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About time, and marriages are all about time, and about flowers and gifts of jewelry, second mortgages for third homes, according to the neverwid-owed, nevermarried Misses Teitelbaum who’s said to know a thing or two about — among other things — enteitelment (who says? she does)…about time to shep, time to wish a Mazel Tov to His betrothed whomever she may be and to Ben, the ungroomed groom, the unkempt to be kept for perpetuity. Idea is to arrange Him a virgin, a pure Sarah, Rebecca, or Rachel, a Leah but without that veiled business under the canopy, not for her, and anyway it’s called a chuppah. To procure for Him a woman negligibly eligible, a girl ingathered as of late, a convert as recent as any converted; to arrange for Him a mate, for His soul or not, an intended, better be Beshert: a moll for the paparazzi, a face mouthing a name for the press, an escort for the just selected, custompatterned carpet soon to unfurl its purchase eighteen million inheritances per square foot and far beyond the bulbs and smoke, to fundraisers, to rededicated synagogues, here to the Temple Itself three floors up and growing higher by the prayer, the Donor’s Kaddish: the wiring’s to be installed tomorrow; the sconces (ner tamid) on order to illuminate eternal; the pulpits are having their plaques screwed on, one says Rabbi, the other, Cantor…an Eve in the kitchen and a Lilith everywhere else, is what, and whenever it’s needed, demanded, pleased or begged, no matter what Ben might want, who cares. Those becoming converted frown on His sort of dalliance, His perceived inability to obliterate options, desire, lust, send Eros all to hell and just settle — settle down, Ben; earthbound, without choice. His own handlers fan the flames. To be single is to be a scandal. A shame named Shanda after Wanda. Though the Marys will stay, they’ll assure Him, that a mensch needs His occasional leisure, a permanency at least outwardly proper’s required. Then to get her, the press never wants for speculation, the PR’ll be sure to imply, to get whichever her as long as it’s Her as pregnant as Him, soon expecting kinder, those halfbastard quarterbreeds, mutts, intermingled whatevers, some something to propagate the line. Furtherance, the ideal. And a line is a line is a line, though it be weak, adulterated — anything as far as the public’s concerned.

What’s my line? Not to be.