Come Back, Dr Caligari

by Donald Barthelme

  So we ate a hasty lunch of vichyssoise and ice cream and had Buster drive us in the Rolls to the Federated Department Store where we bought a great many things for the new house and a new horse blanket for Dan.

  Do you think we ought to buy uniforms for Buster and Slim? Alison asked and I replied that I thought not, they didn’t seem the sort who would enjoy wearing uniforms.

  A FROSTY SILENCE

  I think they ought to wear uniforms Alison said firmly.

  No I said, I think not.

  DEAD SILENCE

  Uniforms with something on the pocket Alison said. A crest or something.

  No.

  THERE WAS AN INTERVAL DURING WHICH I SENT A CHECK FOR $500,000 TO THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

  Instead of uniforms I bought Slim a Kaywoodie pipe and some pipe tobacco, and bought Buster a large sterling silver cowboy belt buckle and a belt to go with it.

  Buster was very pleased with his sterling silver belt buckle and said that he thought Slim would be pleased too when he saw the Kaywoodie pipe which had been bought for him. You were right after all Alison whispered to me in the back seat of the Rolls.

  Alison decided that she would make a pie for supper, a chocolate pie perhaps, and that we would have Buster and Slim and George and Sam the pilots too if they were in town and not flying. She began looking in her recipe book while I read the Necchi News in my favorite armchair.

  Then Slim came in from the garage with a worried look. Dan he said is not well.

  A STUNNED PAUSE

  Everyone was thrown into a panic by the thought of Dan’s illness and I bought some Kaopectate which Slim however did not believe would be appropriate. The Kaopectate was $0.98 and I paid for it with a check on the Principal National. The delivery boy from the drugstore, whose name was Andrew, suggested that Dan needed a doctor. This seemed sensible so I tipped Andrew with a check on the Manufacturers’ Trust and asked him to fetch the very best doctor he could find on such short notice.

  WE LOOKED AT ONE ANOTHER IN WORDLESS FEAR

  Dan was lying on his side in the garage, groaning now and then. His face was a rich gray color and it was clear that if he did not have immediate attention, the worst might be expected.

  Peter for God’s sake do something for this poor horse! Alison cried.

  PAUSING ONLY TO WHIP A FRESH CHECKBOOK FROM THE DESK DRAWER, I BOUGHT A LARGE HOSPITAL NEARBY FOR $1.5 MILLION

  We sent Dan over in his trailer with strict instructions that he be given the best of everything. Slim and Buster accompanied him and when Andrew arrived with the doctor I hurried them off to the hospital too. Concern for Dan was uppermost in my mind at that moment.

  The telephone rang and Alison answered.

  Then she said: It’s some girl, for you.

  RETURNING TO THE LIVINGROOM, ALISON HESITATED

  As I had thought it might be, it was Amelia. I told her about Dan’s illness. She was very concerned and asked if I thought it would be appropriate if she went to the hospital.

  A MOMENT OF INDECISION FOLLOWED BY A PAINFUL SILENCE

  You don’t think it would be appropriate Amelia said.

  No Amelia I said truthfully, I don’t.

  Then Amelia said that this indication of her tiny status in all our lives left her with nothing to say.

  THE CONVERSATION LAPSED

  To cheer her up I said I would visit her again in the near future. This pleased her and the exchange ended on a note of warmth. I knew however that Alison would ask questions and I returned to the livingroom with some anxiety.

  AN HIATUS FILLED WITH DOUBT AND SUSPICION

  But now the pilots George and Sam rushed in with good news indeed. They had gotten word of Dan’s illness over the radio they said, and filled with concern had flown straight to the hospital, where they learned that Dan’s stomach had been pumped and all was well. Dan was resting easily George and Sam said, and could come home in about a week.

  Oh Peter! Alison exclaimed in a pleased way, our ordeal is over. She kissed me with abandon and George and Sam shook hands with each other and with Andrew and Buster and Slim, who had just come in from the hospital. To celebrate we decided that we would all fly to London and Rome on a Viscount jet which I bought for an undisclosed sum and which Sam declared he knew how to fly very well.

