Aliens of Affection

by Padgett Powell

  Wayne would say, “That’s a goddamned weenie! That is a goddamned weenie!”

  The man of course is never to be produced, and the day of measuring roof jacks and threatening the man declines from its prospects of gargantua, Wayne retiring to Coors, Floyd to science fiction. For weeks, even months, Wayne and Floyd measure roof jacks. A surprising number can be found that measure thirteen inches in height by nine inches in girth, exactly.

  Wayne and Floyd measure roof jacks finally automatically, compulsively, learning to gauge them on sight with great precision—“Ten-seven, skip it”—and finding the eerily common thirteen-nine in a twilight zone of ambivalent sexuality. After work they clean themselves with creamy go-jo and coarse rags and cold beer.

  Finally they stop measuring roof jacks. Wayne may shake his head occasionally, passing a thirteen-nine. Floyd ignores or has forgotten roof jacks as anything other than obstacles not to trip over.

  Days, once they abjure gargantua, even absurd gargantua, and descend into their ordinary smallnesses, have a way of remaining small. The lives that inhabit the days also assume postures of ordinary smallness. One day an apex of sorts, laughable though it be, of men together measuring roof jacks with twenty-five-foot Stanley Powerlocks, gives way to the men scattered, disconnected, down from the roof, doing less than measuring roof jacks and laughing. Threatening nothing. Threatening, finally, not even themselves.

  And Wayne today? Wayne today is as elusive as Wayne yesterday. But Wayne isn’t afraid of anything because he knows he is afraid of it. I, by contrast, think myself fearless, and when something scares me it scares the shit out of me and forces me to undergo a little private analysis the likes of which never trouble Wayne. If you are afraid of everything, you are finally not afraid of anything. It is when you presume to be not afraid of a few things that the terror creeps in. The terror resides in correctly identifying what you are afraid of and what you are not afraid of. The absolutely fearful person is in an absolute and comfortable position: against the ropes, ready for it all. The presumer, the poseur of courage, is looking left, right, behind himself, trembling.

  And what of Ugly, Wayne’s estranged wife, with two kids and already, no doubt, Wayne’s bad teeth in their malnourished heads? What of poor Felicia and the rug rats? Plastic shoes, polyester shorts, impetigo legs, happily playing, and at nothing demonstrably inventive or clever or advanced or Montessori. The debilitating issue of debilitated parents. Who will grow up to be, the boys, broadcast magnates or serial killers and, were there girls, Union 76 cashiers or actresses of first-tier Hollywood sexuality. Life all over the road. These people are afraid of nothing.

  Of Felicia I know nothing. On the one occasion when Wayne called her Ugly in my presence, I noticed at that moment her nice ass, in short, tight shorts of a color like magenta, set off by her very white legs and of a stretchy knit material, the combination of which—these dimestore pants and unhealthily white legs—was exciting, and if she had asked me if she was ugly, I would have said she was not, but she did not (why would she? how could she?), and I did not volunteer a correction (very easy to do: “Wayne, for God’s sake”). And why did I not correct him? None of my business? Too smarmy? Would it have been open flirtation to compliment her even by the left-handedness of scolding my friend her husband? I think I suspected I would worsen the situation if I said, Not ugly to me. And this seems true still. But how I might have worsened it was obscure then and still is. Felicia would have given me a look, then or an hour later, delivered me a colder beer than that she delivered Wayne, or she would have been disgusted with me. That, I think, is the better probability. Not ugly, big boy? And what are you going to do about it? Shit. And she continues to diaper a rug rat, fetch us beer, hide.

  I was perfectly free to say, “Wayne, if she’s ugly, I’ll tell you what: I’ll pay your rent and bills here for a month and all I want is one week with her, if she’ll have me. Put the question to her.” I was perfectly free to do this. Of all the things I was afraid of, Wayne was not one of them.

  At the time I would have seen such a proposition as a blessing, or at least an improvement, for the suffering Felicia. A week with me! All my teeth! Muscles! College! Now I see that she was lucky I never spoke.

  Wayne may be roofing, but I am afraid.

