Donald Barthelme

by Donald Barthelme

  “Maybe some trees and, you know, the lawn.”

  “So you want some ground around the house.”

  “That would be nice, yeah.”

  “’Bout how much ground are you thinking of?”

  “Well, not too much.”

  “You see, the problem is, there’s only x amount of ground and everybody’s going to want to have it to look at and at the same time they don’t want to be staring at the neighbors. Private looking, that’s the thing.”

  “Well, yes,” he said. “I’d like it to be kind of private.”

  “Well,” I said, “get a pencil and let’s see what we can work out.”

  We started with what there was going to be to look at, which was damned difficult. Because when you look you don’t want to be able to look at just one thing, you want to be able to shift your gaze. You need to be able to look at at least three things, maybe four. Bill Caulfield solved the problem. He showed me a box. I opened it up and inside was a jigsaw puzzle with a picture of the Mona Lisa on it.

  “Lookee here,” he said. “If each piece of ground was like a piece of this-here puzzle, and the tree line on each piece of property followed the outline of a piece of the puzzle—well, there you have it, Q.E.D. and that’s all she wrote.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Where are the folk going to park their cars?”

  “In the vast underground parking facility,” he said.

  “O.K., but how does each householder gain access to his household?”

  “The tree lines are double and shade beautifully paved walkways possibly bordered with begonias,” he said.

  “A lurkway for potential muggists and rapers,” I pointed out.

  “There won’t be any such,” Caulfield said, “because you’ve bought our whole city and won’t allow that class of person to hang out here no more.”

  That was right. I had bought the whole city and could probably do that. I had forgotten.

  “Well,” I said finally, “let’s give ’er a try. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it seems a little imaginative.”

  We did and it didn’t work out badly. There was only one complaint. A man named A. G. Bartie came to see me.

  “Listen,” he said, his eyes either gleaming or burning, I couldn’t tell which, it was a cloudy day, “I feel like I’m living in this gigantic jiveass jigsaw puzzle.”

  He was right. Seen from the air, he was living in the middle of a titanic reproduction of the Mona Lisa, too, but I thought it best not to mention that. We allowed him to square off his property into a standard 60 × 100 foot lot and later some other people did that too—some people just like rectangles, I guess. I must say it improved the concept. You run across an occasional rectangle in Shady Oaks (we didn’t want to call the development anything too imaginative) and it surprises you. That’s nice.

  I said to myself:

  Got a little city

  Ain’t it pretty

  By now I had exercised my proprietorship so lightly and if I do say so myself tactfully that I wondered if I was enjoying myself enough (and I had paid a heavy penny too—near to half my fortune). So I went out on the streets then and shot six thousand dogs. This gave me great satisfaction and you have no idea how wonderfully it improved the city for the better. This left us with a dog population of 165,000, as opposed to a human population of something like 89,000. Then I went down to the Galveston News, the morning paper, and wrote an editorial denouncing myself as the vilest creature the good God had ever placed upon the earth, and were we, the citizens of this fine community, who were after all free Americans of whatever race or creed, going to sit still while one man, one man, if indeed so vile a critter could be so called, etc. etc.? I gave it to the city desk and told them I wanted it on the front page in fourteen-point type, boxed. I did this just in case they might have hesitated to do it themselves, and because I’d seen that Orson Welles picture where the guy writes a nasty notice about his own wife’s terrible singing, which I always thought was pretty decent of him, from some points of view.

  A man whose dog I’d shot came to see me.

  “You shot Butch,” he said.

  “Butch? Which one was Butch?”

  “One brown ear and one white ear,” he said. “Very friendly.”

  “Mister,” I said, “I’ve just shot six thousand dogs, and you expect me to remember Butch?”

  “Butch was all Nancy and me had,” he said. “We never had no children.”

  “Well, I’m sorry about that,” I said, “but I own this city.”

  “I know that,” he said.

  “I am the sole owner and I make all the rules.”

  “They told me,” he said.

  “I’m sorry about Butch but he got in the way of the big campaign. You ought to have had him on a leash.”

  “I don’t deny it,” he said.

  “You ought to have had him inside the house.”

  “He was just a poor animal that had to go out sometimes.”

  “And mess up the streets something awful?”

  “Well,” he said, “it’s a problem. I just wanted to tell you how I feel.”

  “You didn’t tell me,” I said. “How do you feel?”

  “I feel like bustin’ your head,” he said, and showed me a short length of pipe he had brought along for the purpose.

  “But of course if you do that you’re going to get your ass in a lot of trouble,” I said.

  “I realize that.”

  “It would make you feel better, but then I own the jail and the judge and the po-lice and the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. All mine. I could hit you with a writ of mandamus.”

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “I’ve been known to do worse.”

  “You’re a black-hearted man,” he said. “I guess that’s it. You’ll roast in Hell in the eternal flames and there will be no mercy or cooling drafts from any quarter.”