  A Shower of Gold

  Because he needed the money Peterson answered an ad that said “We’ll pay you to be on TV if your opinions are strong enough or your personal experiences have a flavor of the unusual.” He called the number and was told to come to Room 1551 in the Graybar Building on Lexington. This he did and after spending twenty minutes with a Miss Arbor who asked him if he had ever been in analysis was okayed for a program called Who Am I? “What do you have strong opinions about?” Miss Arbor asked. “Art,” Peterson said, “life, money.” “For instance?” “I believe,” Peterson said, “that the learning ability of mice can be lowered or increased by regulating the amount of serotonin in the brain. I believe that schizophrenics have a high incidence of unusual fingerprints, including lines that make almost complete circles. I believe that the dreamer watches his dream in sleep, by moving his eyes.” “That’s very interesting!” Miss Arbor cried. “It’s all in the World Almanac,” Peterson replied.

  “I see you’re a sculptor,” Miss Arbor said, “that’s wonderful.” “What is the nature of the program?” Peterson asked. “I’ve never seen it.” “Let me answer your question with another question,” Miss Arbor said. “Mr. Peterson, are you absurd?” Her enormous lips were smeared with a glowing white cream. “I beg your pardon?” “I mean,” Miss Arbor said earnestly, “do you encounter your own existence as gratuitous? Do you feel de trap? Is there nausea?” “I have an enlarged liver,” Peterson offered. “That’s excellent!” Miss Arbor exclaimed. “That’s a very good beginning! Who Am I? tries, Mr. Peterson, to discover what people really are. People today, we feel, are hidden away inside themselves, alienated, desperate, living in anguish, despair and bad faith. Why have we been thrown here, and abandoned? That’s the question we try to answer, Mr. Peterson. Man stands alone in a featureless, anonymous landscape, in fear and trembling and sickness unto death. God is dead. Nothingness everywhere. Dread. Estrangement. Finitude. Who Am I? approaches these problems in a root radical way.” “On television?” “We’re interested in basics, Mr. Peterson. We don’t play around.” “I see,” Peterson said, wondering about the amount of the fee. “What I want to know now, Mr. Peterson, is this: are you interested in absurdity?” “Miss Arbor,” he said, “to tell you the truth, I don’t know. I’m not sure I believe in it.” “Oh, Mr. Peterson!” Miss Arbor said, shocked. “Don’t say that! You’ll be…” “Punished?” Peterson suggested. “You may not be interested in absurdity,” she said firmly, “but absurdity is interested in you.” “I have a lot of problems, if that helps,” Peterson said. “Existence is problematic for you,” Miss Arbor said, relieved. “The fee is two hundred dollars.”

  “I’m going to be on television,” Peterson said to his dealer. “A terrible shame,” Jean-Claude responded. “Is it unavoidable?” “It’s unavoidable,” Peterson said, “if I want to eat.” “How much?” Jean-Claude asked and Peterson said: “Two hundred.” He looked around the gallery to see if any of his works were on display. “A ridiculous compensation considering the infamy. Are you using your own name?” “You haven’t by any chance…” “No one is buying,” Jean-Claude said. “Undoubtedly it is the weather. People are thinking in terms of — what do you call those things? — Chris-Crafts. To boat with. You would not consider again what I spoke to you about before?” “No,” Peterson said, “I wouldn’t consider it.” “Two little ones would move much, much faster than a single huge big one,” Jean-Claude said, looking away. “To saw it across the middle would be a very simple matter.” “It’s supposed to be a work of art,” Peterson said, as calmly as possible. “You don’t go around sawing works of art across the middle, remember?” “That place where it saws,” Jean-Claude sa
id, “is not very difficult. I can put my two hands around it.” He made a circle with his two hands to demonstrate. “Invariably when I look at that piece I see two pieces. Are you absolutely sure you didn’t conceive it wrongly in the first instance?” “Absolutely,” Peterson said. Not a single piece of his was on view, and his liver expanded in rage and hatred. “You have a very romantic impulse,” Jean-Claude said. “I admire, dimly, the posture. You read too much in the history of art. It estranges you from those possibilities for authentic selfhood that inhere in the present century.” “I know,” Peterson said, “could you let me have twenty until the first?”