  All Along the Watchtower

  Chihuahua

  VERY OFTEN, EVERY DAY, every so often, every day I go down to the quay. To the water. No quay. Don’t know what a quay is.

  Every day I go down to the water. I would like to say this. Every day I go down to the water.

  Lies abound: not every day, not go down, and what precisely does “to the water” purport to mean? To lap it, to look at it, to get in it, all the above, none, what? And “the water”—what water, and if it were determinable would it be the same water every day? I think not.

  I and some water on a daily basis come face-to-face; that is ridiculous but not more inaccurate. I entertain some wetness before me. But it is not really the water itself one goes down to, whether going down or up, which you might do were the water a volcano lake, and mine might be, my water, which is not mine to possess except in figure of speech; it is not the water to which one “goes” but its garnish. I fancy crabs, spiders that can walk on the water, rings on it made by the lips of fish snapping at spiders, though I glean that fish avoid the arachnid; water lily, lily pad, other kelpishness and rot, mud beside the water and under the water, the abandoned appliance in the water and in the mud, orphaned tackle, predators dead and alive, trash in the water, turtles. It is not the water but that for which the water is a vehicle that we go, however often, down to, or up to, to do what we do at the water. A redheaded neighbor named McGillicuddy, who looks and acts exactly like Lucille Ball, and I possibly mean Lucille Ball playing a character named McGillicuddy, which I think she did, and I wonder at this set of connections, if that they are, but not much, because I do not have time: this very real Mrs. or Ms. or Miss M. is after me. Her boy has a blue trike. Him I like. She has chased me, palpably.

  Obloquy—what the hell does that mean? Are we a little tired of a lack of education here? I submit that I am. Yam.

  Of indigo ravens near the water I am fonder than a two-stroke for oil. And some Juicy Fruit to watch them by, my my my. Paper clouds the issue. For me. There is litter in the world, most of it paper, some of it technically trash and some of it merely finally trash after a full life of not-trash, your contracts and books and things. They, too, finally litter the busied head. As much as a worm box a lakeshore. My head is a mudbank. Do not depend on me for your logic. You can depend on me to bitch about litter and head litter and to run from Mrs. McGillicuddy until she catches me, and that probably she probably will. Do. Oops. Oopsie-Daisy. What if that—Oopsie-Daisy—were her first name?

  I have reason to suspect that Oopsie-Daisy McGillicuddy does not wear underwear for profit. She is a not-for-profit corpus chasing me uptown and down. I like the odd red sky by the water. I like the green wrinkled pea. I toured France as a teenager and had the runs and felt the women smelled not good and the men puffed much too much when they spoke, if you could call it that, and you could, French is a language. Water harbors mosquitoes, sort of; that is obvious but not in altogether obvious ways, all the time. I don’t mind speaking the untruth when it can be had. That solid shit they hit down the fairway for centuries has been hit, and played, and now we all labor on divoted ground, ground under repair. Our heads still work, it’s the course. The course has got too many people on it, and it should not have been opened to the public. Casual water—a good one.

  I defer.

  I have not and will not go to war. I have not and will not make money. I have not and will not break ranks with bourgeois order. I have not and will not have much fun, or much pain, in this tour of duty we will be forced to call my life. Is it sad, this not having? It might be, if one could actually think about the situation in its entirety, but if one could do that he would likely be able to engage in escaping the
bourgeois board game.

  What have I done, will I do? I will pay the bills, cure the ills, put on weight, engage in non-reproductive copulations with a degree of ardor that suggests a compensating for all the other, larger not having. Then it will end and some paper in my name will be redeemed and there will be a pleasant bit of change for survivors and having not wept much they will not celebrate much. They will spend it and I am gone, paper and all. How nice an idea the funeral pyre. How nice an idea the rain tire. How nice an idea chartered bus. How nice an idea large red soda waters and bad teeth. You have this, these in life. People are essentially uninteresting to each other and yet finally alien to each other to a degree that should make us all compelling of the minutest attention we can pay. But alas, we sleep the days, sometime prowl the nights, but groggily and in fits of self-interest only.

