A Serious Man Page #4

droning lesson.

The clock-watching child, eyelids sinking, is beginning to drool out of one side of his

mouth.

DOCTOR’S OFFICE

The light again flares.

Reverse:
looking into a pupil.

Objective:
the doctor looking through his scope into Larry’s eye.

Doctor

Mm-hmm. -hmm.

HEBREW SCHOOL:

The teacher drones.

A bored child excavates a booger from his nose.

Danny

Fagle!

The teacher interrupts himself briefly to make a couple of phlegm-hawking sounds, then

resumes.

DOCTOR’S OFFICE

The doctor palpates Larry’s midriff, digging his fingers into the hairy, baggy flesh.

Doctor’s Voice

Uh-huh. We’ll do some routine X-rays.

HEBREW SCHOOL:

A young girl holds a hank of her bangs in front of her face, separating out individual hairs

to examine them for split ends.

The teacher turns from the board and begins to pace the desk aisles, looking back and

forth among the students, posing questions.

The booger-seeker, having succesfully withdrawn a specimen, drapes it carefully over the

sharp end of his pencil, to what end we cannot know.

Danny, apprehensively eyeing the teacher, slides the twenty into the transistor radio’s

cover-sleeve.

X-RAY CONE

A huge white rubberized cone, pointed directly at us.

We hear a rush of static and the doctor’s voice filtered through a talk-back:

Doctor’s Voice

Hold still.

-back:

Doctor’s Voice

Hold still.

Wider:
Larry is in his shorts lying on his back on an examining table covered by a sheet

of tissue paper. The X-ray cone is pointed at the middle of his body.

There is a brief sci-fi-like machine hum. It clicks off.

HEBREW SCHOOL:

The clock-watching student’s head is bobbing slowly toward his chest.

The teacher’s circuit of the classroom has taken him around behind Danny. Danny’s

book lies face-down on the desk, covering the radio, but the white cord snakes out from

under it up to his ear. The teacher’s questions and perambulation stop short as he notices

the cord.

Teacher

Mah zeh?

He yanks at the cord.

The cord pops out of its jack and the Jefferson Airplane blares tinnily from beneath the

book of Torah stories.

The teacher lifts the book to expose the jangling radio.

Outraged, the teacher projects above the music:

. . . Mah zeh?! Mah zeh?!

Some of the students sing along with the music; some beat rhythm on their desks.

. . . Sheket, talmidim! Sheket bivakasha!

Three other students join in a chorus:

Students

Sheket! Sheket bivakasha!

The nodding student’s head droops ever lower.

Other students join in the chant:

Chorus

SHAH! SHAH! SHEKET BIVAKASHA!

The nodding student’s chin finally reaches, and settles upon, his chest as a long clattering

inhale signals his surrender to sleep.

Other students join in the chant:

Chorus

SHAH! SHAH! SHEKET BIVAKASHA!

The nodding student’s chin finally reaches, and settles upon, his chest as a long clattering

inhale signals his surrender to sleep.

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