  He went away happy with this explanation. I was happy to be a black-hearted man in his mind if that would satisfy the issue between us because that was a bad-looking piece of pipe he had there and I was still six thousand dogs ahead of the game, in a sense. So I owned this little city which was very, very pretty and I couldn’t think of any more new innovations just then or none that wouldn’t get me punctuated like the late Huey P. Long, former governor of Louisiana. The thing is, I had fallen in love with Sam Hong’s wife. I had wandered into this store on Tremont Street where they sold Oriental novelties, paper lanterns, and cheap china and bamboo birdcages and wicker footstools and all that kind of thing. She was smaller than I was and I thought I had never seen that much goodness in a woman’s face before. It was hard to credit. It was the best face I’d ever seen.

  “I can’t do that,” she said, “because I am married to Sam.”

  “Sam?”

  She pointed over to the cash register where there was a Chinese man, young and intelligent-looking and pouring that intelligent look at me with considered unfriendliness.

  “Well, that’s dismal news,” I said. “Tell me, do you love me?”

  “A little bit,” she said, “but Sam is wise and kind and we have one and one-third lovely children.”

  She didn’t look pregnant but I congratulated her anyhow, and then went out on the street and found a cop and sent him down to H Street to get me a bucket of Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken, extra crispy. I did that just out of meanness. He was humiliated but he had no choice. I thought:

  I own a little city

  Awful pretty

  Can’t help people

  Can hurt them though

  Shoot their dogs

  Mess ’em up

  Be imaginative

  Plant trees

&nbs
p; Best to leave ’em alone?

  Who decides?

  Sam’s wife is Sam’s wife and coveting

  Is not nice.

  So I ate the Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken, extra crispy, and sold Galveston, Texas, back to the interests. I took a bath on that deal, there’s no denying it, but I learned something—don’t play God. A lot of other people already knew that, but I have never doubted for a minute that a lot of other people are smarter than me, and figure things out quicker, and have grace and statistical norms on their side. Probably I went wrong by being too imaginative, although really I was guarding against that. I did very little, I was fairly restrained. God does a lot worse things, every day, in one little family, any family, than I did in that whole little city. But He’s got a better imagination than I do. For instance, I still covet Sam Hong’s wife. That’s torment. Still covet Sam Hong’s wife, and probably always will. It’s like having a tooth pulled. For a year. The same tooth. That’s a sample of His imagination. It’s powerful.

  So what happened? What happened was that I took the other half of my fortune and went to Galena Park, Texas, and lived inconspicuously there, and when they asked me to run for the school board I said No, I don’t have any children.

  The Agreement

  WHERE IS my daughter?

  Why is she there? What crucial error did I make? Was there more than one?

  Why have I assigned myself a task that is beyond my abilities?

  Having assigned myself a task that is beyond my abilities, why do I then pursue it with all of the enthusiasm of one who believes himself capable of completing the task?

  Having assigned myself a task that is beyond my abilities, why do I then do that which is most certain to preclude my completing the task? To ensure failure? To excuse failure? Ordinary fear of failure?

  When I characterize the task as beyond my abilities, do I secretly believe that it is within my powers?

  Was there only one crucial error, or was there a still more serious error earlier, one that I did not recognize as such at the time?

  Was there a series of errors?

  Are they in any sense forgivable? If so, who is empowered to forgive me?

  If I fail in the task that is beyond my abilities, will my lover laugh?

  Will the mailman laugh? The butcher?

  When will the mailman bring me a letter from my daughter?

  Why do I think my daughter might be dead or injured when I know that she is almost certainly well and happy? If I fail in the task that is beyond my abilities, will my daughter’s mother laugh?

  But what if the bell rings and I go down the stairs and answer the door and find there an old woman with white hair wearing a bright-red dress, and when I open the door she immediately begins spitting blood, a darker red down the front of her bright-red dress?

  If I fail in the task that is beyond my abilities, will my doctor laugh?

  Why do I conceal from my doctor what it is necessary for him to know?

  Is my lover’s lover a man or a woman?

  Will my father and mother laugh? Are they already laughing, secretly, behind their hands?

  If I succeed in the task that is beyond my abilities, will I win the approval of society? If I win the approval of society, does this mean that the (probable) series of errors already mentioned will be forgiven, or, if not forgiven, viewed in a more sympathetic light? Will my daughter then be returned to me?

  Will I deceive myself about the task that is beyond my abilities, telling myself that I have successfully completed it when I have not?

  Will others aid in the deception?

  Will others unveil the deception?

  But what if the bell rings and I go down the stairs and answer the door and find there an old man with white hair wearing a bright-red dress, and when I open the door he immediately begins spitting blood, a darker red down the front of his bright-red dress?

  Why did I assign myself the task that is beyond my abilities?

  Did I invent my lover’s lover or is he or she real? Ought I to care?

