Donald Barthelme

by Donald Barthelme

  The artists regard your brown campaign hat, your white legs. “Holy God!” they say, and return to their lofts.

  I have spent many message units seeking your voice, but I always get Frederick instead.

  “Well, Frederick,” I ask cordially, “what amazing triumphs have you accomplished today?”

  He has been offered a sinecure at Stanford and a cenotaph at C.C.N.Y. Bidding for world rights to his breath has begun at $500,000.

  But I am wondering—

  When you placed your hand on my napkin, at the banquet, did that mean anything?

  When you smashed in the top of my soft-boiled egg for me, at the banquet, did that indicate that I might continue to hope?

  I will name certain children after you. (People often ask my advice about naming things.) It will be suspicious, so many small Philippas popping up in our city, but the pattern will only become visible with the passage of time, and in the interval, what satisfaction!

  I cannot imagine the future. You have not made your intentions clear, if indeed you have any. What is the point of all this misery? I am a voter! I am a veteran! I am forty! My life is insured! Now you are climbing aboard a great ship, and the hawsers are being loosed, and the flowers in the cabins arranged, and the dinner gong sounded. I am sure you will eat well aboard that ship, but you don’t understand—it is sailing away from me!

  Subpoena

  AND NOW in the mail a small white Subpoena from the Bureau of Compliance, Citizen Bergman there, he wants me to comply. We command you that, all business and excuses being laid aside, you and each of you appear and attend . . . The “We command you” in boldface, and a shiny red seal in the lower left corner. To get my attention.

  I thought I had complied. I comply every year, sometimes oftener than necessary. Look at the record. Spotless list of compliances dating back to ’48, when I was a pup. What can he mean, this Bergman, finding a freckle on my clean sheet?

  I appeared and attended. Attempted to be reasonable. “Look here Bergman what is this business.” Read him an essay I’d written about how the State should not muck about in the affairs of its vassals overmuch. Citizen Bergman unamused.

  “It appears that you are the owner or proprietor perhaps of a monster going under the name of Charles Evans Hughes?”

  “Yes but what has that to do with—”

  “Said monster inhabiting quarters at 12 Tryst Lane?”

  “That is correct.”

  “This monster being of humanoid appearance and characteristics, including ability to locomote, production of speech of a kind, ingestion of viands, and traffic with other beings?”

  “Well, ‘traffic’ is hardly the word. Simple commands he can cope with. Nothing fancy. Sit. Eat. Speak. Roll over. Beg. That sort of thing.”

  “This monster being employed by you in the capacity, friend?”

  “Well, employed is not quite right.”

  “He is remunerated is he not?”

  “The odd bit of pocket money.”

  “On a regular basis.”

  “See here Bergman it’s an allowance. For little things he needs. Cigarettes and handkerchiefs and the like. Nose drops.”

  “He is nevertheless in receipt of sums of money from you on a regular basis?”

  “He is forty-four percent metal, Officer.”

  “The metal content of said monster does not interest the Bureau. What we are interested in is compliance.”

  “Wherein have I failed to comply?”

  “You have not submitted Form 244 which governs paid companionship, including liaisons with prostitutes and pushing of wheelchairs by hired orderlies not provided by the Bureau of Perpetual Help. You have also failed to remit the Paid Companionship Tax which amounts to one hundred twenty-two percent of all moneys changing hands in any direction.”

  “One hundred twenty-two percent!”

  “That is the figure. There is also a penalty for noncompliance. The penalty is two hundred twelve percent of one hundred twenty-two percent of five dollars a week figured over five years, which I believe is the period at issue.”

  “What about depreciation?”

  “Depreciation is not figurable in the case of monsters.”

  I went home feeling less than sunny.

  He had a knowing look that I’d painted myself. One corner of the mouth curled upward and the other downward, when he smiled. There was no grave-robbing or anything of that sort. Plastic and metal did very nicely. You can get the most amazing things in drugstores. Fingernails and eyelashes and such. The actual construction was a matter of weeks. I considered sending the plans to Popular Mechanics. So that everyone could have one.

  He was calm—calm as a hat. Whereas I was nervous as a strobe light, had the shakes, Valium in the morning and whiskey beginning at two o’clock in the afternoon.

  Everything was all right with him.

  “Crushed in an elevator at the welfare hotel!” someone would say.

  “It’s a very serious problem,” Charles would answer.

  When I opened the door, he was sitting in the rocking chair reading Life.

  “Charles,” I said, “they’ve found out.”

  “Seventy-seven percent of American high-school students declare that religion is important to them, according to a recent Louis Harris poll,” Charles said, rocking gently.

  “Charles,” I said, “they want money. The Paid Companionship Tax. It’s two hundred twelve percent of one hundred twenty-two percent of five dollars a week figured over five years, plus of course the basic one hundred twenty-two percent.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” Charles said, smiling. “A pretty penny.”

  “I can’t pay,” I said. “It’s too much.”

  “Well,” he said, both smiling and rocking, “fine. What are you going to do?”

  “Disassemble,” I said.

