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《Come Back, Dr. Caligari》
Back Cover:
Experimentation with the "absurd," both in theme and teique, is by no means a totally new development in literature, especially for those read藏书网ers familiar with the works of Camus, Kafka, Beckett, Genêt, and Robbe-Grillet. Like these writers, Mr. Barthelme satirizes and mimics most of the clichés of our popular culture, and, through the predits of his characters, makes the reader ask "Why?" Yet these predits, although bizarre, inane, and usually surrealistic, do n九九藏书ot necessarily tain the morose otations of most writers of the absurd. For example, iale the narrator is thirty-five years old, six feet tall, with the logid reasoning of an adult. He is in the sixth grade, where Miss Mandible, his teacher, is frustrated in her desires to have an affair with him because, officially, he is a child!
These imaginative stories of dark humor, some of which have appeared in The New Yorker, are to be interpreted on many levels, and offer refreshing and thhly exg reading.
". . .at long la９９lｉｂ?st, for better or for worse, the Absurd has in these pages beeed precisely with the Goofy. Hardly one of the 14 stories ends without a wry twist proclaiming that even its metaphysical protest has been all in fun." -- The New York Times
". . . Barthelme mao evoke the kind of thoughtful laughter he is looking for, the kind of astonishment that is a stimulant. He has created certain effects that seem to be new ierature of the absurd, and this gives him importance as an experimentalist." -- Granville Hicks, Saturday Review
Donald Barthelme is a thirty-two-year-old Texan now living in New York City. He has worked as a neer reporter, a magazior, and a museum director, and served in the Army in Korea and Japan. He is currently managing９９ｌiｂ. editor of the art-literary review, Location, and is at work on a novel. His fi has appeared in The New Yorker, taew World Writing, Harpers Bazaar, and azines.
Florence Green Is 81
Dinner with Florence Green. The old babe is on a kick tonight: I want to go to some other try, she announces. Everyone wonders what this mean. But Florence says nothing more: no explanation, no elaboration, after a satisfied look around the table bang! she is asleep again. The girl at Florences right is new here and does not uand. I give her an ingratiating look (a look that says, "There is nothing to worry about, I will explaihing later in the privay quarters Kathleen"). Lentils vegetate in the depths of the fourth principal river of the world, the Ob, in Siberia, 3200 miles. We are talking about Quemoy and Matsu. "Its a matter of leading from strength. What is the stro possible move on our part? To deny them the islands even though the islands are worthless in themselves." Baskerville, a sophomore at the Famous Writers School iport, ecticut, which he attends with the object of being a famous writer, is making his excited he new girls boobies are like my secretarys knees, very promi and irritating. Florence began the evening by saying, grandly, "The upstairs bathroom leaks you know." What does Herman Kahn think about Quemoy and Matsu? I t remember, I t remember. . .
Oh Baskerville! you silly son of a bitch, how you bee a famous writer without first having worried about your life, is it the right kind of life, does it have the right people in it, is it going well? Instead you are beglamoured by J. D. Ratcliff. The smallest city in the Uates with a population over 100,000 is Santa Ana, California, where 100,350 citizele together in the Balboa blue Pacific evenings w about their lives. I am a young man but very brilliant, very ingratiating, I adopt this ingratiating tone because I t help myself (for fear of b you). I edit with my left hand a small magazine, very scholarly, very brilliant, called The Journal of Tensioion (social-psychological studies, learned disputatioers-to-the-editor, ay in rats). Isnt that distasteful? Certainly it is distasteful but if Florence Green takes her moo another try who will pay the printer? answer me that. From an article in The Journal of Tensioion: "One source of in the classiter between patient and psyalyst is the patients fear of b the doctor." The doctor no doubt is also w about his life, unfolding with ten minutes between hours to smoke a cigarette in and wash his hands in. Reader, you who have already been told more than you want to know about the river Ob, 3200 miles long, in Siberia, we have roles to play, thou and I: you are the doctor (washing your hands between hours), and I, I am, I think, the nervous dreary patient. I am free associating, brilliantly, brilliantly, to put you into the problem. Or for fear of b you: which? The Journal of Tensioion is ed with everything from global tensions (drums along the Ob) to interpersonal relations (Baskerville and the new girl). There is, we feel, too much tension in the world, I myself am a perfect example, my stomach is like a ched fist. Notice the ingratiating tone here? the only way I relax it, I refer to the stomach, is by introdug quarts of Fleisns Gin. Fleisns I have found is a magnifit source of tensioion, I favor the establishment of fort stations providing free Fleisns on every street er of the city of Santa Ana, California, and all other cities. Be serious, t you?
The new girl is a thin thichy girl with a big chest looming over the gazpacho and black holes around her eyes that are very promising. Surely when she opens her mouth toads will pop out. I am tempted to remove my shirt and show her my trim midse sp chiseled abdominals, my superior shoulders and brilliantly developed pectoral-latissimus tie-in. Ja called himself a South Carolinian, and his biographer, Amos Kendall, recorded his birthplace as Lancaster ty, S.C.; but Parton has published dotary evideo show that Ja was born in Union ty, N.C., less than a quarter mile from the South Carolina line. Ja is my great hero even though he had, if porary reports are to be believed, lousy lats. I am also a weightlifter and poet and admirer of Ja and the father of one abortion and four miscarriages; who among you has such a record and no wife? Baskervilles difficulty not only at the Famous Writers School iport, ecticut, but in every part of the world, is that he is slow. "Thats a slow boy, that one," his first teacher said. "That boy is what you call real slow," his sed teacher said. "Thats a slow son of a bitch," his third teacher said. And they were right, right, entirely correct, still I learned about Andrew Ja and abortions, many of you walking the streets of Santa Ana, California, and all other cities know nothing about either. "In such cases the patiehe doctor as a highly sophisticated er of outré material, a oisseur of exotic behavior. Therefore he tends to propose himself as more colorful, more etriore ill) than he really is; or he is witty, or he fantasticates." You see? Isnt that sensible? In the magazine we run many useful and sensible pieces of this kind, pes through the whirlpool-try of the mind. In the magazine I ot openly advocate the use of Fleisns Gin in tensioion but I did run an article titled "Alcohol Residered" written by a talented soak of my acquaintance which drew many approving if carefully worded letters from secret drinkers in psychology departments all over this vast, dry and misuood try. . .
"Thats a slow son of a bitch," his third teacher remarked of him, at a meeting called to discuss the formation of a special program for Inferior Students, in which Baskervilles name had so to speak rushed to the fore. The young Baskerville, shrinking along the beach brushing sand from his dreary Texas eyes, his sad fingers gripping $20 worth of pamphlets secured by post from Joe Weider, "Trainer of Terrhters" (are they, Baskerville wondered, like fire fighters? do they fight terror? or do they, rather, inspire it? the latter his, Baskervilles, impossible goal), was even then incubating plans for his he Childrens Army which he is attending the Famous Writers School to learn how to write. "You will do famously, Baskerville," said the Registrar, the exg results of Baskervilles Tale lying unexamined before him. "Run along now to the Cashiers Office." "I am writing doctor an immense o be called The Childrens Army!" (Why do I think the colored doctors name, he with his brown hand on the red radishes, is Pamela Hansford Johnson? Why do I think?) Florence Green is a small fat girl eighty-one years old, old with blue legs and very rich. Rock pools deep in the earth, I salute the shrewdness of whoever filled you with Texaco! Texaco breaks my heart, Texaco is particularly poignant. Florence Green who was not always a small fat girl once made a voyage with her husband Mr. Green on the Graf Zeppelin. In the grand salon, she remembers, there was a grand piano, the great pianist Mandrake the Magi was also on board but could not be persuaded to play. The Zeppelins could not use helium; the gover of this try refused to sell helium to the owners of the Zeppelins. The title of my sed book will be I believe Hydrogen After Lakehurst. For the first half of the evening we heard about the problem of the upstairs bathroom: "I had a man e out and look at it, and he said it would be two hundred and twenty-five dollars for a new one. I said I didnt want a new one, I just wahis one fixed." Shall I offer to obtain a new one for Florence, carved out of solid helium? would that be ingratiating? Does she worry about her life? "He said mine was old-fashioned and they didnt make parts for that kind any more." Now she sleeps untidily at the head of the table, except for her single, mysterious statement, delivered with the soup (I want to go to some other try!), she has said nothing about her life whatsoever. . . The diameter of the world at the Poles is 7899.99 miles whereas the diameter of the world at the Equator is 7926.68 miles, mark it and strike it. I am sure the colored man across from me is a doctor, he has a doctors doctorly air of being needed and necessary. He leans into the versation as if to say: Just make me Secretary of State and then you will see some a. "Ill tell you ohing, there are a hell of a lot of ese over there." Surely the very kidneys of wisdom, Florence Green has only one kidney, I have a kidone, Baskerville was stoned by the massed faculty of the Famous Writers School upoation of his first lesson: he was accused of formalism. It is well known that Florence adores doctors, why didnt I announce myself, in the beginning, from the very first, as a doctor? Then I could say that the money was for a very important research project (use of radioactive tracers iiles) with very important ramifications in stomach cer (the small iine is very like a reptile). Then I would get the money with much less difficulty, cer frightens Florehe money would rain down like fallout in New Mexico. I am a young man but very brilliant, very ingratiating, I edit with my left hand a small magazine called. . . did I explain that? And you accepted my explanation? Her name is not really Kathleen, it is Joan Graham, when we were introduced she said, "Oh are you a native of Dallas Mr. Baskerville?" No Joan baby I am a native of Bengazi sent here by the UN to screw your beautiful ass right down into the ground, that is not what I said but what I should have said, it would have been brilliant. When she asked him what he did Baskerville identified himself as an Ameri weightlifter and poet (that is to say: a man stronger and more eloquent than other men). &qu?９9ｌib.;It moves," Mandrake said, pointing to the piano, and although no one else could detect the slightest movement, the force of his personality was so magical that he was not tradicted (the instrument sat in the salon, Florence says, as solidly as Gibraltar in the sea).
The man who has beeling the hash of the mainland ese searches the back of his neck, where there is pears to be a sebaceous cyst (I clear that up for you; my instrument will be a paper oheory of games). What if Mandrake had played, though, what if he had seated himself before the instrument, raised his hands, and. . . what? The Principal Seas, do you want to hear about the Principal Seas? Florence has been prodded awake; people are beginning to ask questions. If not this try, then what try? Italy? "No," Florence says smiling through her emeralds, "not Italy. Ive been to Italy. Although Mr. Green was very fond of Italy." "To bore the doctor is to bee, for this patient, a case similar to other cases; the patient strives mightily to establish his uniqueness. This is also, of course, a tactic for evading the psyalytic issue." The first thing the All-Ameri Boy said to Florence Green at the very brink of their acquaintanceship was "It is closing time in the gardens of the West Cyril olly." This remark pleased her, it leasing remark, orength of this remark Baskerville was invited again, on the sed occasion he made a sed remark, which was "Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded Gertrude Stein." Joan is like one of those marvelous Vogue girls, a tease in a half-slip on Mykonos, bare from the belly up on the rocks. "It moves," Mandrake said, and the piano raised itself a few inches, magically, and swayed from side to side in a careful Baldwin dance. "It moves," the other passengers agreed, uhe spell of posthypnotic suggestion. "It moves," .Joan says, pointing at the gazpacho, which sways from side to side with a secret Heinz trembling movement. I give the soup a serious warning, couched iro possible terms, and Joan grins gratefully not at me but at Pamela Hansford Johnson. The Virgin Islands maybe? "We were there in 1925, Mr. Green had iion, I sat up all night with his stomad the flies, the flies were something you wouldnt believe." They are asking I think the wrong questions, the question is not where but why? "I was reading the other day that the average age of gs enlisted men is thirty-seven. You t do much with an outfit like that." This is true, I myself am thirty-seven and if g must rely on men of my sort then he might as well kiss the mainland goodbye. Oh, there is nothier than intelligent versation except thrashing about in bed with a naked girl and Egmont Light Italic.
Despite his slowness already remarked upon which perhaps inhibited his iion of the splendid curriculum that had been prepared for him, Baskerville never failed to be "promoted," but on the trary was always "promoted," the reason for this being perhaps that his seat was needed for another child (Baskerville then being classified, in spite of his marked growth and geous potential, as a child). There were some it was true who hought he would extend himself to six feet, still he learned about Andrew Ja, helium-hydrogen, and abortions, where are my mother and father now? answer me that. On a circular afternoon in June 1945 -- it was raining, Florence says, hard enough to fill the Brazen Sea -- she was sitting untidily on a chaise in the north bedroom (on the wall of the north bedroom there are twenty identically framed photographs of Florence from eighteen to eighty-one, she was a beauty at eighteen) reading a copy of Life. It was the issue taining the first pictures from Buwald, she could not look away, she read the text, or a little of the text, then she vomited. When she recovered she read the article again, but without uanding it. What did exterminated mean? It meant nothing, aness at mentioned a little girl with ohrown alive on top of a truckload of corpses to be burned. Florence was sick. She went immediately to the Greenbrier, a resort i Virginia. Later she permitted me to tell her about the Principal Seas, the South a, the Yellow, the Andaman, the Sea of Okhotsk. "I spotted you for a weightlifter," Joan says. "But not for a poet," Baskerville replies. "What have you written?" she asks. "Mostly I make remarks," I say. "Remarks are not literature," she says. "Then theres my novel," I say, "it will be twelve years old Tuesday." "Published?" she asks. "Not finished," I say, "however its very violent and necessary. It has to do with this Army see, made up of children, young children but I mean really well armed with M-1s, carbines, .30 and .50 caliber mae guns, 105 mortars, recoilless rifles, the whole works. The tral figure is the General, who is fifteen. One day the Army appears iy, in a park, and takes up positions. Then it begins killing the people. Do you uand?" "I dont think Id like it," Joan says. "I dont like it either," Baskerville says, "but it doesnt make any differehat I dont like it. Mr. Henry James writes fi as though it were a painful duty Oscar Wilde."
Does Florence worry about her life? "He said mine was old-fashioned and they didnt make parts for that kind any more." Last year Floreried to join the Peace Corps and when she was refused, telephohe President to plain. "I have always admired the work of the Andrews Sisters," Joan says. I feel feverish; will you take my temperature doctor? Baskerville that simple preliterate soaks up all the Taylors New York State malmsey in reach meanwhile w about his Grand Design. France? Japan? "Not Japan dear, we had a lovely time there but I wouldnt want to go baow. France is where my little niece is, they have twenty-two acres near Versailles, hes a t and a biochemist, isnt that wonderful?" The others nod, they know what is wonderful. The Principal Seas are wonderful, the Important Lakes of the World are wonderful, the Metric System is wonderful, let us measure something together Florence Green baby. I will trade you a walleyed heeter for a single golden mi. The table is hushed, like a crowd admiring 300 million dollars. Did I say that Florence has 300 million dollars? Florence Green is eighty-oh blue legs and has 300 million dollars and in 1932 was in love, airily, with a radio announamed Norman Brokenshire, with his voice. "Meanwhile Edna Gathers husband who takes me to church, hes got a very good job with the Port, I think he does very well, hes her sed husband, the first ete Duff who got into all that trouble, where was I? Oh yes when Paul called up and said he wouldnt e because of his hernia -- you heard about his hernia -- John said hed e over and look at it. Mind you Ive been using the downstaics bathroom all this time." In fact the whole history of Florences radio listenership is of i. In fact I have decided to write a paper called "The Whole History of Florence Greens Radio Listenership." Or perhaps, in the seveh-tury style, "The Whole and True History of Florence Greens Radio Listenership." Or perhaps. . . But I am b you, I se, let me say only that she still elicit, from her a larynx, the special thrilling sound used to introduce Captain Midnight. . . The table is hushed, then, we are all involved in a furious pause, a grand parenthesis (here I will i a description of Florences es. Florences es line a special room, the room in which her e colle is kept. There are hundreds of them: smooth black Fred Astaire es and rough cheenstocks, blackthorns and quarterstaffs, cudgels and swagger sticks, bamboo and ironwood, maple and slippery elm, es from Tangier, Maine, Zurich, Panama City, Quebec, Togoland, the Dakotas and Borneo, resting in notched partments that resemble arms racks in an armory. Everywhere Florence goes, she purchases one or more es. Some she has made herself, stripping the bark from the green unseasoned wood, drying them carefully, applying layer on layer of a special varnish, then polishing them, endlessly, in the evenings, after dark and dinner) as vast as the Sea of Okhotsk, 590,000 square miles. I was sitting, I remember, in a Germaaurant on Lexington, blowing bubbles in my seidel, at the able there were six Germans, young Germans, they were laughing and talking. At Florence Greens here-and-now table there is a poet named Onward Christian or something whose spectacles have wide silver sidepieces rather than the dull brown horn sidepieces of true poets alifters, and whose poems invariably begin: "Through all my gorous hours. . ." I am worried about his remarks, are his remarks better than my remarks? We are elected after all orength of lamorous remarks, what is he saying to her? to Joan? what sort of eyewash is he p in her ear? I am tempted to walk briskly over and ask to see his honorable discharge from the Famous Writers School. What could be mlamorous or necessary than The Childrens Army, "An army of youth bearing the standard of truth" as we used to?９９ｌib? sing in my frade classroom at Our Lady of the Sorrows uhe unfiving eye of Sister Scholastica who knew how many angels could dan the head of a pin. . .
Florence I have decided is evading the life-issue. She is proposing herself as more unhappy than she really is. She has in mind making herself more iing. She is afraid of b us. She is trying to establish her uniqueness. She does not really want to go away. Does Onward Christian know about the Important Lakes of the World? Terminate serviployees when necessary. I terminate you, brighthat seems to know me. She proceeded by car from Tempelhof to a hotel in the Ameri zone, registered, dined, sat in a chair in the lobby for a time the Ameri lieutenant els and their healthy German girls, and then walked out into the street. The first German man she saw oli direg traffic. He wore a uniform. Florence walked out into the traffic island and tugged at his sleeve. He bent politely toward the nice old Ameri lady. She lifted her e, the e of 1927 from Yellowstone, and cracked his head with it. He fell in a heap in the middle of the street. Then Florence Green rushed awkwardly into the plaza with her e, beating the people there, men and women, indiscriminately, until she was subdued. The Forms of Address, shall I sing to you of the Forms of Address? What Florence did was what Florence did, not more or less, she was returo this try under restraint on a military plane. "Why do you have the children kill everybody?" "Because everybody has already been killed. Everybody is absolutely dead. You and I and Onward Christian." "Youre not very sanguine." "Thats true." For an earls younger sons wife, letters ence: Madam. . . "We put in the downstairs bathroom when Bad came to visit us. Bad was Mr. Greens sister and she couldnt climb stairs." What about Casablanca? Santa Cruz? Funchal? Málaga? Valletta? Iráklion? Samos? Haifa? Kotor Bay? Dubrovnik? "I want to go to some other place," Florence says. "Somewhere where everything is different." For the Tale a necessary but not a suffit dition for matriculation at the Famous Writers School Baskerville delivered himself of "Impressions of Akron" which began: "Akron! Akron was full of people walking the streets of Akron carrying little transistor radios which were turned on."
Florence has a Club. The Club meets on Tuesday evenings, at her huge horizontal old multibathroom home on Indiana Boulevard. The Club is a group of men who gather, on these occasions, to recite and hear poems in praise of Florence Green. Before you be admitted you must pose a poem. The poems begin, usually, somewhat in this vein: "Florence Green is eighty-one/ heless shes lots of fun. . ." Onward Christians poem began "Through all my gorous hours. . ." Florence carries the poems about with her in her purse, stapled together in an immense, filthy wad. Surely Florence Green is a vastly rich vastly egotric old-woman nut! Six modifiers modify her into something one think of as a nut. "But you have not grasped the liviy, the essence!" Husserl exclaims. Nor will I, ever. His examiner (was it J. D. Ratcliff?) said severely: "Baskerville, you blank round, discursiveness is not literature." "The aim of literature," Baskerville replied grandly, "is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart." Joan says: "I have two children." "Why did you do that?" I ask. "I dont know," she says. I am struck by the modesty of her answer. Pamela Hansford Johnson has been listening and his face jumps in what may be described as a wince. "Thats a terrible thing to say," he says. And he is right, right, entirely correct, what she has said is the First Terrible Thing. We value each other for our remarks, orength of this remark and the one about the Andrews Sisters, love bees possible. 1 carry in my wallet a-paragraph General Order, issued by the adjutant of my young immaculate Army to the troops: "(1) You are in this Army because you wao be. So you have to do what the General says. Anybody who doesnt do what the General says will be kicked out of the Army. (2) The purpose of the Army is to do what the General says. (3) The General says that nobody will shoot his on uhe General says to. It is important that when the Army opens fire on something everybody does it together. This is very important and anybody who doesnt do it will have his on taken away and will be kicked out of the Army. (4) Dont be afraid of the noise when everybody fires. It wont hurt you. (5) Everybody has enough rounds to do what the General wants to do. People who lose their rounds wo any more. (6) Talking to people who are not in the Army is strictly forbidden. Other people dont uand the Army. (7) This is a serious Army and anybody that laughs will have his on taken away and will be kicked out of the Army. (8) What the General wants to do now is, find aroy the enemy."
I want to go somewhere where everything is different. A simple, perfect idea. The old babe demands nothihan total otherness. Dinner is over. We place our napkins on our lips. Quemoy and Matsu remain ours, temporarily perhaps; the upstairs bathroom drips away unrepaired; I feel the money drifting, drifting away from me. I am a young man but very brilliant, very ingratiating, I edit. . . but I explained all that. In the dim foyer I slip my hands through the neck of Joans yellow dress. It is dangerous but it is a way of finding out everything all at ohen Onward Christian arrives to resume his yellow overcoat. No one has taken Florence seriously, how ah three hundred million dollars be taken seriously? But I know that when I telephoomorrow, there will be no answer. Iráklion? Samos? Haifa? Kotor Bay? She will be in none of these places but in another place, a place where everything is different. Outside it is raining. In my rain-blue Volkswagen I proceed down the rain-black street thinking, for some simple reason, of the Verdi Requiem. I begin to drive my tiny car in idiot circles ireet, I begin to sing the first great Kyrie.
