The Golem Plays HORSE

The magic spelling casts a magic spell.

NOTE: I recommend listening to the audio of this piece (above) as there are funny voices and sound effects I do with my mouth.

Illustration by Alexander Nemser

You know that feeling, like when you look at your body, and you’re like, Damn, I’m just a shifting cosmic alchemy that’s nine parts dirt and one part star juice, incongruously brought to life by some damp word-breath CPR‘ d into my nostrils by a consciousness that only wants to know itself through the suffering of my being?

Right?

I want to tell you a story about that.

In 16th century Prague, according to legend, there was a rabbi wizard who made a giant clay dude. He made it to protect the Jewish ghetto from predators. It was called the golem. The way he brought it to life was by murmuring magic incantations—BarukhatahAdonaieloheinumelechhaolamEchadEloheinushabashamayyimuvaaretz—and whispering magic spells and carving the words “God the Lord is truth” on its forehead. I imagine him digging up the mud from the river, and shaping the clay dude, bringing it to life, then leaning over it like a father over his son, teaching it how to be: how to do things, making it repeat words.

Until the golem was like, “I AM A GOLEM AND I AM HERE TO SERVE,” and then going and making, like, 15,000 pastrami sandwiches. In my favorite version of the story, the golem has an existential moment where it comes into consciousness of itself:

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? I AM CLAY. WHY AM I LIKE THIS? WHY DID YOU MAKE ME LIKE THIS?” 

You know that feeling?

And the golem looks around and kind of wakes up to the unhallowed misadventure of its condition: God made human beings in God’s image. And only God has the power to create. But this wizard just made a clay dude come to life, so… now there is no need for God?

“AAAAHHHHH! I HATE  THIS!”

And smear smear scrape scrape, with a knife he scrapes a letter off his forehead. He vandalizes the magic incantation and writes his own. And it says, “God the Lord is dead.”

Then he goes on a rampage. And the rabbi has to chase him down and—BarukhatahAdonaiEloheinumelechhaolamEchadEloheinushabashamayyimuvaaretz—and do magic spells and write the sacred words backwards on the earth to “de-create” his slave, who collapses into pieces. And the rabbi prays, like, “Oh shit, sorry sorry, only God has the power to create, I won’t do it again.” Because his creation the golem was able to see through his dark arts and call him out. This was before they had SIRI. And in one version, the golem collapses onto the rabbi and both die.

So, speaking of the master-servant dynamic, my dad and I were going to play a basketball game. My dad ruled our household with a tyrannical fever, and the house shook when he jumped up and down with rage at my mom and me. And when I was a kid, my dad was very competitive at games. This guy obliterated me at games. This guy assassinated me at games. This guy orchestrated a coup against my democratically-elected government at games. When we played games, it was like he was playing against his own father.

Because, like it says in the Bible: “Children are the Jews in the Egypt of childhood.” Hey, that’s not in the Bible! That’s true, it’s not. But it is in another skinbound volume containing many murky visions and dark truths: my body! 

Games: chess, even with a huge handicap; checkers; Rummy 500; ping pong, he wiped the floor with me. Then he’d skulk back to his throne room to write cryptic poems and watch college basketball finals.

So one of our favorite games was the basketball game “HORSE.” You know that game? One person takes a shot, could be a free throw or a layup whatever, and if they make it, the other player has to make the identical shot. If the second player misses, they get the letter “H.” And then the first player gets to take another shot because, well, money makes the money. And it goes on until someone messes up so many shots they spell out “HORSE.” And then the winner gets to give the loser some kind of embarrassing dare or makes them repeat something like, “I am a turkey jerky.” Boston is a basketball town. Celtics fans drove out to Newton just to watch Larry Bird mow his lawn. If you lost at HORSE, probably your balls would never drop and you would just go “Peep peep peep” like a marshmallow chick all the way back up your mom’s bajingo.

So one day my dad and I were playing this game, and it was just about the magic hour: the day was coming in for a landing, and aching gold rays were spreading across the edge of the sky. I should say I was about maybe 11 at the time, so the full-on bloodbath onslaught of my adolescence was still on the horizon. We were still Oedipal triangle adjacent. By this time, I’d probably spelled “HORSE” several times, maybe even “ELEPHANT,” because sometimes we used a longer animal word so the humiliation could be softened a little... or prolonged?

Then, uncharacteristically, I made a free throw. Now, it wasn’t unheard of that I’d make a shot once in a while. But what happened next was slightly uncharacteristic: my dad planted his feet, faced off against the basket, took the shot and—it rebounded off the rim. “H!” The sun was beginning its sharp descent, and the sky was starting to glow orange. And neither of us realized something out of the ordinary was starting to happen. Next, I went in for an easy right hand layup, drove in under the basket, and swoop—swish. I made the layup. We looked at each other. Two in a row? Couldn’t be. He went in for the layup, both of us sure he was going to shut this whole thing down right here. But then, No: he missed the layup. “H-O.” He shrugged it off. 