  The little boy Tod’s blue trike is in the bushes with me. Mrs. McGillicuddy is underwearless on her bed watching TV. She is slack and ope-legged and hairy and not ribald, and I do don’t want to make a noise. Sitting on the seat of the blue trike is a carton, one pint, of chocolate milk, the thick dark heavy commercial glop that can be so good once every year or so. I open it and gently maneuver the trike out and ride it down the quiet street drinking my milk. It is milk of this sort that made the darker races dark, in this country. In others, where Nestle, etc., has only so far purveyed baby formula, ivory in color, the sun or other natural forces have darkened the native. There is a cool breeze blowing across the fine sweat on my forehead as I relax into my crime and ride my stolen joyous wheels. The carton in its perdurable wax fortress will hold sufficient residue of chocolate and milk to lure in and somehow not let out a very large roach, who will die. But for now I am innocent, pedaling and waving at the imaginary crowd lining the parade route. Mrs. McGillicuddy, hirsute and hungry and pink-nightied, haunts me and gives my cheerful waves an abbreviated uncertainty and hesitation to let go the handlebars, where I’ve inadvertently, now the milk is done, gripped both hands for hard pedaling and speed.

  When arrested I say only “California or bust” in answer to all questions and am held for psychiatric evaluation, which does not come to anything. I go every day down to the water. Every day to the water, down or up or over or across or proximate or nearly or mostly or delicately or boldly or trepidously or joyously or sadly or bummeduply or downtroddenly or upbeatly or stealthily or healthily or lamely or gamely, I go. I take my time.

  I bide it. I tried it. I tried time out and did not like it. It’s not for me. It asks too much of you. There is the incarcerated meaning of it and of course the “free” version of it. Sapling, I mean sampling, them both in my time, I find the incarcerated a cinch to manipulate and the free a bitch. No. Impossible. Free time is like a grizzly bear of disorder, multiple weapons all on a scale of destruction so large you do not even properly, by which I mean rationally, have time—well, that is obvious, that is my point here—have the wherewithal to begin to cope or adjust or posture for its advent and its certain eating you alive, timelessly, in about no time at all—that’s free time. Just bide it. Ride hide slide it. Deride it. Chide it, elide it, take pride in it, decide within it you’ve got to abide it, confide in it, be beside yourself in it, collide with it, tempocide in it. Triking down the street on Tod McGillicuddy’s trike I should have been charged with tempocide but was charged with malicious mischief—same thing—instead.

  I go at or down on the water every day, except some days. Some days I lie on it like a compass needle and point eventually north. This is a function of magnetism and of getting on the water very very easily. Surface cohesion must exceed the water’s affinity for you. The water has no real affinity for you, and prefers that you merely lie on top of her rather than getting in, but you must cooperate by gently gently slowly slowly getting on, easy. I dig that, that I dig. With your head true north you can begin to think.

  In the Sahara night your clothes tend to bubble off you. This is not so for all the women on safari with you. Discretion.

  I go down to the water and make arithmetic in the mud. A calculus of sneaker toe. No, I but figure the compensation due Tod McGillicuddy for the (unauthorized) loan of his trike. It was impounded at the arrest and lost. The police lost Tod McGillicuddy’s trike. What wonder we have a problem with law and order. I set my mind to repay the little squirt and it came out funny. I had a trust formed in his name and a Harley-Davidson delivered to their driveway. Its reception I watched through the blinds. Tod seemed not quite to get it but his mother was excited. She wheeled it with some difficulty into the garage, which is served by an electric door. The bike was magnificent in the sun: full rakes gleaming in their ridiculous thrust, absurd tiny sexy pearl-drop gas tank, small double-decker leather seat, and titty grips of some gauzy open-celled foam I did not, but wanted to, feel before Mrs. M. put the monster away. No questions, no looking around in wonder, just secure the motorcycle, and Tod doesn’t look at it twice. Tod, my boy.

  I’m whiling away some convalescent time, simple private recovery time you need after mental incarceration. It, that, being held for want of mind, suspected alleged want of mind, is thrilling: it is like going to the circus when you are young, except you are not young and you are the circus, and the doctors and the police are very young and they are watching you perform. Thrilling, this reversal, and a bit exhausting, which is why drugs are contraindicated in cases of mind watch, in my book, my small unmanly book. They lay Thorazine on you and you partake of the bear who runs over the trainer on the bicycle and no one can ever tell from the bear’s expression if he meant to do it or not, but everyone is happy to speculate for years, generally of course informing the bear with motives of vengeance as people seeing trained bear are wont, oh so wont, to do, I’m tired. An odd tear runs from my right eye as I convalesce and glance the street for Tod.