The Piano Player
Outside his window five-year-old Priscilla Hess, square and squat as a mailbox (red sweater, blue lumpy corduroy pants), looked around poignantly for someoo wipe her overflowing here was a butterfly locked ihat mailbox, surely; would it ever escape? Or was the quality of mailboxness stuck to her forever, like her parents, like her he sky was sunny and blue. A filet of green Silly Putty disappeared into fat Priscilla Hess auro greet his wife who was crawling through the door on her hands and knees.
"Yes?" he said. "What now?"
"Im ugly," she said, sitting ba her haunches. "Our children are ugly."
"Nonsense," Brian said sharply. "Theyre wonderful children. Wonderful aiful. Other peoples children are ugly, not our children. Now get up and go back out to the smokeroom. Youre supposed to be g a ham."
"The ham died," she said. "I couldnt cure it. I tried everything. You dont love me any more. The penicillin was stale. Im ugly and so are the children. It said to tell you goodbye."
"It?"
"The ham," she said. "Is one of our children named Ambrose? Somebody named Ambrose has been sending us telegrams. How many do we have now? Four? Five? Do you think theyre heterosexual?" She made a moue and ran a hand through her artichoke hair. "The house is rusting away. Why did you want a steel house? Why did I think I wao live in ecticut? I d9９ｌｉｂ? know."
"Get up," he said softly, "get up, dearly beloved. Stand up and sing. Sing Parsifal."
"I want a Triumph," she said from the floor. "A TR-4. Everyone in Stamford, every single person, has o me. If you gave me a TR-4 Id put ly children in it and drive away. To Wellfleet. Id take all the ugliness out of your life."
"A green one?"
"A red one," she said menagly. "Red with red leather seats."
"Arent you supposed to be chipping paint?" he asked. "I bought us aronic data processing system. An IBM."
"I want to go to Wellfleet," she said. "I want to talk to Edmund Wilson and take him for a ride in my red TR-4- The children dig clams. We have a lot to talk about, Bunny and me."
"Why dont you remove those shoulder pads?" Brian said kindly. "Its too bad about the ham."
"I loved that ham," she said viciously. "When you galloped into the Uy of Texas on your roan Volvo, I thought you were going to be somebody. I gave you my hand. You put rings on it. Rings that my mave me. I thought you were going to be distinguished, like Bunny."
He showed her his broad, shouldered back. "Everything is in flitters," he said. "Play the piano, wont you?"
"You always were afraid of my piano," she said. "My four or five children are afraid of the piano. You taught them to be afraid of it. The giraffe is on fire, but I dont suppose you care."
"What we eat," he asked, "with the ham gone?"
"Theres some Silly Putty in the deepfreeze," she said tonelessly.
"Rain is falling," he observed. "Rain or something."
"When you graduated from the Wharton School of Business," she said, "I thought at last! I thought now we move to Stamford and have iing neighbors. But theyre not iing. The giraffe is iing but he sleeps so much of the time. The mailbox is rather iing. The man didnt open it at 3:31 p.m. today. He was five minutes late. The gover lied again."
With a gesture of impatience, Brian turned on the light. The great burst of electricity illuminated her uptur.9９ｌｉb.iny face. Eyes like snow peas, he thought. Tamar dang. My name in the diary, in the back. The Law of Bilateral Good Fortune. Piano bread perhaps. A nibble of pain running through the Western World. Coriolanus.
"Oh God," she said, from the floor. "Look at my knees."
Brian looked. Her knees were blushing.
"Its senseless, senseless, senseless," she said. "Ive been caulking the medie chest. What for? I dont know. Youve got to give me more money. Ben is bleeding. Bessie wants to be an S.S. man. Shes reading The Rise and Fall. Shes identified with Himmler. Is that her name? Bessie?"
"Yes. Bessie."
"Whats the other ones he blond.. one?"
"Billy. Named after your father. Your Dad."
"Youve got to get me an air hammer. To the childreh. Whats the name of that disease? Theyll all have it, every single one, if you do me an air hammer."
"And a pressor," Brian said. "And a Piop Smith record. I remember."
She lay on her back. The shoulder pads clattered against the terrazzo. Her number, 17, was written large on her chest. Her eyes were screwed tight shut. "Altmans is having a sale," she said. "Maybe I should go in."
"Listen," he said. "Get up. Go into the grape arbor. Ill truhe piano out there. Youve been chipping too much paint."
"You wouldnt touch that piano," she said. "Not in a million years."
"You really think Im afraid of it?"
"Not in a million years," she said, "you phony."
"All right," Brian said quietly. "All right." He strode over to the piano. He took a good grip on its black varnishedness. He began to tru across the room, and, after a slight hesitation, it struck him dead.
Hiding Man
Enter expeg to find the place empty (I. A. L. Burligame walks through any open door). But it is not, there is a man sitting halfway down the right side, heavy, Negro, well dressed, dark glasses. Decide after moments thought that if he is hostile, will flee through door marked EXIT (no bulb behi sign, ainty that it leads anywhere). The film is in progress, title Attack of the Puppet People. Previously observed films at same theater, Cool and the Crazy, She Gods of Shark Reef, Night of the Blood Beast, Diary of a High School Bride. All superior examples of geending toward suggested offs rapes, obse tortures: man with huge pliers advang on disheveled beauty, cut to girls face, to pliers, to mans face, to girl, scream, blackout.
"Its better when the place is full," observes Negro, lifting voice slightly to carry over Pinocchio noises from puppet people. Voice pleasant, eyes behind glasses sinister? Choice of responses: anger, agreement, indifference, pique, shame, scholarly dispute. Keep eye o, what about boy in lobby, what was kite for? "Of course its never been full." Apparently there is going to be a versation. "Not all these years. As a matter of fact, youre the first oo e in, ever."
"People dont always tell the truth."
Let him chew that. Boy in lobby wore T-shirt, prihereon, LADY OF THE SORROWS. Where glimpsed before? Possible agent of the spiracy, in the pay of the anization, duties: lying, spying, tapping wires, setting fires, civil disorders. Seat myself on opposite side of theater from Negro and observe film. S torn from top to bottom, a large rent, faces and parts of gestures fall off into the void. Hard-pressed U. S. Army, Ho John, Hound Dog, Wowser notwithstanding, psychological warfare and nerve gas notwithstanding, falls back at onrush of puppet people. Young lieutenant defends Army nurse (uniform in rags, tasty thigh, lovely breast) from obvious sexual i of splinter men.
"Dont you know the place is closed?" calls friend in friendly tone. "Didnt you see the sign?"
"The picture is on. And youre here."
Signs after all mean everyone, if there are to be exceptiohem be listed: soldiers, sailors, airmen, children with kites, dogs under suitable restraint, distressed gentlefolk, people who promise not to peek. Well-dressed Negroes behind dark glasses in closed theaters, the attempt to scrape acquaintahe helpful friend with the friendly word, note of menace as in Dragstrip Riot, as in Terror from the Year 5000. Childs play, amateur night, with whom do they think they have to deal?
"The silly thing just keeps running," alleges friend. "Thats whats so fasating. tinuous performances since 1944. Just keeps rolling along." Tilts head back, laughs theatrically. "It wasnt even any good then, for chrissake."
"Why do you keep ing back?"
"I dont think thats an iing question."
Friend looks bland, studies film. Fires have started in many areas, the music is demure. I entrust myself to these places advisedly, there are risks but so also are there risks in crossing streets, opening doors, looking strangers in the eye. Man ot live without plag himself naked before circumstance, as in warfare, uhe sea, jet planes, women. Flight is always available, cealment is alossible.
"What I meant was," tinues friend, animated now, smiling auring, "other theaters. When theyre full, you get lost in the crowd. Here, if anybody came in, theyd spot you in a minute. But most people, they believe the sign." I. A. L. Burligame walks through any open door, private homes, public gatherings, stores with detectives wearing hats, meetings of Sons and Daughters of I Will Arise, but should I boast? Keep moving, terpung, examination of motives reveals appeal of dark places has nothing to do with circumstance. But because I feel warmer. The intimation was, most people do what they are told, NO L, N BETWEEN 8 AM AND 5 PM, KEEP OFF THE GRASS, CLOSED FOR REPAIRS KEEP OUT. Negro moves two seats closer, lowers voice fidentially.
"Of course its no of mine. . ." Face appears gentle, ied, as with old screw in Girl oh Row, aerialist-cum-strangler in Circus of Horrors. "Of course I couldnt care less. But frankly, I feel a certain want of seriousness."
"I am absolutely serious."
Oher hand, perhaps antagonist is purely, simply what he pretends to be: well-dressed Negro with dark glasses in closed theater. But where then is the wienie? What happens to the twist? All of life is rooted in tradiovement in dire of self, two spaces, diagonally, argues hidden threat, there must be room for irony.
"Then what are you doing here?" Friend sits ba slidi with air of having ched argument. "Surely you dont imagihis is a suitable place?"
"It looked good, from the outside. And theres no one here but you."
"Ah, but I am here. What do you know about me? Nothing, absolutely nothing. I could be anybody."
"So could I be anybody. And I notice that you too keep an eye on the door."
"Thus, roblematic for each other." Said smoothly, with sciousness of power. "Names Bane, by the way." Lights pipe, with flourishes and affectations. "Not my real one, of course."
"Of course." Pipe signal to federates posted in baly, behind arras, under EXIT signs? Or is all this dumb show merely ial, cealing vai, empty brain? On s famous stist has proposed measures to tain puppet people, involving mutaes thrown against their flank. The try is in a panic, Wall Street has fallen, the President looks grave. And what of young informer in lobby, what is his relevance, who corrupted wearer of T-shirt, holder of kite?
"Im a dealer in notions," friend volunteers. "Dang dolls, learn handwriting analysis by mail, secrets of eternal life, s and stamps, amaze your friends, pagan rites, abahrilling, fully illustrated worldwide sele of rare daggers, gurkhas, stilettos, bowies, hunting, throwing."
"And what are you doing here?"
"Like you," he avers. "Watg the picture. Just dropped in."
We resume viewing. Role of Bane obscure, possible motives in igniting versation: (1) Agent of the spiracy, (2) Fellow sufferer in the underground, (3) Engaged in terespionage, (4) Talent scout for Poliformers School, (5) Market researakers of Attack of the Puppet People, (6) Plain nosy bastard unected with any of the foing. Decide hypotheses (1), (2), and (6) most tenable, if (6), however, simple snubs should have dohe job, as administered in remark "People dont always tell the truth," in remark "I notice you too keep an eye on the door." Also discourse has hidden pattern, too curious, too knowledgeable in sociology of cealment. Cover story thin, who fines himself to rare daggers, gurkhas, bowies, hunting, throwing in this day and age when large-scale fraud is possible to even the most i operator, as in gover wheat, television, uranium, systems development, public relations? Also disguise is onplace, why a Negro, why a Negro in dark glasses, why sitting in the dark? Now he pretends fasation with events on s, he says it has been playing since 1944, whereas I know to my certain knowledge that last week it was She Gods of Shark Reef, before that Night of the Blood Beast, Diary of a High School Bride, Cool and the Crazy. ing: Reform School Girl on double bill with Invasion of the Saucer Men. Why lie? or is he attempting to suggest the mutability of time? Odor of sweetness from somewhere, flrowing in cracks of floor, underh the seats? Possible verbena, possible gladiolus, iris, phlox. t identify at this distance, what does he want? Now he looks sincere, making favolves removing glasses (his eyes burn in the dark), wrinkling forehead, drawing down ers of mouth, he does it very well.
"Tell me exactly what it is you hide from," he drops, the Enola Gay on final leg of notorious mission.
Bomb fails to fire, Burligame reaot. Face the image of careless gaiety, in his own atrocious phrase, couldnt care less. Bane now addresses task ore, it is clear that he is a professional, but sent by whom? Iimes everything is very difficult, the lines of demarcatio clear.
"Look," pleads he, moving two spaearer, whispering, "I know youre hiding, you know youre hiding, I will make a fession, I too am hiding. We have discovered each other, we are mutually embarrassed, we watch the exits, we listen for the sound h voices, the sound of betrayal. Why not fide in me, why not make on cause, every day is a little longer, sometimes I think my hearing is gone, sometimes my eyes close without instru. Two watch better than one, I will even tell you my real name."
Possible emotions in the face of blatant siy: repugnance, withdrawal, joy, flight, camaraderie, denounce him to the authorities (there are still authorities). A, is this not circumstance before which the naked Burligame might dangle, is this not real life, risk and danger, as in Voodoo Woman, as iure from the Black Lagoon?
Bane tinues. "My real name (how I say it?) is Adrian Hipkiss, it is this among other things I flee. you imagine being named Adrian Hipkiss, the snickers, the jokes, the ely, it was insupportable. There were other items, in 1944 I mailed a letter in which I didnt say what I meant, I moved the day, it was New Years Eve and all the moving men were drunk, they broke a leg on the piano. For fear it would return to accuse me. My life since has been one mask after another, Watford, Watkins, Watley, Watlow, Watson, Watt, now identity is gone, blown away, who am I, who knows?"
Bane-Hipkiss begins to sob, cooling system switches on, city life a texture of mysterious noises, starting and stopping, starting and stopping, we win trol of the physical enviro only at the expense of the auditory, what if one were sensitive, what if one flinched in the dark? Mutaes dev puppet people at a great rate, decorations for the stists, tasty nurse for young lieutenant, they will end it with a joke if possible, meaning: it was not real after all. Cheatis on every level, the attempt to deny what the eye reveals, what the mind knows to be true. Bane-Hipkiss strains credulity, a pig in a poke, if not (6) or (1) am I prepared to deal with (2)? Shall there be solidarity? But weeping is beyond toleration, unnatural, it should be reserved freat occasions, the telegram in the depths of the night, rail disasters, earthquakes, war.
"I hide from the priests" (my voice curiously tentative, fluting), "when I was the tallest boy in the eighth grade at Our Lady of the Sorrows they wanted me to go out for basketball, I would not, Father Blau the athletic priest said I avoided wholesome sport to seek out occasions of sin, in addition to the sin of pride, in addition to various other sins carefully eed before an ied group of my poraries."
Bane-Hipkiss brightens, ceases sobbing, meanwhile film begins again, puppet people move once mainst U. S. Army, they are invincible, Ho John is a joke, Hound Dog malfuns, Wowser detonates on laung pad, flower smell stronger and sweeter, are they really growing underh our feet, is time in truth passing?
"Father Blau took his revenge in the fessional, he insisted on knowing everything. And there was much to know. Because I no longer believed as I was supposed to believe. Or believed too much, indiscriminately. To one who has always been overly susceptible to slogans they should never have said: You ge the world. I suggested to my fessor that certain aspects of the ritual pared unfavorably with the resurre se in Bride of Fraein. He was shocked."
Bane-Hipkiss pales, he himself is shocked.
"But because he had, as it were, a vested i in me, he sought to make clear the error of my ways. I did not ihis i, it embarrassed me, I had other things on my mind. Was it my fault that in all that undernourished parish only I had secreted suffit hormones, had chewed thhly enough the soup and chips that were our daily fare, to push head and hand in close proximity to the basket?"
"You could have faked a sprained ankle," Bane-Hipkiss says reasonably.
"That was unfortunately only the beginning. One day in the midst of a good Act of trition, Father Blau officiating with pious malice, I leaped from the box and sprinted down the aisle, o return. Running past people doing the Stations of the Cross, past the tiny Negro lady, somebodys maid, our only black parishioner, who always sat in the very last row with a handkerchief over her head. Leaving Father Blau, unregee, with the sorry residue of our weekly enter: impure thoughts, anger, dirty words, disobedience."
Bane-Hipkiss travels two seats nearer (why two at a time?), there is an edge to his voice. "Impure thoughts?"
"My impure thoughts were of a particularly detailed and graphid, involving at that time principally Nedda Ann Bush who lived two doors dowreet from us and was handsomely developed. Under whose windows I crouched on many long nights awaiting revelations of beauty, the light being just right between the bureau and the window. Being rewarded on several occasions, namely 3 May 1942 with a glimpse of famous bust, 18 October 1943, a particularly chill evening, transfer of pants from person to clothes hamper, coupled with three minutes subsequent exposure in state of nature. Before she thought to turn out the light."
"Extraordinary!" Bane-Hipkiss exhales noisily. It is clear that fession is doing him good in some obscure way. "But surely this priest extended some sort of spiritual solation, sel. . ."
"He once offered me part of a Baby Ruth."
"This was a mark of favor?"
"He wanted me to grow. It was in his own i. His eye was on the All-City title."
"But it was an act of kindness."
"That was before I told him I wasnt going out. In the dark box with sliding panels, faces behind s as in Bighouse Baby, as in Mysterious House of Usher, he gave me only steadfast refusal to uand these preoccupations, wholly natural and good i in female parts however illicitly pursued, as under window. Coupled with skilled questioning inte forth every final detail, including self-abuse and pulsive overption of Baby Ruths, Mars Bars, Butterfingers, significe of whi terms of sexual self-aggra was first pointed out to me by this good and holy man."
Bane-Hipkiss looks disturbed, why not? it is a disturbing story, there are things in this world that disgust, life is not all Vistavision and Thunderbirds, even Mars Bars have hidden significe, dangerous to plumb. The eradication of risk is the work of womens anizations and foundations, few of us, alas, be great sinners.
"Became therefore a vinced anticlerical. No longer loved God, ged at words My son, fled blackrobes wherever they appeared, pronounced anathemas where appropriate, blasphemed, wrote dirty limericks involving rhymes for nunnery, was in fially aliehen it became clear that this game was not so one-sided as had at first appeared, that there ursuit."
"Ah. . ."
"This was revealed to me by a renegade Brother of the Holy Sepulcher, a not ht man but good i recesses of heart, who had been employed fht years as cook in bishops palace. He alleged that on wall of bishops study was map, placed there were pins representing those in the diocese whose souls were at issue."
"Good God!" expletes Bane-Hipkiss, is there a faint flavor here of. . .
"It is kept rigorously up-to-date by the coadjutor, a rather political man. As are, in my experience, most church funaries just under episcopal rank. Paradoxically, the bishop himself is a saint."
Bane-Hipkiss looks incredulous. "You still believe in saints?"
"I believe in saints,
"Holy water,
"Poor boxes,
"Ashes on Ash Wednesday,
"Lilies oer Sunday,
"Crèches, sers, choirs,
"Albs, Bibles, miters, martyrs,
"Little red lights,
"Ladies of the Altar Society,
"Knights of bus,
"Cassocks and cruets,
"Dispensations and indulgences,
"The efficacy of prayer,
&quht Reverends and Very Reverends,
"Tabernacles, monstrances,
"Bells ringing, people singing,
"Wine and bread,
"Sisters, Brothers, Fathers,
"The right of sanctuary,
"The primacy of the papacy,
"Bulls and cordats,
"The Ihe Last Judgment,
"Heaven and Hell,
"I believe it all. Its impossible n?ot to believe. Thats what makes things so difficult."
"But then. . ."
"It was basketball I didnt believe in."
But there is more, it was the first ritual which discovered to me the possibility of other rituals, other celebrations, for instance Blood of Dracula, Amazing Colossal Man, It quered the World. Bane-Hipkiss absorb this heological point, that one believes what one , follows that vision which most brilliantly exalts and vilifies the world? Alone in the dark one surreo Amazing Colossal Man all hope, all desire, meanwhile the bishop sends out his patrols, the y old priests, the nuns on simple errands in stately pairs, I remember the year everyone wore black, what dodging into doorways, what obse haste in crossing streets!
Bane-Hipkiss blushes, looks awkward, shuffles feet, opens mouth to speak.
"I have a fession."
"fess," I urge, "feel free."
"I was sent here."
Uheir noses or in Tibet, they have agents even in the lamaseries.
"That reminds me of something," I state, but Bane-Hipkiss rises, raises hand to head, ands: "Look!" As Burligame shrinks he strips away his skin. Clever Bane-Hipkiss, now he has me, I sit gape-mouthed, he stands grinning with skin draped like dead dishrag over paw, he is white! I pretend imperturbability. "That reminds me, regarding the point I was making earlier, the film we are viewing is an iing example. . ."
But he interrupts.
"Your position, while heretical, has its points," he states, "but oher hand we ot allow the iy of our operation to be placed iion, willy-nilly, by people with funny ideas. Father Blau was wrong, we get some lemons just like any roup. Oher hand if every one of our people takes it into his head to flee us, who will be saved? You might start a trend. It was necessary to use this" (holds up falseface guiltily) "to get close to you, it was for the health of your soul."
Barefaced Bane-Hipkiss rattles on, has Burligame at last been taken, must he give himself up? There is still the sign marked EXIT, into the John, up oool, out through the window. "I am empowered to use force," he imparts, frowning.
&quarding the point I was making earlier," I state, &quinning to make, the film we are watg is itself a ritual, many people view such films and refuse to uand what they are saying, sider the. . ."
"At present I have more pressing business," he says, "will you e quietly?"
"No," I affirm, "pay attention to the picture, it is trying to tell you something, revelation is not so frequent iimes that one afford to diddle it away."
"I must warn you," he replies, "that to a man filled with zeal nothing is proscribed. Zeal," he states proudly, "is my middle name."
"I will not stir."
"You must."
Now Bane-Hipkiss moves lightly on little priests feet, sidewise through rows of seats, a ing smile on faow revealed as hierarchical, hands clasped ily in front of him to demonstrate purity of i. Strange high howling noises, as in Night of the Blood Beast, fearful reddish cast to sky, as in It quered the World, where do they e from? The sweetness from beh the seats is overp, I attempted to warn him but he would not hear, slip the case from jacket pocket, join needle to deadly body of instrument, crou readiness. Bane-Hipkiss advances, eyes clamped shut in mystical ecstasy, I grasp him by the throat, plunge needle into neck, his eyes bulge, his face collapses, he subsides quivering into a lump among the seats, in a moment he will begin barking like a dog.
Most people havent the wit to be afraid, most view television, smoke cigars, fondle wives, have children, vote, plant gladiolus, iris, phlox, never front Screaming Skull, Teenage Werewolf, Beast with a Thousand Eyes, no ception of what lies beh the surfao faith in any maion not certified by hierarchy. Who is safe in home with Teenage Werewolf abroad, with streets under sway of Beast with a Thousand Eyes? People think these things are jokes, but they are wrong, it is dangerous to ignore a vision, sider Bane-Hipkiss, he has begun to bark.
