And so I came back to Howard’s house, and days passed, and weeks passed, and I was sort of in a fog. I kept thinking nervously about all sorts of things. I was thinking a lot about the idea of the self. The self. The self. Or, as it’s called from the inside, “I,” you know—this strange little thing that everyone has, this odd, tiny organ which the surgeons can’t touch. I remember being a boy and always reading these books which would refer excitedly to certain parts of the body as being “generously endowed with nerve endings,” and now I wondered if the self was. On the whole, I thought not. It probably had no nerve endings at all.
Anyway, my mind was racing, speeding, in a peculiar condition, and one afternoon I found myself pacing back and forth in Howard’s living room, as I often was on such afternoons, pacing and brooding, and I was sort of thinking about the fact that I always walked around with this extremely stooped posture, with my head sort of hanging down toward the floor, and I suddenly asked myself, Why is that, exactly? Could it possibly be because my head is too heavy, because it’s simply filled up with too much stuff, with these rather large trunks, suitcases, and worthless junk?
And then I asked myself, Well, what about that noise I always hear, that intolerable noise which comes from somewhere inside my head? And I realized consciously for the first time that, rather like a singer who accompanies his own singing on the piano or guitar, I accompanied my life with a sort of endless inner tinkling, an endless noodling or murmuring—a sort of awful inner murmuring of reportage and opinions, idiotic arpeggios of self-approbation—“Yes, this is what I’m doing, this is what I’m doing, and this is the right thing to be doing now, because murmur, murmur, murmur, and this is right because murmur, murmur, murmur, and this is right because murmur, murmur, murmur—” I thought about all the sincere consideration which I gave to the future, to my plans, you know, and all the solemn concern I lavished each day on the events of my past—my “memories,” as we call them, wiping away a few tears—and I wondered: Was all this really tremendously valuable? Or was it perhaps just a bit unnecessary, when you consider the fact—rather often overlooked—that the past and the future don’t actually exist? I sit around thinking about them from morning till night, but, you know, where are they? Where are they? I mean, they’re not here. And God knows they’re certainly not anywhere else, I would say. And so what is it supposed to mean to me if someone tells me that the trousers I’m wearing were worn “yesterday” by a man with my name, a man who did this, a man who did that, or that they’ll be worn “tomorrow” by a man who is going to be doing something or other? It all means exactly nothing to me, because none of these people actually exist.
JUDY
Suddenly, there was a group of rather quiet demonstrations on some rather quiet streets, leading people to ask, Well, were these demonstrations the usual fakes—or were they, could they be, real this time? Could we possibly be seeing the awakening of “the enemy” after all these years? Were “the dirt-eaters” somehow gently stirring? And were certain people whose hands were nicked in a hundred places suddenly making their presence felt? That would be funny, after we’d been told for so long that people of that sort no longer existed. And then, perhaps as a consequence of these developments, or maybe not—well, to use that perennially popular metaphor from cards—there were cabinet shuffles, over and over. And every time that the big governmental deck would be cut, more people we’d never heard of would rise to the top of it. Was it a card game or a card trick? The old officeholders, the filthy herd of swine whom we vaguely knew and would even vaguely nod to at cocktail parties, were quietly replaced by a new herd of swine whom we didn’t know—the new generation, who dressed in new colors—those chalky colors, yellow and pink and various greens—and lived in new neighborhoods, and even ate in new restaurants with new styles of cooking.
JACK
When I was growing up, there was an uncle of mine who always used to tell me, “Look, we are rats. All of our family have always been rats, and you, too, will be a rat, my boy.” Now, it’s sometimes said that rats are narrow-minded, and of course they would be, because of their narrow faces. And it’s sometimes said that rats are greedy. But my uncle said that it’s the destiny of a rat to have a narrow face, and it’s the destiny of a rat to have a sleek, fat, and healthy body, and that’s why he told me that I should never be ashamed of being a rat. “Rats aren’t bad,” he said, “they’re not mean or cruel. They use the minds that they have, in the best way they know, to keep their bodies healthy, fat, and sleek.” Well, the point is that Howard, you see, in contrast to my uncle, was a rather contrary son of a bitch. He was born a rat, he was brought up to be a rat, but he sort of declined to be one. He simply refused. And the story was the same with Bob and Arthur and all of their friends, and Judy of course was raised to believe that the worst thing in the world that a person could be was actually a rat. And so all of those people believed themselves to be tiny innocent creatures, horribly oppressed in this world of rats, this world where the government was run by rats, where the crude, survival-driven taste of rats was everywhere triumphant, and so it happened that Howard became their great leader in a sort of imaginary war against all of the rats, a war against everything for which they held the rats responsible, from the unattractive figurines recently introduced into the sculpture garden to the lamentable fact that there were no more free concerts. And for about fifteen minutes I was invited to become a sort of foot soldier myself in the war against the rats, if you want to see it that way. Never, mind you—sniff—asked to join the ranks of the officers’ corps—boo-hoo boo-hoo—not quite the right material , I’m sure you understand—now isn’t that sad?—his own son-in-law?—But perhaps almost worthy to be a low-grade sort of cheerful cannon fodder—aha ha ha—
But anyway, all this talk about war and soldiers brings me to the much-discussed questions of “enemies,” you see, and that’s a question that we really have to face. I mean, when people refer to quote unquote “the enemy,” “our enemies,” they’re referring, basically, to what someone once called “the snarling, snapping, unmuzzled dogs”—I love that phrase—“the snarling, snapping, unmuzzled dogs”—ha ha ha—in other words, the individuals who live, so to speak, “outside the fence,” quote unquote, the ones who are camped on the other side of the fence with their campfires, their pots, their marshmallows, or whatever the hell they have over there.
