Thomas Murphy

by Roger Rosenblatt

  Out trots William from the back of my daughter’s apartment. Red T-shirt. Red sneakers. Red puffy winter jacket. Whenever I ask him his favorite color, he says blue. Big smile on him. Big smile on me. I have a picture of myself on Inishmaan at his age. Same hair, same eyes.

  It’s not a walk we’re going on, is it, William? Tell Mommy.

  It’s an adventure! he says. Máire zips up his little jacket.

  Don’t let him out of your sight, she says.

  I won’t, I assure her.

  I was talking to William, she says.

  If you’re wondering why Máire has no husband, she did have one, a prick named Hughie to whom she gave the boot when he was caught canoodling with a fellow real estate crook just about the time William was born. There was nothing noteworthy about Hughie except his name, which invited “fuck” preceding it. William inquires of him from time to time, as he would about a toy he barely remembers.

  Central Park, William! I swing my arm in an expansive gesture. Isn’t it grand? A spot of green within the Black Forest! He never has to understand what I’m talking about to know what I mean. His hand slips into mine as we cross Central Park West to begin our sojourn. William takes in everything, as if he were poring over an ancient text. His expression, when not laughing, is scholarly, monastic. Where should we go today, William? I ask him.

  To the Land of the Flying Donkeys, he says, referring to the subject of our last get-together. Why do donkeys fly, Murph?

  Why do donkeys fly, William? Who said they don’t?

  I said they do, Murph. Donkeys fly.

  Oh. Why didn’t you say so? Why do donkeys fly? You might as well ask me why donkeys fly!

  He giggles. You’re silly, Murph.

  I’m silly? You’re silly. You’re the silliest person I’ve known since Elephantus.

  Who is Elephantus, Murph?

  Who is Elephantus? You might as well ask me, who is Elephantus! All right, I’ll tell you. He was King of the Elephants.

  Was he very big?

  That’s just the thing, William. He was as small as you. And that is why the elephants made him their king. He was unusual.

  Is it good to be unusual? he asks. We are making our way east through the park.

  Yes. It’s great to be unusual.

  You’re unusual, Murph. You’re the most unusual person I know.

  We approach the bronze statue of Balto, the Siberian husky. I point it out. Well, that’s the most unusual person I know, William.

  That’s not a person, Murph. That’s a dog!

  That’s a person, William. Wouldn’t you say he’s unusual? He roars. We sit on a bench. There follows the rapid gunfire of typical William questions. If zebra stripes are brown, why do they look black? When do caterpillars realize they want to become butterflies? Do horses know that they’re racing? How many rabbits would it take to push over the Empire State Building? Are you going to die, Murph?

  What? I look concerned. He looks matter-of-fact.

  Are you going to die?

  Everything dies, William. But I plan to be around for at least another hundred years. He gives me a hug. We circle the Reservoir, then walk to the carousel, shut down for winter. He climbs up on a stationary horse. You’ve read a lot, haven’t you, Murph?

  I have. And you will, too, when you get the knack of it. I mount the horse behind him. He’s just learning to read now. He loves Harold and the Purple Crayon, and hates all of Dr. Seuss, as do I.

  Who read to you when you were little, Murph?

  My da. Want to get ice cream? We head in that direction.

  What did he look like, your da?

  Like me. Only he had a nose as long as a fire hose. He laughs.

  You have a nose as long as an anteater’s, he says.

  You have a nose as long as Elephantus. In fact, it’s so long, it’s dragging on the ground.

  You have a nose as long as a fart. He screams with laughter at his own joke.

  Mommy would not approve of your saying fart, William. I keep a straight face.

  You just said it yourself, Murph! You always say it.

  Fart? (Shocked and dismayed.) Fart? Why, William, I have never said fart in my life. He gives a sly smile as we bounce along, arriving finally at the ice cream wagon. What flavor will it be, William? Chocolate?

  Fart, he says.

  They don’t have that flavor, I tell him.

  He looks resigned. Chocolate, then, Murph. He thanks me and takes the cone. We sit together on a bench.

  William—in my most severe, grown-up, authoritative voice—we must agree never to say fart again.

  He nods gravely, until a moment passes and we shout in unison, Poop!

