Beautiful Days: Stories

by Joyce Carol Oates

A: “‘I always wanted you to admire my fasting.’”

  Q: “Single line from literature you’d most like to have written that you have not, in fact, written, Mr. Barthelme?”

  A: “You tell me.”

  Q: “Where do you get your ideas, Mr. Barthelme?”

  A: “No comment.”

  Q: “Are you happier in that place you are now than you were here, given that, while here, you were often unhappy, and drank to hasten the passage of time to bring you to that place you are now, Mr. Barthelme?”

  A: “Missing the twenty-first century altogether. Missing the temptation of a terminal disenchantment. Being spared ignominy of inevitable equation in quantification of quality with popularity most painfully evidenced by artist’s Amazon ranking (on a good day) hovering at 7,592,000.”

  Q: “What is the best thing about being there, rather than here with us, Mr. Barthelme?”

  *ARTIST, UNGUARDED MOMENT.

  An unusually small child reaches up to tug at his knee. “Where do you get your ideas, sir, for your strangely compelling ‘surrealist’ art?”

  Crankily the artist prepares to say something mean but, seeing how unusually small the child-inquirer is, says instead, with a melancholy smile, “Oh, son. I am hoping you might tell me.”

  *ARTIST, UNOBSERVED

  In his atelier on Eleventh Street he broods. His fingers move restlessly. His heart pounds in his chest like a metronome. Art for the sake of art, or for humankind?

  How can there be art for the sake of art? It is a question that keeps him up at night and that no quantity of Gallo Chablis can assuage.

  *ARTIST, INTERRUPTED

  In his atelier on Eleventh Street the artist broods. Art for art’s sake is his cri de coeur until one mild April evening on his way home from his cubicle-workspace just off Union Square “eponymous” Art drops by to visit Don. Turns out Art is a moderate-height Everyman of indeterminate age, class, skin-tone, off-the-rack Macy’s Men’s Shop, affably puzzled. Art’s mysterious midtown Manhattan work involving numbers, computers, algorithms (which when Don hears he misinterprets as “Al Gore rhythms”—which seems to him worthy of André Breton) and data structures leaves Art with an “emptied-out” feeling but Art has never been one to think too deeply, still less brood. Says to Don who is staring at him with the famed Barthelme smile-sneer, “Well. I guess I am your Art, Mr. Barthelme, but I’m not sure why.”

  “‘My Art’? What do you mean?”—Don is perplexed.

  “‘Art for Art’s sake’ has been your buzzword, I believe. I can’t claim to have been keeping up with any of this ‘avant-garde’ art but I do know that—well, I am Art. Arthur Turnkey.”

  “You! You are—”

  “Yes. So it seems.”

  The artist is stunned by this revelation. The artist has staked his art on startling juxtapositions and revelations but the artist has not—ever—expected this.

  Still, the artist recovers. Shakes hands with Art for whose sake he has been toiling for so many years, and so often in vain, and so often for a piteous and unmanning remuneration, indeed the men laugh together abashed at first then more companionably, then Don asks Art if he’d like a drink and Art says, with a conspiratorial smile, “I guess that’s why I’ve been summoned here—eh?”

  *FUNAMBULATION III

  Not quite so boldly this morning he climbs the shaky ladder. Is this a good idea?

  The Cruel Master has decreed. The artist will not disappoint.

  (Are there more rungs on the ladder? And is the ladder narrower than usual? His legs are very tired. The bells on his jester’s cap tinkle less forcibly.)

  The audience below is sparse but noisy and distracting. They have been wandering over from the dirt-bike racetrack to see what’s what. Some have been waiting too long, they are clapping in unison, harsh jeering derisive clapping, a mockery of honest clapping. Don-old. Don-old. Don-old.

  Yet zestfully the artist crawls onto the small platform. Gusts of icy wind. Ominous rustling of (desiccated) leaves, papery leaves, a sky of poorly painted brooding clouds like water stains in wallpaper, hint of infinite space beyond, hardly the silence of which Pascal spoke with such eloquence.

  There, his pole! In his eager hands, the magic pole.

  Eager a hedge against meager. No one must see!

  He must cross the high wire. Another time.