Will You Tell Me?
Hubert gave Charles and Irene a nice baby for Christmas. The baby was a boy and its name aul. Charles and Irene who had not had a baby for many years were delighted. They stood around the crib and looked at Paul; they could not get enough of him. He was a handsome child with dark hair, dark eyes. Where did you get him Hubert? Charles and Irene asked. From the bank, Hubert said. It uzzling answer, Charles and Irene puzzled over it. Everyone drank mulled wine. Paul regarded them from the crib. Hubert leased to have been able to please Charles and Irehey drank more wine.
Eric was born.
Hubert and Irene had a destine affair. It was important they felt that Charles not know. To this end they bought a bed which they installed in another house, a house some distance from the house in which Charles, Irene and Paul lived. The new bed was small but fortable enough. Paul regarded Hubert and Irehoughtfully. The affair lasted for twelve years and was sidered very successful.
Hilda.
Charles watched Hilda growing from his window. To begin with, she was just a baby, then a four-year-old, then twelve years passed and she auls age, sixteen. What a pretty young girl! Charles thought to himself. Paul agreed with Charles; he had already bitteips of Hildas pretty breasts with his teeth. Hilda thought she was too old for most boys Pauls age, but not for Paul.
Huberts son Erited Hilda but could not have her.
In the cellar Paul tinued making his bombs, by cellar-light. The bombs were made from tall Schlitz s and a plastic substance which Paul refused to identify. The bombs were sold to other boys Pauls age to throw at their fathers. The bombs were thten them rather than to harm them. Hilda sold the bombs for Paul, hiding them under her black sweater when she went out oreet.
Hilda cut down a black pear tree in the back yard. Why?
Do you know that Hubert and Irene are having an affair? Hilda asked Paul. He nodded.
Then he said: But I dont care.
In Mohey walked in the green snow, leaving marks like maple leaves. Paul and Hilda thought: What is wonderful? It seemed to Paul and Hilda that this was the question. The people of Montreal were kind to them, and they thought about the question in an ambiance of kindness.
Charles of course had been aware of the affair between Hubert and Irene from the beginning. But Hubert gave us Paul, he thought to himself. He wondered why Hilda had cut down the black pear tree.
Eric sat by himself.
Paul put his hands on Hildas shoulders. She closed her eyes. They held each other with their hands and thought about the question. France!
Irene bought Easter presents for everyone. How do I know which part of the beaarie will be lying upon? she asked herself. In Hildas back yard the skeleton of the black pear tree whitened.
Dialogue between Paul and Ann:
-- You say anything that crawls into your head Paul, Ann objected.
-- Go peddle your hyaths, Hyath Girl.
It is a portrait, Hubert said, posed of all the vices of eion in the fullness of their development.
Erib exploded with a great splash near Hubert. Hubert was frightened. What has been decided? he asked Eric. Eric could not answer.
Irene and Charles talked about Paul. I wonder how he is getting along in France? Charles wondered. I wonder if France likes him. Irene wondered again about Rosemarie. Charles wondered if the bomb that Eric had thrown at Hubert had been manufactured by his foster son, Paul. He wooo about the strange word "foster," about which he had not wondered previously. From the bank? he wondered. What could Hubert have meant by that? What could Hubert have meant by "from the bank"? he asked Irene. I t imagine, Irene said. The fire sparkled. It was evening.
In Silkeb, Denmark, Paul regarded Hilda thoughtfully. You love Inge, she said. He touched her hand.
Rosemarie returned.
Paul grew older. Oh that poor fucker Eric he said.
2
The quality of the love between Hubert and Irene:
This is a pretty good bed Hubert, Irene said. Except that its not really quite wide enough.
You knoaul is manufacturing bombs in your cellar dont you? Hubert asked.
Inge brushed her long gold hair in her red sweater.
Who was that man, Rosemarie asked, who wrote all those books about dogs?
Hilda sat in a café waiting for Paul to return from Denmark. In the café she met Ho away Howard, Hilda said to Howard, I am waiting for Paul. Oh e on Hilda, Howard said in a dejected voice, let me sit down for just a minute. Just a minute. I wont bother you. I just want to sit here at your table and b.e near you. I was in the war you know. Hilda said: Oh all right. But dont touch me.
Charles wrote a poem about Rosemaries dog, Edward. It was a sestina.
Daddy, why are you writing this poem about Edward? Rosemarie asked excitedly. Because youve been away Rosemarie, Charles said.
At Yale Eric walked around.
Irene said: Hubert I love you. Hubert said that he was glad. They lay upon the bed in the house, thinking about the same things, about Montreals green snow and the blaess of the Black Sea.
The reason I cut down the black pear tree Howard, which Ive old anyone, was that it was just as old as I was at that time, sixteen, and it was beautiful, and I was beautiful I think, ah were there the tree and me, and I couldnt stand it, Hilda said. You are still beautiful, now, at een, Howard said. But dont touch me, Hilda said.
Hubert was short in a rising market. He lost ten thousand. you pay the rent on this house for a while? he asked Irene. Of course darling, Irene said. How much is it? hree dollars a month, Hubert said, every month. Thats not much really, Irene said. Hubert reached out his hand to caress Ire decided not to.
Inge smiled in the dlelight from the victory dle.
Edward was tired of posing for Charless poem. He stretched, growled, and bit himself.
In the cellar Paul mixed the plastic for another batch of bombs. A branch from the black pear tree lay on his work-table. Seeds fell into his toolbox. From the bank? he wondered. What was meant by "from the bank"? He remembered the kindness of Montreal. Hildas black sweater lay across a chair. God is subtle, but he is not malicious, Einstein said. Paul held his tools in his hands. They included an awl. Now I shall have to find more Schlitz s, he thought. Quickly.
Irene wondered if Hubert really loved her, or if he was merely saying so to be pleasant. She wondered how she could find out. Hubert was handsome. But so was Charles handsome for that matter. And I, I am still quite beautiful, she reminded herself. Not in the same way as young girls like Hilda and Rosemarie, but in a different way. I have a mature beauty. Oh!
From the bank? Inge wondered.
Eric came home for the holidays.
Anna Teresa Tymieniecka wrote a book to which I. M. Boski tributed a foreword.
Rosemarie made a list of all the people who had not written her a letter that m:
Gee Lewis
Peter Elkin
Joan Elkin
Howard Toff
Edgar Rich
Marcy Powers
Sue Brownly
and many others
Paul said to the man at the hardware store: I need a nehat size awl do you have in mind? the man asked. One about this size, Paul said, showing the man with his hands. Oh Hilda!
What is his little name? Charles and Irene asked Hubert. His name, Hubert said, is Paul. A small one, isnt he? Charles remarked. But well made, Hubert noted.
I buy you a drink? Howard asked Hilda. Have you had any grappa yet? Its one of the favorite drinks of this try. Your time is up Howard, Hilda said ruthlessly. Get out of this café. Now wait a minute, Howard said. This is a free try isnt it?bbr> No, Hilda said. No buddy, a free try is precisely what this is not insofar as your sitting at this table is ed. Besides, Ive decided to go to Denmark on the plane.
The mailman (Rosemaries mailman) persisted in his irritating habit of doing the other side of the street before he did her side of the street. Rosemarie ate a bowl of Three-Mis.
Eric cut his nails with one of those 25￠ nail cutters.
The bomb Henry Ja threw at his father failed to detonate. Why did you throw this Schlitz at me Henry? Henrys father asked, and why is it tig like a bomb?
Hilda appeared in Pauls cellar. Paul, she asked, I borrow an axe? or a saw?
Hubert touched Irenes breast. You have beautiful breasts, he said to Irene. I like them. Do you think theyre too mature? Irene asked anxiously.
Mature?
3
Ann the Hyath Girl wanted Paul but could not have him. He was sleeping with Inge in Denmark.
From his windo://..rles watched Hilda. She sat playing uhe black pear tree. She bit deeply into a black pear. It tasted bad and Hilda looked at the tree inquiringly. Charles started to cry. He had been reading Bergson. He was surprised by his own weeping, and in a state of surprise, decided to get something to eat. Irene was not home. There was nothing in the refrigerator. What was he going to do for lunch? Go to the drugstore?
Rosemarie looked at Paul. But of course hes far too young for me, she thought.
Edward and Eric met oreet.
Inge wrote the followier to Ann to explain why Ann could not have Paul:
Dear Ann --
I deeply appreciate the ses expressed by you in our ret ship-to-shore telephone versation. Is the Black Sea pleasant? I hope so and hope too that you are having a nice voyage. The Matson Line is one of my favorite lines. However I must tell you that Paul is at present deeply embedded in a love affair with me, Inge Grote, a very nice girl here in hagen, and therefore ot respond to your proposals, charming and well stated as they were. You have a very nice prose style oelephone. Also, I might point out that if Paul loves any girl other than me in the near future it will surely be Hilda, that girl of girls. Hilda! what a remarkable girl! Of course there is also the possibility that he will love some girl he has not met yet -- this is remote, I think. But thank you for the additional hyaths anyway, and we promise to think of you from time to time.
Your friend,
Inge
Charles lay in bed with his wife, Irene. He touched a breast, one of Irenes. You have beautiful breasts Irene, Charles said. Thank you, Irene said, Charles.
Howards wire to Eric was never delivered.
Hubert thought seriously about his Christmas present to Charles and Irene. What I get for these dear friends that will absolutely shatter them with happiness? he asked himself. I wonder if theyd like a gamelan? a rag rug?
Oh Hilda, Paul said cheerfully, it has been so long since Ive beeo you! Why dont the three of us go out for supper?
Hubert had a dinner e with the best younger poet now writing in English in Wissin.
Charles! Irene exclaimed. Youre hungry! And youve been g! Yray vest is stained with tears! Let me make you a ham and cheese sandwich. Luckily I have just e from the grocery store, where I bought some ham, cheese, bread, lettuce, mustard and paper napkins. Charles asked: Have you seen or heard from Hubert lately by the way? He regarded his gray tear-stained vest. Not in a long time, Irene said, Huberts been ag sort of distant lately for some strange reason. Oh Charles, I have ara hree dollars a month for the household budget? I need some floor polish and would also like to subscribe to the National Geographic.
Every month?
Ann looked over the ships rail at the Black Sea. She threw hyaths into it, not just o a dozen or more. They floated upon the black surface of the water.
"But I t stand the pain. Oh, why doesnt God help me?"
" you give me a urine sample?" asked the nurse.
Paul placed his new awl ioolbox. Was that a shotgun Eric had been looking at in the hardware store?
Irene, Hubert said, I love you. Ive always hesitated to mention it though because I was inhibited by the fact that you are married to my close friend, Charles. Now I feel close to you here in this newsreel theater, for almost the first time. I feel intimate. I feel like there might be some love in you for me, too. Then, Irene said, yiving me Paul for a Christmas present was symbolic?
Inge smiled.
Rosemarie smiled.
Ann smiled.
Goodbye, Inge, Paul said. Your wonderful blondness has been wonderful and I shall always remember you that way. Goodbye! Goodbye!
The newsreel articulated the fall of Ethiopia.
Howard cashed a check at Ameri Express. What shall I do with this money? he wondered. Nothing financial has meaning any more now that Hilda has goo Denmark. He returo the café in the hope that Hilda had not really meant it.
Charles put some more wine on to mull.
Henry Jas father thought didly: Henry is awfully young to be an anarchist isnt he?
Put those empty Schlitz s over there in the er by the furnace Harry, Paul said. And thank you for lending me your pickup tru this cold weather. I think you had better get some snow tires pretty soon though, as I hear that snow is predicted for the entire region shortly. Deep snow.
Howard to Hilda: If you dont uahats okay, but I am afraid you do uand me. In that case, I think I will have dreams.
Where are you going Eric with that shotgun? Hubert asked.
It is virtually impossible to read one of Joel S. Goldsmiths books on the oneness of life without being a better person Eriarie said.
Eric, take that shotgun out of your mouth! Irene shouted.
Eric!
4
Oh Hubert, why did you give me that damn baby? Paul I mean? Didnt you know he was going to grow?
The French tryside (the tryside of France) was covered with golden grass. Im looking for a bar, they said, called the Cow on the Roof or something like that.
Iretched her right a arms luxuriously. You have brought me so much marvelous happiness Paul that although I know you will go away soon to sort once more with Hilda, that all-time all-timer girl, it still pleases me to be here in this good Dansk bed with you. Do you want to talk about phenomenological redu now? or do you want a muffin?
Edward ted his Pard.
From the bank? Rosemarie asked herself.
I have decided Charles to go to the Virgin Islands with Hubert. Do you mind? Since Huberts position in the market has improved radically I feel he is entitled to a little relaxation in the golden sun. Okay?
The Black Sea patrol boat captain said: Hyaths?
The neear tree reached sturdily for the sky on the grave, the very place, of the old black pear tree.
He wondered whether to it as a gift, or simply take it over to Charles and Irenes in the box. He couldnt decide. He decided to have a drink. While Hubert was drinking his vodka martini it started to cry. I wonder if Im making these drinks to?
The snow of Montreal baself against the red Rambler. Paul and Hilda embraced. What is wonderful? they thought. They thought the answer might be in their eyes, or in their mingled breath, but they couldnt be sure. It might be illusory.
I wonder how I might bee slightly more pleasing to the eye? Rosemarie asked. Perhaps I should tattoo myself attractively?
-- Hilda I do think its possible now for us to be together, to stay together even, even to live together if that is your wish. I feel that we have e to the end of a very trying time, a time in which we were tried see? and that from this day forward everything will be fine. We will have a house and so o cetera et cetera, and even children of our own perhaps. Ill get a job.
-- That sounds wonderful, Aaron.
Eric?
For Im the Boy Whose Only Joy Is Loving You
Orip back from the aerodrome Huber who was driving said: Still I dont see ere required. You werent required Bloomsbury said explicitly, you were invited. Ihen Huber said, I dont see what we were invited for. As friends of the family Bloomsbury said. You are both friends of the family. A tissue of truths he thought, delicate as the iations leading to the surrender. It was not enough Bloomsbury felt, to say that his friends Huber and Whittle were as men not what he wished them to be. For it was very possible he was aware, that he was not what they wished him to be. heless there were times when he felt like g aloud, that it was nht!
She was I thought quite calm Bloomsbury said. You also Huber said turning his head almost pletely around. Of course she has been traio weep in private Bloomsbury said looking out of the window. Trainihought, thats the great thing. Behind them aircraft rose and fell at intervals, he wondered if they should have waited for "the takeoff," if it would have been more respectful, or oher hand less respectful, to have done so. Still I thought thered certainly be weeping Whittle said from the fro. I have observed that in situations involving birth, bereavement or parting forever there is usually some quantity of weeping. But he provided a crowd Huber said, precluding privacy. And thus weeping Whittle agreed. Yes Bloomsbury said.
Ah Pelly where do you be goin? T grandmathers, bein it please yer lardship. An what a fine young soft young warm young thing ya have there Pelly on yer bicycle seat. Ooo yer lardship yeve an evil head on yer, Ill bet yer sez that tall us guls. Naw Pelly aruth of the matter is, theres nivver a gul e down my street wi such a fine one as yers. Yer a bold one yer worship if ye doon cock a minnow. Lemme just feel of her a trifle Pelly, theres a good gul. Ooo Mishtar Bloomsbury I likes a bit o fun as good as the un but me husbings wat from the porch wi is field telescope. Pother Pelly it wont be leavin any marks, well just slither behind this tree. Ring me bicycle bell yer lardship hell think yer after sellin the Eskimo Pies. That I will Pelly Ill give er a ring like she nivver had before. Oorace be keerful of me abdominal belt whats holdin up me pedal pushers. Never fear Pelly I dealt wi worse than that in my time I have.
Of course its inaccurate to say that we are friends of the family Huber said. There no longer being any family. The family exists still I believe Whittle said, as a legal entity. Were you married? it would affect the legal question, whether or not the family qua family endures beyond the physical separation of the partners, which we have just witnessed. Bloomsbury uood that Whittle did not wish to be thought prying and uood also, or recalled rather, that Whittles wife or former wife had flown away in an aircraft very similar to if not identical with the one in which Martha his own wife had elected to fly away. But as he sidered the question a tiresome one, holding little i in view of the physical separation already alluded to, whiow aimed his attention to the exclusion of all other claims, he decided not to answer. Instead he said: She looked I thought quite pretty. Lovely Whittle aowledged and Huber said: Stunning in fact.
Ah Martha now to bed theres a darlin gul. Hump off blatherer Ive read me Mallarmé for this evenin. Ooo Martha dear a we noo let the dear lad rest this night? when th tellys already shut doon an th man o the hoose as a ard on? Dont be in round wit yer lewd proposals on a Tuesday night when ye know better. But Martha dear where is yer love for me that we talked about in 19 and 38? in the cemetary by the sea? Pish Mishtar Hard On yed better be lookin after the Disposal! whats got itself plogged up. Ding the Disposall! Martha me gul its yer sweet hide Im after havi yer hands from out of me Playtex viper, Im dreadful bored wit yer silly old tool. But Marthy dear what of th poetry we read i th book, aboot th curlews cry an th white giants thigh, in 19 and 38? that we secrated our union wit? That was then an this is now, ye be runnin after that bicycle gul wi th tight pants if yer wants a bit o the auld shiver an shake. Ah Marthy its no bicycle gul thats brakin me heart but yer sweet self. Keep yer paws off me derriere dear yer makin me lose me page i th book.
Rich girls always look pretty Whittle said factually and Huber said: Ive heard that. Did she take the money with her? Whittle asked. Oh yes Bloomsbury said modestly (for had he not after all relinquished, at the same time he had relinquished Martha, a not insiderable fortune, amounting to thousands, if not more?). You could hardly have doherwise I suppose Huber said. His eyes which fortunately remained on the road during this passage were "steely-bright." A. . . Whittle began. Something for your trouble Huber suggested, a tidy bit, to put in the Postal Savings. It would have gone against the grain no doubt Whittle said. But there was trouble was there not? for which little or no pensation has been offered? e Bloomsbury iffened Whittles neck which had always been inordinately long and thin, and stiff. The money he thought, there had been in truth a great deal. More than one person could easily dispose of. But just right as fate would have it for two.
A BEER WINE LIQUOR ICE sign appeared by the roadside. Huber stopped the car which ontiac Chieftain aering the store purchased, for $27.00, a bottle of 98-year-old brandy sealed oop with a wax seal. The bottle was old and dirty but the brandy when Huber returned with it was tasty ireme. For the celeb..ion Huber said generously the bottle first to Bloomsbury who had in their view retly suffered pain and thus deserved every courtesy, insofar as possible. Bloomsbury did not overlook this great-hearted attitude on the part of his friend. Although he has many faults Bloomsbury reflected, he has many virtues also. But the faults engaged his attention and sipping the old brandy he began to review them seriously, and those of Whittle also. One fault of Hubers which Bloomsbury sidered and residered was that of not keeping his eye on the ball. Iter of the road for instance Bloomsbury said to himself, any Texaco Gasoline sign is enough to distract him from his clear duty, that of operating the vehicle. And there were other faults both mortal and venial which Bloomsbury thought about just as seriously as this. Eventually his thinking was interrupted by these words of Whittles: Good old money!
It would have been wrong Bloomsbury said auste９９ｌｉｂ?rely, to have kept it. Cows flew by the windows in both dires. That during the years of our cohabitation it had been our moo cultivate and be proud of does not alter the fact that inally it was her money rather than my money he finished. You could have bought a boat Whittle said, or a horse or a house. Presents for your friends who have sustained you in the aplishment of this difficult and if I may say so rather unpleasant task Huber added pushing the accelerator pedal to the floor so that the vehicle "leaped ahead." While these things were being said Bloomsbury occupied himself by thinking of one of his favorite expressions, which was: Everything will be revealed at the proper time. He remembered too the several occasions on which Huber and Whittle had di his house. They had admired he recalled not only the tuck but also the wife of the house whose aspect both frontside and backside was scrutinized and ented upon by them. To the point that the whole enterprise (friendship) had bee, for him, quite insupportable, aing. Huber had in one instance even reached out his hand to touch it, when it was near, a over, and stig out, and Bloomsbury as host had been forced, by the logic of the situation, to rap his wrist with a soup spoon. Golden days Bloomsbury thought, in the sunshine of our happy youth.
Its idiotic Huber said, that we know nothing more of the circumstances surrounding the extinguishment of your union than you have chosen to tell us. What do you want to know? Bloomsbury asked, aware however that they would want everything. It would be iing I think as well as instructive Whittle said casually, to know for insta oint the situation of living together became untenable, whether she wept when you told her, whether you wept wheold you, whether you were the instigator or she was the instigator, whether there were physical fights involving bodily blows or merely objects thrown on your part and on her part, if there were mental cruelties, cruelties of what order and on whose part, whether she had a lover or did not have a lover, whether you did or did not, whether you kept the television or she kept the television, the disposition of the balance of the furnishings including tableware, linens, light bulbs, beds and baskets, who got the baby if there was a baby, what food remains in the pantry at this time, what happeo the medie bottles including Mercuroe, rubbing alcohol, aspirin, celery tonic, milk of magnesia, No-Doze aal, was it a fun divorce or not a fun divorce, whether she paid the lawyers or you paid the lawyers, what the judge said if there was a judge, whether you asked her for a "date" after the granting of the decree or did not so ask, whether she was touched or not touched by this gesture if there was such a gesture, whether the date if there was such a date was a fun thing or not a fun thing -- in short wed like to get the feel of the event he said. Wed be pepped to know, Huber said. I remember how it was when my old wife Eleanor flehittle said, but only dimly because of the years. Bloomsbury however was thinking.