In other words, you see, if you look at the world, the world as a whole, actually most people in it are the ones we can only refer to, rather nervously and gingerly, by means of those terribly melodramatic and almost hysterical words like “wretched,” “miserable,” “unfortunate,” “desperate,” “powerless,” “poor”—that’s a very sympathetic one—or to put it a bit differently, God bless them, they’re people who simply don’t have any resources of any kind at all. And these particular people—and, you know, God knows why—well, they just don’t like us. They don’t like us. They simply don’t like us. So it’s not hard to see what will happen one day. There’s the majority, them, the minority, us, and the way they feel about us, great dislike, very, very great dislike. So, in other words, “enemies” are not exactly imaginary beings. They’re very, very real. But I’ll tell you something interesting about enemies, you see. At least this is how I feel about it. I’m sure you know that rather nasty and not terribly thought-provoking old saying that “the enemy of my enemies is my friend.” Well, what’s really much more true to my sense of life is that the friend of my enemies is for sure my enemy, while in a funny way my enemies themselves don’t bother me that much, and in an odd way I can even work up quite a bit of respect for them, looking at it all from a certain point of view.
It’s that thing of people whom you actually know and with whom you actually live deciding consciously to become the friend of your enemies that can get you really terribly upset, because your enemies after all are actually trying very hard to kill you, no matter what you may happen to feel about them—and this is where things
with Judy and Howard really became so difficult, because they’d worked themselves around to being so horribly appalled by the revolting rats that they saw encroaching everywhere on their perfect existence that they ultimately decided that the people whom they actually ought to like were, yes, that’s right, precisely the ones who were sitting around making plans to slice our guts out, or in other words to perform that gesture cleverly referred to by one of our enemy-loving writers as “the disemboweling of the over-boweled.” And that became ultimately rather revolting to me.
Weirdly, I suppose—and who can really say for sure about this kind of thing?—you might say that the beginning of the beginning of the end for me with dear old Howard came about one night when we were all sitting around after an early dinner—Howard, Judy and the usual crowd—and suddenly everyone decided we should go to see a play, we should all go off to see this play that had been incredibly popular for that whole year, The Trojan Horse by Reginald Longleat. I suppose maybe they were all in one of their occasional fits of sociological prurience and just wanted to see what nonsense the public was consuming that year or God knows what. I imagine I went along because maybe I actually thought I would like the play, have some fun, even enjoy myself, God forbid, or some such absurdity. Anyway, I guess I must have been the last one in line to buy my ticket to the play, because the others were sitting all together in a group, and I sat alone two rows in front of them.
Well, the play was supposed to be this charming comedy, but the writer’s hatred for the human race—or for everyone not just exactly like him, one might say—kept oozing out of it, like blood oozing out from a closet full of bodies. There was something about the writing—it was horribly jarring. One was constantly wondering, how in the world had he chosen these particular words? Was he just simply out of his mind, or what? Can any word at all be used? In any way? Longleat’s approach to grammatical forms made me think of some sort of corrupt plumber who had screwed into alignment some series of pipes that never were intended to fit together—where, I mean, the whole thing was absolutely bound to explode, but maybe not until its maker was safely out of town. It was all so ugly, and the whole play was incredibly boring, and it wasn’t even funny, because all of the jokes fell totally flat. You know, and as I sat there watching this awful play, I began to feel a rather unexpected longing to turn around in my seat and look back at Howard. I mean, this happened to be one odd moment when I really wanted to see Howard’s face. I wanted to see that look of incredulous dismay, that rather exaggerated expression which even from a very great distance away you could read as saying, “Good God, is this actually occurring?” So when Longleat served up this particularly witless, terrible joke—it was vicious as well, if one happened to think about it, and the sadistic audience was hooting with pleasure—I twisted around quite suddenly in my seat and looked directly over at our little group, but none of them saw me. They were laughing their heads off, Howard even more than the others. He was roaring with laughter, in that eloquent phrase, and for a moment everything stopped, and I felt a very quiet but forceful spinning sensation.
