14 Fictional Positions

by Williamson, Eric Miles

  I drove.

  Kickshaws

  —Hey we got a letter but on the envelope it says don’t open it should we.

  —Who’s it addressed to.

  —Occupant.

  —It’s for you. I never get letters.

  —No. You don’t. That’s what you get for writing so many. Who wants to answer a letter when they know they’re going to get one right back it’s a nuisance.

  (Pause)

  —Either it’s raining or it’s not raining what’s a man to do.

  —If you lay on your back in the dark you might see things differently.

  —Doesn’t work.

  —Sometimes I give the objects in the room Anglo-Saxon names works wonders or maybe start a crustacean collection.

  —Tried it.

  —You’ve tried everything.

  —Yes and it all reduces to tautologies and hepatoscopy.

  —What about what’s her name.

  —Strictly vegetarian. There’s a difference between trying and succeeding one way you fail and the other way you don’t accomplish anything.

  —Look it’s raining.

  —See. I’m right.

  &

  —Could be a letter bomb playing on our instinctual desire for knowledge of the unknown. Could be a sweepstakes prize and if we open it we lose the prize. Could be some crap from your brother Herbert.

  (Pause)

  —You mean Harold.

  —No I mean Herbert you said your brother’s name was Herbert I heard you.

  (Pause)

  —Did I.

  —Certainly.

  —Okay I take your word for it what do you think Harold has to say maybe changed his name and doesn’t want the authorities to know.

  —Could be retaliation. For the letters I’ve been sending.

  (Pause)

  —You never told me about letters what letters.

  —Nothing. Never mind. Look it’s not raining now and I’m right again. It’s boring being right so often. Maybe it’s just some kind of joke. You know. A prank played by some malicious gastroenterologist.

  —That settles it my brother Harold is a gastroenterologist. Therefore it must be from him.

  (Pause)

  —You don’t want to know about the letters I’ve been sending.

  —No.

  (Pause)

  —But you did before.

  —Wrong.

  (Pause)

  —Sounded like you did.

  (Pause)

  —Phone’s ringing.

  —Not my job to answer the phone. You know the rules.

  —Okay, I’ll answer it like a dutiful servant. I’m a man who plays by the rules…. It’s for you.

  &

  —Well.

  —Recorded message. He played a Charlie Parker tune on a throat warbler.

  —What did he say.

  (Pause)

  —Said open the letter.

  &

  —Aren’t you going to answer the letter it’s your letter.

  —But I haven’t opened it I don’t know who it’s from I don’t know if he’ll ever get my answer.

  —Sure he’ll get it who do you think gets all those Dear Santa letters those Dear Congressman letters those Dear Jahweh letters those Dear Herbert letters. He’ll get it all right. Might even be a she this could be a change in your life never know. Come on open the letter.

  —Okay I’ll open the letter I know you sent it anyway.

  &

  —Well.

  —It’s a blank piece of thesis bond.

  —No it’s not I’m sure there’s writing on it I know.

  —Wrong. Blank. Nothing.

  —But.

  —I think it’s Mallarme’s Le Livre.

  —But.

  —Zip. Postmodern to the max.

  &

  —How’s the weather doing.

  —Fog, baby. Fog.

  Wamsutter in Dali Vision

  “That’s one thing about the West, Johnny Boy, they don’t have dead bodies over a hundred years old there,” Brent Holingsworth said. He flicked an ash in his newly stolen MGM Grand ashtray.

  “You’ve got a point there,” Johnny Staples said. “In California our dead bodies aren’t very old.”

  The Wamsutter Wyoming Super 8 motor hotel television was not operating nearly as well as a New York television or even as well as a San Francisco television. Brent and Johnny wondered if the television in room 129, the room next door, was any better than theirs. Dobie Gillis was on. Dobie Gillis in Dali Vision. Johnny too lit up a Merit Light, and in alternating reaches, together with Brent flicked his ashes in the ashtray which was to be the newest addition to their array of stolen furniture in their apartment in Boulder, Colorado.

  &

  In room 129, the two other travelers, Axel and Ruth Gleibenheim were having a worship session. This was abundantly evident, not only because of blatant foreshadowing, but because of compounding evidence which could not be denied by either Johnny nor Brent.

  &

  It had been sixty hours since they had left San Francisco. Sixty hours together in a Volkswagen Beetle, no stereo, no tire chains, no U.S. currency. Ruth was hungry again. It was still sixty miles across a sheet of ice until they would reach the next hotel. It was three o’clock already, and they were only going twenty miles per hour. Johnny would not stop the car for food. “We’ll never make it alive if we don’t find a place to stop before dark,” Johnny said. Brent snickered and agreed.

  Ruth

  whined

  claimed she had to pee again

  held her stomach

  whispered to Axel

  watched snowdrift buried billboards

  whined.