  “Interesting,” he said, hitching his chair closer to mine, to demonstrate interest. “Where will you begin?”

  “With the head, I suppose.”

  “Wonderful,” Charles said. “You’ll need the screwdriver, the pliers, and the Skil-saw. I’ll fetch them.”

  He got up to go to the basement. A thought struck him. “Who will take out the garbage?” he asked.

  “Me. I’ll take it out myself.”

  He smiled. One corner of his mouth turned upward and the other downward. “Well,” he said, “right on.”

  I called him my friend and thought of him as my friend. In fact I kept him to instruct me in complacency. He sat there, the perfect noncombatant. He ate and drank and slept and awoke and did not change the world. Looking at him I said to myself, “See, it is possible to live in the world and not change the world.” He read the newspapers and watched television and heard in the night screams under windows thank God not ours but down the block a bit, and did nothing. Without Charles, without his example, his exemplary quietude, I run the risk of acting, the risk of risk. I must participate, I must leave the house and walk about.

  The Catechist

  IN THE evenings, usually, the catechist approaches. “Where have you been?” he asks.

  “In the park,” I say.

  “Was she there?” he asks.

  “No,” I say.

  The catechist is holding a book. He reads aloud: “The chief reason for Christ’s coming was to manifest and teach God’s love for us. Here the catechist should find the focal point of his instruction.” On the word “manifest” the catechist places the tip of his right forefinger upon the tip of his left thumb, and on the word “teach” the catechist places the tip of his right forefinger upon the tip of his left forefinger.

  Then he says: “And the others?”

  I say: “Abusing the mothers.”

  “The guards?”

  “Yes. As usual.”

  The c
atechist reaches into his pocket and produces a newspaper clipping. “Have you heard the news?” he asks.

  “No,” I say.

  He reads aloud: “Vegetable Oil Allowed in Three Catholic Rites.”

  He pauses. He looks at me. I say nothing. He reads aloud: “Rome, March 2nd. Reuters.” He looks at me. I say nothing. “Reuters,” he repeats. “Roman Catholic sacramental anointings may in the future be performed with any vegetable oil, according to a new Vatican ruling that lifts the Church’s age-old—” He pauses. “Age-old,” he emphasizes.

  I think: Perhaps she is at ease. Looking at her lake.

  The catechist reads: “. . . that lifts the Church’s age-old insistence on the use of olive oil. New paragraph. Under Catholic ritual, holy oil previously blessed by a bishop is used symbolically in the sacraments of confirmation, baptism, and the anointing of the sick, formerly extreme unction. New paragraph. Other vegetable oils are cheaper and considerably easier to obtain than olive oil in many parts of the world, Vatican observers noted.” The catechist pauses. “You’re a priest. I’m a priest,” he says. “Now I ask you.”

  I think: Perhaps she is distressed and looking at the lake does nothing to mitigate the distress.

  He says: “Consider that you are dying. The sickroom. The bed. The plucked-at sheets. The distraught loved ones. The priest approaches. Bearing the holy viaticum, the sacred oils. The administration of the Host. The last anointing. And what is it you’re given? You, the dying man? Peanut oil.”

  I think: Peanut oil.

  The catechist replaces the clipping in his pocket. He will read it to me again tomorrow. Then he says: “When you saw the guards abusing the mothers, you—”

  I say: “Wrote another letter.”

  “And you mailed the letter?”

  “As before.”

  “The same mailbox?”

  “Yes.”

  “You remembered to put a stamp—”

  “An eight-cent Eisenhower.”

  I think: When I was young they asked other questions.

  He says: “Tell me about her.”

  I say: “She has dark hair.”

  “Her husband—”

  “I don’t wish to discuss her husband.”

  The catechist reads from his book. “The candidate should be questioned as to his motives for becoming a Christian.”

  I think: My motives?

  He says: “Tell me about yourself.”

  I say: “I’m forty. I have bad eyes. An enlarged liver.”

  “That’s the alcohol,” he says.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “You’re very much like your father, there.”

  “A shade more avid.”

  We have this conversation every day. No detail changes. He says: “But a man in your profession—”

  I say: “But I don’t want to discuss my profession.”

  He says: “Are you going back now? To the park?”

  “Yes. She may be waiting.”

  “I thought she was looking at the lake.”

  “When she is not looking at the lake, then she is in the park.”

  The catechist reaches into the sleeve of his black robe. He produces a manifesto. He reads me the manifesto. “All intellectual productions of the bourgeoisie are either offensive or defensive weapons against the revolution. All intellectual productions of the bourgeoisie are, objectively, obfuscating objects which are obstacles to the emancipation of the proletariat.” He replaces the manifesto in his sleeve.

  I say: “But there are levels of signification other than the economic involved.”

  The catechist opens his book. He reads: “A disappointing experience: the inadequacy of language to express thought. But let the catechist take courage.” He closes the book.

  I think: Courage.

  He says: “What do you propose to do?”

  I say: “I suggested to her that I might change my profession.”

  “Have you had an offer?”