Have ye heard the news Pelly, that Martha me wife has left me in a yareplane? on th bloody Champagne Flight? O yer wonderfulness, wot a cheeky lot to be pullin the plog on a lovely man like yerself. Well thats how the cock curls Pelly, theres naught left of er but a bottle of Drene Shampoo in th boodwar. She was a bitch that she was to it this act of lese majesty against th sn person of yer mightiness. She locked erself i th john Pelly toward th last an wouldnt e out not even for Flag Day. Incredible Mishtar Bloomsbury to think that such as that coexist wi us good guls side by side iweh tury. An no more lovey-kihan a stick, an nratitude than a glass o milk of magnesia. What bought her clothes at the Salvation Army by th look of her, on the Revolving Credit Plan. I fingerprinted her fingerpaintings she said and wallowed in sex what is more. ishtar Bloomsbury me husbing Jack brings th telly right into th bed wi im, its bumpin me back all night long. I th bed? I th bed. Its been a weary long time Pelly since love as touched my hart. Ooo your elegaheres not a young gul in the Western Hemisphere as could withstand the grandeur of such a swell person as you. Its marriage Pelly what has ruined me for love. Its a hard notion me Bloomie boy but tragically true heless. I dont ity Pelly theres little enough rapport between adults wiout clouding th issue wi se. I couldnt agree more yer geousness damme if I havent told Jack a thousand times, that rapport is the only thing.
Although arily of a lively and even ribald disposition the friends of the family heless maintained during these thoughts of Bloomsburys attitudes of the morous and plete solemnity, as were of course appropriate. However Whittle at length said: I remember from my own experiehat the pain of parting was shall I say exquisite? Exquisite Huber said, what a stupid word. How would you know? Whittle asked, youve never been married. I may not know about marriage Huber said stoutly, but I know about words. Exquisite he pronounced giggling. You have no delicacy Whittle said, that is clear. Delicacy Huber said, you get better aer. He began weaving the car left and right on the highway, in delight. The brandy Whittle said, has been too much for you. Crud Huber said assuming a reliable look. Youve suffered an insult to the brain Whittle said, better let me drive. You drive! Huber exclaimed, yly old wife Eleanor left you precisely because you were a meical idiot, she fided in me on the day of the hearing. A meical idiot! Whittle said in surprise, I wonder what she meant by that? Huber and Whittle then struggled for the wheel for a brief space but in a friendly way. The Pontiac Chieftain behaved very poorly during this struggle, zigging and zagging, but Bloomsbury who reoccupied did not notice. It was iihought that after so many years one could still be surprised by a flyaway wife. Surprise he thought, thats the great thing, it keeps the old tissues tense.
Well Whittle said how does it feel? It? Bloomsbury said, what is it?
The physical separatioioned earlier Whittle said. We want to know how it feels. The question is not what is the feeling but what is the meaning? Bloomsbury said reasonably. Christ Huber said, Ill tell you about my affair. What about it? Bloomsbury asked. It was a Red Cross girl Huber said, named Buck Rogers. Of what did it sist? Whittle asked. It sisted Huber said, of going to the top of the Chrysler Building and looking out over the city. Not much meat there Whittle said disparagingly, how did it end? Badly Huber said. Did she jump? Whittle asked. I jumped Huber said. You were always a jumper Whittle said. Yes Huber said angrily, I had takeions. Did your chute open? Whittle asked. With a sound like timber falling Huber said, but she never khe end of the affair Whittle said sadly. But what a wonderful view of the city Huber ented. So now, Whittle said to Bloomsbury, give us the feeling.
We discuss Bloomsbury said, the meaning but not the feeling. If there is emotion it is only just that you share it with your friends Whittle said. Who are no doubt all you have left in the world said Huber. Whittle had placed upon Hubers brow, which was large and red, handkerchiefs dampened in brandy, with a view toward calming him. But Huber would not be calmed. Possibly there are relatives Whittle pointed out, of one kind or another. Hardly likely Huber said, sidering his circumstances, now that there is no more money I would hazard that there are no more relatives either. Emotion! Whittle exclaimed, when was the last time we had any? The war I expect Huber replied, all those chaps goi. Ill give you a hundred dollars Whittle said, for the feeling. No Bloomsbury said, I have decided not. We are fine enough to be a crowd at the airport so that your wife will not weep but not fine enough to be taken into your fidence I suppose Huber said "bitterly." Not a matter of fine enough Bloomsbury said refleg meanwhile upon the proposition that the friends of the family were all he had left, which was he felt quite a disagreeable notion. But probably true. Good what manner of man is this! Whittle exclaimed and Huber said: Prick!
On a movie house Bloomsbury recalled Tuesday Weld had suddenly turned on the s, looked him full in the face, and said: You are a good man. Yood, good, good. He had immediately gotten up and walked out of the theater, gratification singing in his heart. But that situatioo him as it was helped him not a bit in this situation. And that memory memorable as it was did not prevent the friends of the family from stopping the car under a tree, aing Bloomsbury in the face first with the brandy bottle, then with the tire iron, until at length the hidden feeling emerged, in the form of salt from his eyes and black blood from his ears, and from his mouth, all sorts of words.
The Big Broadcast of 1938
Having acquired in exge for an old house that had been theirs, his and hers, a radio or more properly radio station, Bloomsbury could now play "The Star-Spangled Banner," which he had always admired immoderately, on at of its finality, as often as he liked. It meant, to him, that everything was fiherefore he played it daily, 60 times between 6 and 10 a.m., 120 times between 1.2 noon and 7 p.m., and the whole night long except when, as was sometimes the case, he was talking.
Bloomsburys radio talks were of two kinds, called the first kind and the sed kind. The first sisted of singling out, for special notice, from among all the others, some particular word in the English language, aing it in a monotonous voice for as much as fifteen minutes, or a quarter-hour. The word thus singled out might be any word, the word heless for example. "heless," Bloomsbury said into the microphone, "heless, heless, heless, heless, heless, heless, heless." After this exposure to the glare of publispe the word would frequently disclose new properties, unsuspected qualities, although that was far from Bloomsburys iion. His iion, insofar as he may be said to have had one, was simply to put something "on the air."
The sed kind of radio talk which Bloomsbury provided was the ercial annou.
The Bloomsbury annous were perhaps not too similar to other annous broadcast during this period by other broadcasters. They were dissimilar chiefly in that they were addressed not to the mass of men but of course to her, she with whom he had lived in the house that was goraded for the radio). Frequently he would begin somewhat in this vein:
"Well, old girl" (he began), "here we are, me speaking into the tube, you lying on your back most likely, giving an ear, I dont doubt. Swell of you to tune me in. I remember the time you went walking without your shoes, what an evening! You were wearing, I recall, your dove-gray silk, with a flower hat, and you picked your way down the boulevard as daintily as a real lady. There were chestnuts on the ground, I believe; you plaihat they felt like rocks under your feet. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled in front of you, sweeping the chestnuts into the gutter with my hand. What an evening! You said I looked absurd, and a gentleman who assing iher dire, I remember he wore yellow spats with yellow shoes, smiled. The lady apanying him reached out to pat me on my head, but he grasped her arm and prevented her, and the knees of my trousers tore on a broken pla the pavement.
"Afterwards you treated me to a raspberry ice, calling for a saucer, which you placed, daintily, at your feet. I still recall the ess, after the hot work on the boulevard, and the way the raspberry stained my muzzle. I put my fa your h.and, and your little glove came aink and sticky, sticky and pink. We were fortable there, in the ice cream parlor, we were pretty as a picture! Man and wife!
"Whe home, that evening, the street lights were just ing on, the is were just ing out. And you said that ime, if there were a ime, you would wear your shoes. Even if it killed you, you said. And I said I would always be there to sweep away the chestnuts, whatever happened, even if nothing happened. And you said most likely that was right. I always had been there, you said. Swell of you to notice that. I thought at the time that there robably no one more swell than you in the whole world, anywhere. And I wao tell you, but did not.
"And then, when it was dark, we had our evening quarrel. A very ordinary one, I believe. The subject, which had been announced by you at breakfast and posted oice board, was Smallness in the Human Male. Yued that it was willfulness on my part, whereas I argued that it was lack of proper nourishment during my young years. I lost, as was right of course, and you said I couldnt have any supper. I had, you said, already ged myself on raspberry ice. I had, you said, ruined a good glove with my ardor, and a det pair of trousers too. And I said, but it was for the love of you! and you said, hush! or therell be no breakfast either. And I said, but love makes the wo! and you said, or lunorrow either. And I said, but we were everything to each other once! and you said, or supper tomorrow night.
"But perhaps, I said, a little toffee? Ruin your teeth then for all I care, you said, and put some pieces of toffee in my bed. And thus we went happily to sleep. Man and wife! Was there ever anything, old skin, like the old days?"
Immediately following this ercial annou, or an annou much like this, Bloomsbury would play "The Star-Spangled Banner" 80 or 100 times, for the finality of it.
Wheerrogated himself about the matter, about how it felt to operate a radio of his own, Bloomsbury told himself the absolute truth, that it felt fine. He broadcast during this period not only some of his favorite words, such as the words assimilate, alleviate, authenticate, ameliorate, and quantities of his favorite music (he articularly fond of that part, toward the end, that went: da-da, da da da da da da da-a), but also a series of ercial annous of great pooignancy, and persuasiveness. heless he felt, although he mao ceal it from himself for a space, somewhat futile. For there had been no response from her (she who figured, as both subjed object, in the ercial annous, and had once, before it had been traded for the radio, lived in the house).
A ercial annou of the period of this feeling was:
"On that remarkable day, that day unlike any other, that day, if you will pardon me, of days, on that old day from the old days when we were, as they say, young, we walked if you will five the extravagance hand in hand into a theater where there was a film playing. Do you remember? We sat in the upper baly and smoke from below, where there were people smoking, rose and we, if you will excuse the digression, smelled of it. It smelled, and I or we thought it remarkable at the time, like the tweh tury. Which was after all our tury, her.
"We were there you and I because we hadnt rooms and there were no parks and we hadnt automobiles and there were no beaches, for making love or anything else. Ergo, if you will dohe ana, we were forced into the baly, to the topmost row, from which we had a tilty view of the silver s. Or would have had had we not you and I been engaged in pawing and pushing, pushing and pawing. On my part at least, if not on yours.
"The first thing I knew I was inside your shirt with my hand and I found there something very lovely and, as they say, desirable. It beloo you. I did not know, then, what to do with it, therefore I simply (simply!) held it in my hand, it was, as the saying goes, soft and warm. If you believe it. Meanwhile down below i events were taking place, whether these were such as the people i had paid for, I did not and do not know. Nor did or do, wherever you are, you. After a time I was in fact distracted, I still held it in my hand but I was looking elsewhere.
"You then said into my ear, get on with it, t you?
"I then said into your ear, Im watg the picture.
"At this speeine you were moved to withdraw it from my hand, I uood, it unishment. Having withdrawn it you began, for lack of anythier, to watch the picture also. We watched the picture together, and although this was a kind of intimacy, the other kind had been lost. heless it had been there once, I soled myself with that. But I felt, I felt, I felt (I think) that you were, as they say, angry. And to that row of the baly we, you and I, never returned."
After this annou was broadcast Bloomsbury himself felt called upon to weep a little, and did, but not "on the air."
He was in fact weeping quietly in the trol room, where were kept the microphohe sole, the turntables and the hotplate, with "The Star-Spangled Banner" playing bravely and a piece of buttered toast in his hand, when he saw in the glass that ected the trol room with the other room, which had been a reception room or foyer, a girl or woman of ierminate age dressed in a long bright red linen duster.
The girl or woman removed her duster, underh she was wearing black toreador pants, an e sweater, and harlequin glasses. Bloomsbury immediately stepped out into the reception room or foyer in order to view her more closely, he regarded her, she regarded him, after a time there was a versation.
"Youre looking at me!" she said.
"Oh, yes," he said. &quht. I certainly am."
"Why?"
"Its something I do," he said. "Its my you might say métier."
"Milieu," she said.
"Métier," Bloomsbury said. "If you dont mind."
"I dont ofte looked at as a matter of fact."
"Because youre not very good-looking," Bloomsbury said.
"Oh I say."
"Glasses are discing," he said.
"Even harlequin glasses?"
"Especially harlequin glasses."
"Oh," she said.
"But you have a grand behind," he said.
"Also a lively sense of humor," she said.
"Lively," he said. "Whatever possessed you to use that word?"
"I thought you might like it," she said.
"No," he said. "Definitely not."
"Do you think you ought to stand around and look at girls?" she asked.
"Oh, yes," Bloomsbury said. "I think its indicated."
"Indicated," she cried. "What do you mean, indicated?"
"Tell me about your early life," Bloomsbury said.
"To begin with I was .９9ｌiｂ?
president of the rad Veidt fan club," she began. "That was in, oh, I dont remember the year. His magism and personality got me. His void gestures fasated me. I hated him, feared him, loved him. When he died it seemed to me a vital part of my imaginatiooo."
"I didnt mean necessarily in such detail," he said.
"My world of dreams was bare!"
"Fan club prexies are invariably homely," Bloomsbury said.
"Plain," she suggested. "I prefer the word plain. Do you want to see a picture of rad Veidt?"
"I would be greatly ied," Bloomsbury said (although this was not the truth).
The girl or woman therieved from her purse, where it had apparently remained for some time, perhaps even years, a page from a magazi bore a photograph of rad Veidt who looked at one and the same instant handsome and sihere was moreover printing on the photograph which said: If RAD VEIDT offered you a cigarette, it would be a DE REZKE -- of course!
"Very affeg," Bloomsbury said.
"I never actually met Mr. Veidt," the girl (or woman) said. "It wasnt that sort of club. I mean we werent in actual unication with the star. There was a Joan Crawford fan club, and those people now, they were in actual unication. When they wanted a remembrance. . ."
"A remembrance?"
"Such as Kleehat had been used by the star, for instance, with lipsti it, or fingernail clippings, or a stog, or a hair from the stars horses tail or mane. . ."
"Tail or mane?"
"The star naturally, noblesse oblige, forwarded that object to them."
"I see," Bloomsbury said.
"Do you look at a lot of girls?"
"Not a lot," he said, "but quite a number."
"Is it fun?"
"Not fun," he said, "but better than nothing."
"Do you have affairs?"
"Not affairs," he said, "but sometimes a little flutter."
"Well," she said, "I have feelings too."
"I think its very possible," he said. "A great big girl like you."
This remark however seemed to offend her, she turned on her heel ahe room. Bloomsbury himself felt moved by this meeting, which was in fact the first tact he had enjoyed with a human being, of any description, sihe beginning of the period of his proprietorship of the radio, and even before. He immediately returo the trol room and introduced a new ercial annou.
"I remember" (he enunciated), "the quarrel about the ice cubes, that was a beauty! That was one worth. . . remembering. You had posted oice board the subject Refrigeration, and I worried about it all day long, and wondered. Clever minx! I recalled at length that I had plained, once, because the ice cubes were not frozen. But were in fafrozen! watery! useless! I had said that there werent enough ice cubes, whereas you had said there were more than enough.
"You said that I was a fool, an idiot, an imbecile, a stupid!, that the mae in your kit which you had procured and caused to be placed there was without doubt and on immaculate authority the most aplished mae of its kind known to those who knew about maes of its kind, that among its attributes was the attribute of ceiving taining and at the moment of need whelping a fine number of ice cubes so that no matter how grave the demand, how vast the occasion, how indifferent or even hostile the climate, how i or even treacherous the operator, how brief or even ent the lapse between genesis and parturitioween the wish and the fact, ice cubes in multiples of suffit would present themselves. Well, I said, perhaps.
"Oh! how you boggled at that word perhaps. How you sweated, old girl, and cursed. Your chest heaved, if I may say so, and your eyes (your eyes!) flashed. You said we would, by damn, t the by damn ice cubes. As we, subsequently, did.
"How I enjoyed, although I cealed it from you, the ting! You were, as they say, magisterial. There were I observed twelve rows of three, or three of twelve, in each of four trays. But this way of ting was not your way of ting. You chose, and I admired your choice, the expliess and impliess of it, to run water over the trays so that the cubes, loosened, fell into the salad bowl, having previously turhe trays, and thus the cubes, bottoms up, so that the latter would fall, when water was run upon the former, in the proper dire. That these matters were so endably arranged I took to be, and even now take to be, a demonstration of your fual decy, and good sense.
"But you reed wrong, when it came to that. You were never a reer. You reed that there were in the bowl one hundred forty-four cubes, taking each cube, individually, from the bolag it, individually, in the sink, bearing in mind meanwhile the total that could be obtained by simple multiplication of the spaces irays. Thus having it, in this as in other matters, both ways! However you failed on this as on other occasions to sider the imponderables, in this instahe fact that I, unobserved by you, had put three of the cubes into my drink! Which I then drank! And that one had missed the bowl entirely and fallen into the sink! Aed ond for all! These events precluded sadly enough the number of cubes in the bowl adding up to a number corresponding to the number of spaces irays, proving also that there is no justice!
"What a defeat for you! What a victory for me! It was my first victory, I fear I went quite out of my head. I dragged you to the floor, among the ice cubes, which you had flung there in pique and chagrin, and forced you, with results that I sidered then, and sider now, to have been first rate. I thought I detected in you. . ."
But he could not tihis annou, from a surfeit of emotion.
The girl or woman, who had bee a sort of camp follower of the radio, made a practice during this period of sleeping in the former reception room underh the piano, which being a grand provided ample shelter. When she wished to traffic with Bloomsbury she would tap on the glass separating them with one finger, at other times she would, with her hands, make motions.
A typical versation of the period when the girl (or woman) was sleeping in the foyer was this:
"Tell me about your early life," she said.
"I was, in a sense, an All-Ameri boy," Bloomsbury replied.
"In what sense?"
"In the sehat I married," he said.
"Was it love?"
"It was love but it was only temporary."
"It didnt go on forever?"
"For less than a decade. As a matter of fact."
"But while it did go on. . ."
"It filled me with a somber and paradoxical joy."
"Coo!" she said. "It doesnt sound very Ameri to me."
"Coo," he said. "What kind of an expression is that?"
"I heard it in a movie," she said. "A rad Veidt movie."
"Well," he said, "its distrag."
This versation was felt by Bloomsbury to be not very satisfactory, however he bided his time, having if the truth were known no alternative. The word matriculate had engaged his attention, he pronou into the microphone for what seemed to him a period lohan normal, that is to say, in excess of a quarter-hour. He wondered whether or not tard this as signifit.
It was a fact that Bloomsbury, who had thought himself dispassiohus the words, the music, the slow turning over in his brain of events in the lives of him and her), was beginning to feel, at this time, disturbed. This was attributable perhaps to the effect, on him, of his radio talks, and also perhaps to the presence of the "fan," or listener, in the reception room. Or possibly it was something else entirely. In any case this disturbance was reflected, beyond a doubt, in the annous made by him in the days that, iably, followed.
One of these was:
"The details of our housekeeping, yours and mihe scuff uhe bed, the fug in the ers. I would, if I could, sigh to remember them. You planted prickly pear in the parlor floor, and whes came. . . Oh, you were a one! You veiled yourself from me, there were parts I could have and parts I couldnt have. And the rules would ge, I remember, in the middle of the game, I could never be sure which parts were allowed and whiot. Some days I couldnt have anything at all. Is it remarkable, then, that there has never been another? Except for a few? Who dont t?
"There has, I dont doubt, never been anything like it. The bed, your mothers bed, brought to our union with your mother in it, she lay like a sword between us. I had the gall to ask what you were thinking. It was one of those wonderful days of imperable silence. Well, I said, and the child? Up the child, you said, twasnt what I wanted anyway. What then did you want? I asked, and the child cried, its worst forebodings firmed. Pish, you said, nothing you could supply. Maybe, I said. Not bloody likely, you said. And where is it (the child) now? Gone, I dont doubt, away.
"Are you with me, old bush?
"Are you tuned in?
"A man came, in a hat. I was a little feather, and in addition to the hat and the feather there was a satchel. Jack, this is my husband, you said. And took him into the bedroom, and turhe key in the lock. What are you doing in there? I said, the door being locked, you aogether on the inside, me alone oside. Go away and mind your own silly business, you said, from behind the door. Yes, Jack said (from behind the do away and dohering people with things on their minds. Iive brute! you said, and Jack said, filthy cad! Some people, you said, and Jack said, the cheek of the thing. I watched at the door until nightfall, but could hear no more words, only sounds of a curious nature, such as grunts and moans, and sighs. Upon hearing these (through the door which was, as I say, locked), I immediately rushed to the attic to obtain our copy of Ideal Marriage, by Th. H. Van De Velde, M.D., to determine whether this situation was treated of therein. But it was not. I therefore abahe book auro my station outside the door, which remained (and indeed why not?) shut.
"At length the door opened, your mother emerged, looking as they say put out. But she had always taken your part as opposed to my part, therefore she said only that I was a on sneak. But, I said, what of those who even now sit in the bed? laughing and joking? Dont try to teach thy grandmother to chew coal, she said. I then became, if you believe it, melancholy. Could not we two skins, you and me, climb and g for all the days that were left? Which were not, after all, so very many days? Without the interpolation of such as Jack? And, no doubt, others yet to e?"
After pleting this annou and plag "The Star-Spangled Banner" ourntable, and a cup of soup oplate, Bloomsbury observed that the girl in the reception room was making motions with her hands, the burden of which was, that she wao speak to him.
"o Mr. Veidt my favorite star was Carmen Lambrosa," she said. "What is more, I am said to resemble her in some aspects."
"Which?" Bloomsbury asked with i. "Which aspects?"
"It was said of Carmen Lambrosa that had she just lived a little longer, and not died from alcohol, she would have beeop box office money-maker in the British Cameroons. Where such as she and me are appreciated."
"The top box office money-maker for what year?"
"The year is not important," she said. "What is important is the appreciation."
"I would say you favored her," Bloomsbury observed, "had I some knowledge of her peculiarities."
"Do I impress you?"
"In what way?"
"As a possible partner? Sexually I mean?"
"I havent sidered it," he said, "heretofore."
"They say Im sexy," she noted.
"I dont doubt it," he said. "I mean its plausible."
"I am yours," she said, "if you want me."
"Yes," he said, "theres the difficulty, making up my mind."
"You have only," she said, "to make the slightest gesture of acquiesce, such as a nod, a word, a cough, a cry, a kick, a crook, a giggle, a grin."
"Probably I would not enjoy it," he said, "now."
"Shall I take off my clothes?" she asked, making motions as if to do so.
With a siride, such as he had often seen practiced in the films, Bloomsbury was "at her side."
"Martha," he said, "old skin, why t you let the old days die? That were then days of anger, passion, and dignity, but are now, in the light of present standards, practices, and attitudes, days that are done?"
