Friday, March 20, 2015

Doyle makes a discovery.

(With grammar corrected and humor moderated by the Editor.)

4 October, 1902

Last night twas raining like the veritable flood. There was no one who wasn't dripping wet and soaked unto their bones.

I ran through the rain to the Weinstock's house and when the Mrs. saw me she had my shoes off in a minute and had me sitting by the clanking radiator until I was dry as a soda cracker. Then I was off to my usual chores around the Weinstock apartment.

Stoke the furnace, empty the ashes, clean and move and lift and carry. It's all in a day's work and it is what I do. The Weinstock's don't work me too hard, they feed me well, and Rebbe and even Malka take me aside and teach me things I wouldn't learn in school. They are educated people, reading all the time--from books, to the daily newspaper, to Rebbe Weinstock pouring over his ancient and Holy Jewish texts.

Tonight, I heard the Rebbe arrive home even before he was up the two flights of stairs to their apartment. The front door slammed, an "Oy" rang out like the roll of ancient thunder, and then came the water-soaked tromping up the stairs to his home.

I ran out to help Rebbe Weinstock, he almost always is loaded down with parcels and bundles and his heavy black leather grip, which he everywhere carries. And then it happened.

The Rebbe handed me his grip, rain-soaked and slippery as it was, and as I was reaching for it, it slipped from my hand--the bag weighs 20 pounds if it weighs an ounce. It crashed on the floor and its contents spilled all over the tile of the landing before Weinstock's doorway.

Fear!

What is it that the Rebbe does with the fearsome implements in this bag. With all manner of clamps and knives and what look like invidious instruments of torture. Is the Rebbe some sort of necromancer, practicing the horrible black arts of the Jewish cult? What are these tools  for? What horrors, unspeakable, do they bring, and who suffers at the Rebbe's hand?

Pretending I saw nothing, I scooped the fallen devices into his bag and handed the satchel to the Rebbe.

But what, Diary, what were they?

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