Well, so the next week was my birthday, and Judy had decided to have a party for me: about fifty people, all of their friends, even people I liked—a regular party—paper hats, toy trumpets, games on the lawn. Croquet, et cetera. And Howard had said, I’ll barbecue the meat. So it was the day of the party, and people began to come over around five, and one of the families brought along a girl who was a student from Denmark. Well, I was drinking and joking around, and for whatever reason—and I wouldn’t know, because I’m not at all familiar with Danish culture—this student was quite attracted to me and found me very amusing and kept brushing up against me. So somehow we both wandered off into the garage, and without giving the whole thing a great deal of thought we were somehow kissing, and I’d put my hand underneath her shirt and was fondling her breasts. Well, all of a sudden Howard walked into the garage—to get some coal for the barbecue, I suppose—and it was this farcical moment. The Danish girl ran into the house, Howard ran off in the direction of the lawn, and I really didn’t know quite where to go, so I went into the tool shed. Well, there was nothing really to do in the tool shed, so I sat there simply playing with my dick. And while I was playing with my dick, I looked through a little eye-level window, and I saw Howard wandering around on the lawn, not quite sure just how he should proceed, and I said to myself, I can’t stand this man, I can’t stand this man, and I don’t believe anything this man believes. Not a single thing.
JUDY
God, you know, it was so fitting in a way—everything started when I was at a concert! Emotional works for string orchestra. I’d decided to go off to spend an evening by myself, and I sat there watching, blissfully watching, watching the musicians under the bright lights. They were playing wonderfully, leaning forward, so committed, their heels digging into the stage—and then suddenly the lights seemed to flicker for a moment, but the players went on playing—and then all at once we were in total darkness. The audience made an odd little sound, like the hoarse sound of a broken bell, and started to run. I thought of a movie I’d seen of cows in a corral. Then a door opened at the back of the stage, and we could see through it into the street. Behind the scurrying musicians holding their instruments to their chests we saw flashes of light, and then—impossible—then we heard shots—not one or two pops, but shooting like you’d hear on the evening news, a sound that in spite of everything we never really thought we’d hear “live,” so to speak. And so that was it. Everything started over from that moment.
A few days—a month—and all of a sudden ten thousand examples of “human remains,” as the newspapers called them—“human remains”—or was it fifteen thousand?—had shown up in every sort of inappropriate spot, such as the carousel in the middle of the park, and at least that many people had been unceremoniously arrested by the police. There was a week when we went to three funerals of friends. Two had been sitting quietly in restaurants. Someone had come in, had said, “Don’t get up,” then walked behind them and shot a hole in the back of their heads, blood pouring out of them onto their plates.
Well—it hadn’t happened for a long time, but now it was happening once again. Those who were suffering had whimpered a little, they’d made themselves known, and so of course it was inevitable that the serious individuals who led our country would begin to respond. As in all such periods, you could never predict the form of the response, just its filthiness.
Naturally the economy flew out of control. No more pet food. We gave all our animals to friends who had farms, except that I insisted on keeping the cat.
Father was offered the opportunity to write certain articles, in any one of which he could have placed a few sentences which would have pleased our rulers and made our lives easier, but he wouldn’t do it.
Jack wanted me to leave, to go live with him and let poor Father take care of himself. He kept saying, for some reason, that Father was not some special human being—Father was no different from anyone else. Father enjoyed wearing nice-looking shirts, so in Jack’s view he was no different from someone like Martin, who happened to wear the same type of shirts—never mind that Martin would happily have slit his grandmother’s throat to get the money to buy them. And Jack never stopped trying to get me to agree that Father’s taste in music was actually quite vulgar. Well, maybe it was, but I didn’t really see what Jack was trying to prove.
JACK
From then on, more and more frequently I’d find that my mind had just slipped away from me, following some peculiar will of its own. One day she said to me something like, “I don’t understand your relationship to society. I don’t understand your relationship to the world you live in.” “Can I tell you something?” I said to her snappily. “Do you know something? I don’t understand my relationship to my own ass. I mean, I was standing naked in the bathroom this morning, and when I saw my ass in the mirror I just said to myself, ‘What is that? What is that? And what does it have to do
with me?’” The strange thing was that I was talking so much and saying things—
JUDY
Jack—
JACK
Yes?
JUDY
Jack—
JACK
For God’s sake, will you stop bothering me? (To the audience) But I could perfectly well have said other things instead.
JUDY
Jack—people cry at funerals.
JACK
Excuse me?
JUDY
People cry at funerals.
JACK
I know that, Judy. I know that, you see. You stupid bitch. Look, I’ve tried to tell you about myself, about what I’m like, over the years, but your mind, apparently, has always been somewhere else, unfortunately. And now what are you saying? That I’ve let you down? I’m a disappointment? I paid you the respect of trying to tell you the fucking truth. And now you’re blaming me because you didn’t pay any fucking attention? You cold, unfeeling, inhuman bitch.
The Designated Mourner Page 3