  “But each time is unique. There is no true replication in life.”

  Life does not lend itself to replication.

  You are here once, then not. Hold your applause.

  Don-ald! Don-ald! You are the man!

  Chant of the crowd below not entirely mean. Isolated voices, tears leaking out of eyes, expressions of anguish, the agony of love of those who’ve drowned up with the artist, excuse me grown up with the artist. Shared birthdays in fact.

  Melancholy of farewell. Even l’ennui has its l’envoi.

  Don’t worry—the artist has had a bracing drink. The artist has had two bracing drinks. His long narrow feet are equipped with a monkey’s prehensile toes. In the thin-soled slippers not one of us gawking below would dare slip onto our feet the artist ventures out onto the high wire—another time.

  For the last time? Or but the penultimate?

  It is not accurate to say that the artist crosses the high wire in our place. The artist himself does not know why he crosses the high wire but he sure knows it is not in our place.

  Not-so-taut wire. Dangerously swaying. The platform on the far side of those trees. Murky pavement beneath. Edge of dirt-bike track beneath. Artist’s lips move in silence.

  Only way to avoid sin is constant prayer. Constant prayer only on the high wire. Pray for me.

  Stepping into the void that is the high wire. Where?

  *UNACKNOWLEDGED LEGISLATOR OF WORLD

  Well—this happens.

  He has been avoiding the high wire, actually. Been avoiding the high wire for a while. Actually on his way to Mulroney’s Wine & Liquor at Seventh Avenue and Ninth Street when an unusually small child tugs at his trouser-knee. Will you carry me across the Avenue, sir, the child begs. Though in a cranky mood but anticipating the first drink of the day—(to be accurate, the first drink of “daylight”—for he was drinking the night before, past midnight thus into the “next day”)—the artist smiles indulgently and says, All right! If there’s no other responsible adult to carry you across the wide dangerous Avenue I suppose I will have to. Picks up the small child to ride on his (still sturdy, not-bowed) shoulders across the Avenue, lets the child down gently on the sidewalk, the child thanks him and runs away and soon disappears from view as in a crowd scene in a film, often at the upbeat end of the film. Not yet at Mulroney’s Wine & Liquor when to his vexation another unusually small child accosts him, and asks to be carried across the Avenue, and this time too the artist hesitates, and sighingly gives in.

  “Look. I don’t want this to become anything like a habit.”

  Yet it happens, who knows why, as such things happen, and after the second small child there is a third, and then a fourth . . . The upshot is, the artist does not get to Mulroney’s until the sun has shifted radically in the western sky above the river, clouds overhead very like the soiled clothes of the homeless that have been blown skyward, and when the artist tries to open the damned door at Mulroney’s he discovers that the store is darkened, and closed; and in its window a sign he has somehow not seen: CLOSED.

  In this way, which is an alternate universe, the artist is spared his (obvious, imminent) alcoholic’s fate and embarks upon a new life of self-abnegation and devotion to others.

  In the near distance, the Cruel Master gnashes his teeth and clenches his jaws but is impotent, defeated.

  *ALTERNATELY . . .

  Alternately Mulroney’s Wine & Liquor is open until 9:00 P.M. on Fridays. The small children have vanished. At dusk he sees their figures in the mists above the West Side Highway. Ghost-children, languid, yearning, vanishing.

  “I’ll drink to that.”


  *MISANTHROPY OF THE ARTIST

  “Don didn’t really like people all that much.”

  *PHILANDRY OF THE ARTIST

  “He loved women, you know, and he had his vanity. He didn’t really want me there at his deathbed.”

  *PESSIMISM OF THE ARTIST

  “We defended the city as best we could.”

  *OPTIMISM OF THE ARTIST

  “We defended the city as best we could.”

  *DEFIANT OPTIMISM OF THE ARTIST

  “I opened the door, and the new gerbil walked in. The children cheered wildly.”

  The Memorial Field at Hazard, Minnesota

  When I awakened from the anesthetic they were waiting for me.

  Sir? It is time to come with us now.

  My eyes were so heavy-lidded! I tried to explain to them, my face had become stone, crudely carved. Those weatherworn faces you see in churchyards. No longer was I crass, craven—no longer callow and young. My lips moved numbly.