Now, I should say, I didn’t have the feeling of being “on fire,” like I could look at the basket and see it was wide as a swimming pool, and I could just swan dive the ball right in. I had no more confidence or grace than usual. This was not Larry Bird facing off against Magic Johnson. This was more Larry Bird facing off against Kafka’s Odradek, the uncanny creature-object made of a star-shaped spool wound with broken-off bits of tangled thread who lurks elusively in the attic and on the stair. In other words, a garbage baby with the audacity to believe he will outlive the patriarch.

Odradek, Jeff Wall

I took a free throw. Missed. Ball goes to him. He took a layup, makes the layup. I go for the layup, miss. “H.” Whew, things are getting back to normal, I’m well on my way to eating a horse’s ass, like usual. Then he missed. Ball goes to me.

Playing it cautious, I tried another free throw. I watched it glide through the air, then swirl around the rim, and swirl around the rim, and swirl around the rim, then drop in. He missed the free throw. “H-O-R.” At this point, there was no doubt something out of the ordinary was happening. This was like the moment you could look around, and see all these wild-eyed people gathered, just about to start the Russian Revolution. 

We were both buzzing with anticipation, the air was vibrating, the day was dying gloriously, now red and burning, and then I made a 3-point shot! From way back on the court. Probably the first 3-pointer I’d ever made. I think, I felt a corner of the fabric of the universe jiggle. He took the 3-pointer, and missed. “H-O-R-S.”

At that point, I went in for a left-handed layup. I didn’t want to win. I didn’t want to upset the balance of power. But also, I did want to. Dribbling with my left hand, I drove in under the basket, left hand flopping like a phantom limb, launched and—I actually looked away. I didn’t want to see. But I heard: swish. Landed the layup. He picked up the ball, dribbled left, drove in under the basket, took the shot—I closed my eyes, and—clang! He missed the layup.

“H-O-R-S-E.”

Seven miles southwest, Larry Bird’s lawnmower blade caught on a star-shaped spool wound with tangled thread.

The unimaginable had happened. The magic spelling cast a magic spell! The magic hour was cresting, now with an explosive red and gold across the sky, so fiery it had streaks of blue and purple burning at the edges. 

The servant had flipped the script. The servant was now the master; the jester was now the king! It was time to administer a penalty. The court of basketball was now a court of justice! My dad squared in front of me, and leaned his much taller frame over me. I stared into his eyes and said, “Repeat after me.” I had no idea what I was going to say. But when I opened my mouth, 11 years of formative dysfunction were given a voice. 

“I…” I said.

“I…” he repeated. 

“...am…” 

“...am…” 

“...a…” 

“...a…” 

Now I should say, This was the man who taught me to speak, and now I was teaching him to speak. Who taught me to read, who read me poetry, the wizard who created me, his golem, in his image, and now the golem was revolting.

“I...am...a...bald—” 

“—bald—” 

“—fat—” 

“—fat—” 

“—Nazi—” 

“—Nazi—” 

“—clown!” 

“—clown.” 

“I am a bald, fat, Nazi, clown!”

I felt the intoxication of going way over the line. I knew I’d gone too far. I mean, this was a fatal combination, hitting all the weak spots: doozh doozh, wah, doozh, hadouken hadouken EchadEloheinushabashayyimuvaretz! The golem had vandalized the sacred incantation, and written his own. The golem was on a rampage! Smear! Smear! Scrape! Scrape! And God was dead.

We were dumbstruck. Had I just discovered the power of poetry? 

But the crazy thing was, the look in his eyes. As I spoke, his eyes widened. I stared into them, looking for anger, revenge, outrage, vengeance, the desire to punish. But what I saw was more unnerving: what I saw, was recognition. He’d heard it all before. He’d said it all to himself a million times already, in infinite variations. I hadn’t created anything. I’d only exposed the self-lacerating monologue of a guy who, all day, kicked the crap out of himself.  Somehow, being his creature, I’d osmosis’d the incantation of his silent torments. 

I stared into his eyes. He was just another golem. Masquerading as a wizard, trying to suck a little honey from the loneliness of power. So when he looked at me, it wasn’t, How dare you? But more like, How’d you know?

Now we were both weeping a little, just from the complexity. Oh, transmission! From creator to creature. We were just two baffled, suffering clay dudes some huge consciousness was trying to learn something from.

By now the blue and purple had settled over us, suffusing the day to night. It was dark. Streetlights had come on. We picked up our things and started walking home where, the tyranny would resume, but with a dent. It was a dent that, over the years, I’d claw into an uneasy freedom. 

We walked in silence, like a policeman father and his son, the future famous criminal, who just discovered they share the same gun.