Upon these words from him, she began to weep. "You looked ied at first," she said (through her tears).
"It was kind of you to try it," he said. "Thoughtful. As a matter of fact, you were most appealing. Tempting, even. I was fooled for whole moments at a time. You look well in bullfighter pants."
"Thank you," she said. "You said I had a grand behind. You said that at least."
"And so you do."
"You t fet," she asked, "about Dudley?"
"Dudley?"
"Dudley who was my possible lover," she said.
"Before or after Jack?"
"Dudley who in fact broke up our ménage," she said, looking at him expetly.
"Well," he said, "I suppose."
"Tell me about the joy again."
"There was some joy," Bloomsbury said. "I t deny it."
"Was it really like you said? Somber and paradoxical?"
"It was all of that," he said gallantly, "then."
"Then!" she said.
There was a moment of silence during which they listehoughtfully, to "The Star-Spangled Banner" playing softly iher room behind them.
"Then we are, as they say, through?" she asked. "There is no hope for us?"
"None," he said. "That I know of."
"Youve found somebody you like better?"
"Its not that," he said. "That has nothing to do with it."
"Balls," she said. "I know you and your letchy ways."
"Goodbye," Bloomsbury said, auro the trol room, log the door behind him.
He then resumed broadcasting, with perhaps a tremor but no slaing in his resolve not to flog, as the expression runs, a dead horse. However the electripany, which had not been paid from the first to the last, refused at length to supply further current for the radio, in sequence of which the broadcasts, both words and music, ceased. That was the end of this period of Bloomsburys, as they say, life.
The Viennese Opera Ball
I do not like to see a pair of forceps! Blundell stated. Let the instrument look what it is, a formidable on! Arte, non vi (art, not strength) may be usefully engraved upon one blade; and Care periake care of the perineum) oher. His panion replied: The test of a doctors prognostic a is to determihe time to give up medial and dietetic measures ay the uterus, and overhesitancy to do this is nable, even though honorable. . . I do not mean that we should perform therapeutic abortion with a light spirit. On the trary, I am slow to adopt it and always have proper sultation. If oher hand a bear kills a man, someone said, the Croches immediately anize a hunt, capture a bear, loll it, eat its heart, and throw out the rest of the meat; they save the skin, which with the head of the beast serves as a shroud for the dead man. Among the Voguls the relative was required to seek revehe Goldi have the same in regard to the tiger; they kill him and bury him with this little speeow we are even, you have killed one of ours, we have killed one of yours. Now let us live in peace. Dont disturb us again, or we will kill you. itt, brown-haired, brown-eyed and just een, was born in Berlin (real name: Mittenstein), left Germany five years ago. In her senior year at the vent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, ., Carola went to the Viennese Opera Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria, otted by a Glamour editor.
I mean, the doctor resumed, we should study each patient thhly ay the uterus before she has retinitis; before jaundice has shown that there is marked liver damage; before she has polyis; before she has toxic myocarditis; before her brain is degeed, et al. -- and it be done. Meyer Davis played for the Viennese Opera Ball. Copperplate printers, said a man, deliver Society Printing i, stylish boxes. They are pelled to slipsheet the work with tissue paper, an expehe letterpress printer may avoid, if careful. Boxes, covered with enameled paper for cards and all lands of Society Printing, are on sale to carry the correct sizes. No matter how excellent your work and quality may be, women who know the correct practice will not be satisfied uhe packages are as as those sent out by the copperplate printers. The devil is not as wicked as people believe, aher is an Albanian. (itt soon dropped her plans to be a painter, made $60 an hour uhe lights, appeared on the covers of Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Mademoiselle and Glamour, shared a Greenwich Village apartment with anirl, yearo get married and live in California. But that was later.)
The Glamour editor said: Take Dolores Wettach. Dolores Wettach is lush, Lorenesque, and doubly fn (her father is Swiss, her mother Swedish); she moved at the age of five from Switzerland to Flushing, N.Y., where her father set up a mink ranow about twenty-four ("You learn not to be too accurate"), Dolores was elected Miss Vermont in the 1956 Miss Universe test, graduated in 1957 from the Uy of Vermont with a B.S. in nursing. Now makes $60 an hour. While Dolores Wettach was w as a Manhattans Doctors Hospital, a sharp-eyed photographer saw beyond her heavy Oxfords, asked her to pose. Dying remarks: Oliver Goldsmith, 1728-74, British poet, playwright and , was asked: Is your mind at ease? He replied: No, it is not, and died. Hegel: Only one man ever uood me. And he didnt uand me. Hart e, 1899-1932, poet, as he jumped into the sea: Goodbye, everybody! Tons of people came to the Viennese Opera Ball. At noon, the first doctor said, on January 31, 1943, while walking, the patient was seized with sudden severe abdominal pain and profuse vaginal bleeding. She was admitted to the hospital at 1 P.M. in a state of exsanguination. She presented a tender, rigid abdomen and uterus. Blood pressure 110/60. Pulse rate 110 -- thready. Fetal heart not heard. Patient was given intravenous blood at ohe membranes were ruptured artificially and a Spanish windlass lied. Labressed rapidly. At 6 P.M., a 5-pound stillborn infant was delivered by low forceps. Heme persisted following delivery in spite of hypodermic Pituitrin, intravenous ergotrate, and firm uterine pag. Blood transfusion had been maintained tinuously. At 9 P.M. a laparotomy was done, and a Couvelaire uterus with tubes and ovaries was removed by supracervical hysterey. The close adherence of the tubes and ovaries to the fundus ated their removal. Patient stood surgery well. A total of 2000 c.c. of whole blood and 1500 c.c. of whole plasma had been administered. valesce was satisfactory, and the patient was dismissed on the fourteenth postoperative day. Waiters with drinks circulated among the ball-goers.
itt met Isabella Albonico at the Viennese Opera Ball. Isabella Albonico, Italian by temperament as well as by birth (twenty-four years ago, in Florence), began modeling in Europe when she was fifteen, arrived in New York four years ago. Brown-haired and brown-eyed, she has had covers on Vogue, Harpers Bazaar and Life, makes $60 an hour, and has won, she says, "a reputation for being allergic to being pummeled around uhe lights. Nobody touches me." I entirely endorse these opinions, said a man standing nearby, and would only add that the wife do much to avert that fatal marital ennui by indepe is which she persuades him to share. For instance, an iing book, or journey, or lecture or cert, experienced, enjoyed and described by her, with sympathy and humor, may oftealisman to divert his mind from work and worry, and all the irritations arising therefrom. But, of course, he, on his side, must be able to appreciate her appreciation and her versation. The stimuli to the penile nerves may differ in degrees of iy and shades of quality; and there are corresponding diversities in the sensations of pleasure they bestow. It is of much importan determining these sensations whether the stimuli are localized mainly in the frenulum preputti or the posterior rim of the glans. Art rather than sheer force should prevail. (There is an authentic case on record in which the attendant braced himself and pulled so hard that, when the forceps slipped off, he fell out of an open window onto the stre.et below and sustained a skull fracture, while the patient remained undelivered.) The Jumbo Tree, 254 feet high, is named from the odd-shaped growths at the base resembling the heads of an elephant, a monkey and a bison. Isabella told Carola that she "would like most of all to be a movie star," had just returned from Hollywood, where she played a small part ("but opposite Gary Grant") in That Touink and a larger one in an all-Italian film, Smog. Besides English and Italian, Isabella speaks Frend Spanish, hates big groups. What kind of big groups? Carola asked. This kind, Isabella said, waving her hand to indicate the Viennese Opera Ball.
Smog is an iing name Carola said. In the empty expanses of Islamabad, the neital that Pakistan plans to ere the cool foothills of the Himalayas, the first buildings scheduled to go up are a cluster of airy structures designed by famed U.S. architect Edward Stone. Set in a cloistered water garden, the biggest of Stones buildings will house Pakistans first nuclear reactor -- one of the largest sales made by New Yorks Ameri Mae & Foundry Co. Fifteen years ago, AMF was a pany with only a handful of products (cigarette, baking and stitg maes) and annual sales of about $12,000,000. Today, with 42 plants and 19 research facilities scattered across 17 tries, AMF turns out products ranging from remote-trolled toy airplao ICBM laung systems. Thanks to AMFs determined pursuit of diversification and growth products, its 1960 sales were $361 million, its earnings $24 million. And in the glum opening months of 1961, the panys sales and earnings hit new first-quarter highs. AMFs expansion is the work of slow-spoken, low-pressured Chairman Morehead Patterson, 64, who took over the pany in 1943 from his father, Rufus L. Patterson, ior of the first automated tobaae. After World War II, Morehead Patterson decided that the pany had to grow or die. Searg for new products, he turned up a crude prototype of an automatic bowling-pier. To get the necessary cash to develop the intricate gadget, Patterson sed off AMF stock to acquire eight small panies with fast-selling products. The Pinspotter, perfected and put on the market in 1951, helped to turn bowling into the most popular U.S. petitive sport. Despite keen petition from the Brunswick Corp., AMF has remaihe worlds largest maker of automati setters. With 68,000 maes already on lease in the U.S. (for an average annual gross of $68 million), AMF last week got a $3,000,000 tract to equip a new of bowliers in the East. Is there another Pinspotter in AMFs future? Chairman Patterson cautiously admits to the hope that perhaps the firms intensive researto purifying brackish and fouled water might produother product breakthrough. "panies, like people," says Patterson, "get arteriosclerosis. My job is to see that AMF doesnt." Morehead Patterson did not attend the Viennese Opera Ball.
itt said: Among other things, I means the ego; it is also the symbol, in astronomy, for the ination of an orbit to the eclipti chemistry, for iodine; in physics, for the density of current, the iy of magization, or the moment of iia; in logic, for a particular affirmative propositioer Lannin also played for the Viennese Opera Ball. Nonsense! said a huge man wearing the Double Eagle of St. Puce, what about sailing, salesmen, salt, sanitation, Santa Claus, saws, scales, schools, screws, sealing wax, secretaries, sects, selling, the Seven Wonders, sewerage, sewing maes, sheep, sheet metal, shells, shipbuilding, shipwrecks, shoemaking, shopping, shower baths, sieges, signboards, silverware, sinning, skating, skeletons, skeleton keys, sketg, skiing, skulls, skyscrapers, sleep, smoking, smugglers, Socialism, soft drinks, soothsaying, sorcery, space travel, spectacles, spelling, sports, squirrels, steamboats, steel, stereoptis, the Stock Exge, stomachs, stores, storms, stoves, streetcars, strikes, submarines, subways, suicide, sundials, sunstroke, superstition, surgery, surveying, sweat and syphilis! It is one of Macks proudest boasts, Carola heard over her lovely white shoulder, that he has never once missed having dinner with his wife in their forty-one years of married life. She remembered Knocko at the Evacuation Day parade, and Baudelaires famous remark. Mortality is the final evaluator of methods. An important goal is an intact sphihe greater the prematurity, the menerous should be the episiotomy. Yes said Leon Jaroff, Detroit Bureau Chief for Time, at the Thomas Elementary School on warm spring afternoons I could look from my classroom into the open doors of the Packard plant. Ideal foster parents are mature people who are not necessarily well off, but who have a good marriage and who love and uand children. The ninth day of the ninth month is the festival of the chrysanthemum (Kiku No Sekku), when sake made from the chrysanthemum is drunk. Kiku Jido, a court youth, having iently touched with his foot the pillow of the emperor, was bao a distant isle, where, it is said, he was nourished by the dew of the chrysanthemums which abouhere. Being a hermit, he lived for a thousand years. Husbands have been known to look at their wives with new eyes, Laura La Plahought to herself. Within the plane of eadividual work -- experienced apart from a series -- he presents oh a similar set of o-a-time experiences each tained within its own partment, and read in a certain order, up or down or across. Far off at Barler Station, as the dawn was breaking, Bart slept dreamlessly at last. Peridermium coloradense on spruce (Picea) has long been sidered specific with Melampsorella caryophyllacearum Schroet., which alternates between fir (Abies) and Caryophyllace?. Evidehat these rusts are identical sists largely of inoculatios of Weit and Hubert (1,2), but these have never been fully firmed. Take Dorothea McGowan the Glamour editor said. Dorothea McGowan is the exception in the new crop: she speaks only English and was born in Brooklyn. Her premodeling life took her as far from home as Staten Island, where she finished her freshman year at Notre Dame College before taking a summer job modeling $2.98 house dresses. A few months later, her first photographic try at a cover made Vogue; this year she set some kind of a record by appearing on fue covers in a row (nobody but her mother ent could have told that it was the same girl). Twenty-year-old Dorothea ("My middle initial is E, and Dorothy sounded so ordinary") makes $60 an hour, has her oartment in New York, studies French at Manhattans Frenstitute twice a week ("so that when my dream of living in Paris es true, Ill be ready for it"). Dorothea has bee, all expenses paid, to be photographed in front of the great architectural mos of Europe, among Middle East bazaars and under Caribbean palms. She is absolutely infatuated with the idea of being paid to travel. I never saw so many autumn flowers as grow in the woods and sheep-walks of Maryland. But I fess, I scarcely knew a single name. Let no one visit America without first having studied botany.
Carola was thrilled by all the iing versations at the Viennese Opera Ball. The Foundation is uaking a prehensive analytical study of the eid social positions of the artist and of his institutions in the Uates. In part this will serve as a basis for future policy decisions and program activities. The plated study will also be important outside the Foundation. The climate of the arts today, discussion in the field reveals, is plex and various. Pack my box with Title Shaded Litho. Pack my box with Bostoora densed. Pack my box with Clearface Heavy. (C) Brasol, 261-285; Buck, 212-221; Carr, D, 281-301; Collins, 76-82; Curie, 176-224; A. G. Dostoevsky, D Portrayed by His Wife, 268-269; F. Dostoevsky, Letters and Reminisces, 241-242, 247, 251-252; F. Dostoevsky, New D Letters, 79-102; Freud, passim; Gibian, "Ds Use of Russian Fol..klore," passim; Hesse -- see; Hromadka, 45-50; Ivanov, 142-166 and passim; King, 22-29; Lavrin, D and His Creation, 114-142; Lavrin, D: A Study, 119-146; Lavrin, "D and Tolstoy," 189-195; Lloyd, 275-290; Me, passim; Mackiewicz, 183-191; Matiaw, 221-225; Maugham, 203-208; Maurina, 147-153, 198-203, 205-210, 218-221; Meier-Graefe, 288-377; Muitro. . . , 165-172; Mueller, 193-200; Murry, 203-259; Passage, 162-174; Roe, 20-25, 41-51. 68-91, 100-110; Roubiczek, 237-244, 252-260, 266-271; Sachs, 241-246; Scott, 204-209; Simmons, 263-279 and passim; Slonim, Epic. . . , 289-293 and passim; Soloviev, 195-202; Strakosch, passim; Troyat, 395-416; Tymms, 99-103; Warner, 80-101; Wilson, 178-201; Yarmolinsky, D, His Life and Art, 355-361 and passim; Zander, 15-30, 63-95, 119-137. Carola said: What a wonderful ball! The width of the black band varies acc to relationship. For a widows card a band of about ohird ino. 5) during the first year of widowhood, diminishing about one-sixteenth inch each six months thereafter. On a widowers card one-quarter ino. 3) is the widest, diminishing gradually from time to time. For other relatives, the band may vary from the thiess of No. 3 to that of the "Italian." No. 5 band is now sidered excessive, but among the Latin races is held to be moderate, and if preferred, is entirely correct. To admihe agreement and facilitate the attai of its ends, a ittee on Trade Polid Payments will be set up with all member tries represehe judicial form plated in the agreement is that of a free trade zoo be transformed gradually into a s union. As Emile Myerson has said, "Lhomme fait de la métaphysique e il respire, sans le vouloir et surtout sans sen douter la plupart du temps." No woman is worth more than 24 cattle, Pamela Odede B.A.s father said. With this album Abbey Lins stature as one of the great jazz singers of our time is firmed, Laura La Plante said. Widely used for motors, power tools, lighting, TV, etc. Geor output: 3500 watts, 115/230 volt, 60 cy., AC, tinuous duty. Max. 230 V capaotor, loaded on starting -- ? hp; unloaded on starting -- 2 hp. trol box mounts starting switch, duplex 115 V receptacle for standard or 3-ductrounding plugs, tandem 230 V groundiacles, and wing nut battery terminals. More than six hundred different kinds of forceps have been ied. Lets not talk about the lion, she said. Wilson looked over at her without smiling and now she smiled at him. This process uses a Lin submerged arc weldio run both inside and outside beads automatically. The rate ress during the first stage will determihe program to be followed in the sed stage. The Glamour editor whose name was Tutti Beale "moved in." Whats your name girl? she said coolly. itt, itt said. The Viennese Opera Ball tinued.
Me and Miss Mandible
13 September
Miss Mandible wants to make love to me but she hesitates because I am officially a child; I am, acc to the records, acc to the gradebook on her desk, acc to the card index in the principals office, eleven years old. There is a misception here, ohat I havent quite mao get cleared up yet. I am in fact thirty-five, Ive been in the Army, I am six feet one, I have hair in the appropriate places, my voice is a baritone, I know very well what to do with Miss Mandible if she ever makes up her mind.
In the meantime we are studying on fras. I could, of course, answer all the questions, or at least most of them (there are things I dont remember). But I prefer to sit in this too-small seat with the desktop cramping my thighs and examihe life arouhere are thirty-two in the class, which is launched every m with the pledge of allegiao the flag. My own allegia the moment, is divided between Miss Mandible and Sue Ann Brownly, who sits across the aisle from me all day long and is, like Miss Mandible, a fool for love. Of the two I prefer, today, Sue Ann; although between eleven and eleven and a half (she refuses to reveal her exact age) she is clearly a woman, with a womans disguised aggression and a eculiar tradis. Strangely her she nor any of the other childreo see any ingruity in my presence here.
15 September
Happily eography text, which tains maps of all the principal land-masses of the world, is large enough to ceal my destine journal-keeping, aplished in an ordinary blaposition book. Every day I must wait until Geography to put down such thoughts as I may have had during the m about my situation and my fellows. I have tried writing at other times and it does not work. Either the teacher is walking up and down the aisles (during this period, luckily, she sticks close to the map ra the front of the room) or Bobby Vanderbilt, who sits behind me, is pung me in the kidneys and wanting to know what I am doing. Vanderbilt, I have found out from certaiory versations on the playground, is hung up on sports cars, a veteran er of Road & Track. This explains the tinual r sounds which seem to emanate from his desk; he is reprodug a record album called Sounds of Sebring.
19 September
Only I, at times (only at times), uand that somehow a mistake has been made, that I am in a place where I dont belong. It may be that Miss Mandible also knows this, at some level, but for reasons not fully uood by me she is going along with the game. When I was first assigo this room I wao protest, the error seemed obvious, the stupidest principal could have seen it; but I have e to believe it was deliberate, that I have beerayed again.
Now it seems to make little differehis life-role is as iing as my former life-role, which was that of a claims adjuster for the Great Northern Insuranpany, a position whipelled me to spend my time amid the debris of our civilization:> rumpled fenders, roofless sheds, gutted warehouses, smashed arms and legs. After ten years of this one has a tendency to see the world as a vast junkyard, looking at a man and seeing only his (potentially) mangled parts, entering a house only to trace the path of the iable fire. Therefore when I was installed here, although I knew an error had been made, I te, I was shrewd; I was aware that there might well be some kind of advao be gained from what seemed a disaster. The role of The Adjuster teaches one much.
22 September
I am being solicited for the volleyball team. I dee, refusing to take unfair profit from my height.
23 September
Every m the roll is called: Bestvina, Bokenfohr, Broan, Brownly, e, Coyle, Crecelius, Darin, Durbin, Geiger, Guiswite, Heckler, Jacobs, Kleinschmidt, Lay, Logan, Masei, Mitgang, Pfeilsticker. It is like the litany ted in the dim miserable dawns of Texas by the cadre sergeant of our basic training pany.
In the Army, too, I was ever so slightly awry. It took me a fantastically long time to realize what the rasped almost at ohat much of what we were doing was absolutely pointless, to no purpose. I kept w why. Then something happehat proposed a new question. One day we were ao whitewash, from the ground to the topmost leaves, all of the trees in our training area. The corporal who relayed the order was nervous and apologetic. Later an off-duty captain sauntered by and watched us, white-splashed and totally weary, strung out among the freakish shapes we had created. He walked away swearing. I uood the principle (orders are orders), but I wondered: Who decides?
29 September
Sue Ann is a wonder. Yesterday she viciously kicked my ankle for not paying attention when she was attempting to pass me a note during History. It is swollen still. But Miss Mandible was watg me, there was nothing I could do. Oddly enough Sue Ann reminds me of the wife I had in my former role, while Miss Mandible seems to be a child. She watches me stantly, trying to keep sexual significe out of her look; I am afraid the other children have noticed. I have already heard, on that ghostly frequency that is the medium of classroom unication, the words "Teachers pet!"
2 October
Sometimes I speculate on the exaature of the spiracy which brought me here. At times I believe it was instigated by my wife of former days, whose name was. . . I am only pretending tet. I know her name very well, as well as I know the name of my former motor oil (Quaker State) or my old Army serial number (US 54109268). Her name was Brenda, and the versation I recall best, the one which makes me suspicious now, took pla the day we parted. "You have the soul of a whore," I said on that occasion, stating nothihan literal, unvarnished fact. "You," she replied, "are a pimp, a poop, and a child. I am leaving you forever and I trust that without me you will perish of your own inadequacies. Which are siderable."
I squirm in my seat at the memory of this versation, and Sue Ann watches me with malign passion. She has noticed the discrepancy between the size of my desk and my own size, but apparently sees it only as a token of my glamour, my dark man-of-the-world-ness.
7 October
Oiptoed up to Miss Mandibles desk (when there was no one else in the room) and examis surface. Miss Mandible is a -desk teacher, I discovered. There was nothing except her gradebook (the one in which I exist as a sixth-grader) and a text, which en at a page headed Making the Processes Meaningful. I read: "Many pupils enjoy w fras when they uand what they are doing. They have fiden their ability to take the right steps and to obtain correswers. However, to give the subject full social significe, it is necessary that many realistic situations requiring the processes be found. Many iing and lifelike problems involving the use of fras should be solved. . ."