  WILLIAM AND I occupy the world’s not, a phrase I picked up in E. R. Dodds’s The Greeks and the Irrational, the sort of book I’ve been drawn to lately. In it Professor Dodds writes of Dionysus, the Master of Illusions, who could make a vine grow out of the plank of a ship, and allow his votaries “to see the world as the world’s not.” The world’s not. Such a phrase. To be differentiated from the world’s is, I suppose.

  According to Dodds, the Greeks saw the gods as jealous and interfering, resentful of the successes and happiness achieved by mortals, which might hoist our mortality above its proper station. The gods did not want us to be gods, or to be happy. Even heroism did not breed happiness. In The Iliad, the sole reward for heroes is fame, not happiness. And people, helpless, feared their gods as agents of approaching doom. The powerful Apollo promised security to the humble. Understand your station as a man, he said in The Iliad. “Do as the Father tells you, and you will be safe tomorrow.”

  But Dionysus, bless him, had a different view, and a different power. He offered freedom. He was essentially the god of freedom, a singer of love songs, says Dodds, who was an Irishman, of course. Better educated, but we’re all the same bastards. Small wonder the professor took up this project in the first place. Who but my fellow mick would be drawn to the Master of Illusions? Not to mention the matters of trances, magic, and madness. Dionysus said, forget the distance between gods and men, and don’t concern yourself with safety. You never crash if you go full tilt. Be happy today, he said. He was a god of joy, and also of democracy, which was deemed accessible to all. I’m sure I met him in the pubs in Inishmaan. Big lumbering boyo. Farmer’s hands, a roar of a laugh. The advocate of laughter. He didn’t want us to be and stay mortal. He wanted to live like a bourgeois and think like a god.

  Hard to say what to make of all this. But I am growing a deep affection for Dodds, and for Dionysus. They become the gods of ecstasy, out of this stasis, deities of the world’s not. I’ve always been a bad Catholic. I’ve worked hard at being a bad Catholic, and I don’t mean lapsed. The eunuch priest from the mainland. (We were grateful he was a eunuch.) The keening, the screaming statues, beads bleeding in your hands. The cows of heaven await you, children. The heart’s cross. I have faith in that.

  But I could be a good Dionysian. To the altar of that god I’d go daily, devout as my ma. I’d take the body and blood of Dionysus in one gulp. And I’d pray the Lord’s Prayer to Dionysus: Our Father, who art in heaven, let me out.

  AS IF TO REMIND ME that I’m not out yet, or likely to get there, Dr. Spector calls to inquire if I’ve finished the take-home yet. I ask her if she knows anyone I can copy the answers off. Planet Earth, Mr. Murphy, she says. Where’s that? I say.

  THOMAS MURPHY ON COOKING FOR ONESELF

  Hamburgers and steaks are fairly easy. Just plop ’em in the frying pan and see what happens. Eggs can be trouble. I’d stay away from eggs, unless you scramble them, because you have to keep your eye on scrambled eggs all the time, unlike hard-boiled eggs, which one may forget to watch, and then they bite you in the ass. Cold cereal is good. Special K is an old standby, but I also am developing a fondness for Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Speaking of which, cinnamon toast is no trouble either, if you purchase a container of cinnamon and sugar already mixed. I don’t eat cinnamon toast myse
lf, but I make it for William when he visits. Zone bars too are easy. Just unwrap and eat. Also, fruit, as long as it isn’t a pineapple that requires carving up. Here’s a nice surprise: jellied cranberry sauce is tasty straight out of the can. Of course, the best way to go for most meals is takeout. No muss, no fuss. In the Belnord area, there’s takeout for Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Ethiopian, Indian, Cuban, and pizza at a place where you can get meatball subs as well. A few months ago, I got a call from an editor who was compiling a book of writers’ favorite recipes. I sent him seven phone numbers.

