his spiked Irish Coffees, while Leona ran out to buy food. In the
meantime, the guests snacked on kugel and whatever Roy could
rustle up from the refrigerator in his house. As things got going, the
homeless began producing grimy bottles of booze that they offered
round. Interpreting this as some new trend, the well-heeled eagerly
broke beverage with the quaint downtrodden.
Niles put some music on and the Jews started to sing along.
Reggae was often peppered with Old Testament scripture, they were
also surprised to find out, and so they did what came natural and
broke into a traditional Jewish dance circle.
…By the rivers of Babylon
Where we sat down
And yea we wept
When we remembered Zion…
…Holy mount Zion…
…The stone that the builder refuse
Will always be the headcorner stone…
…Get up in the morning,
Slaving for bread, sir,
So that every mouth can be fed.
O, O the Israelites…
Many of the guests let their hair down and tried emulating the
medieval dance, whose steps could easily be mistaken for break-
dancing. Others did the limbo under the low doorway. Cultural
boundaries began to grow fuzzy. And through the entire evening,
everyone kept commenting on how good the coffee was.
Partment was selling male and female versions of his “Let it All
Hang Outfit” and it wasn’t long before a handful of adventurous folks
were suited up, enjoying a verisimilitude of nudity. Partment led a
contingency back to the Promenade to help recruit more of the
curious and naked at heart.
The centerpiece of that magic evening, though, the center of
gravity, the focus of attention, remained pretty much constant
throughout. It was the girl. She tilted the axis upon which the world
around them spun.
ABYSSINIA
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