“Oh, he’s coming back!” she will exclaim. “He doesn’t say when, but he’s coming back!”
“Let me see the ‘letter,’ Diana,” you will insist.
“Oh, no!” she will object. “Not this one. I couldn’t even tell you—”
You will snatch the letter from her and run. Down the Squires Creek road you will run.
“You bastard!” she will holler, coming after you. “Give that back!”
You will run on, determined to outrun her and find some secret place where you can stop long enough to look at this “letter,” to prove that it is empty. But unfortunately, old Gasper, you are in no condition to be doing any running, and she is right on your heels, clawing at your back. You should have known better than to attempt to increase the pace of your running.
You will stop abruptly and crumple up with your first heart attack.
How ironic: I have created you for the purpose of keeping Diana alive, she who was doing such a poor job of keeping herself alive. I thought you could keep her alive, if not forever at least long enough to get my story told. I should have picked someone whose heart is in better condition than yours, but you are my only logical choice. Now, will you die on us yourself?
When you fall, she will grab at the letter in your hand, and tear it away from you, leaving you clutching a mere fragment of one corner. You will hold this to your heart and groan, “My heart—”
“Serves you right, you Grabber!” she will say, but her tone will not be entirely hostile; she will become solicitous for your condition, and kneel beside you. Your florid face and heaving chest will alarm her. “I’ll go get your car and drive you to a doctor,” she will suggest.
“No key,” you will gasp.
“I—” she will hesitate. “Maybe I can find it. Keep calm. I’ll be right back.” She will run off toward home.
You would have preferred that she stay with you, holding your hand, while you died. To die alone, in the middle of this dirt road in this dying old town…. Well, on second thought, it does have a certain appropriateness. Except that you will not be actually dying. When she returns, in less than ten minutes, driving your car, you will be sitting up, your respiration and pulse will be nearly normal, and you will have had time to study the fragment of letter you’d torn away, which says only “Remember the pool at Marcella Falls?” The script is not identical to hers, but, you will be relieved to observe, it is very similar to hers: the “e”s and “o”s are formed like hers.
You will return this fragment to her. “I’m sorry,” you will apologize. “I shouldn’t have stolen your letter like that. But my curiosity was killing me. And it nearly did, you might say, kill me.”
“Are you all right?” she will ask. “I was very worried….”
“I should have gone into training for that run,” you will remark lightly. “I’m just in rotten condition. Where did you find my car key?”
“Oh, it was on the—” she will pause, and decide not to lie. “It was hidden on the rotten condition. I hid it. If you’re going to Jessup for more cigarettes and whiskey, you’ll have to walk. Nobody’s going to pick you up.” And she will take the key out of the ignition and run away with it. But she will not run far. She will stop, and wait, as if challenging you to catch her. You will leave your car abandoned there on the Squires Creek road, and start out after her. You will jog a while, then walk a while.
“Starting right now!” she will yell at you, backing off as you near her. “Starting right now, we get you into good condition!”
23
Running, jogging, trotting, walking, you will begin on this day to get into condition. This is both your end and your beginning. The finish line at a race track is in the same place as the starting line, is it not? You do not know it, then, but this is to be your last day in Stick Around. And you do not know it then either, but this running will be the beginning of your long, long race. You will never stop, old Greyhound, but I pleasantly picture you disburdened and disembarrassed of that potbelly, trim of limb and long of gait and full of wind. Sprint on, old Gee!
How many miles will you cover that day? With her beside you, or ahead of you, as your pacer, you will cover every road and trail into and out of and across Stick Around. You wouldn’t have smoked a cigarette if you had one. Hiking and hastening and heaving, you will hurry to cover all the odds and ends that still stick around in your mind.
Why has “Day” decided to start writing to you again, after skipping yesterday?
He was “out of town” yesterday. He had to go all the way down to Russellville to be interviewed by the National Forestry Service. And guess what, he got the job! Starting next month, he’ll be a forest ranger in the Ozark National Forest.
And then “he” will go live by himself in some forest tower?
Maybe, but I hope he can just stay here in Stick Around.
Do you intend to stay here in Stick Around?
Of course!
Forever?
Well, I can’t say that. But I can tell you, I’ve had enough of traveling; I’ve discovered, as Daniel Lyam Montross finally did, that traveling creates instability and insecurity, and that even if Stick Around isn’t as nice as some other places I’ve been, it’s home, and home creates stability and security.
But won’t you ever get lonely?
Not if you’re here.
Pardon? I didn’t catch that.
I said, not for a year. You see, I’ve had a lot of experience with being lonely, but I’ve decided that I simply will not be lonely, for at least a year. That is, I’ll give it a year, and if at the end of that year I want to, then I’ll feel lonely. Stick Around isn’t completely a ghost town, you know. There are still several families living up there in the hills and valleys outside of town, and Day and I have already made some friends.
Tell me, if you don’t mind, why your privy has only one hole.