  THOMAS MURPHY ON CLEANING AND WASHING FOR ONESELF

  Dry-cleaning is a bloody cinch, as long as you know which of your clothes requires it. For dry-cleaning, just take the appropriate clothing to the dry cleaner. The one on Eighty-seventh and Columbus is reliable, and the people are pleasant. Dry-cleaning is opposed to wet cleaning, which you can do yourself in a washing machine, followed by a dryer. (You can distinguish the washer from the dryer by the large cylinder in the center of the former.) After Oona, when I had to do all the washing myself, I found I was pretty able with a washing machine. Once in a while, I toss in too much liquid Tide, which adds a stickiness to the clothing, and occasionally I forget the Bounce, but it doesn’t seem to matter. In the beginning, I had a little trouble doing the sheets and towels because I didn’t know how long it took to dry them. But I’m okay now, especially with pj’s, skivvies, T-shirts, and socks. I make a mistake from time to time and include a dress shirt with the wash, giving the shirt that wrinkled look the Gap creates deliberately. No biggie, as the kids say. I’ve had only one real mishap, but I learned from experience. Last summer I bought a suit that said Wash ’n’ Dry on the label. I figured that meant it did not need dry-cleaning, and I further surmised that I could save a step in the washing process by wearing the suit in the shower, and soaping myself up and rinsing off. I used Oona’s hair dryer after that, but the suit was still damp when I wore it out on the street. I won’t do that again. Live and learn.

  THOMAS MURPHY ON DREAMING FOR ONESELF AND OTHERS

  Dream up, not down. Up. Tyrants dream down, businessmen dream laterally, poets dream up. That’s how you can remember it. Dream up.

  DREAM WAY UP, especially on a day when Moses comes walking and talking on Seventy-ninth Street. When something like this happens, I don’t know about you, but I listen. Prophets like Moses don’t come along every day, after all, and they don’t grow on trees, though that would be fun to picture. The old guy shows up every five thousand years or so, that’s about it, and he doesn’t dawdle or hang around forever, either. Which is to say it would be pigheaded, plain foolish, not to take advantage of the moment to hear whatever he has to tell us.

  He appears to wear a raggy bathrobe and old mules on his feet. I imagine he knows that, and realizes he might be taken for just one more of the hundreds of New York nut cases—the Broadway Viking and countless biblical shouters who tour the city spouting doomsday predictions. But one close look at our man, and it is clear that his robe is of the finest ancient silk, a dazzle of blues and greens, and his sandals are the desert itself.

  I have much to ask him. Everyone does, for he already has drawn quite a crowd. We move in a scrum on Seventy-ninth, west from Amsterdam, peppering him with questions. Will the world go on? Do we have a future? What was Pharaoh really like? Did you see the face of God? He smiles and nods but does not break his stride. On God’s face, he says it was pleasant but severe, the face of a circuit judge. A turned-up nose, he says. And Pharaoh? Just a dumb prick. Smooth talker. And the future of the world? I ask (it was I who asked that question in the first place). Will we survive? Ah, says Moses. You must be an artist. Only artists ask dumbass questions like that. Well, says the prophet, the world will continue on for many centuries. You might have asked how it will continue, in what state of being. That’s a different matter.

  At this point, a cop with a red face and tapping a billy club on his open palm approaches our group. What’s all this? he asks. Various people pipe up. He’s Moses, they say. Well, Mr. Moses, he says, you are disturbing the peace. That’s what I do best, officer, says Moses. Be that as it may, says the cop, you have to move along.

  So our entourage continues west along Seventy-ninth Street, past Broadway and heading for West End Avenue. I was afraid the prophet might have forgotten my question. But after a while he speaks up again. Yes, he says, it is how the world will go on that you ought to be worried about. And judging from the way you have behaved so far, I’d say you were in the soup. Soup? says a lady in a mink stole. Soup? says a happy cobbler. Soup, says Moses. You already have fucked up mightily, he goes on. A regular shit storm. And I know from shit storms. God himself could not have imagined the damage you’ve done. So, God is a he? says a woman with a briefcase. I don’t know, says Moses. I was with him only a minute or two. He might have been a she, I guess. The light was poor.

  By now we’ve reached Riverside Drive, and the crowd has swelled to a thousand or more—everyone clamoring and elbowing everyone else to get closer to the old man. Is there something we can do to correct our course? I ask. No carbs, he says. Now, we all are at the river, where our leader walks to the end of a pier, makes swinging motions with his arms, and the waters of the Hudson part. Just like that. Anyone for New Jersey? he asks. At that, most of the crowd draws the line. But several jump in to follow the prophet, myself included.

  THAT EVENING, a couple of sheets to the wind, I’ll confess, I look up from my work and there was that picture of Sarah. I was beginning to understand why Jack was having such a difficult time screwing his courage to tell the girl he was dying. He was brave enough with his own verdict, but he could not bear to break her heart. I studied the picture a bit longer. The sentimental Irishman in me was taking over for the old fart who ought to know better. A crazy person is crazy all the time.