  Peterson sat in his loft on lower Broadway drinking Rheingold and thinking about the President. He had always felt close to the President but felt now that he had, in agreeing to appear on the television program, done something slightly disgraceful, of which the President would not approve. But I needed the money, he told himself, the telephone is turned off and the kitten is crying for milk. And I’m running out of beer. The President feels that the arts should be encouraged, Peterson reflected, surely he doesn’t want me to go without beer? He wondered if what he was feeling was simple guilt at having sold himself to television or something more elegant: nausea? His liver groaned within him and he considered a situation in which his new relationship with the President was announced. He was working in the loft. The piece in hand was to be called Season’s Greetings and combined three auto radiators, one from a Chevrolet Tudor, one from a Ford pick-up, one from a 1932 Essex, with part of a former telephone switchboard and other items. The arrangement seemed right and he began welding. After a time the mass was freestanding. A couple of hours had passed. He put down the torch, lifted off the mask. He walked over to the refrigerator and found a sandwich left by a friendly junk dealer. It was a sandwich made hastily and without inspiration: a thin slice of ham between two pieces of bread. He ate it gratefully nevertheless. He stood looking at the work, moving from time to time so as to view it from a new angle. Then the door to the loft burst open and the President ran in, trailing a sixteen-pound sledge. His first blow cracked the principal weld in Season’s Greetings, the two halves parting like lovers, clinging for a moment and then rushing off in opposite directions. Twelve Secret Service men held Peterson in a paralyzing combination of secret grips. He’s looking good, Peterson thought, very good, healthy, mature, fit, trustworthy. I like his suit. The President’s second and third blows smashed the Essex radiator and the Chevrolet radiator. Then he attacked the welding torch, the plaster sketches on the workbench, the Rodin cast and the Giacometti stickman Peterson had bought in Paris. “But Mr. President!” Peterson shouted. “I thought we were friends!” A Secret Service man bit him in the back of the neck. Then the President lifted the sledge high in the air, turned toward Peterson, and said: “Your liver is diseased? That’s a good sign. You’re making progress. You’re thinking.”

  “I happen to think that guy in the White House is doing a pretty darn good job.” Peterson’s barber, a man named Kitchen who was also a lay analyst and the author of four books titled The Decision To Be, was the only person in the world to whom he had confided his former sense of community with the President. “As far as his relationship with you personally goes,” the barber continued, “it’s essentially a kind of I-Thou relationship, if you know what I mean. You got to handle it with full awareness of the implications. In the end one experiences only oneself, Nietzsche said. When you’re angry with the President, what you experience is self-as-angry-with-the-President. When things are okay between you and him, what you experience is self-as-swinging-with-the-President. Well and good. But,” Kitchen said, lathering up, “you want the relationship to be such that what you experience is the-President-as-swinging-with-you. You want his reality, get it? So that you can break out of the hell of solipsism. How about a little more off the sides?” “Everybody knows the language but me,” Peterson said irritably. “Look,” Kitchen said, “when you talk about me to somebody else, you say ‘my barber,’ don’t you? Sure you do. In the same way, I look at you as being ‘my customer,’ get it? But you don’t regard yourself as being ‘my’ customer and I don’t regard myself as ‘your’ barber. Oh, it’s hell all right.” The razor moved like a switchblade across the back of Peterson’s neck. “Like Pascal said: ‘The natural misfortune of our mortal and feeble condition is so wretched that when we consider it closely, nothing can console us.’ The razor rocketed around an ear. “Listen,” Peterson said, “what do you think of this television program called Who Am 1? Ever seen it?” “Frankly,” the barber said, “it smells of the library. But they do a job on those people, I’ll tell you that.” “What do you mean?” Peterson said excitedly. “What kind of a job?” The cloth was whisked away and shaken with a sharp popping sound. “It’s too horrible even to talk about,” Kitchen said. “But it’s what they deserve, those crumbs.” “Which crumbs?” Peterson asked.

