by Gordon Lish
“WITH WRITING REMINISCENT OF STEIN OR BECKETT, LISH REMINDS HIS READERS THAT THE ACTUAL PAST AND THE REMEMBERED PAST ARE DIFFERENT, AND HE FLESHES OUT EVERY POSSIBLE PERSPECTIVE…”
—THE BOSTON REVIEW
“LISH HAS PRODUCED A WEALTH OF AVANT-GARDE PROSE, WORTHY OF THE PIONEERS OF LITERARY MODERNISM. HIS WRITING REPRESENTS THE US’S ANSWER TO SAMUEL BECKETT AND THOMAS BERNHARD.”
—THE GUARDIAN
Goings: In Thirteen Sittings is Gordon Lish’s first completely original work in sixteen years, thirteen stories that mark the ongoing vitality of one of the era’s enduring scribes.
While he is widely acknowledged as perhaps the most influential editor since Maxwell Perkins, it is in his own writing that Lish’s genius is made manifest. There, his quick wit and black humor are on full display, as well as a merciless intellect that skewers no one so thoroughly as a narrator most often known as “Gordon.” In the stories in Goings, Lish wrestles with memory; self-knowledge (the lack and the impossibility thereof); friendship; mothers, sons and lovers. More than that, the language here is a collective paradigm of Lishian prose: a great writer’s attempt to leap off the page.
ALSO BY GORDON LISH
Collected Fictions
Krupp’s Lulu
Arcade
Self-Imitation of Myself
Selected Stories
Epigraph
Zimzum
My Romance
Extravaganza
Mourner at the Door
Peru
What I Know So Far
Dear Mr. Capote
All Our Secrets Are the Same (ed.)
The Secret Life of Our Times (ed.)
New Sounds in American Fiction (ed.)
A Man’s Work
Why Work (ed.)
English Grammar
All entries © 2013 Gordon Lish
Published by OR Books, New York and London
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except brief passages for review purposes.
First printing 2013
Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress.
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-939293-33-6 paperback
ISBN 978-1-939293-34-3 e-book
Typeset by Lapiz Digital, Chennai, India.
Printed by BookMobile in the U.S. and CPI Books Ltd in the U.K.
The U.S.-printed edition of this book comes on Forest Stewardship Council-certified, 30% recycled paper. The printer, BookMobile, is 100% wind-powered.
TO MARIE-MADELEINE GEKIERE
Language becomes a compromised ideology,
or else it becomes an idol.
In either case,
we have nothing but trouble.
—DENIS DONOGHUE
Mother! Father! Please!
—ANON.
CONTENTS
MY PERSONAL MEMOIR
FÜR WHOM?
AVANT LA LETTRE
SPEAKAGE
IN THE DISTRICT, INTO THE BARGAIN
VIEW FROM THE OTHER SIDE
GNAT
KNOWLEDGE
END OF THE WORLD
TROTH
FOR MY MOTHER, REG, DEAD IN AMERICA
WOMEN PASSING: O MYSTERIUM!
HIS SON, FALLING
AFTERWORD
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MY PERSONAL MEMOIR
THERE WAS A game we played. Maybe it wasn’t a game in and of itself. Is a ball a game? Sure, a ball is not a game. But you can make a game with it, can’t you? What can’t you make a game with, or of? You just have to decide you are going to do it, is all. Or not even make up your mind and go ahead and decide as such. All you have to do is take the thing and start doing something with it and then say to a boy on the block can you do this and then you show the boy that you yourself can, and then the next thing of it is that that particular boy has to see if he can do it and if he can do it too or even if he can’t, well, I ask you, I sit here and in all honesty I ask you, is there or is there not already enough of a game going from just that much of it already, or even better, let’s say he can’t do it, the boy, that particular boy, then even better, even better if he can’t, except who can say, maybe before you know it you’re the boy who’s sorry you started the whole thing in the first place because maybe the boy we were talking about, maybe he can go ahead and do it better than you can do it and then you wish you had never even taken the reins and started the game and could instead of any of that instead just stop playing it but you can’t stop playing it, you can’t, you can’t, because every time that particular boy on the block comes around he’s got the thing you need for the game with him and he says to you hey look, can you do this, can you, can you, even if all you have to do is do it as many times as he can, or do it a little farther than he can, or do it faster, for instance, than he can, or, well, you know, more times, more times, or do it some other way different like that.
It was like that when I was a boy.
