The Judgement of Solomons

Chapter One

Jackie Swallow was about to have anal sex with her husband Dov Landau when she saw her son Josh Solomons walking past the window.

“Josh!’ she cried, in warning.

‘It won’t take a minute…three at most…’

‘It’s my son, you freak!’ Jackie jumped up. Dov sighed heavily, viewing his splendid erection. What a waste! He despised her first husband, Nathan Solomons; to be interrupted by the son of Solomons while about to sodomize the shikske mother and ex-wife of them, the day before he was due to take her to live in Israel for good (unless he met someone more sexually depraved and stupid, which was unlikely) was galling beyond belief. He heard the door close; the two voices continued. Why was the kid coming in? To give Jackie credit, she had admirably little maternal feeling. But to give the kid credit too, he possessed a sort of sexual smoke-detector.

Last time he had come calling, Dov recalled wistfully, his old army friend Ariel Putz had been just about to serve Jackie up the wrong ‘un (he loved English slang, if nothing else about the stupid, cold country) with a strap-on while Jackie sucked the birthday boy, him, off. Josh had knocked and Jackie had moved so fast that he had shot his load full square into Ariel’s face – not so good if you were a rich, beautiful, virginal, ocean-going, gold-star rug-muncher. She hadn’t been able to look him in the eye since. And not just for the obvious reason.

The voices were coming closer. Dov grabbed a scatter cushion and placed it over his groin but made no attempt to pull up his clothing. The kid was 19. Surely he didn’t imagine that his mother and her hot Israeli husband sat around playing Jenga all day? Except of course, that time in Eilat with those Russian twins. Strip Jenga. Dov sighed for the innocent hinterlands of his honeymoon.

The door opened and there stood the Solomons kid. Some large animal appeared to have taken a dump on his head, and as it was dripping down he had obviously met up with Medusa, who had been having a similarly bad hair day, as she had turned that which was running down his head to stone.

Josh said stonily ‘They’re dreads.’ He had a nasty habit of reading Dov’s mind, probably helped by the fact that Dov never tried to hide his feelings, especially when they were negative.

‘Aren’t they lovely!’ Jackie chirped, the clown. Her son shot her a contemptuous look and removed his ratty jacket to reveal a T-shirt bearing the legend EAT MY FUCK. ‘Sit down, hon, and I’ll get you a beer. Oops, there’s none in the fridge. I’ll just run down the shops then. Stella, right?’ And in a flash she was out of the door.

Dov got up and pulled on his clothes, but not with undue haste. Let the little misery-bucket have a good luck at what his fond papa’s usurper was packing, and if it got back to old Laughing Boy Solomons himself, so much the better.

Josh scowled and sat down. ‘Why does she act like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like I’m some visiting dignity.’

‘Dignitary.’

‘Whatever. Fussing around like that.’

‘It’s probably because she loves you. Weird, isn’t it?’ Dov lit a Lucky Strike and blew the smoke in Josh’s direction.

The scowl ate the boy’s face. ‘She doesn’t love me. She never loved me. All she cares about is having fun.’

Dov walked around behind the sofa where Josh sat. ‘Stand up,’ he suggested.

‘Why?’ the kid slumped.

‘So I can see if your dear old dad has his hand up your ass. Because you certainly sound like his ventriloquist’s dummy. What makes you think she doesn’t love you, out of interest? Not that it will be very interesting, knowing the banal crap that your father drip-feeds you. But anyway.’ He sat down by Josh and offered him a cigarette.

The kid looked as though Dov had offered him his cock, wrapped in a knish. ‘Cigarettes kill you.’

‘Unlike that ketamine you’re so fond of, which brings a rosy glow to your cheeks. Go on – why do you think your mother doesn’t love you?’

‘She left me, didn’t she?’

‘She left your father, because of the way he treated her.’

‘She made him do it!’

Dov made a grimace of disgust and took himself as far across the room as he could. These weird English families - madder than a bagful of bats without bum-holes. He regarded Josh through the smoke. ‘Listen, your pencil-dick of a father is in no position to judge anyone – not even me, and I’m pretty low. If you don’t like your mother, just leave her alone. Stop coming round.’

The kid looked happy for the first time since he had arrived. ‘Oh, no. That would be far too easy on her.’

‘Well, we’re going to Israel tomorrow…’

‘Yeah, I know, Dad told me.’

‘To live, not for a holiday…’

‘Yeah, I know, Dad told me.’

‘So you can stay tonight, but that’s it.’

‘Oh, didn’t Dad tell you? I’m coming with you.’

*

Jackie was thinking Lovely Thoughts as she fumbled for her key. No matter how many times things went wrong with Josh, no matter how many mean things he said to her, no matter how many times Dov threatened to put his head down the toilet and flush it, she never stopped dreaming that they might one day become a unique little family. Damaged and A Little Bit Different - but a family nonetheless.

'Everyone needs someone to call home,' she thought to herself as she found the key. What a lovely line that was! And you could read it two ways. Everyone needed a person to call their home, because bricks and mortar were so expensive these days. And everyone needed to call home - like E.T!

Her Lovely Thoughts evaporated as she opened the door. Dov was swearing in Hebrew and dragging Josh towards the toilet, and Josh was kicking out at him and calling him nasty names in Jamaican patois.

‘Dov!’ Jackie ran to him, remonstrating. “Violence is never the answer!’

‘Tell that to your friends the IDF!’ he pointed out quite reasonably before re-commencing his colourful cussing. His Gentile wife was indeed far more pro-Israel than him; the only fault she could generally find with the country was that it had got rid of capital punishment after executing Adolf Eichmann.

Jackie had always dreamed of being loved by the Jews, but not in this way, with one attempting to dunk the other in the lavatory – or in the ‘sherutim’, to use her very basic Hebrew - and the two of them linked by love of her, no matter how you sliced it. She went into the bedroom and closed the door. She was sad – ‘atsuva’ – but not overly so, have seen the two people she loved most in the world set about each other quite a few times before, verbally if not physically. And at least while they were hating on each other, they weren’t hating on her.

Also, she knew that this was the bitter harvest of the lies that her spurned husband Solomons had mainlined into her poor son since he was a child. She only hoped that Dov could adapt to the idea of Josh coming to Israel with them. After all, he had adapted so easily to being a Jew who hated Israel – he even made a living out of it. Surely he was capable of anything?

She sat down at her computer and logged on. The smile came to and stayed in her eyes, dancing with itself, as she typed LILA TOV, MOTEK…

*

Dov looked at the poor kid lying all but bald on the bathroom floor, his dreads a distant memory - they had been so amateurishly attached that the toilet-dunking had seen the back of them, leaving their erstwhile owner humiliated. He put his hand out to touch Josh but the little sod flinched away. Dov fondly remembered Josh during various trips they had made during Jackie’s fun years as a travel writer. At twelve, learning to spell FUCK in penne in Venice; at fourteen; at 16, in Barcelona, when the tour bus voice told them that ‘Montjuic’ translated as ‘Mount of the Jews’, yelling ‘That’s my mum’s name, too!’

Those happy times seemed so far away now.

Dov heard a forsaken voice crying out for help. And he felt Josh Solomons hand reach out to his.

‘Call me Dad,’ he told the kid.

‘You’re a cunt, Dad,’ Josh whispered. ‘And I’m coming to Israel with you and Mum. Just try and stop me….’