  &

  Johnny’s grandparents were tired after working all day to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Johnny had brought along his roommate from New York, Brent Holingsworth, and the couple which managed the Ford Apartments back in Boulder, Axel and Ruth Gleibenheim. Axel Gleibenheim painted oil portraits of thin women with large breasts. Ruth’s breasts were only average in size. Axel was thinking of how large Johnny’s stepmother’s breasts were, and how much he would like to see what her nipples looked like. He wanted to paint those breasts. Ruth was watching Johnny’s little brother, who had just completed his first Pacific cruise with the Navy on the USS Berkeley. She was wishing that Axel had a little more meat on him, though she still didn’t like tattoos.

  &

  Axel sat with the group of artists in the Boulderado lounge, discussing perspective and the lithograph procedure that Dali used in his “Lincoln in Dali Vision” painting. “It’s so simple, yet so complicated,” he said. The others nodded and sipped their drinks.

  “What time are we leaving for San Francisco?” Ruth whispered into Johnny’s ear. “I can hardly wait.” She leaned over and nibbled on Johnny’s ear, then inserted her tongue and twirled.

  Johnny was uncomfortable. He looked down from the counter he and Ruth were sitting on at the table where Axel and the other art critics were sitting. He wanted Ruth to retract her tongue, but he didn’t ask her to stop.

  “When you look at the painting, at first it looks like a woman standing in front of a window that is shaped like a cross,” Axel said. “But if you look again, you can see Lincoln’s face in it.”

  “Lincoln’s face?” one asked.

  “With the beard?” asked another.

  “Yes,” Axel replied. “With the beard.”

  &

  Ruth had to go to pee. The travelers had been trapped in a traffic jam at 6000 feet for seven hours, just west of Donner Pass. They sat in the car watching taillights. The
snow was piled high on the hood of the Volkswagen. “I wish I was a man,” Ruth said.

  “I’m glad I am,” Brent said, and he got out of the car and disappeared into the snow and trees.

  Ruth

  whined

  looked out at the trees

  squirmed

  thought about men with meat on them

  whined.

  “Let me out,” Ruth told Brent when he, relieved, returned. “Come on, Axel, come with me. I don’t want to get attacked.”

  “You’ll be OK honey.”

  “Come with me.”

  “She’s leaning on my car, dammit,” Johnny said, as he and Brent watched. Axel was standing by, protecting against possible assailants in the six-inch-per-hour snowstorm. But Axel had neglected to hold Ruth up, and Ruth had underestimated the slipperyness of the ice.

  “Difficult footing,” Brent noted.

  Johnny agreed.

  &

  Besides being severely distorted in both color and shape, Dobie Gillis was having problems. Maynard had accidentally swallowed a serum which made him irresistible to women, and Dobie’s girlfriend had left him for Maynard.

  In room 129 the worship session continued.

  In room 128 Johnny and Brent wished they had marijuana.

  They also wished that they had enough money for some food.

  “We’ll never make it back alive,” Johnny said.

  &

  Grandfather Staples watched Johnny and his friends from college in Colorado as they finished up their Thanksgiving dinners. They were amazed with Ruth. They had never before seen a woman who did not help with dishes.

  Grandmother Staples whispered to Grandfather Staples: “I’ve never before seen a woman who did not help with the dishes.”

  Grandfather Staples nodded.

  &

  Johnny woke up and looked out the front window of the Volkswagen. All he saw was white. Have they started letting cars over the pass yet? he wondered. He looked through the side window and saw another car, and then looked at his watch. Ten hours lost already. He looked at Brent. Sleeping as usual. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw Axel, but he could not see Ruth. He could, however, hear Ruth. He saw that Axel was smiling and breathing heavily, his eyes closed. A worship session, Johnny thought, and looked back at the white windshield and thought about how nice it would be if he were asleep.

  &

  The travelers were somewhere in Utah, between Wendover Nevada and Salt Lake City. Ruth and Brent were in the back seat, sleeping. Axel was driving and Johnny was in charge of keeping him awake and supplying him with fresh beers.

  “Sure is a wonderful lady I’ve found myself, that Ruth,” Axel said. “Don’t you think so, Johnny?”

  “Wonderful lady, Axel.”

  Axel was not watching the road. He was looking at Johnny.

  Johnny looked away, out the windshield. A lot of ice on the road, Johnny noted. Good thing that the engine is over the drive wheels on Volkswagens.

  Axel looked at the road, then back at Johnny. “I’d sure hate to lose her. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  “Would you like to take a break?” Johnny asked. “I’ll drive if you’re tired.”

  “No. I’ll drive.” Axel looked at the road again. “You just ride,” he said.

  &

  The television was still on in the Wamsutter Super 8, and now David Hartman was suffering distortion on Good Morning America. America is the most overfed country in the world, his guest was saying.

  Johnny woke up first and turned off the television. He looked over at Brent, and was happy that Brent didn’t snore. “Get up,” Johnny said. “It’s time to get moving.”

  In the car, Axel and Ruth were more than happy to take the back seat.

  “Let’s stop and get some breakfast,” Ruth said. “I’m famished.”

  “But we don’t have any money,” Johnny said.

  “Just put it on your credit card, and we’ll pay you back later.”

  “But you and Axel have credit cards, and so does Brent.”

  “I just thought it would be simpler. We’ve been using yours all along.”

  “Yes, we have,” Johnny said.