  It was not my fault. “History” is not my fault.

  A President is elected by a majority of individuals. The President is the majority of individuals. Our blame is evenly diffused.

  Blame so evenly diffused among many millions of individuals is less than a thimble of blame for each.

  The blame that is my portion is less than a thimble. A clear amber liquid like a child’s urine.

  THE MEMORIAL FIELD AT HAZARD covers eight hundred acres.

  It is so composed to replicate Midwestern ordinariness, you would not distinguish it from any other Midwestern field used as a chemical waste dump.

  A triumph de l’oeil!

  By the terms of the warrant they are bringing me to the Memorial Field at Hazard, Minnesota. I have not been to this place before, I think.

  When I awakened from the anesthetic, they were waiting for me with the warrant fully executed by one of my own federal justice appointees in the early, heady days of my administration.

  Wake up. Try to wake up sir. Open your eyes sir.

  Try to keep your eyes open sir.

  There is that moment of great urgency when emerging from the anesthetic—you may take a sudden turn backward, and turn into Lot’s wife in the sudden, solid calcification of stone. Or, if you are brave and heedless, and hopeful, you will continue forward, as I have done.

  Very good sir President! Now, you will come with us.

  At first, I did not recognize Chickie and Bruce! My own grandsons, I did not recognize for they have become young men now, taller than I could have imagined, and each stubbly-jawed, with wild hair and stark staring eyes in which a grandfather can discern little tenderness or mercy.

  Several tall uniformed youths among whom Chickie and Bruce were not distinguished except that they were my grandsons whom I had not seen since they were small children.

  Grandfather it’s time.

  Grandfather you have been granted more than enough time.

  The Memorial Field at Hazard, Minnesota, is located approximately sixty-five miles north of Lake Caribou and a quarter mile west of Lake Superior. Here, there are powerful gusts of wind from the lake. Waves rise as high as fifteen feet crashing against shore like mania. The shore isn’t a beach though there are stretches of gritty sand with a dull, sullen gleam mixed with mud. Debris is washed ashore here from landfills along the lake. The Memorial Field was first constructed as a chemical waste dump in the waning months of the Korean War, 1953. A wilderness place was required that would draw no particular attention for its ordinariness.

  The Memorial Field at Hazard, Minnesota, is four miles off Route 29, a state highway. You would take exit 11 from I-91. You will be surprised, I think—I was surprised.

  THEY CAME FOR ME in the hospital. Faintly I said, I don’t think I can come with you, there is this shunt in my heart. But they had the warrant. They said, No problem. We can bring the gurney with us.

  We drove. We came to the Memorial Field at Hazard.

  The generations conspire in unexpected ways. My children—my sons—rarely speak to me any longer. But my grandsons have come to see me in the hospital. I am disguised, I have been registered here under another name. I have been granted a civilian identity: Charlie Chanticleer. (Is this a comical name? I believe that it is. But I have always confounded mockery by failing to recognize it.) IV fluids drip into my wasted veins. So many times have chemicals been leaked into my veins, I have few “usable” veins. You will feel pity for me but only recall: it will happen one day to you, too.

  I am wearing paper slippers, a gown that ties loosely in back. I am a spectacle, my buttocks part-exposed! People smile at me pityingly. (Do they recognize me, despite my unshaven jaws? My haggard eyes? My emaciated frame? For once I’d been as stout and hearty as any of you.)

  Don’t laugh at me, please. I will confess—yes, I tried to appeal to my grandsons, to help me escape. But the tall uniformed youths turned faces upon me blank as scrubbed soapstone.

  It is not that they denied me, they seemed scarcely to acknowledge me.

  Or, it was pity that neutralized their contempt, and turned their faces blank and eyes unseeing.

  Grandfather you have been granted more than enough time.

  FROM THE TRUNK OF THE VEHICLE, the shovels. How crude—shovels. The Memorial Field is eight hundred acres of primarily marshy soil. A smell of decay. Sucking at our feet. My escorts are urging me forward. I am not a young man—I can’t remember having been a young man. Sir, take one of the shovels. Sir, here.

  I am not accustomed to being ordered about.