Well, don’t you see? after Daniel Lyam Montross’s daughter left him, he was alone, and when his original privy got kind of old and worn out, he built a new one, and since there was nobody but him, he didn’t need more than one hole. But your “Day” didn’t feel the need to remedy that situation? After all, in your story so much emphasis was laid on sharing….
You have a scatological mind, G. But if you must know, neither of us has ever used that outhouse. If you live in the woods as long as we have, you prefer the woods.
Will you marry me?
No. Tell me, what is the meaning of the reference to the pool at Marcella Falls in “his” latest “letter.” I couldn’t resist reading that piece that tore off, the end of his letter, and it said, “Remember the pool at Marcella Falls?”
Oh, that’s just an allusion to the subject of voyeurism. If I told you what it really means, you would understand why I can’t let you read his letter, and that is precisely the reason I can’t let you. But, as you’ve remarked, there are different kinds of voyeurism in the various sections of our story. In the first section was the pool at Marcella Falls where Day spied on me the first time I was taking a bath there myself, and later watched me when I took a skinny dip with those Jesus freaks. Then of course, in the second section, there was that awful business about voyeurism in relation to masturbation, which was indirectly responsible for Day’s trying to hang himself. In the third section, there was the situation wherein Flossie sometimes watched us when we were making love. Now, in the fourth section, there is also another kind of voyeurism. That’s what Day was referring to, because it harks back to the pool at Marcella Falls.
The fourth section? What is the fourth section?
This is the fourth section. Right now. We’re in it.
Oh. Are you suggesting that we’re being watched? By a voyeur? Who is watching us?
Daniel, of course, is watching us. He’s responsible for our being here, after all. He’s in charge of the whole show. I don’t know if he’s getting any voyeuristic pleasure out of it, but I do know that he’s watching.
You’re making me
self-conscious. Are you insinuating that he created us?
Of course he did! Neither of us would be here, right now, if it hadn’t been for him, would we? He not only created us, but he is also re-creating us: giving us something to live for. But he won’t let me marry you?
No.
Why did he create me, then?
To tell his story, when all the rest of us have tried and failed. And to tell our story.
But he seems to be doing all of the storytelling by himself.
In our “solipsism,” as you call it, all of us invent each other for various reasons, to fill various needs. Day, if you wish, invented Daniel Lyam Montross as a father substitute, a kindly protector, and he invented me for my companionship and love, if not my money, just as I invented him for his practical knowledge of living in the woods. Daniel Lyam Montross invented Day as a reincarnation-in-disguise for himself, and he invented me as a catalyst to take Day to these various towns, concluding with Stick Around, and he invented you to tell the story of it. But the very important thing is, you see, that while we in our solipsism have all invented each other for various reasons, nobody invented Daniel Lyam Montross except himself. He existed long before any of us.
And there is no hope that he could be persuaded to let me marry you?
I’m sorry, no.
Please list the volumes in Daniel Lyam Montross’s library.
He wasn’t an intellectual, not what you would think of as a reading man. There were only three books: the Holy Bible, an anthology of Elizabethan poetry, and an unabridged dictionary. He read the first for humor, the second for music, and the third for drama.
And he was never bored? Or lonely? What about his sex life? Was he suddenly celibate during those twenty-odd years here in Stick Around?
The sex of the sections, as you have remarked, was sequential: the first, coital; the second, oral; the third, anal. This is the fourth section. The sex of the sections was sequential and the fourth is sequestered.
Sequestered? Do you mean solitary? Masturbatory?
No. Not necessarily. Sequestered in the sense of separated, isolated, withdrawn. You recall his ninth beatitude, which implies that the supreme happiness comes from being able to exclude the mind from the body’s business, as for example in sex. That exclusion, or seclusion, is the sequestering. It is, incidentally, how Daniel “cured” our sexual maladjustments: by taking our minds off of it during the act, Day was able to last longer while I—But I can’t dwell on it, because it’s sequestered, don’t you see? Your mind and mine are not permitted to perceive it.
Are you and I going to make love, ever?
Not if it can be perceived by any mind.
What?
Neither of us would be happy doing it if our minds or anyone else’s minds saw us doing it.
Who?
Anyone. We are being observed, as I told you.
Why?
To see which place we wind up in, some other place or the right place.
Where?
The right place.
How?
Through wretchedness to happiness, through damnation to blessedness.
When?
Soon.
I’m running out of questions, and my feet are killing me. But there’s just one question left. All these days and months, why haven’t you ever written to your father and mother?
How do you know I haven’t?
24
Naturally I can’t let you marry her, old Groom, even if you weren’t already wed. Nor can I let the sequence of sex in these sections be upset by any unsequestered love at this point. But, just as I’ve permitted you the joy of that one soul-renewing night of holding and embracing, I’m happy to give you, on this your last afternoon in Stick Around, that innocent but wanton happening you’ve always wanted: the experience of a refreshing sharing of a swim, the two of you rinsing the sweats of your running and hiking by a quick naked plunge into that secluded pool of Banner Creek known as Old Bottomless. The picture is not quite of pastoral beauty, for both of you are paunchy, she with child, and you, old Gut, with gut, but I must observe that without her dress on she looks even less swollen than usual, somehow, while your vigorous race has already removed perhaps an inch from your waistline and you can, by expanding your chest and holding your breath, shrink the other inches. The occasion is, as I say, both innocent and wanton, chaste but frolicsome: you would love, wouldn’t you? for it to develop into something sequestered, but I am watching you, for now, and as long as I choose to watch you, you are not sequestered. So, enjoy yourself, for now. And soak your feet well. Because when this half-hour is up, you’ll have to do some more walking.