So the thing itself in the case which I am thinking about, it was a little red ball—and there was this mysterious way they had of getting the little red ball stuck to a pretty long red rubber string and the string, well, it itself was stapled—the string, okay?—yes, yes, that’s exactly the word, stapled, stapled, that’s it exactly, this pretty long red rubber string—it was stapled to a paddle, and so that’s the general thing which I want for you to picture for yourself, the paddle and the ball and the string—are you with me?—the paddle and the ball and the string, which the whole idea of the game was for you to grab the paddle in your hand and see if you could toss the little red ball up a little bit and then smack it with the paddle and then keep on smacking it with the paddle until you missed it altogether or, you know, you just didn’t smack it right and it went all crazy in the wrong direction and then it was the other boy’s turn, then it was his time for his turn, or if there were a lot of other boys, which was the way it just so happened to be on my particular block, because on my particular block it was a block with a lot of different boys on it, it was a block with all sorts of different kinds of boys on it, and yes, yes, don’t kid yourself, even at this day and age I could name every one of these various different boys if you dared me to, I could, I really truly could, if you happen to want for us to take the time it would take for me to go ahead and look all of the way back in my mind and name every single last one of them or, okay, okay, maybe if truth be told, maybe I wouldn’t be absolutely able to name every last one of them but you can bet your bottom dollar I could probably name plenty enough of them for me to give you the general drift of the thing I am taking the trouble to sit here and tell you about, such as the Stanleys, for instance, such as the Stanleys themselves, for instance, who were, for your personal information, the biggest of all of the boys on the block and who I wouldn’t at this particular point in history be the least little bit surprised if they were probably the oldest of all of us too, Stanley R. Florin, for instance, and Stanley S. Baughman, for a second instance, that’s right, I’m right, those were the two Stanleys, Stanley R. Florin and Stanley S. Baughman, they were referred to as the Stanleys, or as the two Stanleys, and they were pretty good at the game, let me sit here and tell you that the two Stanleys, that they were pretty goddamn terrific at it, yes indeedy, I am here at this point in history to goddamn tell you the Stanleys were good, the two Stanleys were great, the two Stanleys were the best at the game that anybody at that particular time on the block was, them just going ahead and taking the padd
le from you and then smacking the little red ball with it and then just keeping on smacking the crap out of it and then on and on and, wow, holy cow, making the little red ball come whipping right back at the paddle to smack the shit out of it all over again and then smack it some more and keep smacking it some more and, you see, you see, just look at it, are you really trying with your mind to look at it, either of the Stanleys just smacking that little red ball every time the long red rubber string goes snapping out and then comes snapping back at the paddle again—and then again and then again and then this way and then that way until, Jesus, who could stand there and believe it anymore, until you just had to stand there praying and hoping and hoping and praying your turn was never going to come up again but no matter how much you stood there pleading with Jesus Himself, you waiting and waiting and pleading with Jesus please Jesus please don’t let it, don’t, don’t, please don’t let my turn come again, please Jesus please, but it would, it would, oh you bet it would, and there you were, standing there with the vicious paddle all ashamed all over again and sad so sad so awful sad from just standing and standing and from hearing yourself screaming out loud to yourself inside of yourself for it all of it to be all over and finished again, please, for it all of it to stop, just stop, just for it to break and be broken, string gone, ball gone, paddle flown out of your hand and for everybody, for all of the boys, for them just to fall over and finally be dead.
Oh, Jesus, your turn!
Oh, Jesus, my turn!
Oh, me, I’m telling you, I myself as a boy, I’m telling you, I’d go ahead and take the handle of it in my hand and go ahead and give the little red ball a little bit of a toss, but try as I might, and I tried, oh brother, oh boy oh boy, did I for Christ’s sake try for me to just get the little red ball for it to go up and come back down just even twice for once even if I hit it just as easy as pie just only straight up and right straight back down back to the paddle just twice for once.
But Bobby, there was a boy Bobby, I don’t think I told you anything yet about this particular boy Bobby yet—because there was this particular boy Bobby on this block and Bobby was worse.
I’m serious.