  Why I resist Mrs. M.’s wanton desire for me I do not know, except that the proposition of someone looking like Lucille Ball coming after you without the talent or the money of Lucille Ball takes some getting used to, and actually Lucille Ball, as opposed to characters played by, is right good-looking, stunning even, but no one thinks this when he thinks of Lucy in her many incarnations. I submit: after Judy Garland in Oz, the national male psyche is rooted most firmly to Lucy. This is why Mrs. M. scares me, like toys you recall you lost over the years without knowing how and realizing they’re worth a fortune now—I’d like to know how my arrowheads and coin collections for God’s sake got away from me. Who would throw those away? Would your mother throw away your arrowheads and your coin collection? What wonder they let us go to Vietnam or wherever else big-eared Texans pretend we must. Then they bitch, of course, but you’re dead by the time they discover the Communist menace not to have been altogether germane. And you are no hero yourself, you also arrow-headless coinless little fyce who have had time in your ignoble pinball childhood to gobble up large portions at the table of national humanistic bunk—you are down there at induction, coughing gingerly so you don’t herniate yourself out of the chance of getting killed in order to protect your mother, who has thrown away your toys. Well, I have a piece of advice for you, me so narrowly just on mind watch: Fuck your mother. That’s the first thing to do here, fuck your mother and get on with it. All part of why Mrs. M. has got a headlock on me and all she wants is a liplock.

  Sunny, fair, down-to-the-water cloudy, I go. My pants are fitting not well, my shoes seem askance independent of my feet, I hear the odd wailing noise in one ear. I fancy eating some sugar, good crystalline gob of it partially dissolved in thin coffee. One of those two-stage plastic cup-and-base rigs be nice, white cup like a space capsule, detaches for orbit into the garbage when the bum they’ve sold it to is through with it down to the Krispy Kreme. Yessiree, I’ma headed down to the water for a doughnut and a very white plastic cup of coffee, which I will be allowed nay expected to call by some hip street appellative: Give me a cup o’ that Java, miss, some o’ that mud, tee-hee. Life.

  Use of this pr
oduct may be hazardous to your health—I read on the door to the Jules Vermin Studio of Dance. So I went in. There were floor marshals from ACE and Civil Defense around the floor, and the couples were belted together and helmeted and wearing boxing groin guards. They stepped only on painted yellow footprints on the floor. It was explained by a taped message playing repeatedly that a certain kind of neck strain might result from looking constantly at the footprints but that this was preferable to the kinds of injuries that would result from looking up. No one looked up. The marshals seemed satisfied, most satisfied. I suddenly wanted to eat some Japanese food and retired from the Jules Vermin Studio without receiving any instruction. And knew in a vision that were Mrs. M. and I ever to dance it would be in the moonlight and we would not watch where we were going. How hard to do, I thought, but how obvious it is that you should live every day as though you are dying. Why do only brain-tumor folk seem to actually get on this with any arguable grip? Them and, say, junkies. Them and junkies and, say, preachers. Them and junkies and preachers and, say, people who want you to invest in their real-estate scam? And the ACE marshals want you to live as if this is not the last day of your life. Why, it occurs to me to ask, does anybody care how I live my life? First, last, what is it to you? Who are you? If you are fired up about how I live this day, what are you doing with yourn? That what I wantn know. I talkn funny, so what. I been sick. When you sick you say things. You say things today you might not be able to say tomorrow. You say things today you might not be able to say tomorrow when you not sick, people say you a artist. People say you a artist you say anything come to mind or come to not mind. Ray Charles, boy. Thing come to mind, say it; thing come to not mind, say it. Not mind be body? Thing come to body, say it; body catch a body comin’ thew the rye. Nobody got the leapest idea what rye is anymore, might as well say if a body catch a body comin’ thew the prom.