations specify quite clearly that I cannot issue a second ball of thread. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
" Yes mama."
" Off you go then."
I will give you the end of a golden string,
Only wind it into a ball -
It will lead you in to Heaven's Gate,
Built in Jerusalem's Wall...
A tall, wide policeman bars his way, laden down with his badge and his ire and his nightstick and his handcuffs and cans of mace and tiny shrunken skulls hung on silver chains on his belt.
" Uh, looking for the stairway, man."
" Straight ahead, sir. Have a nice day."
He ascends, the ball unwinding as he proceeds. The chorus, as he climbs the steps, not of angels, but of all the supplicants kept from their due. The benefits stopped, the unemployment unpaid, the soft manna of promissory notices. Client's name, reference number, abode.
David, Jacob, Noah, Jesse... Judah, Shem and Adam and Eve... KEEP OFF THE GRASS! Jesse, Isaac and Enoch... Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego...
Mo climbed on up the stairs. His toes bent out of the frayed caps of his boots. Tiny crawling creatures in the unmopped dust scrambling to get out of his way. Go forth and multiply and replenish the earth. But how can one with only half of the leaf? The old tree with its bulging red fruit. He felt the old rumble from his insides. Is this another purge? But the voices only rustled along his nerve ends, their tiny fingers plucking at his ganglia. The selfish ones who were not willing to be born yet clawing at his joints and innards.
" Are you all there?" He rested at the top of the second flight of stairs. Another policeman stood in the haze ahead of him, by another set of frosted glass doors, his great feathered wings unfolding from his shoulder blades and the golden sword of office bulging in his pants. The cop smiled benignly at him with O'Connell's face.
" Are you ol roit sir? Can I get yez anything?"
Mo shook his head, looking down the pit of the stairway towards the clearing far below. The bowed heads of the supplicants massing and moving towards the high mud walls of a city crowned with turrets, battlements and lofty minarets. The battlements bristling with gibbets upon which condemned thieves had been hung, their hands and feet cut off and nailed to the crossbeams above their grinning skulls.
" In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful...!"
" Are you all right sir? Are you awake? Can you hear me?"
He looked up, into a face like a black moon with perfect ivory teeth, compassionate eyes and a short haircut, a firm hand and thin but strong forearm at his shoulder, a plastic cup of clear water held in the other, swimming before him. A small round pill dissolving with a gentle fizz in the center of the cup.
"Drink this down, you'll feel a lot better."
He took the cup, his trembling calloused fingers touching hers for a brief instant.
" Excuse me, mam," he said, "I'm afraid I lost the fucking string."
" Don't worry about it," she said. "Can you stand up? Lets go talk all about it in my office."
And so he rose, and followed her into the chamber...
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