I’m being serious with you—there was this Bobby, okay, and believe you me when I tell you, this boy Bobby was worse, this boy Bobby was probably even the worst of all of the boys—until, wait, wait, you didn’t hear anywhere near anything yet where the rest of this thing of this is going to come out to its honest-to-God ending yet, you don’t even know the first thing of any of the whole unbelievable miracle of this particular story yet, the worst boy on the whole block, the worst, the worst, this Bobby, this Bobby, doesn’t the day all of a sudden dawn, doesn’t the day all of a sudden come along when this Bobby which I have been mentioning to you, when this particular boy Bobby, he all of a sudden starts taking the paddle and beating the piss out of the little red ball which, like I told you, like I already took the time to tell you, which was stapled to it, just standing there like it was nothing to him if he hit it this way or or if he hit it that way because whichever way this boy Bobby wanted to hit the little red ball he hit it and hit it just the way I just have been mentioning it to you, the weakest, the littlest, the worst boy on the block, but wait, wait, what happens but the day fucking dawns, the day just fucking comes fucking along when, hey, hey, this boy Bobby, he’s taking the paddle and smacking the little red ball better even than Neal could and better even than Clive could, and you take Clive, or you take Neal, those two particular boys, they themselves were almost themselves in a league with either of the two Stanleys, it’s true, it’s true, I mean it, I mean it, it just happened just the way I just sat myself down here and just this minute have been telling you, this Bobby passing this Clive by and then this Bobby passing this Neal by and then this Bobby himself almost catching up right there in front of your eyes to one of the two Stanleys once, this boy on the block Bobby almost catching up to Stanley S. Baughman once or with, or to, with the other one of the champs once, to or with good old Stanley R. Florin once but definitely with or to one or with one or to one of the other one of them once.
So that’s when I had no choice but for me to invent the game of getting a stick and of hitting a pebble with the stick but not just of hitting the pebble with the stick but of hitting it right straight at the face of a boy on the block—and, wait, wait, because I mean hitting the pebble with all of your might, that’s right, hitting it with all of it, hitting it with absolutely all of it, like every boy who was ever in his heart a boy who knows things like this right down to his soles of his shoes, there’s this feeling, right, there’s this thing you have to have for you to have a feeling like this, which is this really type of mysterious type of feeling of it or for it, like of or for you giving the pebble one of these really great whacks, like whacking it solid in the center of the stick like, I mean like whack, whack, I mean like cracking it right with the right part of the stick, which was just how it was when this particular boy on the block whose name I happen at this particular juncture to think was probably a name like Edwin probably or maybe more like Everett, I think, or like some other terrible name like that, like a name probably beginning with this horrible letter E in front of it, I think, which it is my personal official opinion I have already made fair and ample reference to, but hold it a minute, just hold it for one little more minute, because, yes, yes, Elliot, wasn’t it, or spelt Eliot or instead Eliott or something E-name-wise like that?
It put his eye out just the same.
Whichever eye it was, whatever name it was.
He cried a lot with his sight knocked out like that and then he had to go all around all over the block with this drippy-looking bandage hanging half over the whole seepy mess of it and this—me sitting here as God is my judge—this very thing was what this poor particular unfortunate boy had to do for years and years to come, until, thanks to the regular fabulous improvement you can always count on with regards to our modern-day medicine, he got to be old enough and get himself more settled-down in his emotions enough for the experts to go ahead and give him an operation and put a ball of something in there where a real eye used to be for like this fake one to be there in his head instead.
Oh, I know, I know.
Wrong, wrong!—of course I was wrong.
I completely forgot to remember it was Henry—that it wasn’t even close to any E-name but that it was a particular name—Henry, Henry!—which I, Gordon, personally hated the guts out of it.
And here’s another thing for you to sit there and take into your thoughts in the process of according to them the due consideration due them while you and your family marvel over these long-ago personal events which I, Gordon, am taking the trouble for me to tell you about—that it took two days—two!—for the boys on the block to get somebody’s mother’s broom cut clear away all of the way off from its handle so that, in effect, you had yourself a free-swinging stick which you could really lay your back into and then—wait, wait!—two more days on top of those two days—this crazy thing of this number of two again, right, am I right?—the mystery of it, the fucking mystery of it, Jesus, Jesus!—it taking two more days on top of that for us to get the handle sawed off short enough so that you could really stand there and have the presence of mind for you to develop this particular feeling for yourself of getting your feet planted just exactly right enough and really wind that fucking half of a handle up with all of your might and lay your whole young back into it, really get your whole great-feeling boy’s back heaved all of the way into it and wing that sonofabitch pebble out there into anybody’s face you felt like just like a fucking shot like.
But so what?
I mean, I ask you, did it matter, what did it matter, whose eye you could maybe put out?
I mean, come on, hadn’t we all of us already seen what wasn’t all of it just only—everything, everything!—just only a different type of a game where there was nothing—nothing!—not anything on all of the whole block which was really on the up-an
d-up?