8 October
I am not irritated by the feeling of havihrough all this before. Things are done differently now. The children, moreover, are in some ways different from those who apanied me on my first voyage through the elementary schools: "They have fiden their ability to take the right steps and to obtain correswers." This is surely true. When Bobby Vanderbilt, who sits behind me and has the great tactical advantage of being able to maneuver in my disproportionate shadow, wishes to bust a classmate in the mouth he first asks Miss Mandible to lower the blind, saying that the sun hurts his eyes. When she does so, bip! My geion would never have been able to authority so easily.
13 October
It may be that on my first trip through the schools I was too muder the impression that what the authorities (who decides?) had ordained for me was right and proper, that I fused authority with life itself. My path was not particularly of my own choosing. My career stretched out in front of me like a paper chase, and my role was to pick up the clues. When I got out of school, the first time, I felt that this estimate was substantially correct, and eagerly ehe hunt. I found clues abundant: diplomas, membership cards, campaign buttons, a marriage lise, insurans, discharge papers, tax returns, Certificates of Merit. They seemed to prove, at the very least, that I was in the running. But that was before my tragic mistake on the Mrs. Anton Bichek claim.
I misread a clue. Do not misua was a tragedy only from the point of view of the authorities. I ceived that it was my duty to obtain satisfa for the injured, for this elderly lady (not even one of our policyholders, but a claimant against Big Ben Transfer & Ste, Inc.) from the pany. The settlement was $165,000; the claim, I still believe, was just. But without my encement Mrs. Bichek would never have had the self-love to prize her injury so highly. The pany paid, but its faith in me, in my effica the role, was broken. Henry Goodykind, the district manager, expressed this thought in a few not altogether unsympathetic words, and told me at the same time that I was to have a new role. The hing I knew I was here, at Horace Greeley Elementary, uhe lubricious eye of Miss Mandible.
17 October
Today we are to have a fire drill. I know this because I am a Fire Marshal, not only for our room but for the entire right wing of the sed floor. This distin, which was awarded shortly after my arrival, is interpreted by some as another mark of my somewhat dubious relations with our teacher. My armband, which is red and decorated with white felt letters reading FIRE, sits otle shelf藏书网 under my desk, o the broer bag taining the lunch I carefully make for myself each m. One of the advantages of pag my own lunch (I have no oo pack it for me) is that I am able to fill it with things I enjoy. The peanut butter sandwiches that my mother made in my former existence, many years ago, have been banished in favor of ham and cheese. I have found that my diet has mysteriously adjusted to my new situation; I no longer drink, for instance, and when I smoke, it is in the boys john, like everybody else. When school is out I hardly smoke at all. It is only iter of sex that I feel my own true age; this is apparently something that, once learned, ever be fotten. I live ihat Miss Mandible will one day keep me after school, and when we are alone, create a promising situation. To avoid this I have bee a model pupil: another reason for the pronounced dislike I have entered iain quarters. But I ot deny that I am singed by those long glances from the viity of the chalkboard; Miss Mandible is in many ways, notably about the bust, a very tasty piece.
24 October
There are is..olated challeo my largeness, to my dimly realized position in the class as Gulliver. Most of my classmates are polite about this matter, as they would be if I had only one eye, or wasted, metal-ed legs. I am viewed as a mutation of some sort but essentially a peer. However Harry Broan, whose father has made himself rich manufacturing the Broan Bathroom Vent (with which Harry is frequently reproached; he is always being asked how things are isville), today inquired if I wao fight. An ied group of his followers had gathered to observe this suicidal uaking. I replied that I didnt feel quite up to it, for which he was obviously grateful. We are now friends forever. He has giveo uand privately that he get me all the bathroom vents I will ever need, at a ridiculously modest figure.
25 October
"Many iing and lifelike problems involving the use of fras should be solved. . ." The theorists fail to realize that everything that is either iing or lifelike in the classroom proceeds from what they would probably call interpersonal relations: Sue Ann Brownly kig me in the ankle. How lifelike, how womanlike, is her tender solicitude after the deed! Her pride in my newly acquired limp is transparent; everyone knows that she has set her mark upohat it is a victory in her unequal struggle with Miss Mandible for my great, row. Even Miss Mandible knows, and ters in perhaps the only way she , with sarcasm. "Are you wounded, Joseph?" flagrations smolder behind her eyelids, yearning for the Fire Marshal clouds her eyes. I mumble that I have bumped my leg.
30 October
I return again and again to the problem of my future.
4 November
The underground circulating library has brought me a copy of Movie-TV Secrets, the multicolor cover blazoned with the headline "Debbies Date Insults Liz!" It is a gift from Frankie Randolph, a rather plain girl who until today has had not one word for me, passed on via Bobby Vanderbilt. I nod and smile over my shoulder in aowledgment; Frankie hides her head under her desk. I have seen these magazines being passed around among the girls (sometimes one of the boys will desd to i a particularly lurid cover). Miss Mandible fiscates them whenever she finds one. I leaf through Movie-TV Secrets a an eyeful. "The exclusive picture on these pages isnt what it seems. We know how it looks and we know what the gossipers will do. So ierests of a nice guy, were publishing the facts first. Heres what really happened!" The picture shows a rising young movie idol in bed, pajama-ed and bleary-eyed, while an equally blowzy young woman looks startled beside him. I am happy to know that the picture is not really what it seems; it seems to be nothihan divorce evidence.
What do these hipless eleven-year-olds think when they e across, in the same magazihe full-page ad for Maurice de Paree, which features "Hip Helpers" or pear to be padded rumps? ("A real undercent that adds appeal to those hips and derriere, both!") If they ot decipher the language the illustrations leave nothing to the imagination. "Drive him frantic. . ." the copy tinues. Perhaps this explains Bobby Vanderbilts preoccupation with Lancias and Maseratis; it is a defense against being driven frantic.
Sue Ann has observed Frankie Randolphs overture, and catg my eye, she pulls from her satchel haeen of these magazihrusting them at me as if to prove that anything any of her rivals has to offer, she top. I shuffle through them quickly, noting the broad editorial perspective:
"Debbies Kids Are g"
"Eddie Asks Debbie: Will You. . . ?"
"The Nightmares Liz Has About Eddie!"
"The Things Debbie Tell About Eddie"
"The Private Life of Eddie and Liz"
"Debbie Gets Her Man Back?"
"A New Life for Liz"
"Love Is a Tricky Affair"
"Eddies Taylor-Made Love "
"How Liz Made a Man of Eddie"
"Are They Planning to Live Together?"
"Isnt It Time to Stop Kig Debbie Around?"
"Debbies Dilemma"
"Eddie Bees a Father Again"
"Is Debbie Planning to Re-wed?"
" Liz Fulfill Herself?"
"Why Debbie Is Sick of Hollywood"
Who are these people, Debbie, Eddie, Liz, and how did they get themselves in such a terrible predit? Sue Ann knows, I am sure; it is obvious that she has been studying their history as a guide to what she may expect when she is suddenly freed from this drab, flat classroom.
I am angry and I shove the magazines back at her with not even a whisper of thanks.
5 November
The sixth grade at Horace Greeley Elementary is a furnace of love, love, love. Today it is raining, but ihe air is heavy and teh passion. Sue Ann is absent; I suspect that yesterdays exge has driveo her bed. Guilt hangs about me. She is not responsible, I know, for what she reads, for the models proposed to her by a venal publishing industry; I should not have been so harsh. Perhaps it is only the flu.
Nowhere have I entered an atmosphere as charged with aborted sexuality as this. Miss Mandible is helpless; nothing ght today. Amos Darin has been found drawing a dirty picture in the cloakroom. Sad and inaccurate, it was offered not as a sign of something else but as an act of love in itself. It has excited even those who have not seen it, even those who saw but uood only that it was dirty. The room buzzes with imperfectly preheitillation. Amos stands by the door, waiting to be taken to the principals office. He wavers between fear and enjoyment of his temporary celebrity. From time to time Miss Mandible looks at me reproachfully, as if blaming me for the uproar. But I did not create this atmosphere, I am caught in it like all the others.
8 November
Everything is promised my classmates and I, most of all the future. t the eous assurances without blinking.
9 November
I have finally found the o petition for a larger desk. At recess I hardly walk; my legs do not wish to uncoil themselves. Miss Mandible says she will take it up with the custodian. She is worried about the excelleny themes. Have I, she asks, been receiving help? For an instant I am on the brink of telling her my story. Something, however, war to attempt it. Here I am safe, I have a place; I do not wish to entrust myself once more to the whimsy of authority. I resolve to make my themes less excellent iure.
11 November
A ruined marriage, a ruined adjusting career, a grim interlude in the Army when I was almost not a person. This is the sum of my existeo date, a dismal total. Small wohat re-education seemed my only hope. It is clear even to me that I need rew in some fual way. How effit is the society that provides thus for the salvage of its kers!
Plucked from my unexamined life among other pleasant, desperate, money-making young Ameris, thrown backward in spad time, I am beginning to uand how I went wrong, how we all g. (Although this was far from the iion of those who sent me here; they require only that I get right.)
14 November
The distin between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.
15 November
The custodian has informed Miss Mandible that our desks are all the correct size for sixth-graders, as specified by the Board of Estimate and furhe schools by the Nu-Art Educational Supply Corporation of Englewood, California. He has pointed out that if the desk size is correct, then the pupil size must be incorrect. Miss Mandible, who has already arrived at this clusion, refuses to press the matter further. I think I know why. An appeal to the administration might result in my removal from the class, in a trao some sort of setup for "exceptional children." This would be a disaster of the first magnitude. To sit in a room with child geniuses (or, more likely, children who are "retarded") would shrivel me in a week. Let my experience here be that of the on run, I say; let me be, please God, typical.
20 November
We read signs as promises. Miss Mandible uands by my great height, by my resonant vowels, that I will one day carry her off to bed. Sue Ann interprets these same signs to mean that I am unique among her male acquaintaherefore most desirable, therefore her special property as is everything that is Most Desirable. If her of these propositions work out then life has broken faith with them.
I myself, in my former existence, read the pany motto ("Here to Help in Time of Need") as a description of the duty of the adjuster, drastically mislog the panys deepest s. I believed that because I had obtained a wife who was made up of wife-signs (beauty, charm, softness, perfume, cookery) I had found love. Brenda, reading the same signs that have now misled Miss Mandible and Sue Ann Brownly, felt she had been promised that she would never be bored again. All of us, Miss Mandible, Sue Ann, myself, Brenda, Mr. Goodykind, still believe that the Ameri flag betokens a kind of general righteousness.
But I say, looking about me in this incubator of future citizens, that signs are signs, and that some of them are lies. This is the great discovery of my time here.
23 November
It may be that my experience as a child will save me after all. If only I remain quietly in this classroom, making my notes while Napoleon plods through Russia in the droning voice of Harry Broan, reading aloud from our History text. All of the mysteries that perplexed me as an adult have their ins here, and one by one I am numbering them, exposing their roots.
2 December
Miss Mandible will refuse to permit me to remain ungrown. Her hands rest on my shoulders too warmly, and for too long.
7 December
It is the pledges that this place makes to me, pledges that ot be redeemed, that fuse me later and make me feel I am not getting anywhere. Everything is presented as the result of some knowable process; if I wish to arrive at fet there by way of two and two. If I wish to burn Moscow the route I must travel has already been marked out by another visitor. If, like Bobby Vanderbilt, I yearn for the wheel of the Lancia 2.4-liter coupé,1 have only to gh the appropriate process, that is, get the money. And if it is moself that I desire, I have only to make it. All of these goals are equally beautiful in the sight of the Board of Estimate; the proof is all around us, in the no-nonsense ugliness of this steel and glass building, iraightliter-of-faess with which Miss Mandible handles some of our less reputable wars. Who points out that arras sometimes slip, that errors are made, that signs are misread? "They have fiden their ability to take the right steps and to obtain correswers." I take the right steps, obtain correswers, and my wife leaves me for another man.
8 December
My enlighte is proceeding wonderfully.
9 December
Disaster once again. Tomorrow I am to be sent to a doctor, for observation. Sue Ann Brownly caught Miss Mandible and me in the cloakroom, during recess, and immediately threw a fit. For a moment I thought she was actually going to choke. She ran out of the room weeping, straight for the principals office, certain now which of us was Debbie, which Eddie, which Liz. I am sorry to be the cause of her disillusio, but I know that she will recover. Miss Mandible is ruined but fulfilled. Although she will be charged with tributing to the delinquency of a minor, she seems at peace; her promise has bee. She knows now that everything she has been told about life, about America, is true.
I have tried to vihe school authorities that I am a minor only in a very special sehat I am in fact mostly to blame -- but it does no good. They are as dense as ever. My poraries are astouhat I present myself as anything other than an i victim. Like the Old Guard marg through the Russian drifts, the class marches to the clusion that truth is punishment.
Bobby Vanderbilt has given me his copy of Sounds of Sebring, in farewell.
Marie, Marie, Hold On Tight
Henry Mackie, Edward Asher and Howard Ettle braved a rainstorm to demonstrate against the human dition on Wednesday, April 26 (and Marie, you should have used roof paint; the signs were a mess after half an hour). They began at St. John the Precursor on 69th Street at 1:30 p.m. picketing with signs bearing the slogans MAN DIES! / THE BODY IS DISGUST! / COGITO NOTHING! / ABANDON LOVE! and handing out annous of Henry Mackies lecture at the Playmor Lahe evening. There was muterest among bystanders in the viity of the church. A man who said his name was William Rochester came up to give encement: "Thats the way!" he said. At about 1:50 a fat, richly dressed beadle emerged from the church to dispute ht to picket. He had des which shook unpleasantly and, I am sorry to say, did not look like a good man.
"All right," he said, "now move on, you have to move along, you t picket us!" He said that the church had never been picketed, that it could not be picketed without its permission, that it owhe sidewalk, and that he was going to call the police. Henry Mackie, Edward Asher and Howard Ettle had already obtained police permission for the demonstration through a fortu of fht; and we firmed this by showing him our slip that we had obtai Police Headquarters. The beadle was intensely irritated at this and stormed baside the church to report to someone higher up. Henry Mackie said, "Well, get ready for the lightning bolt," and Edward Asher and Howard Ettle laughed.
I in the demonstration among walkers on 69th Street increased and a number of people accepted our leaflet and began to ask the pickets questions such as "What do you mean?" and "Were you young men raised in the church?" The pickets replied to these questions quietly but firmly and in as much detail as casual passersby could be expected to be ied in. Some of the walkers made taunting remarks -- "Cogito your ass" is one I remember -- but the demeanor of the pickets was exemplary at all times, even later when things began, as Henry Mackie put it, "to get a little rough." (Marie, you would have been proud of us.) People who care about the rights of pickets should realize that these rights are threatened mostly not by the police, who generally do not molest you if you gh the appropriate bureaucratic procedures such as getting a permit, but by individuals who e up to ybbr>ou and try to pull yn out of your hands or, in one case, spit at you. The man who did the latter was, surprisingly, very well dressed. What could be happening within an individual like that? He didnt even ask questions as to the nature or purpose of the demonstration, just spat and walked away. He didnt say a word. We wondered about him.
At about 2 P.M. a very high-up official in a black clerical suit emerged from the churd asked us if we had ever heard of Kierkegaard. It was raining on him just as it was on the pickets but he dido mind. "This demonstration displays a Kierkegaardian spirit which I uand," he said, and then requested that we transfer our operations to some other place. Henry Mackie had a very iing discussion of about ten minutes duration with this official during which photographs were taken by the New York Post, Newsweek and CBS Television whom Henry Mackie had alerted prior to the demonstration. The photographers made the chur a little nervous but you have to hand it to him, he maintained his phony attitude of polite i almost to the last. He said several rather bromidic things like "The human dition is the given, its what we do with it that ts" and "The body is simply the temple wherein the soul dwells" which Henry Mackie tered with his famous question "Why does it have to be that way?" which has dumbfounded so many orthodionists and thinkers and with which he first won us (the other pickets) to his banner in the first place.
"Why?" the chur exclaimed. It was clear that he was radically taken aback. "Because it is that way. You have to deal with what is. With reality."
"But why does it have to be that way?" Henry Mackie repeated, which is the teique of the question, which used in this way is unanswerable. A blush of anger and frustration crossed the churs features (it probably dider on your TV s, Marie, but I was there, I saw it -- it was beautiful).
"The human dition is a fual datum," the cleric stated. "It is immutable, fixed and geless. To say otherwise. . ."
"Precisely," Henry Mackie said, "why it must be challenged."
"But," the cleric said, "it is Gods will."
"Yes," Henry Mackie said signifitly.
The chur theired into his church, muttering and shaking his head. The rain had damaged ns somewhat but the slogans were still legible and we had extra signs cached in Edward Ashers car anyway. A number of is crossed the picket lio worship including several who looked as if they might?? be from the FBI. The pickets had realized in laying their plans the dahat they might be taken for unists. This eventuality rovided for by the mimeographed leaflets which carefully explaihat the pickets were not unists and cited Edward Ashers and Howard Ettles Army servicluding Ashers endation Ribbon. "We, as you, are law-abiding Ameri citizens who support the stitution and pay taxes," the leaflet says. "We are simply opposed to the ruthless way in which the human dition has been imposed anisms which have dohing to deserve it and are uo escape it. Why does it have to be that way?" The leaflet goes on to discuss, in simple language, the various unfortunate aspects of the human dition includih, unseemly and degrading bodily funs, limitations on human uanding, and the chimera of love. The leaflet cludes with the se headed "What Is To Be Done?" which Henry Mackie says is a famous revolutionary catchword and which outlines, in clear, simple language, Henry Mackies program for the reification of the human dition from the ground up.
A Negro lady came up, took one of the leaflets, read it carefully and then said: "They look like unists to me!" Edward Asher ehat no matter how clearly things were explaio the people, the people always wao believe you were a unist. He said that when he demonstrated on Miami against vivise of helpless animals he was accused of being a Nazi unist which was, he explained, a tradi in terms. He said ladies were usually the worst.
By then the large crowd that had gathered wheelevision men came had drifted away. The pickets therefore shifted the site of the demonstration to Rockefeller Plaza in Rockefeller ter via Edward Ashers car. Here were many people loafing, digesting lud we used the spare signs which had new messages including
WHY ARE YOU STANDING
WHERE YOU ARE STANDING?
THE SOUL IS NOT!
NO MORE
ART
CULTURE
LOVE
REMEMBER YOU ARE DUST!
The rain had stopped and the flowers smelled marvelously fihe pickets took up positions near a restaurant (I wish youd been there, Marie, because it reminded me of something, something you said that night we went to Bloomingdales and bought your new cerise-colored bathing suit: "The color a new baby has," you said, and the flowers were like that, some of them). People with cameras hanging around their necks took pictures of us as if they had never seen a demonstration before. The pickets remarked among themselves that it was funny to think of the tourists with pictures of us demonstrating in their scrapbooks in California, Iowa, Michigan, people we didnt know and who didnt know us or care anything about the demonstration or, for that matter, the human dition itself, in which they were so steeped that they couldnt stand off and look at it and know it for what it was. "Its a paradigmatic situation," Henry Mackie said, "exemplifying the distaweeential knowers holding a onsense view of the world and what is to be known, which escapes them as they pursue their mundaences."
At this time (2:45 P.M.) the demonstrators were approached by a group of youths between the ages I would say of sixteen and twenty-ohey were dressed in hood jackets, T-shirts, tight pad were very obviously delis from bad enviros and broken homes where they had received no love. They rihe pickets in a threatening mahere were about seven of them. The leader (and Marie, he wasnt the oldest; he was youhan some of them, tall, with a peculiar face, blank and intelligent at the same time) walked around looking at ns with exaggerated curiosity. "What are you guys," he said finally, "some kind of creeps or something?"
Henry Mackie replied quietly that the pickets were Ameri citizens pursuing their right to demonstrate peaceably uhe stitution.
The leader looked at Henry Mackie. "Youre flits, you guys, huh?" he said. He then snatched a handful of leaflets out of Edward Ashers hands, and when Edward Asher attempted to recover them, danced away out of reach while two others stood in Ashers way. "What do you flits think youre doin?" he said. "What is this shit?"
"You havent got any right. . ." Henry Mackie started to say, but the leader of the youths moved very close to him then.
"What do you mean, you dont believe in God?" he said. The other ones moved in closer too.
"That is not the question," Henry Mackie said. "Belief or nonbelief is not at issue. The situation remains the same whether you believe or not. The human dition is. . ."
"Listen," the leader said, "I thought all you guys went to church every day. Now you tell me that flits dont believe in God. You putting me on?"
Henry Mackie repeated that belief was not involved, and said that it was, rather, a question of man helpless in the grip of a definition of himself that he had not drawn, that could not be altered by human a, and that was in fual flict with every human notion of what should obtain. The pickets were simply subjeg this state of affairs to a radical questioning, he said.
"Youre putting me on," the youth said, and attempted to kick Henry Mackie in the groin, but Mackie turned away in time. However the other youths then jumped the pickets, right in the middle of Rockefeller ter. Henry Mackie was thrown to the pavement and kicked repeatedly in the head, Edward Ashers coat was ripped off his bad he sustained many blows in the kidneys and elsewhere, and Howard Ettle was given a broken rib by a youth called "Cutter" who shoved him against a wall and smashed him viciously even though bystaried to interfere (a few of them). All this happened in a very short space of time. The pickets signs were broken and smashed and their leafl..ets scattered everywhere. A poli summoned by bystaried to catch the youths but they got away through the lobby of the Associated Press building aury-handed. Medical aid was summoned for the pickets. Photos were taken.
"Senseless violence," Edward Asher said later. "They didnt uand that. . ."
"On the trary," Henry Mackie said, "they uand everythier than anybody."
The evening, at 8 P.M. Henry Mackie delivered his lecture in the upstairs meeting room at the Playmor Lanes, as had been announced in the leaflet. The crowd was very small but attentive and ied. Henry Mackie had his head bandaged in a white bandage. He delivered his lecture titled "What Is To Be Done?" with good di and enunciation and in a strong voice. He was very eloquent. And eloquence, Henry Mackie says, is really all any of us hope for.