  Johnny

  scowled

  watched the ice on the road

  thought about the overturned trucks he had seen

  wished he had a car stereo

  wondered how much Wyoming French Toast cost

  scowled.

  “Now aren’t you glad you stopped for breakfast, Johnny?” Ruth asked. “What a lovely little cafe. Aren’t you glad?”

  The hostess/waitress/cook/cashier/tow-truck dispatcher brought the bill.

  “Here’s my three,” Brent said.

  “Been holding out on us, eh?” Axel said.

  “And here’s four and a half from me,” Johnny said.

  “But that leaves us paying nine twenty-five,” Ruth said, aiming at Johnny.

  “But you owe me fifteen,” Johnny said.

  “I thought I owed that to Brent?”

  “No. To me.”

  “But how much was your meal?” she asked. “Who’s going to get the tip?”

  Johnny got up and went outside.

  Johnny could not see through the fogged cafe window. Instead, he watched a man in a faded GMC half-ton tow-truck dragging around an old railroad tie with chains, trying to clear away some of the snow in the lot. It was not doing much good. The snow was piling up in front of the wood, then flowing over it and settling down again, in a new location, as deep as it had been in the first place.

  Rhoda’s Sack

  Marvin Mitkowitz, Branch Manager of the accounting firm, is obsessed with the need to discover the contents of Rhoda’s sack. He has never seen such an inappropriate piece of ladies’ apparel in all his sixteen years of directing the affairs of the office. The utter ugliness of the dated hippyish hand-knit multicolored sack (perhaps not laundered since its original date of manufacture) hanging from her drooping shoulder each day when she sluggishly, apathetically, yet somehow haughtily enters the office gives him more than a slight feeling of uneasiness, of revulsion, of intense, almost pathological (he is aware of this) curiosity.

  Will it disintegrate some morning on her way to work, the contents spilling on the sidewalk for all to see? And if it does, can he somehow manage to be there at the moment of incident?

  Is this her way, subversive as it seems, of asking for a raise?

  Rhoda Gleibenheim, the second-cousin of Marvin Mitkowitz’s immediate superior in the main office, knows many things. She knows what the neighbors, sleeping in their flats, are dreaming about while she, Rhoda, slaves away at the typewriters and wordprocessors in the office. She knows what the bus driver looks at when each morning she, wearing the most modest of wool sweaters, ascends the steps (which are altogether too steep for her severely overworked legs), withdraws her mittened hand from her sack, and deposits her hard-earned quarters. She knows the lurid minds of her colleagues. She knows what they think when each morning she walks into the office and pours herself a cup of coffee into her Magic-Marker monogrammed Styrofoam cup. She knows her spelling and grammatical rules: i before e except after c; occasion without an ai; s-e-p-a-r-a-t-e. She knows her it’s/its. Marvin Mitkowitz, she knows, cannot do without her.

  Rhoda deserves a raise.

  Marvin carefully lights cigarette #6 and observes the clock, which reads 9:13, then fixes his gaze on the frosted glass door entrance. He knows that her bus arrives at 9:03 at the corner two blocks away, and it takes her anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to walk the distance, depending on the perils she must brave on the city’s crowded sidewalks. But though he is aware of the reasons behind her daily tardiness, he has never become accus
tomed to allowing employees to be consistently, insistently, uncompromisingly late. What, he wonders, is the impact on the other employees’ morale? What do they think of him, Branch Manager, tolerating such blatant insolence?

  What is this power she has over him?

  He carefully lights cigarette #7. He studies the entrance.

  It is 9:12 and Rhoda has been standing across the street for nearly ten minutes now, persistently tapping her aged worn shoe on the sidewalk. From her vantage point, she can see the second-story office window as clearly as she does on any other morning. She can see his big comfy leather chair swiveling nervously back and forth, though his head swings with perfect timing in the opposite direction, thereby allowing him to keep his gaze fixed on the entrance which she has no intention whatsoever of passing through for at least another ten minutes. She can see the cloud of cigarette smoke lifting up over his balding head.

  She’ll get her money’s worth out of him one way or another.

  And he knows what she’ll do when she prances through the frosted glass door. He’s seen her perform her routine every working day for the past year. He’s seen her enter drowsily, lethargically, yet impertinently, keeping her shabby tweed coat pulled tightly over her wool-sweatered breasts, refusing to pull her hands out of her mittens and begin typing until her near-frostbitten fingers are sufficiently warmed and nimble. He’s seen her pour coffee into her Magic Marker monogrammed Styrofoam cup and he knows that never, never, does she leave the contributory nickel that the other employees do toward the purchase of the next can of coffee. He’s heard her talking with the accountants: Isn’t it cold in here to you? It’s like the arctic. What’s he think this is, a meat freezer? I have to walk miles in the cold, that’s why I’m nearly half-dead. My car’s in the shop, you know. And each morning, Marvin Mitkowitz, as do the accountants, pretends that he does not hear Rhoda. But though he attempts to shut down his auditory system, he cannot do the same with his visual apparatus. His eyes, from the instant she prances through the frosted glass door, do not leave her ugly hand knit multicolored sack (perhaps not laundered since its original date of manufacture).