  Bleary of eye, I hoist another sheet, and before you know it, or I know it, I am calling up Jack and agreeing to do what he had asked. The other end of the line is so noisy with Greats and Wonderfuls and Thank you thank you, Mr. Murphys, had I not been staring at Sarah’s picture, I might have changed my mind again, bowed out even then. Tomorrow? says Jack. I’ll bring my car. Can we go out tomorrow, Murph? I cannot tell you how grateful I am. Oh sure you can, I say.

  By the way, have you noticed that whenever someone says “by the way,” as if what he’s about to tell you is an incidental afterthought, it’s really the thing he’s wanted to tell you all along? By the way, that explanation of my willingness to be involved in the Jack and Sarah story because I was intrigued and also because I had so little else to do? That was only half true. The other half has to do with the way I see the world, as equally beautiful and ridiculous. I mean, take this Jack and Sarah business. A dying man can’t muster the nerve to tell his wife that he’s dying, so he engages a stranger, a poet, to do it for him. Absurd. No? But lovely too, and touching. And that, boyo, is life for you, is it not? A serious joke? Dr. Spector had me pegged. I am unable to participate in a sensible world wholeheartedly, which is why I dream things up. I said yes to Jack because I can’t resist a serious joke.

  HOW WELL ARE YOU THINKING?

  Test devised by The Ohio State University

  Please complete this form in ink without the assistance of others.

  1. Name __________________________

  2. Date of Birth _____ /_____ /_____

  3. How far did you get in school? _________

  4. I am a Man ______ Woman ______

  5. I am Asian ______ Black ______ Hispanic ______ White ______ Other ______

  6. Have you had any problems with memory or thinking? Yes ____ No ____ Only Occasionally ____

  7. Have you had blood relatives with problems of memory or thinking? Yes ____ No ____

  8. Do you have balance problems? Yes ____ No ____

  9. Have you ever had a stroke? Yes ____ No ____

  10. Do you currently feel sad or depressed? Yes ____ No ____ Only Occasionally ____<
br />
  11. Have you had any changes in your personality? Yes ____ No ____

  Dear The Ohio State University, I apologize for acting counter to your instructions and completing your form in purple crayon, rather than ink, but I thought it might make my responses stand out from the pack, offer a little flair. Know what I mean? As for the assistance of others, I needed assistance only with the first question. After that I flew like a donkey. Best, Murph.

  1. Thomas James Murphy. My parents named me Thomas, after Thomas More, James after James More, and Murphy after themselves.

  2. 09/13/43. On the isle of Inishmaan, in the Aran Islands, in the west of Ireland. As soon as I saw where I was, I taught myself to stand and walk in an effort to escape, but was informed that they don’t issue passports to babies. I explained that I’d be happy just to swim out and drown, but they told me everyone on Inishmaan says that.

  3. As far as possible. Either in fact or in my mind. A teacher caught me daydreaming in class and asked me, Thomas, would you care to rejoin the group. I said, Not really.

  4. Both. When my wife, Oona, was alive, I boasted that we had the America’s first same-sex marriage. My friend Greenberg used to ask, which sex is that?

  5. All the above, just like you, you racist bastards.

  6. No, but I have had problems with drinking. The goddamn arthritis in my right hand makes it difficult to open the Jameson, so I smash the neck of the bottle on the kitchen counter, and hope no glass gets into the whiskey. You know how it is. Sometimes you just lose it. Like the time Woody Hayes, the coach of your football team at The Ohio State University, ran out on the field to tackle a player on the other team. You remember.

  7. Yes. The blood relative who comes to mind is my uncle Brendan, who was kicked in the head trying to lift the rear end of a plough horse, to impress a girl named Maggie. The first use of the term horse’s ass I believe. Brendan had a lot of problems with thinking.

  8. Yes. I have balance problems with my checkbook. I can balance it on my nose while singing “The Mountains of Mourne” and smoking a stogie. But you probably don’t mean that. My problems with balancing my checkbook usually stem from never knowing what I have in my account, which in turn leads to bouncing checks. I bounce better than I balance. When Máire was little and we were dead broke (God knows why, there being so much money in poetry), I got a letter from one David d’Allesandro of the Chase National Bank, telling me that if I continued to write overdrafts, the bank would “find it inconvenient” to maintain my account. I wrote back, Dear Mr. d’Allesandro: If you find it inconvenient that I haven’t any money, imagine how it is for my wife and daughter.