Up, Aloft in the Air
Buck saw now that the situatioween Nand himself was siderably more serious than he had imagined. She exhibited unmistakable signs of a leaning in his dire. The leaning was acute, sometimes he thought she would fall, sometimes he thought she would not fall, sometimes he didnt care, and in every way tried to prove himself the man that he was. It meant dressing in unusual clothes and the breaking of old habits. But how could he shatter her dreams after all they had eogether? after all they had jointly seen and done since first identifying Cleveland as Cleveland? "Nancy," he said, "Im too old. Im not here is my son to sider, Peter." Her hand touched the area between her breasts where hung a decoration, datiimated from the World War I period -- that famous period!
The turbojet, their "ship," landed on its wheels. Buck wondered about the wheels. Why didnt they shear off when the aircraft landed so hard with a sound like thunder? Many had wondered before him. W art of the history of lighter-than-air-ness, you fool. It was Nancy herself, standing behind him in the exit line, who had suggested that they dan the landing strip. "To establish rapport with the terrain," she said with her distant ess, made more intense by the hot glare of the Edie vendors and s trees. They dahe b, the merihe dolce far e. It was glorious there orip, amid air rich with the incredible vitality of jet fuel and the sensate music of exhaust. Twilight was lowered onto the landing pattern, a twilight such as has never graced Cleveland before, or sihen brokeless laughter and the hurried trip to the hotel.
"I uand," Nancy said. And looking at her dispassionately, Buck jectured that she did uand, unscrupulous as that may sound. Probably, he sidered, I vinced her against my will. The man from Southern Rhodesia ered him in the dangerous hotel elevator. "Do you think you have the right to hold opinions which differ from those of President Kennedy?" he asked. "The President of your land?" But the party made up for all that, or most of it, in a curious way. The baby on the floor, Saul, seemed enjoyable, perhaps more than his wont. Or my wont, Buck thought, who knows? A Ray Charles record spun in the gigantic salad bowl. Buck dahe frisson with the painters wife Perpetua (although Nancy was alone, back at the hotel). "I am named," Perpetua said, "after the famous typeface designed by the famous English designer, Eric Gill, in an earlier part of our tury." "Yes," Buck said calmly, "I know that face." She told him softly the history of her affair with her husband, Saul Senior. Sensuously, they covered the ground. And then two ruly police gentlemeered the room, with the guests blang, aud romaine and radishes too flying for the exits, which were choked with grass.
Bravery was everywhere, but not here tonight, for the gods were whistling up their mandarin sleeves in the yellow realms where such matters are decided, food or ill. Patheti his servile graciousness, Saul explained what he could while the guests played telephone games in crimson anterooms. The poli, the flower of the Cleveland Force, accepted a drink and danced a police dances of custody and enfort. Magically the music crept bader the perforated Guam doors; it was a se to make your heart cry. "That Perpetua," Saul plained, "why is she treating me like this? Why are the lamps turned low and why have the notes I sent her beeurned unopened, covered with red Postage Due stamps?" But Buck had, in all seriousness, hurried away.
The aircraft were calling him, their indelible flight plans whispered his name. He laid his cheek against the riveted flank of a bold 707. "In case e and blue flames," he wrote on a wing, "disengage yourself from the aircraft by chopping a hole in its bottom if necessary. Do not be swayed by the carpet; it is camel ahin. I suggest that you be alarmed, because the situation is very alarming. You are up in the air perhaps 35,000 feet, with e and blue flames oside and a ragged hole in the floorboards. What will you do?" And now, Nancy. He held out his arms. She came to him.
"Yes."
"Arent we?"
"Yes."
"It doesnt matter."
"Not to you. But to me. . ."
"Im wasting our time."
"The others?"
"I felt ashamed."
"Its being here, in Cleveland."
They returogether in a hired automobile. Three parking lots were filled with overflow crowds in an ugly mood. I am tired, so very tired. The man from Southern Rhodesia addressed the bellmen, who listeo his hateful words and thought of other things. "But, then," Buck said, but then Nancy laid a finger on his lips.
"You appear to me so superior, so elevated above all other men," she said, "I plate you with such a strange mixture of humility, admiration, revenge, love and pride that very little superstition would be necessary to make me worship you as a superior being."
"Yes," Buck said, for a fn sculptor, a Bavarian doubtless, was singing "You Take Your Love and Shove It Up Your Heart," covered though he was with stone dust and grog. The crowd roared at the apanists plying the exotistruments of Cleveland, the dolor, the mahe bim. Strum swiftly, fingers! The butlers did not hesitate for a minute. "History will absolve me," Buck reflected, aook the hand offered him with its enormous sapphires glowing like a garage. Theua danced up to him, her great amazing brown eyelashes being. "Where is Nancy?" she asked, and before he could reply, tinued her at of the great love of her existence, her relationship with her husband, Saul. "Hes funny and fine," she said, "and good and evil. In fact there is so much of him to tell you about, I hardly get it all out before curfew. Do you mind?"
The din of dang in Cleveland was now such that many people who did not know the plan were affronted. "This is an affront to Cleveland, this damn din!" one man said; and grog flowed ever more fiercely. The Secretary of State for Erotic Affairs flew in from Washington, the nations capital, to see for himself at first hand, and the man from Southern Rhodesia had no recourse. He lurked into the Cleveland Air Terminal. " I have a ticket for Miami?" he asked the dang ticket clerk at the Delta Airlines ter hopelessly. "Nothing to Miami this year," the clerk tered. "How I talk to him in this madness?" Nancy asked herself. "How the white bird of hope bless our clouded past and future with all this noise? How? How? How? How? How?"
But Saul waved in time, from the porch of Parking Lot Two. He was wearing his belt dangerously low on his hips. "There is copulation everywhere," he shouted, fanning his neck, "because of the dang! Yes, its true!" And so it was, incredibly enough. Affe was running riot uhe reprehensible scarlet sky. We were all afraid. "Incredible, incredible," Buck said to himself. "Even by those of whom you would not have expected it!" Perpetua glimmered at his ear. "Even by those," she insinuated, "of whom you would have expected. . . nothing." For a moment. . .
"Nancy," Buck exclaimed, "you are just about the damn girl in Cleveland!"
"What about your wife in Texas?" Nancy asked.
"She is very oo," Buck said, "as a matter of fact the more I think of it, the more I believe that nice girls like you and Hérodiade are what make life worth living. I wish there were more of them in America so that every man could have at least five."
"Five?"
"Yes, five."
"We will never agree on this figure," Nancy said.
2
The rubbery smell of Akron, sister city of Lahore, Pakistan, lay like the flameout of all our hopes over the plateau that evening.
When his aircraft was forced down at the Akron Airpark by the lapse of the port engines, which of course he had been expeg, Buck said: "But this, this. . . is Akron!" And it was Akron, sultry, molecular, crowded with inhabitants who held tiny transistor radios o their tiny ears. A wave of ingratitude overcame him. "Bum, bum," he said. He plumbed its heart. The citizens of Akron, after their hours at the plant, ed themselves in ill-designed love triangles whiever tained less than four persons of varying degrees of birth, high and low and mediocre. Beautiful Ohio! with your transistorized citizens and pt feometry, we loved you in the evening by the fireside waiting for our wife to nap so we could slip out and see our two girls, Manfred and Bella!
The first telephone call he received in his rum raisin hotel room, Charles, was from the Akron Wele Service.
"Wele! new human being! to Akron! Hello?"
"Hello."
"Are you in love with any of the inhabitants of Akro?"
"I just came from the airport."
"If not, or even if so, we want to invite you to the big get-acquainted party of the College Graduates Club tonight at 8:30 p.m."
"Do I have to be a college graduate?"
"No but you have to wear a coat and tie. Of course they are available at the door. What color pants are you wearing?"
Buck walked the resilient streets of Akron. His head was aflame with flig ideas. Suddenly he was arrested by a shrill cry. From the top of the Zimmer Building, one of the buildings in Akron, a group of Akron lovers mated a four-handed suicide leap. The air! Buck thought as he watched the tiny figures falling, this is certainly an air-minded try, America! But I must make myself useful. He entered a bunshop and purchased a sweet green bun, and dallied with the sweet green girl there, calling her "poppet" and "funicular." Then out into the street again to lean against the warm green fa?ade of the Zimmer Building and watch the workmen scrubbing the crimson sidewalk.
" you poihe way to the Akron slums, workman?"
"My name is not藏书网 workman. My name is Pat. "
"Well Pat which way?"
"I would be most happy to orient you, slumwise, were it not for the fact that slumlife in Akron has bee away with by municipal progressiveness. The municipality has caused to be erected, where slumlife once flourished, immense quadrativentions whiow house former slum-wife and former slumspouse alike. These incredibly beautiful structures are over that way."
"Thanks, Pat. "
At the housing development, which was gauche and grand, Buck came upon a man urinating in the elevator, o a man breaking windows in the broom closet. "What are you fellows doing there!" Buck cried aloud. "We are expressing e at this fine new building!" the men exclaimed. "Oh that this day had never formulated! We are going to call it Ruesday, thats how we feel about it, by gar!" Buck stood in a wash of inprehension and doubt. "You mean there is rage in Akron, the home of quadratic love?" "There is quadratic rage also," the men said, "Akron is rage from a certain point of view." Angel food covered the floor i squares. And what could be wrong with that? Everything?
"What is that point of view there, to which you refer?" Buck asked dumbly. "The point of view of the poor peopte of Akron," those ho yeoman ted, "or, as the city fathers prefer it, the underdeveloped people of Akron." And in their eyes, there was a strange light. "Do you know what the name of this housing development is?" "What?" Buck asked. "Sherwood Forest," the men said, "isnt that disgusting?"
The men invited Buck to sup with their girls, Heidi, Eleanee, Purple, Ann-Marie, and Los. Iree, starlings fretted and died, but below everything was glass. Harold poured the wine of the region, a light Cheer, into the fotten napery. And the great horse of evening trod over the immense se ond for all. We examined our sces. Many a tiny sin was rooted out that night, to make room freater o was "hello" and "yes" and "yes, yes" through the sacerdotal hours, from oo eight. Heidi held a pencil betweeeeth. "Do you like pencil games?" she asked. Something lurked behind the veil of her eyes. "Not. . . especially," Buck said, "I. . ."
But a parade headed by a battalion of warm and lovely girls from the Akron Wele Service elected this tense moment to e dang by, with bands blazing and hideous floats in praise of rubber. goods expanding in every dire. The rubber batons of the girls bent ierglow of events. "It is impossible to discuss serious ideas during a parade," the Akron unists said to Buck, and they slipped away to tinue expressing their rage in another part of the Forest.
"Goodbye!" Buck said. "Goodbye! I wont fet. . ."
The Wele Service girls looked very bravura in their brief white-and-gold Wele Serviiforms which displayed a fine amount of "leg." Look at all that "leg" glittering there! Buck said to himself, and followed the parade all the way to Toledo.
3
"Ingarden dear," Buck said to the pretty wife of the mayor of Toledo, who was reading a copy of Infrequent Love magazine, "where are the poets of Toledo? Where do they hang out?" He showered her with gifts. She rose and moved mysteriously into the bedroom, to see if Henry were sleeping. "There is only one," she said, "the old poet of the city stantine Cavity." A frost of emotion clouded her fuzz-colored lenses. "He operates a juju drugstore in the oldest se of the city and never goes anywhere except to make one of his rare aiful appearances." "stantino Cavity!" Buck exclaimed, "even in Texas where I e from we have heard of this fine poet. You must take me to see him at once." Abandoning Henry to his fate (and it was a bitter one!) Bud Ingarden rushed off hysterically to the drugstore of stantine Cavity, Buventing as they rolled something graceful to say to this old poet, the forerunner so to speak of poetry in America.
Was there fondness in our eyes? We could not tell. zas of dots staihe Western Alliance, already, perhaps, prejudiced beyond the power of prayer to redeem it. "Do you think there is too much hair on my neck? here?" Ingarden asked Buck. But before he could answer she said: "Oh shut up!" She khat Mrs. Lutch, whose i in the pastor was only feigned, would find the Ameri way if anyone could.
At stantine Cavitys drugstore a meeting of the Toledo Medical Society was being held, in sequence of which Buck did not get to utter his opening words which were to have been: "Cavity, we are here!" A pity, but call the roll! See, or rather hear, who is present, and who is not! Present were
Dr. Caligari
Dr. Frank
Dr. Pepper
Dr. Scholl
Dr. Frahaler
Dr. Mabuse
Dr. Grabow
Dr. Melmoth
Dr. Weil
Dr. Modesto
Dr. Fu Manchu
Dr. Wellington
Dr. Watson
Dr. Brown
Dr. Rococo
Dr. Dolittle
Dr. Alvarez
Dr. Spoke
Dr. Hutch
Dr. Spain
Dr. Malone
Dr. Kline
Dr. Casey
Dr. No
Dr. Regatta
Dr. Il y a
Dr. Baderman
Dr. Aveni
and other doctors. The air was stuffy here, rades, for the doctors were sidering (yes!) a resolution of sure against the beloved old poet. Ao this badinage and wit! Let us be grave. It was claimed that Cavity had dispensed. . . but who quarrel with Love Rohtly used? It has saved many a lip. The prosecution was in the able hands of Dr. Kline, who ied the heart, and Dr. Spain, after whom Spain is named some believe. Their godlike figures towered over the tiny poet.
Kline advances.
Cavity rises to his height, which is not great.
Ingarden holds her breath.
Spain fades, back, back. . .
A handout from Spain to Kline.
Buck is down.
A luau?
The poet opens. . .
No! No! Get back!
". . . and if that way is long, and leads around by the reactor, and down in the valley, and up the garden path, leave her, I say, to heaven. For sce has its reasons that reason knows not of," Cavity finished. And it was done.
"Hell!" said one doctor, and the others shuffled morosely around the drugstore iing the strange wares that were being vehere. It was clear that no resolution of sure could possibly. . . But of course not! What were we thinking of?
Cavity himself seemed pleased at the oute of the proceedings. He recited to Bud Ingarden his long love poems entitled "In the Blue of Evening," "Long Ago and Far Away," "Who?" and "Homage to W. C. Williams." The feet of the visitors danced against the sawdust floor of the juju drugstore to the pelling rhythms of the poets poems. A rime of happiness whitened on the surface of their two faces. "Even in Texas," Buck whispered, "where things are very exg, there is nothing like the old face of stantino Cavity. Are you true?"
"Oh I wish things were other."
"You do?"
"There are such a lot of fine people in the world I wish I was one of them!"
"You are, you are!"
"Not essentially. Not inwardly."
"Youre very authentic I think."
"Thats all right in Cleveland, where authenticity is the thing, but here. . ."
"Kiss me please."
"Again?"
4
The parachutes of the other passengers snapped and crackled in the darkness all around him. There had been a malfun ierburner and the pilot decided to "ditch." The whole thing was very unfortunate. "What is your life-style, ati?" Buck asked the recumbent jewel glittering below him like an old bucket of industrial diamonds. "Have you the boldness of Cleveland? the anguish of Akron? the torpor of Toledo? What is your posture, ati?" Frostily the silent city approached his feet.
Upon making tact with ati Bud such of the other passengers of the ill-fated flight 309 as had survived the "drop" proceeded to a hotel.
"Is that a flask you have there?"
"Yes it is grog as it happens."
"Thats wonderful."
Warmed by the grog which set his blood rag, Buck went to his room and threw himself on his bed. "Oh!" he said suddenly, "I must be in the wrong room!" The girl in the bed stirred sleepily. "Is that you Harvey?" she asked. "Where have you been all this time?" "No, its Buck," Buck said to the girl, who looked very pretty in her blue flannel nightshirt drawn up about her kneecaps on which there were red lines. "I must be in the wrong room Im afraid," he repeated. "Buck, get out of this room immediately!" the girl said coldly. "My name is Stephanie and if my friend Harvey finds you here therell be an unpleasant se."
"What are you doing tomorrow?" Buck asked.
Having made a "date" with Stephanie for the m at 10 A.M., Buck slipped off to an i sleep in his own bed.
M in ati! The glorious cold ati sunlight fell indiscriminately around the city, here and there, warming almost no oephanie de Moulpied was wearing an ice-blue wool suit in which she looked very cold aiful and starved. "Tell me about your ati life," Buck said, "the quality of it, thats what Im ied in." "My life here is very aristocratic," Stephanie said, "polo, ed peaches, liaisons dangéreuses, and so on, because I am a member of an old ati family. However its not much fun which is why I made this 10 A.M. date with you, exg stranger from the sky!" "Im really from Texas," Buck said, "but Ive been having a little trouble with airplanes on this trip. I dont really trust them too much. Im not sure theyre trustworthy." "Who is trustworthy after all?" Stephanie said with a cold sigh, looking blue. "Are you blue Stephanie?" Buck asked. "Am I blue?" Stephanie wondered. In the silehat followed, she ted her friends aionships.
"Is there any hy artistic activity in this town?"
"Like what do you mean?"
Buck then kissed Stephanie in a taxicab as a way of dissipating the bluehat was such a feature of her face. "Are all the girls in ati like you?" "All the first-class girls are like me," Stephanie said, "but there are some irls whom I woion."
A faint sound of. . . A wave of. . . Dense clouds of. . . Heavily the immense weight of. . . Thin strands of. . .
Dr. Hesperidian had fallen into the little pool in va Ryans garden (of course!) and everyone ulling him out. Strangers met and fell in love over the problem of getting a grip on Dr. Hesperidian. A steel band played arias from Wozzeck. He lay just below the surface, a rime of algae whitening his cheekbones. He seemed to be. . . "Not that way," Buck said reag for the belt buckle. "This way." The crowd fell back among the pines.
"You seem to be a nice young man, young man," va Ryan said, "although we have many of these of our own now sihe General Electric plant came to town. Are you in puterization?"
Buck remembered the endearing red lines on Stephanie de Moulpieds knees.
"Id rather not ahat question," he said holy, "but if theres some other question youd like me to answer. . ."
vaurned away sadly. The steel band played "Red Boy Blues," "Thats All," "Gigantic Blues," "Muggles," "Coolin," and "Edward." Although each player was maimed in a different way. . . but the affair bees, one fears, too personal. The band got a nice sound. Hookers thied oable placed there for that purpose. "I grow less, rather than more, intimately involved with human beings as I move through world life," Buck thought, "is that my fault? Is it a fault?" The musis rehe extremely romantic ballads "I Didnt Know What Time It Was," "Scratch Me," and "Misty." The grim forever adumbrated i issues of Mind pressed down, down. . . Where is Stephanie de Moulpied? No one could tell him, and in truth, he did not want to know. It is not he who asks this question, it is Mrs. Lutch. She glides down her glide path, sinuously, she is falling, she bursts into flame, her last words: "Tell them. . . when they crash. . . turn off. . .the ignition."
Margins
Edward was explaining to Carl about margins. "The width of the margin shows culture, aestheticism and a sense of values or the lack of them," he said. "A very wide left margin shows an impractical person of culture and refi with a deep appreciation for the best in art and music. Whereas," Edward said, quoting his handwriting analysis book, "whereas, narrow left margins show the opposite. margin at all shoractiature, a wholesome ey and a general lack of good taste is. A very wide right margin shoerson afraid to face reality, oversensitive to the future and generally a poor mixer."
"I dont believe in it," Carl said.
"Now," Edward tinued, "with refereo yn there, you have an all-around wide margin which shoerson of extremely delicate sensibilities with love of color and form, one who holds aloof from the multitude and lives in his own dream world of beauty and good taste."
"Are you sure you got thbbr>at right?"
"Im unig with you," Edward said, "across a vast gulf of ignorand darkness."
"I brought the darkness, is that the idea?" Carl asked.
"Yht the darkness, you black mother," Edward said. "Funky, man."
"Edward," >Carl said, "fods sake."
"Why did you write all that jazz on yn, Carl? Why? Its not true, is it? Is it?"
"Its kind of true," Carl said. He looked down at his brown sandwich boards, which said: I ut In Jail in Selby ty Alabama For Five Years For Stealing A Dollar and A Half Which I Did Not Do. While I Was In Jail My Brother Was Killed & My Mother Ran Away When I Was Little. In Jail I Began Preag & I Preach to People Wherever I Bearing the Witness of Eschatological Love. I Have Filled Out Papers for Jobs But Nobody Will Give Me a Job Because I Have Been In Jail & The Whole Se Is Very Dreary, Pepsi Cola. I Need Your s to Get Food. Patent Applied For & Deliver Us From Evil. "Its true," Carl said, "with a kind of merde-y iruth which shines forth as the objective correlative of what actually did happen, bae."
"Now, look at the way you made that m and that n there," Edward said. "The tops are pointed rather than rouhat indicates aggressiveness and energy. The fact that theyre also pointed rather than rou the bottom indicates a sarcastic, stubborn and irritable nature. See what I mean?"
"If you say so," Carl said.
"Your capitals are very small," Edward said, "indig humility."
"My mother would be pleased," Carl said, "if she knew."
"Oher hand, the excessive size of the loops in your y and y display exaggeration and egoism."
"Thats always been one of my problems," Carl answered.
"Whats your whole name?" Edward asked, leaning against a building. They were on Fourteenth Street, near Broadway.
"Carl Maria von Weber," Carl said.
"Are you a drug addict?"
"Edward," Carl said, "you are a swinger."
"Are you a Muslim?"
Carl felt his long hair. "Have you read The Mystery of Being, by Gabriel Marcel? I really liked that one. I thought that one was fine."
"No, Carl, ahe question," Edward insisted. "Theres got to be frankness and hoy between the races. Are you one?"
"I think an aodation be reached and the gover is doing all it at the moment," Carl said. "I think theres something to be said on all sides of the question. This is not such a good place to hustle, you know that? I havent got but two s all m."
"People like people who look ," Edward said. "You look kind of crummy, if you dont mind my saying so."藏书网
"You really think its too long?" Carl asked, feeling his hair again.
"Do you think Im a pretty color?" Edward asked. "Are you envious?"
"No," Carl said. "Not envious."
"See? Exaggeration and egoism. 9９liｂ?Just like I said."
"Youre kind of b, Edward. To tell the truth."
Edward thought about this for a moment. Then he said: "But Im white."
"Its the color of choice," Carl said. "Im tired of talking about color, though. Lets talk about values or something."
"Carl, Im a fool," Edward said suddenly.
"Yes," Carl said.
"But Im a white fool," Edward said. "Thats whats so lovely about me."