25
It will have been a stupid question; you will realize this too late. Most of your questions have been sharp, even clever, but this one will be showing your hand. How could you possibly have known that she had not corresponded with her parents unless you had been in touch with them? Unless you are, as she will quickly guess, hired by her father to find her?
“How much did my father offer to pay you?” she will ask.
You will tell her.
She will say, “I’ll give you twice that much if you promise not to tell him where I am. I’ll give you three times that much.”
You will shake your head. You will tell her that you had never been interested in money, in the first place.
“Are you going to tell him where I am?” she will ask.
“I don’t know,” you will equivocate. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why haven’t you written to your parents? Even to let them know that you’re still alive.”
“I won’t write to my father because I detest him,” she will say. “Do you know, in all the years that I was away at school, at Margaret Hall and then at Sarah Lawrence, I got a total of maybe six or seven letters from him, all of them little short things dictated to his secretary. ‘Be a good girl and work hard.’ ‘Be a good girl and stay out of trouble.’ He never seemed to care about any of the specific problems that I might have been having. He thought money would take care of any problem.”
“But couldn’t you write to your mother instead?”
“No. I want her to see how it feels to have your only daughter abandon you. Because that’s what she did. She abandoned Daniel Lyam Montross, after he’d spent so many years trying to bring her up to be a person and have an It and be able to see it. Why couldn’t she have stayed here in Stick Around and married one of the local boys? Why did she have to go off and marry that absolute louse Burton Stoving and become a society girl? Why couldn’t—”
Now, old Goodfriend, if it will help your faith and understanding any, I’ll take you into my confidence and tell you of certain matters which not even Diana herself has been told, for good reason. She is, as you have seen, an intelligent girl, and she seems lately to have resolved most of her “It jitters,” but there are some things that she is still simply too young and too sensitive to know. One of these is the story, involving intrigue and stealth, of how I “kidnapped” her. I refused her request to “re-create” this story. It is exciting, but immaterial, even irrelevant. She wanted, in effect, to “age-regress” herself to her third year, and pretend to be in Little Rock, and have me come and kidnap her. I had to refuse. That entire two-week episode is sequestered from her. There’s nothing to be gained by repeating the episode. The child was frightened, of course, at first. She didn’t know who I was or what I intended to do with her. And because she was only three years old, I had trouble getting her to understand. Perhaps I should have waited until she was older. But by then it would have been too late. Already, perhaps, it was too late….
Just as, in the case of Annie herself, it had been too late. When I took her away from Walt Ailing and fled from Lost Cove in search of some other place where I could raise her, the nature of her It had already been fixed by her earliest years as Walt Ailing’s child; I couldn’t erase whatever wretchedness she’d suffered during those years; I couldn’t remove the It that ha
d already been formed before I got ahold of her. For example, I couldn’t do very much about her meekness, the most ingrained and terrible of her qualities. She grew up as meek as ever. I think the life she lived in Stick Around was far happier than those lives of most girls her age, but my experiment, if you want to call it that, wasn’t a complete success.
My own life in Stick Around wasn’t solitary, you know; I never thought of myself as a hermit, and in any case my hermitism or withdrawal or isolation wasn’t sudden but gradual; it kept pace with the decline of the old rural life, the decline not just of Stick Around but of all Ozarkadia, the advancement and encroachment of this century’s so-called progress. I was never successful in persuading Annie that there were certain aspects of our country life which must be preserved against the encroachment of “civilization.” Burton Stoving, when he appeared, was a symbol to me of the very worst element of this encroachment: he was the Military, an army captain at the time; he was the Urban Life, a member of the big city’s society; he was Money, he was Progress, he was Civilization. But these very qualities that made him repugnant to me made him desirable to Annie.
That, in itself, says more about my failure in raising and rearing and fostering her than anything else. So I lost Annie to him. I didn’t try to stop her. I thought, If everything I’ve helped you learn doesn’t make you see what a mess you’re getting into if you marry this fellow, then there’s nothing I can say now to stop you. She was nearly twenty at the time, and already pregnant.
But I told her that when this child was born, I wanted to “borrow” that child. I wanted this one last opportunity to “experiment,” if you want to keep on calling it that. I was an old man, nearly seventy, but I knew I could live long enough to finish this work, long enough to take one human creature and show him or her all of the possibilities of the human It, to protect him or her from all the trammelings and warpings and frustrations of society, to reveal to him or her the grand world of nature and the way he or she belonged to it. That was my bargain with Annie.
The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 1 Page 77
