A true story with funny parts for entertainment

During the nothingness that came after the army I spent my time floating heavily. I was lucky enough to spend a few strange nights observing Shmulik’s life before he disappeared from our lives several months later. Shmulik and a few of his outcast friends had dragged sofas and love seats and other furniture along highways with determination reserved for ants and the mentally imbalanced, until they reached an open field in Ramat Pinkas where they arranged everything along imaginary walls in a homey rectangle under the stars and called it “The living room”.

Shmulik would invite us over to his “living room”, where he’d boil tea for us over an improvised bonfire and speak in a gentle voice. The only ready-made thing he brought from home was the brown sugar, everything else was picked from the living room itself. He wrote short stories in a tan brown notebook and when he overcame his shyness he would allow us to leaf through its pages. The tiny and carefully elegant handwriting was a big part of the stories' charm. They were straightforward and unabashed. One story included the line “I rode my car around Tel Aviv and thought to myself, either buy ice cream or pay for sex.”

On one of these nights Shmulik’s friend Moshe came along. Shmulik was slowly slipping into insanity, but Moshe had long ago taken the leap. He sighed and complained about the bible and about our lord who created this world we lived in and this living room we sat in. “I could write the bible better.” Moshe said.
“Try to.” Shmulik smiled kindly.
My bearded friend Gil squirmed in his sofa. He didn’t like religious discussions.
“I’m actually writing a book now.” Moshe said. He pursed his lips and added “I know that my book is going to dwarf the bible.”
“You know the bible is the biggest best-seller of all times.” I said.
Gil flashed me a look, unmistakably saying ‘please don’t encourage him’. I had to.
“Yeah, well, not anymore.” Moshe stated confidently. “I can see us all sitting around my book. And it’s got funny parts too, it’s not all serious. It’s got entertainment.”
“Entertainment is good,” Gil said. “Entertainment sells.”
“Yeah, like, there’s this part in the book about this kid whose parents are junkies, and they hit him all the time,” Moshe started laughing uncontrollably as he spoke, spitting everywhere. “And they’re always hitting him, until they finally kick him out of the house, and then he winds up with this woman who uses him, and she hits him too, she hits him with her flip flops until he’s bleeding, and he falls to the floor and cries because it hurts but he also goes to sleep ‘cause he’s tired.” Moshe exploded with laugher.
That was it, that was the punch line, and Moshe’s eyes glistened from laughing so hard. His chest swelled with pride.

Shmulik smiled and nodded. He was one of the only people I ever knew who felt things stronger than anybody else yet never spoke about it. Gil and I laughed about Moshe in the car for days. We never really laughed about Shmulik, though.