  “A feeler.”

  “From whom?”

  “General Foods.”

  “How did she respond?”

  “A chill fell upon the conversation.”

  “But you pointed out—”

  “I pointed out that although things were loosening up it would doubtless be a long time before priests were permitted to marry.”

  The catechist looks at me.

  I think: She is waiting in the park, in the children’s playground.

  He says: “And then?”

  I say: “I heard her confession.”

  “Was it interesting?”

  “Nothing new. As you know, I am not permitted to discuss it.”

  “What were the others doing?”

  “Tormenting the mothers.”

  “You wrote another letter?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t tire of this activity, writing letters?”

  “One does what one can.” I think: Or does not do what one can.

  He says: “Let us discuss love.”

  I say: “I know nothing about it. Unless of course you refer to Divine love.”

  “I had in mind love as it is found in the works of Scheler, who holds that love is an aspect of phenomenological knowledge, and Carroll, who holds that ’tis love, ’tis love, that—”

  “I know nothing about it.”

  The catechist opens his book. He reads: “How to deal with the educated. Temptation and scandals to be faced by the candidate during his catechumenate.” He closes the book. There is never a day, never a day, on which we do not have this conversation. He says: “When were you ordained?”

  I say: “1950.”

  He says: “These sins, your own, the sins we have been discussing, I’m sure you won’t mind if I refer to them as sins although their magnitude, whether they are mortal or venial, I leave it to you to assess, in the secret places of your heart—”

  I say: “One sits in the confessional hearing confessions, year after year, Saturday after Saturday, at four in the afternoon, twenty-one years times fifty-two Saturdays, excluding leap year—”

  “One thousand and ninety-two Saturdays—”

  “Figuring forty-five adulteries to the average Saturday—”

  “Forty-nine thousand one hundred and forty adulteries—”

  “One wonders: Perhaps there should be a redefinition? And with some adulteries there are explanations. The man is a cabdriver. He works nights. His wife wants to go out and have a good time. She tells him that she doesn’t do anything wrong—a few drinks at the neighborhood bar, a little dancing. ‘Now, you know, Father, and I know, Father, that where there’s drinking and dancing there’s bloody well something else too. So I tell her, Father, she’ll stay out of that bar or I’ll hit her upside the head. Well, Father, she says to me you can hit me upside the head all you want but I’m still going to that bar when I want and you can hit me all day long and it won’t stop me. Now, what can I do, Father? I got to be in this cab every night of the week except Mondays and sometimes I work Mondays to make a little extra. So I hit her upside the head a few times but it don’t make any difference, she goes anyhow. So I figure, Father, she’s getting it outside the home, why not me? I’m always sorry after, Father, but what can I do? If I had a day job it would be different and now she just laughs at me and what can I do, Father?’”

  “What do you say?”

  “I advise self-control.”

  The catechist pokes about in his pockets. He pokes in his right-hand pocket for a time and then pokes in his left-hand pocket. He produces at length a tiny Old Testament, a postage-stamp Old Testament. He opens the postage-stamp Old Testament. “Miserable comforters are ye all.” He closes the postage-stamp Old Testament. “Job 16:2.” He replaces the postage-stamp Old Testament in his left-han
d pocket. He pokes about in his right-hand pocket and produces a button on which the word love is printed. He pins the button on my cassock, above the belt, below the collar. He says: “But you’ll go there again.”

  I say: “At eleven. The children’s playground.”

  He says: “The rain. The trees.”

  I say: “All that rot.”

  He says: “The benches damp. The seesaw abandoned.”

  I say: “All that garbage.”

  He says: “Sunday the day of rest and worship is hated by all classes of men in every country to which the Word has been carried. Hatred of Sunday in London approaches one hundred percent. Hatred of Sunday in Rio produces suicides. Hatred of Sunday in Madrid is only appeased by the ritual slaughter of large black animals, in rings. Hatred of Sunday in Munich is the stuff of legend. Hatred of Sunday in Sydney is considered by the knowledgeable to be hatred of Sunday at its most exquisite.”

  I think: She will press against me with her hands in the back pockets of her trousers.

  The catechist opens his book. He reads: “The apathy of the listeners. The judicious catechist copes with the difficulty.” He closes the book.

  I think: Analysis terminable and interminable. I think: Then she will leave the park looking backward over her shoulder.

  He says: “And the guards, what were they doing?”

  I say: “Abusing the mothers.”

  “You wrote a letter?”

  “Another letter.”

  “Would you say, originally, that you had a vocation? Heard a call?”

  “I heard many things. Screams. Suites for unaccompanied cello. I did not hear a call.”

  “Nevertheless—”

  “Nevertheless I went to the clerical-equipment store and purchased a summer cassock and a winter cassock. The summer cassock has short sleeves. I purchased a black hat.”

  “And the lady’s husband?”

  “He is a psychologist. He works in the limits of sensation. He is attempting to define precisely the two limiting sensations in the sensory continuum, the upper limit and the lower limit. He is often at the lab. He is measuring vanishing points.”