  Why we must walk on foot in such underbrush, in such arduous landscape, I am not certain. I am trying to remain in good spirits, to be a “good sport”—this has been my personality since grade school. If you are a “good sport” you will be forgiven much. I have always had hopes of being forgiven much.

  We are marching, tramping, through a marshy landscape. Yet strangely, there is no insect life here—no cries and calls of insect life. Our feet are sucked-at, but only by mud. Just a little farther, Grandfather! Do not weaken now.

  Will you leave me here, if I fall? You will not, I hope!

  The landscape, the dark, the Memorial Field in which, with each rainfall, the bodies are beginning to emerge. There are vapors here, columns of pale rising toxic air. There is a powerful subterranean stench. I have tried to explain, I did not know that burying the bodies was the Chief Executive’s responsibility and so my office staff was worked very hard, and there were breakdowns, there were replacements. There were eleven suicides among our support staff, reported as “accidents.” There were insurance compensations to the devastated families of course. There were pensions. There was a secret budget for these. I repeat that I had not known, until the bodies began to arrive in the United States. The bodies were shipped in containers that might have withstood radiation. Body bags inside containers. At first I had thought This is a cruel trick, a typical political trick, my political enemies who want to embarrass me. But then, it was revealed that my enemies here at home were wholly unaware of the bodies, no one knew about the bodies but a small fraction of the Capital workers, the staff associated with the Pentagon and with the Executive Office.

  These are the loyal army that “runs” the Capital. All organizations of any size are “run” by individuals of this class, the great majority of them women. We could not have wars—we could not have peace treaties—if this loyal army did not perform as adequately and as enthusiastically as they do. Tonight, I am extending my gratitude to these individuals—I thank you, and I thank you.

  The Memorial Field at Hazard was the final destination, once the bodies arrived at the Pentagon. They had come great distances, and had to be re-addressed to Minnesota. A flood of such bodies. Vast freight trains of upright cylinders, boxcar after boxcar, the delivery of the wartime dead. As I was the Chief Executive at the time, as I was the War President, I had little opportunity for such details, about which I knew virtually nothing. I am beginning to think yes, I was shiel
ded from such knowledge. And so: is ignorance blameworthy?

  But now that I am retired, and a new and younger administration has taken power, though I am not in good health I have been informed of the Hazard Memorial Field warrant which I am obliged to fulfill under the terms of my Presidency.

  The warrant stipulates: I must dig up the bodies one by one. As these are singular deaths, one by one.

  And then, the decree is that I must assign a name to each body; and I must be photographed beside each body. I must crouch down inside the makeshift grave, or what passes for a “grave.” I must lie down beside each body.

  There are thousands of bodies. Part-destroyed by explosives, or fires, or natural decay. Bodies that are parts of bodies, once living. Hundreds of thousands of bodies, or is it thousands of thousands of bodies . . . And each body is the President’s responsibility.

  I am gripping the shovel in my hands, tightly. I am beginning to sink the dull blade into the muddy earth.

  They are holding candles beside me. An oil lamp, held high.

  Grandfather you are doing OK.

  My grandchildren speak in such a way to communicate that they do not think that I am doing OK.

  As I unshovel the first grave, a powerful stench lifts to my nostrils, grown sensitive with my safe, sequestered life. There are those (of you) who abhorred me, I know: you believed that my bland boy’s face, as vacuous of expression as a baseball glove, was not the proper face of the highest ranked politician of our nation. You believed that I was not fit for such office but I repeat: I did not elect myself.

  How many more, how many more bodies lie ahead. The Memorial Field at Hazard is eight hundred vast acres.

  BENEATH THE ROCKY SOIL, a shape began to emerge—a human body. The shovel exposed the body of a shockingly specific person. A boy of ten or eleven years, thin face, thin arms, legs—a naked child. His face was barely recognizable as a face but you could tell by the eyes, what remained of the eyes, that he was “foreign”—even the light-skinned are readily identifiable as such. His body was partly destroyed—and partly decayed . . .

  Oh God I am very weak, my guts are sick . . . I did not anticipate a child, I am very sick, I am tired. There is a shunt in my arm, that leads to my heart. I am not “heartless”—I was never given a chance to speak my “heart.”