The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx by Arthur Nersesian

is on the verge of going under. I had a crucial meeting with a potential investor this morning.”
    “We were all here except for you. Even Robert canceled his appointment with Governor Roosevelt.”
    A week later, gathered with his brother and sister in the office of their family lawyer, he listened as the will was read. Paul expected to hear that her estate, including what their father had left, would be divided evenly between the three children. Instead, the lawyer announced that it would essentially be split between Robert and Edna. Paul had been left the interest from a principal of one hundred thousand dollars—he had been cut!
    Upon hearing this, Paul looked over at his siblings, believing they would share in the indignity of it all, but neither of them returned his gaze. As the full magnitude of his mother’s cruelty hit him, he felt as if his fate were sealed. Despite their many fights, he had always believed she loved him. He knew he had never stopped loving her.
    “I can’t believe this,” Paul said, and asked the attorney if he could look at the will. Doing so, he immediately realized that the document had been rewritten in just the last few weeks. It was brand new, not the one he had seen when she first became ill.
    “Paul, we talked with Mom …” his sister began.
    “Edna, please let me handle this,” Robert said. “Paul, this isn’t about any of us. This is Mom’s will, both literally and legally, and we plan to honor it.”
    “I can’t believe she’d do this to me.”
    “What are you saying, Paul? That we did it?” Robert asked.
    “I’m saying that this is insane. And I can’t believe that you two—”
    “Goddamnit, Paul, I spent years, years telling you not to fight with her! I begged you—”
    “No one is going to tell me how to live my life!” Paul shot back.
    “Oh, give it a break,” his brother said. “No one’s ever told you what to do with your goddamn life and you know it! This is about you constantly riling Mom.”
    “When I get attacked, I respond!”
    “And this is what you get for it.”
    “This is unfair. Some of that money belonged to Dad and—”
    “Paul, she didn’t cut you out,” Edna countered, “she simply didn’t give you an even share.”
    “I can’t believe you two are going through with this.”
    “This is her last will and testament and, like it or not, we’ve agreed to stand by it,” Robert said.
    Even Uli hadn’t expected Paul to be cut out of his mother’s will—and though the two brothers weren’t close, he never suspected a doublecross. Uli’s thoughts were accompanied by the persistent scuttling and squeaking of rats.
    Large laboratory counters, chairs, and tables had been pulled apart and rearranged to section off areas of the vast wooden floor. It appeared almost as if organized battles had taken place here—but where would the bodies have gone?
    At one point he spotted the faint flickering of a small bonfire. Uli cautiously approached a small group huddled before the flame. As he got within a hundred feet, however, they noticed him and scattered.
    “I just want to talk!” he shouted, to no avail.
    Soon, he began spotting corpses. He inspected each one he came across, but the state of decomposition always made scavenging impossible. While carefully making his way beneath a massive obstacle course of broken desks, Uli reflected that the entire space felt like some giant skyscraper that had collapsed into just a few levels, spilling every which way.
    Whenever he passed an upright desk, he scrounged through its drawers for supplies. In one drawer, to his delight, he found a small working flashlight. In another were two mercury dimes. Besides these items, he found little else of use.
    Proceeding through the darkness, he began hearing distant screams. He cautiously followed the cries for about five minutes until he saw what appeared to be a pool of light in the distance. Next to it, an older man was lying on his back. Flipping on