  But what if the bell rings and I go down the stairs again and instead of the white-haired woman or man in the bright-red dress my lover’s lover is standing there? And what if I bring my lover’s lover into the house and sit him or her down in the brown leather club chair and provide him or her with a drink and begin to explain that the task I have undertaken is hopelessly, hopelessly beyond my abilities? And what if my lover’s lover listens with the utmost consideration, nodding and smiling and patting my wrist at intervals as one does with a nervous client, if one is a lawyer or doctor, and then abruptly offers me a new strategy: Why not do this? And what if, thinking over the new strategy proposed by my lover’s lover, I recognize that yes, this is the solution which has evaded me for these many months? And what if, recognizing that my lover’s lover has found the solution which has evaded me for these many months, I suddenly begin spitting blood, dark red against the blue of my blue work shirt? What then?

  For is it not the case that even with the solution in hand, the task will remain beyond my abilities?

  And where is my daughter? What is my daughter thinking at this moment? Is my daughter, at this moment, being knocked off her bicycle by a truck with the words HACHARD & CIE painted on its sides? Or is she, rather, in a photographer’s studio, sitting for a portrait I have requested? Or has she already done so, and will, today, the bell ring and the mailman bring a large stiff brown envelope stamped PHOTO DO NOT BEND?

  HACHARD & CIE?

  PHOTO DO NOT BEND?

  If I am outraged and there is no basis in law or equity for my outrage nor redress in law or equity for my outrage, am I to decide that my outrage is wholly inappropriate? If I observe myself carefully, using the techniques of introspection most favored by society, and decide, after such observation, that my outrage is not wholly inappropriate but perhaps partially appropriate, what can I do with my (partially appropriate) outrage? What is there to do with it but deliver it to my lover or my lover’s lover or to the task that is beyond my abilities, or to embrace instead the proposition that, after all, things are not so bad? Which is not true?

  If I embrace the proposition that, after all, things are not so bad, which is not true, then have I not also embraced a hundred other propositions, kin to the first in that they are also not true? That the Lord is my shepherd, for example?

  But what if I decide not to be outraged but to be, instead, calm and sensible? Calm and sensible and adult? And mature? What if I decide to send my daughter stamps for her stamp collection and funny postcards and birthday and Christmas packages and to visit her at the times stated in the agreement? And what if I assign myself simpler, easier tasks, tasks which are well within my powers? And what if I decide that my lover has no other lover (disregarding the matchbooks, the explanations that do not explain, the discrepancies of time and place), and what if I inform my doctor fully and precisely about my case, supplying all relevant details (especially the shameful)? And what if I am able to redefine my errors as positive adjustments to a state of affairs requiring positive adjustments? And what if the operator does not break into my telephone conversation, any conversation, and say, “I’m sorry, this is the operator, I have an emergency message for 679–9819”?

  Will others aid in the deception?

  Will others unveil the deception?

  “TWELFTH: Except for the obligations, promises and agreements herein set forth and to be performed by the husband and wife respectively, and for rights, obligations and causes of action arising out of or under this agreement, all of which are expressly reserved, the husband and wife each hereby, for himself or herself and for his or her legal representatives, forever releases and discharges the other, and the heirs and legal representatives of the other, from any and all debts, sums of money, accounts, contracts, claim
s, cause or causes of action, suits, dues, reckonings, bills, specialties, covenants, controversies, agreements, promises, variances, trespasses, damages, judgments, extents, executions and demands, whatsoever, in law or in equity, which he or she had, or has or hereafter can, shall or may have, by reason of any matter, from the beginning of the world to the execution of this agreement.”

  The painters are here. They are painting the apartment. One gallon of paint to eight gallons of benzine. From the beginning of the world to the execution of this agreement. Where is my daughter? I am asking for a carrot to put in the stone soup. The villagers are hostile.

  The Sergeant

  THE ORDERLY looked at the paper and said, There’s nothing wrong with this. Take it to room 400.

  I said, Wait a minute.

  The orderly looked at me. I said, Room 400.

  I said something about a lawyer.

  He got to his feet. You know what that is? he asked, pointing to an M.P. in the hall.

  I said yes, I remembered.

  O.K. Room 400. Take this with you.

  He handed me the paper.

  I thought, They’ll figure it out sooner or later. And: The doctor will tell them.

  The doctor said, Hello, young trooper.

  •

  The other sergeant looked at me. How come you made sergeant so quick?

  I was always a sergeant, I said. I was a sergeant the last time, too.

  I got more time in grade, he said, so I outrank you.

  I said not if you figured from my original date-of-rank which was sometime in ’53.

  Fifty-three, he said, what war was that?

  I said the war with the Koreans.

  I heard about it, he said. But you been away a long time.

  I said that was true.

  What we got here is a bunch of re-cruits, he said, they don’t love the army much.

  I said I thought they were all volunteers.

  The e-conomic debacle volunteered ’em, he said, they heard the eagle shits once a month regularly.