"You are lovely, Edward," Carl said. "Its true. You have a nice look. Your aspect is good."
"Oh, hell," Edward said despoly. "Youre very well-spoken," he said. "I noticed that."
"The reason for that is," Carl said, "I read. Did you read The ibal by John Hawkes? I thought that was a hell of a book."
"Get a haircut, Carl," Edward said. "Get a new suit. Maybe one of those alian suits with the tight coats. You could be upwardly mobile, you know, if you just put your bato it."
"Why are you worried, Edward? Why does my situation distress you? Why dont you just walk away and talk to somebody else?"
"You bother me," Edward fessed. "I keep trying to pee your inner reality, to find out what it is. Isnt that curious?"
"John Hawkes also wrote The Beetle Leg and a couple of other books whose titles escape me at the moment," Carl said. "I think hes one of the best of our younger Ameri writers."
"Carl," Edward said, "what is your inner reality? Blurt it out, baby."
"Its mine," Carl said quietly. He gazed down at his shoes, which resembled a pair of large dead brownish birds.
"Are you sure you didnt steal that dollar and a half mentioned on yn?"
"Edward, I told you I didnt steal that dollar and a half." Carl stamped up and down in his sandwich boards. "It sure is cold here on Fourteenth Street."
"Thats your imagination, Carl," Edward said. "This street isnt any colder than Fifth, or Lex. Your feeling that its colder here probably just arises from your marginal status as a despised person in our society."
"Probably," Carl said. There was a look on his face. "You know I went to the gover, and asked them to give me a job in the Marine Band, and they wouldnt do it?"
"Do you blow good, man? Wheres your axe?"
"They wouldnt give me that cotton-pi job," Carl said. "What do you think of that?"
"This eschatological love," Edward said, "what land of love is that?"
"That is later love," Carl said. "Thats what I call it, anyhow. Thats love oher side of the Jordan. The term refers to a set of ditions which. . . Its kind of a story we black people tell to ourselves to make ourselves happy."
"Oh me," Edward said. "Ignorand darkness."
"Edward," Carl said, "you dont like me."
"I do too like you, Carl," Edward said. "Where do you steal your books, mostly?"
"Mostly in drugstores," Carl said. "I find them good because mostly theyre long and narrow and the clerks tend to stay he prescription ters at the back of the store, whereas the books are usually in those little revolving raear the front of the store. Its normally pretty easy to slip a couple in your overcoat pocket, if youre wearing an overcoat."
"But. . ."
"Yes," Carl said, "I know what youre thinking. If Ill steal books Ill steal other things. But stealing books is metaphysically different from stealing like money. Villon has something pretty good to say on the subject I believe."
"Is that in If I Were King?"
"Besides," Carl added, "havent you ever stolen anything? At some point in your life?"
"My life," Edward said. "Why do you remind me of it?"
"Edward, youre not satisfied with your life! I thought white lives were nice!" Carl said, surprised. "I love that word makes me so happy."
"Listen Carl," Edward said, "why dont you just trate on improving your handwriting."
"My character, you mean."
"No," Edward said, "dont bother improving your character. Just improve your handwriting. Make larger capitals. Make smaller loops in your y and y. Watch your word-spag so as not to display disorientation. Watargins."
"Its an idea. But isnt that kind of a superficial approach to the problem?"
"Be careful about the spaces between the lines," Edward went on. "Spag of lines shows clearness of thought. Pay attention to your finals. There are twenty-two different kinds of finals and eae tells a lot about a person. Ill lend you the book. Good handwriting is the key to adva, or if not the key, at least a key. You could be the first man of your race to be Vice-President."
"Thats something to shoot for, all right."
"Would you like me to go get the book?"
"I dont think so," Carl said, "no thanks. Its not that I dont have any faith in your solution. What I would like is to take a leak. Would you mind holding my sandwich boards for a minute?"
"Not at all," Edward said, and in a moment had slipped Carls sandwich boards over his own slight shoulders. "Boy, theyre kind of heavy, arent they?"
"They cut you a bit," Carl said with a malicious smile. "Ill just go into this mens store here."
When Carl returhe two men slapped each other sharply in the face with the back of the hand, that beautiful part of the hand where the knuckles grow.
The Jokers Greatest Triumph
Fredrit over to his friend Bruce Waynes house about every Tuesday night. Bruce would be typically sitting in his study drinking a glass of something. Fredric would e in and sit down and look around the study in which there were many trophies of past exploits.
"Well Fredric what have you been doing? Anything?"
"No Bruce things have been just sort of rog along."
"Well this is Tuesday night and usually theres some a on Tuesday night."
"I know Bruce or otherwise I wouldnt pick Tuesday night to e over."
"You wao turn on the radio Fredric? Usually theres something iing on the radio or maybe youd like a little musiy hi-fi?"
Bruce Waynes radio ecial short-wave model with mara features. When Bruce tur on there was a squealing noise and then they were listening to Tokyo or somewhere. Above the radio on the wall hung a trophy from an exploit: a long Afri spear with a spearhead made of tin.
"Tell me Bruce what is it youre drinking there?" Fredric asked.
"Im sorry Fredric its tomato juice. I get you a glass?"
"Does it have anything in it or is it just plain tomato juice?"
"Its tomato juice with a little vodka."
"Yes I wouldnt mind a glass," Fredric said. "Not too heavy on the vodka please."
While Bruce went out to the kit to make the drink Fredric got up a over to examihe Afri spear more closely. It was he saw tipped with a rusty darkish substance, probably some rare exotic poisohought.
"What is this stuff on the end of this Afri spear?" he asked when Bruce came bato the room.
"I must have left the other bottle of vodka imobile," Bruce said. "Oh thats curare, deadliest of the South Ameri poisons," he affirmed. "It attacks the motor nerves. Be careful there and dont scratch yourself."
"Thats okay Ill just drink this tomato juice straight," Fredric said settling himself in his chair and looking out of the window. "Oh-oh theres the bat symbol spotlighted against the sky. This must mean a call from issiordon at headquarters."
Bruce looked out of the window. A long beam of yellowish light culminating in a perfect bat symbol lahe evening sky.
"I told you Tuesday night was usually a good night," Bruce Wayne said. He put his vodka-and-tomato-juice down on the p..iano. "Hold on a minute while I ge will you?"
"Sure, take your time," Fredric said. "By the way is Robin still at Andover?"
"Yes," Bruce said. "Hell be home for Thanksgiving, I think. Hes having a little trouble with his French."
"Well I dido interrupt you," Fredric said. "Go ahead and ge. Ill just look at this magazine."
After Bruce had ged they both went out to the garage where the Batmobile and the Batplane waited.
Batman was humming a tune which Fredric reized as being the "Warsaw certo." "Whie shall we take?" he said. "Its always hard to decide on a vague and ierminate kind of assig like this."
"Lets flip," Fredric suggested.
"Do you have a quarter?" Batman asked.
"No but I have a dime. That should be okay," Fredric said. They flipped, heads for the Batmobile, tails for the Batplahe came up heads.
"Well," Batman said as they climbed into the fortable Batmobile, "at least you have some vodka now. Its uhe seat."
"I hate to drink it straight," Fredric said.
"Press that button there on the dashboard," Batman said. Fredric pressed the button and a panel on the dashboard slid back to reveal a little bar, with ice, glasses, water, soda, quinine, lemons, limes etc.
"Thanks," Fredric said. " I mix you one?"
"Not while Im w," Batman said. "Is there enough quier? I fot to get some when I went to the liquor store last night."
"Plenty," Fredric said. He enjoyed his vodka tonic as Batman wheeled the great Batmobile expertly through the dark streets of Gotham City.
In issiordons office at Police Headquarters the issioner said: "Glad you finally got here Batman. Who is this with you?"
"This is my friend Fredric Brown," Batman said. "Fredriissiordon." The two men shook hands and Batman said: "Now issioner, what is this all about?"
"This!" issiordon said. He placed a small ship model on the desk before him. "The package came by messenger, addressed to you, Batman! Im afraid your old enemy, The Joker, is on the loose again!"
Batman hummed a peculiar melody which Fredric reized as the "ish Rhapsody" which is oher side of the "Warsaw certo." "Hmmmmm!" Batman said. "This sounds to me like another one of The Jokers challeo a duel of wits!"
"Flying Dut!" Fredric exclaimed, reading the name painted on the bow of the model ship. "The name of a famous old ghost vessel? What it mean!"
"A cleverly disguised clue!" Batman said. "The Flying Dut meant here is probably the Dutch jewel mert Hendrik van Voort who is flying to Gotham City tonight with a delivery of precious gems!"
"Good thinking Batman!" issiordon said. "I probably never would have figured it out in a thousand years!"
"Well well have to hurry to get out to the airport!" Batman said. "Whats the best way to get there from here issioner?"
"Well if I were you Id go out 34th Street until you hit the War Memorial, then take a right on Memorial Drive until it ects with Gotham Parkway! After youre on the Parkway its clear sailing!" he indicated.
"Wait a minute!" Batman said. "Wouldnt it be quicker to get on the Dugan Expressway where it es in there at 11th Street and then take the North Loop out to the Richardson Freeway? Dont you think that would save time?"
"Well I e to work that way!" the issioner said. "But theyre putting in awo lanes on the North Loop, so that you have to detour down Strand, then cut over to 99th to get ba the Expressway! Takes you about two miles out of your way!" he said.
"Okay!" Batman said, "well go out 34th! Thanks issioner and dont worry about anything! e on Fredric!"
"Oh by the way," issiordon said. "Hows Robin doing at Exeter?"
"Its er its Andover," Batman said. "Hes doing very well. Having a little trouble with his French."
"I had a little trouble with it myself," the issioner said jovially. "Où est man livre?"
"Où est ton livre?" Batman said.
"Où est son livre?" the issioner said pointing at Fredric.
"Tout cela sest passé en dix-neuf t vingt-quatre," Fredric said.
"Well wed better creep issioner," Batman said. "The Joker as you know is a pretty slippery er. e on Fredric."
"Glad to ha99liｂ? you issioner," Fredric said.
"Me too," the issioner said, shaking Fredrics hand. "This is a fine-appearing young man Batman. Where did you find him?"
"Hes just a friend," Batman said smiling under his mask.
"We get together usually on Tuesday nights and have a few."
"What do you do Fredric? I mean how do you make your living?"
"I sell Grit, a neer which has most of its circulation trated in rural areas," Fredric said. "However I sell it right here in Gotham City. Many of todays leaders sold Grit during their boyhoods."
"Okay," said issiordon, ushering them out of his office. "Good luck. Téléphonez-moi un de ces jours."
&quhto," Batman said, and they hurried dowreet to the Batmobile, which arked in a truck zone.
" we stop for a minute on the way?" Fredric asked. "Im out of cigarettes."
"There are some Viceroys in the glove partment," Batman said pushing a button. A panel on the dashboard slid back to reveal a fresh carton of Viceroys.
"I usually prefer Kents," Fredric said, "but Viceroys are tasty too."
"Theyre all about the same I find," Batman said. "Most of the alleged differences in cigarettes are just advertising as far as Im ed."
"I wouldnt be surprised if you were right about that," Fredric said. The Batmobile sped down the dark streets of Gotham City totham Airport.
"Turn on the radio," Batman suggested. "Maybe we catch the news or something."
Fredric turned on the radio but there was nothing unusual on it.
At Gotham Airport the jewel mert Hendrik van Voort was just dismounting from his KLM jet whemobile wheeled onto the landing strip, waved through the gates by respectful airport poli gray uniforms.
"Well everything seems to be okay," Batman said. "Theres the armored car waiting to take Mr. van Voort to his destination."
"Thats a new kind of armored car isnt it?" Fredric asked.
Without a word Batman leaped through the open door of the armored car and grappled with the shadowy figure inside.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
"Thats The Jokers laugh!" Fredric reflected. "The man ihe armored car must be the grinning of crime himself!"
"Batman! I thought that clue I sent you would leave you pletely at sea!"
"No, Joker! Im afraid this leaves your plans up in the air!"
"But not for long Batman! Im going t you down to earth!"
With a swift movement, The Joker crashed the armored car into the side of the Terminal Building!
CRASH!
"Great Scott!" Fredric said to himself. "Batman is stunned! Hes helpless!"
"You foiled my plans Batman," The Joker said, "but before the police get here, Im going to lift that mask of yours and find out who you really are! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"
Fredric watched, horror-stri. "Great Scott! The Joker has unmasked Batman! Now he knows that Batman is really Bruce Wayne!"
At this moment Robin, who was supposed to be at Andover, many miles away, lahe Batplane on the airstrip and came rag toward the wrecked armored car! But The Joker, alerted, grasped a cable lowered by a h helicopter and was quickly lifted skyward! Robin paused at the armored car and put the mask ba Batmans face!
"Hello Robin!" Fredric called. "I thought you were at Andover!"
"I was but I got a sudden feeling Barman needed me so I flew here iplane," Robin said. "Howve you been?"
"Fine," Fredric said. "But we left the Batplane in the garage, back at the Bat-Cave. I dont uand."
"We have two of everything," Robin explained. "Although its not generally known."
With Fredrics aid Robin carried the stunned Batman to the waiting Batmobile. "You drive the Batmobile back to the Bat-Cave and Ill follow iplane," Robin said. "All right?"
"Check," Fredric said. Dont you think we ought to give him a little brandy or something?"
"Thats a good idea," Robin said. "Press that button there on the dashboard. Thats the brandy button."
Fredric pressed the button and a panel slid back, revealing a bottle of B & B and the appropriate number of glasses.
"This is pretty tasty," Fredric said, tasting the B & B. "How much is it a fifth?"
"Arou dollars," Robin said. "There, that seems to be rest him to his senses."
"Great Scott," Batman said, "what happened?"
"The Joker crashed the armored car and you were stunned," Fredric explained.
"Hi Robin what are you doing here? I thought you were up at school," Batman said.
"I was," Robin said. "Are you okay now? you drive home okay?"
"I think so," Batman said. "What happeo The Joker?"
"He got away," Fredric said, "but not before lifting your mask while you lay stunned in the wreckage of the wrecked armored car."
"Yes Batman," Robin said seriously, "I think he learned your real identity."
"Great Scott!" Batman said. "If he reveals it to the whole world it will mean the end of my career as a crime-fighter! Well, its a problem."
They drove seriously back to the Bat-Cave, thinking about the problem. Later, in Bruce Wayudy, Bruce Wayne, Fredrid Robin, who was now dressed in the servative Andover clothes of Dick Grayson, Bruce Waynes ward, mulled the whole thing over between them.
"What makes The Joker tick I wonder?" Fredric said. "I mean what are his real motivations?"
"sider him at any level of duct," Bruce said slowly, "in the home, oreet, in interpersonal relations, in jail -- always there is araordinary tradi. He is dirty and pulsively , aloof and desperately gregarious, enthusiastid sullen, generous and stingy, a snappy dresser and a scarecrow, a gentleman and a biven to extremes of happiness and despair, singularly well able to apply himself and capable of frittering away a lifetime in trivial pursuits, decorous and unseemly, land and cruel, tolera open to the most eous varieties of bigotry, a great friend and an implacable enemy, a lover and an abominator of women, sweet-spoken and foul-mouthed, a rake and a puritan, swelling with hubris and haunted by inferiority, outcast and social climber, felon and philanthropist, barbarian and patron of the arts, enamored of y and solidly servative, philosopher and fool, Republi and Democrat, large of soul and unbearably petty, distant and brimming with friendly impulses, an ie liar and astonishingly strict with petty cash, adventurous and timid, imaginative and stolid, malignly destructive and a planter of trees on Arbor Day -- I tell you frankly, the man is a mess."
"Thats extremely well said Bruce," Fredric stated. "I think youve given really a very thoughtful analysis."
"I araphrasing what Mark Schorer said about Sinclair Lewis," Bruce replied.
"Well its very brilliant just the same," Fredrioted. "I guess Id better go home now."
"We could all use a little sleep," Bruce Wayne said. "By the way Fredric how are the Grit sales ing along? Are you getting many subscriptions?"
"Yes quite a few Bruce," Fredric said. "Ive been doing particularly well in the wealthier ses of Gotham City although the strength of Grit is usually found in rural areas. By the way Dick if you want to borrow my language records to help you with your French you e by Saturday."
"Thanks Fredric Ill do that," Dick said.
"Okay Bruce," Fredric said, "Ill see you uesday night probably unless something es up."
To London and Rome
Do you know what I want more than anything else? Alison asked.
THERE WAS A BRIEF PAUSE
What? I said.
A sewing-mae Alison said, with buttonhole-making attats.
THERE WAS A LONG PAUSE
There are so many things I could do with it for instance fixing up last years fall dresses and lots of other things.
THERE WAS A TREMENDOUS PAUSE DURING WHICH I BOUGHT HER A NECCHI SEWING-MAE
Wonderful! Alison said sitting at the trols of the Necchi and making buttonholes in a copy of the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Her eyes glistened. I had also bought a two-year subscription to Necews because I could not be sure that her i would not be held for that long at least.
THERE AUSE BROKEN ONLY BY THE HUMMING OF THE NECCHI
Then I bought her a purple Rolls which we decided to park oreet because our apartment building had ne. Alison said she absolutely loved the Rolls! and gave me ahusiastic kiss. I paid for the car with a check drawn on the First City Bank.
THERE WAS AN INTERVAL
Peter Alison said, what do you want to do now?
Oh I dont know I said.
THERE WAS A LONG INTERVAL
Well we t simply sit around the apartment Alison said so we went to the races at Aqueduct where I bought a race horse that was running well out in front of the others. What a handsome race horse! Alison said delightedly. I paid for the horse with a che the Capital National Bank.
THERE WAS AN INTERMISSIOWEEN RACES SO WE WENT AROUND TO THE STABLES AND BOUGHT A HORSE TRAILER
The trailer was attached by means of a trailer hitch, which I bought when it became clear that the trailer could not be hitched up without oo the back of our new Rolls. The horses name was Dan and I bought a horse bla, which he was already wearing but which did not e with him, to keep him warm.
He is beautiful Alison said.
A front-ruoo I said.
THERE WAS AN INTERVAL OF SEVERAL DAYS. THEN ALISON AND I DROVE THE CAR WITH THE TRAILER UP THE RAMP INTO THE PLANE AND WE FLEW BAILWAUKEE
After stopping for lunch at Howard Johnsons where we fed Dan some fried clams which he seemed to like very much Alison said: Do you know what weve pletely fotten? I khat there was something but although I thought hard I could not imagine what it was.
Theres no place to keep him in our apartment building! Alison said triumphantly, pointing at Dan. She was of course absolutely right and I hastily bought a large three-story house in Milwaukees best suburb. To make the house more fortable I bought a cert grand piano.
ON THE DOORSTEP OF THE NEW HOUSE THE PIANO MOVERS PAUSED FLASS OF COLD WATER
Here are some little matters whiust attend to Alison said, handing me a box of bills. I went through them carefully, noting the amounts and thinking about money.
What in the name of God is this! I cried, holding up a bill for $1600 from the hardware store.
Garden hose Alison said calmly.
THERE WAS AN UNFORTABLE SILENCE
It was clear that I would have to remove some money from the State Bank & Trust and place it in the Municipal National and I did so. The pilot of the airplane which I had bought to fly us to Aqueduct, with his friend the pilot of the larger plane I had bought to fly us back, appeared at the door and asked to be paid. The pilots names were Gee and Sam. I paid them and also bought from Sam his flight jacket, which was khaki-colored and pleasant-looking. They smiled and saluted as they left.
Well I said looking around the new house, wed better call a piano teacher because I uand that without use pianos tend to fall out of tune.
Not only pianos Alison said giving me aing look.
A SILENCE FREIGHTED WITH SEXUAL SIGNIFISUED. THEN WE WENT TO BED FIRST HOWEVER A PIANO TEACHER AND A PIANO TUNER FOR THE EARLY M
The day Mr. Washington from the tral National called to report an overdraft of several huhousand dollars for which I apologized. Who was that oelephone? Alison asked. Mr. Washington from the bank I replied. Oh Alison said, what do you want for breakfast? What have you got? I asked. Nothing Alison said, well have to go out for breakfast.
So we went down to the drugstore where Alison had eggs sunny side up and I had buckwheat cakes with sausage. Whe back to the house I noticed that there were no trees surrounding it, which depressed me.
Have you noticed I asked, that there are no trees?
A SILENCE
Yes Alison said, Ive noticed.
A PROLONGED SILENCE
In fact Alison said, the treelessness of this house almost makes me yearn for our old apartment building.
A TERRIBLE SILENCE
There at least one could look at the large plants in the lobby.
ABSOLUTE SILENCE FOR ONE MINUTE
As soon as we go inside I said, I will call the tree servid buy some trees.
Maples I said.
SHORT SILENCE
Oh Peter what a fine idea Alison said brightly. But who are these people in our livingroom?
SILENTLY WE REGARDED THE TWO MEN WHO SAT ON THE SOFA
Realizing that the mehe piano teacher and the piano tuner we had requested, I said: Well did you try the piano?
Yep the first man said, couldnt make heads or tails out of it.
And you? I asked, turning to the other man.
Beats me he said with a mystified look.
What seems to be the difficulty? I asked.
THERE WAS A SHAMEFACED SILENCE
Frankly the piano teacher said, this isnt my real line of work. Really he said, Im a jockey.
How about you? I said to this panion.
Oh Im a bona fide piano tuner all right the tuner said. Its just that Im no?t very good at it. Never was and never will be.
WE SIDERED THE PROBLEM IN SILENCE
I have a proposition to make I announced. What is your name? I asked, nodding in the dire of the jockey.
Slim he said, and my friend here is Buster.
Well Slim I said, we need a jockey for our race horse, Dan, who will fall out of trim without workouts. And Buster, you plant the maple trees which I have just ordered for the house.
THERE WAS A JOYFUL SILENCE AS BUSTER AND SLIM TRIED TO DIGEST THE GOOD NEWS
I settled on a salary of $12,000 a year for Slim and a slightly smaller one for Buster. This aplished I drove the Rolls over to Courtlandt Street to show it to my mistress, Amelia.
When I k the door of Amelias apartment she refused to open it. Instead she began practig scales on her flute. I knocked again and called out: Amelia!
THE SOUND OF THE FLU