  That night a tall foreign-looking man with a switchblade big as a butcherknife open in his hand walked into the loft without knocking and said “Good evening, Mr. Peterson, I am the cat-piano player, is there anything you’d particularly like to hear?” “Cat-piano?” Peterson said, gasping, shrinking from the knife. “What are you talking about? What do you want?” A biography of Nolde slid from his lap to the floor. “The cat-piano,” said the visitor, “is an instrument of the devil, a diabolical instrument. You needn’t sweat quite so much,” he added, sounding aggrieved. Peterson tried to be brave. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Let me explain,” the tall foreign-looking man said graciously. “The keyboard consists of eight cats — the octave — encased in the body of the instrument in such a way that only their heads and forepaws protrude. The player presses upon the appropriate paws, and the appropriate cats respond — with a kind of shriek. There is also provision made for pulling their tails. A tail-puller, or perhaps I should say tail player” (he smiled a disingenuous smile) “is stationed at the rear of the instrument, where the tails are. At the correct moment the tail-puller pulls the correct tail. The tail-note is of course quite different from the paw-note and produces sounds in the upper registers. Have you ever seen such an instrument, Mr. Peterson?” “No, and I don’t believe it exists,” Peterson said heroically. “There is an excellent early seventeenth-century engraving by Franz van der Wyngaert, Mr. Peterson, in which a cat-piano appears. Played, as it happens, by a man with a wooden leg. You will observe my own leg.” The cat-piano player hoisted his trousers and a leglike contraption of wood, metal and plastic appeared. “And now, would you like to make a request? ‘The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian’? The ‘Romeo and Juliet’ overture? ‘Holiday for Strings’?” “But why —” Peterson began. “The kitten is crying for milk, Mr. Peterson. And whenever a kitten cries, the cat-piano plays.” “But it’s not my kitten,” Peterson said reasonably. “It’s just a kitten that wished itself on me. I’ve been trying to give it away. I’m not sure it’s still around. I haven’t seen it since the day before yesterday.” The kitten appeared, looked at Peterson reproachfully, and then rubbed itself against the cat-piano player’s mechanical leg. “Wait a minute!” Peterson exclaimed. “This thing is rigged! That cat hasn’t been here in two days. What do you want from me? What am I supposed to do?” “Choices, Mr. Peterson, choices. You chose that kitten as a way of encountering that which you are not, that is to say, kitten. An effort on the part of the pour-soi to —” “But it chose me!” Peterson cried, “the door was open and the first thing I knew it was lying in my bed, under the Army blanket. I didn’t have anything to do with it!” The cat-piano player repeated his disingenuous smile. “Yes, Mr. Peterson, I know, I know. Things are done to you, it is all a gigantic conspiracy. I’ve heard the story a hundred times. But the kitten is here, is it not? The kitten is weeping, is it not?” Peterson looked at the kitten, which was crying huge tigerish tears into its empty dish. “Listen Mr. Peterson,” the cat-piano player said, “listen!” The blade of his immense knife jumped back into the handl
e with a thwack! and the hideous music began.

  The day after the hideous music began the three girls from California arrived. Peterson opened his door, hesitantly, in response to an insistent ringing, and found himself being stared at by three girls in blue jeans and heavy sweaters, carrying suitcases. “I’m Sherry,” the first girl said, “and this is Ann and this is Louise. We’re from California and we need a place to stay.” They were homely and extremely purposeful. “I’m sorry,” Peterson said, “I can’t —” “We sleep anywhere,” Sherry said, looking past him into the vastness of his loft, “on the floor if we have to. We’ve done it before.” Ann and Louise stood on their toes to get a good look. “What’s that funny music?” Sherry asked, “it sounds pretty far-out. We really won’t be any trouble at all and it’ll just be a little while until we make a connection.” “Yes,” Peterson said, “but why me?” “You’re an artist,” Sherry said sternly, “we saw the A.I.R. sign downstairs.” Peterson cursed the fire laws which made posting of the signs obligatory. “Listen,” he said, “I can’t even feed the cat. I can’t even keep myself in beer. This is not the place. You won’t be happy here. My work isn’t authentic. I’m a minor artist.” “The natural misfortune of our mortal and feeble condition is so wretched that when we consider it closely, nothing can console us,” Sherry said. “That’s Pascal.” “I know,” Peterson said, weakly. “Where is the john?” Louise asked. Ann marched into the kitchen and began to prepare, from supplies removed from her rucksack, something called veal engagé. “Kiss me,” Sherry said, “I need love.” Peterson flew to his friendly neighborhood bar, ordered a double brandy, and wedged himself into a telephone booth. “Miss Arbor? This is Hank Peterson. Listen, Miss Arbor, I can’t do it. No, I mean really. I’m being punished horribly for even thinking about it. No, I mean it. You can’t imagine what’s going on around here. Please, get somebody else? I’d regard it as a great personal favor. Miss Arbor? Please?”