FÜR WHOM?
I PLAYED THE piano. Truer to say, I played at the piano or with the piano. Why I am taking pains such as these to wise you up relative to the relative nature of things is to get you informed enough respecting “that relative nature of things” so that you will know, right off the bat, what the score was, piano-wise, music-wise, sister-wise, father-wise, and, most percussively of all, as to all of Miss Bugell. Oh, did I say Dad? Yeah, my dad, my dad. Father. Him too. Or did I in his case neglect to get him prominently enough onto the list of topics? Okay, here we go, nosey as all get-out. We begin by your seeing if you can see my six- and thereafter seven- and eight-year-old behind positioned (in short pants) inches itchily to this side (couldn’t help myself, could I?), on the family crewel-work-covered piano bench, of the left-hand (usually but not without certain equally thrilling expectations) hip (indeed, too boney an affair to merit, in the common parlance, the word) and all the better for me for my having, as a child—a six- seven- and eight-year-old child—been, by that age, oh so perfervidly taken with the parts of a female whose “build,” as was once the cheeky politeness, gave her to rank rather well in the skinny-to-scanty-styled bodily run-offs, not that such scandalous goings-on ever, so far as I can interpret, did indeed go on in those long-ago arrangements our little narrative endeavor is set in. But tall? Miss Bugell was tall—and from Charlotte, North Carolina, and pasty-looking, or pallid-looking, or perhaps downright pale’s the word. Let’s face it, plain and pale would do as a pair of excessively generous denotations. The woman was a sight, okay?—and I, Gordon (Gordon!) was mad for her. Well, as you will already have considered, the point of the piano lessons, these conducted weekly in the company of the family baby-grand Knabe, was not so much a matter of all parties suffering for the sake of nurturing an imitation of musicality in the household as it was to situate Gordon’s behind within easy reach of his teacher’s (you’re pushing me, you do recognize that you’re pushing me) behind. Too, being Gordon (Gordon!), I was keen to displace my sister in every manner of measurement, and proved so deft at the enterprise that the child (she herself two gross years my senior but still callow enough to fall headlong into rounds of periodic hysterics as she was elbowed well out of the way from any and all lofty touch with the frenzied diurnal exertions in M. Czerny’s vicious exercises required of eager tyros in a facsimile of the creative life, practiced ever and ever more feebly among the lesser exigencies: exhibitions of “Chopsticks” and “Hearts and Flowers,” occasionally called forth from the uncertain fingers of the convincingly vanquished. So there: an early triumph relished by the victor so murderously the older child (what was her name?) pulled up stakes in the living room and remanded herself to the undisciplined custody of her bedroom, to take up, all Bugell-less, you might say, a stubborn effect to subdue, with flair, the challenges of number-painting, in oils, portraits of “Lassie” and of “Bambi” and of “Flicka,” proving her still more or less in the arts game. In brief, I, Gordon (Gordon!) had, in no little while at all, seen to it that the creature (wasn’t it sometimes Natalie, sometimes Lorraine?) went exiled, without portfolio, to where, I assumed, that after a quick mucking around with her creative materials (reviewing her colors), subsided, before supper, into sobful fits of some unspeakable quality of unslumbrous sleep. Her accruing humiliations (Natalie’s? Lorraine’s?) inured to my flourishing grandiosity in great gobbets of local fame. (Now isn’t the boy the little Orpheus now, such a charmer so impishly in command of the eighty-eights!) Well, I was Gordon (Gordon!); she, the other child, less and less often even named. Siblings, families—what else is there to say? Furthermore (I love that: the chance to flaunt it with echt balance), it was I whose fingers took up his arpeggios while his backside thrummed ever more thrummingly to a kind of low-register attunement to the propinquity of Miss Bugell’s same. Oh, the nearness of her ass (sirs and madam, it was no rump, now was it?), all yearning angularities not infrequently settling itself within fractions of centimeters afar. I quote, of course. Yes, I, Gordon (Gordon!), aged seven, aged six, aged eight, hankered after that piano teacher as I have never since hankered after the person of a woman since. Six-foot-four, oh so colorfully colorless, penitentially drab garment hanging pitifully from an immense skeleton afire with the covert thrillings of sexlessness. But hearken, you, this ditty of ours, it shall not (it shan’t!) be left to linger any longer, nor any more hygienically (in a Grantland Rice sort of way), on the expectable stirrings radiating from the smelting of an overly praised, normally pathological, achingly competitive kid.
