Entered, and Killed All

We were driving back from a day in along the Dead Sea, earlier this year, when my friend pointed out to me that the city we were passing was Jericho.  One of a dozen remarkably famous landmarks we’d passed during the day, “oh, that’s the place where John the Baptist, baptized Jesus.”  “You don’t say?” . . . it was too late in the day to stop, and besides, my friend who was driving is an Israeli citizen and this city in the Palestinian Authority was off limits, to him at least.  My other chum in the back seat commented on the “Walls of Jericho” and alluded to trumpets.  “Yes.” Said the friend behind the wheel.  “The oldest walls in the world.”  Alas, all of this registered rather vaguely with me.

I got started with it last night, and was drawn in immediately by the way Rudolph Fisher personifies the progression of Fifth Avenue, up beyond One-Hundred-and-Tenth Street, “wagging its head in self commiseration . . . having poked its head out into the dark kingdoms backwoods.”  And this morning after rising early, despite myself, with no early morning calls to attend to I considered the big twelve point, old fashioned font, of Fisher’s first novel, “The Walls of Jericho.” 

It’s a wonderful story.  Funny, full of marvelous slang, from 1928, easily lampooning the wealthy and the working class, among both blacks and whites, Fisher is able to profile injustice and prejudice without being predictable.  And it’s not until the final third of the novel when the moving man Shine and the “KM” Linda find a chance to discuss and unpack the metaphor, behind the books title: “Jericho, chief city of every man’s spiritual Canaan.”   The dismantling of Shine’s wall happens in a manner quite plausible.

I took a look on Wiki and reviewed the Biblical tale from the Book of Joshua.  The Israelites set out to conquer their first city in Canaan.  Spies informed them that the inhabitants were in fear of the Israelites and (of course), in fear of their God.  They marched around the city walls with the Ark of the Covenant, each day for six days,  (which sounds a bit like pilgrim perambulations of Buddhists around Mount Kailash) after which they blew their trumpets and the city walls came tumbling down.  The Israelites entered and killed all the men, woman and children in the city, including all the domesticated mammals, with the exception of the Canaanite prostitute Rahab who had helped the aforementioned spies.  This, according to God’s law.  

Blasphemer, I find it hard to see this as anything other than a wretched, vindictive tale, which only the most artful of spins could suggest was not the symbol of a brutal massacre but rather about resisting the urge to wall oneself off and being open to others . . . so they can annihilate you.  But Shine survives and so does Linda like two “salty dogs,” with the help of Merrit, whom the prior almost mistakenly murdered.  And I will now remember the allusion, and think of Harlem I suppose, the next time I pass those Palestinian city walls, should I get another chance.

Thursday, 07/16/20