Donald Barthelme

by Donald Barthelme

  “Jake was a straight-ahead kind of man,” she said, “he was simpleminded and that helped him to be the kind of man that he was.” She was staring into her Scotch-and-floodwater rather moodily I thought, debris bouncing on the waves all around us but she paid no attention. “That is the type of man I like,” she said, “a strong and simpleminded man. The case-study method was not Jake’s method, he went right through the middle of the line and never failed to gain yardage, no matter what the game was. He had a lust for life, and life had a lust for him. I was inconsolable when Jake passed away.” Mrs. Davis was drinking the Scotch for her nerves, she had no nerves of course, she was nerveless and possibly heartless also but that is another question, gutless she was not, she had a gut and a very pretty one ocher in color but that was another matter. God was standing up to His neck in the raging waters with a smile of incredible beauty on His visage, He seemed to be enjoying His creation, the disaster, the waters all around us were raging louder now, raging like a mighty tractor-trailer tailgating you on the highway.

  Then Mrs. Davis sang to me, a song of great expectations.

  “Maude is waiting for you,” Mrs. Davis sang to me, “Maude is waiting for you in all her seriousness and splendor, under her gilded onion dome, in that city which I cannot name at this time, Maude waits. Maude is what you lack, the profoundest of your lacks. Your every yearn since the first yearn has been a yearn for Maude, only you did not know it until I, your dear friend, pointed it out. She is going to heal your scrappy and generally unsatisfactory life with the balm of her Maudeness, luckiest of dogs, she waits only for you. Let me give you just one instance of Maude’s inhuman sagacity. Maude named the tools. It was Maude who thought of calling the rattail file a rattail file. It was Maude who christened the needle-nose pliers. Maude named the rasp. Think of it. What else could a rasp be but a rasp? Maude in her wisdom went right to the point, and called it rasp. It was Maude who named the maul. Similarly the sledge, the wedge, the ball-peen hammer, the adz, the shim, the hone, the strop. The handsaw, the hacksaw, the bucksaw, and the fretsaw were named by Maude, peering into each saw and intuiting at once its specialness. The scratch awl, the scuffle hoe, the prick punch and the countersink—I could go on and on. The tools came to Maude, tool by tool in a long respectful line, she gave them their names. The vise. The gimlet. The cold chisel. The reamer, the router, the gouge. The plumb bob. How could she have thought up the rough justice of these wonderful cognomens? Looking languidly at a pair of tin snips, and then deciding to call them tin snips—what a burst of glory! And I haven’t even cited the bush hook, the grass snath, or the plumber’s snake, or the C-clamp, or the nippers, or the scythe. What a tall achievement, naming the tools! And this is just one of Maude’s contributions to our worldly estate, there are others. What delights will come crowding,” Mrs. Davis sang to me, “delight upon delight, when the epithalamium is ground out by the hundred organ grinders who are Maude’s constant attendants, on that good-quality day of her own choosing, which you have desperately desired all your lean life, only you weren’t aware of it until I, your dear friend, pointed it out. And Maude is young but not too young,” Mrs. Davis sang to me, “she is not too old either, she is just right and she is waiting for you with her tawny limbs and horse sense, when you receive Maude’s nod your future and your past will begin.”

  There was a pause, or pall.

  “Is that true,” I asked, “that song?”

  “It is a metaphor,” said Mrs. Davis, “it has metaphorical truth.”

  “And the end of the mechanical age,” I said, “is that a metaphor?”

  “The end of the mechanical age,” said Mrs. Davis, “is in my judgment an actuality straining to become a metaphor. One must wish it luck, I suppose. One must cheer it on. Intellectual rigor demands that we give these damned metaphors every chance, even if they are inimical to personal well-being and comfort. We have a duty to understand everything, whether we like it or not—a duty I would scant if I could.” At that moment the water jumped into the boat and sank us.

  •

  At the wedding Mrs. Davis spoke to me kindly.

  “Tom,” she said, “you are not Ralph, but you are all that is around at the moment. I have taken in the whole horizon with a single sweep of my practiced eye, no giant figure looms there and that is why I have decided to marry you, temporarily, with Jake gone and an age ending. It will be a marriage of convenience all right, and when Ralph comes, or Maude nods, then our arrangement will automatically self-destruct, like the tinted bubble that it is. You were very kind and considerate, when we were drying out, in the tree, and I appreciated that. That counted for something. Of course kindness and consideration are not what the great songs, the Ralph-song and the Maude-song, promise. They are merely flaky substitutes for the terminal experience. I realize that and want you to realize it. I want to be straight with you. That is one of the most admirable things about me, that I am always straight with people, from the sweet beginning to the bitter end. Now I will return to the big house where my handmaidens will proceed with the robing of the bride.”

  It was cool in the meadow by the river, the meadow Mrs. Davis had selected for the travesty, I walked over to the tree under which my friend Blackie was standing, he was the best man, in a sense.

  “This disgusts me,” Blackie said, “this hollow pretense and empty sham and I had to come all the way from Chicago.”

  God came to the wedding and stood behind a tree with just part of His effulgence showing, I wondered whether He was planning to bless this makeshift construct with His grace, or not. It’s hard to imagine what He was thinking of in the beginning when He planned everything that was ever going to happen, planned everything exquisitely right down to the tiniest detail such as what I was thinking at this very moment, my thought about His thought, planned the end of the mechanical age and detailed the new age to follow, and then the bride emerged from the house with her train, all ocher in color and very lovely.

  “And do you, Anne,” the minister said, “promise to make whatever mutually satisfactory accommodations necessary to reduce tensions and arrive at whatever previously agreed-upon goals both parties have harmoniously set in the appropriate planning sessions?”

  “I do,” said Mrs. Davis.

  “And do you, Thomas, promise to explore all differences thoroughly with patience and inner honesty ignoring no fruitful avenues of discussion and seeking at all times to achieve rapprochement while eschewing advantage in conflict situations?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, now we are married,” said Mrs. Davis, “I think I will retain my present name if you don’t mind, I have always been Mrs. Davis and your name is a shade graceless, no offense, dear.”

  “O.K.,” I said.

  Then we received the congratulations and good wishes of the guests, who were mostly employees of the Mexican restaurant, Raul was there and Consuelo, Pedro, and Pepe came crowding around with outstretched hands and Blackie came crowding around with outstretched hands, God was standing behind the caterer’s tables looking at the enchiladas and chalupas and chile con queso and chicken mole as if He had never seen such things before but that was hard to believe.

  I started to speak to Him as all of the world’s great religions with a few exceptions urge, from the heart, I started to say “Lord, Little Father of the Poor, and all that, I was just wondering now that an age, the mechanical age, is ending and a new age beginning or so they say, I was just wondering if You could give me a hint, sort of, not a Sign, I’m not asking for a Sign, but just the barest hint as to whether what we have been told about Your nature and our nature is, forgive me and I know how You feel about doubt or rather what we have been told You feel about it, but if You could just let drop the slightest indication as to whether what we have been told is authentic or just a bunch of apocryphal heterodoxy—”

  But He had gone away with an insanely beautiful smile on His li
ghted countenance, gone away to read the meters and get a line on the efficacy of grace in that area, I surmised, I couldn’t blame Him, my question had not been so very elegantly put, had I been able to express it mathematically He would have been more interested, maybe, but I have never been able to express anything mathematically.

  •

  After the marriage Mrs. Davis explained marriage to me.

  Marriage, she said, an institution deeply enmeshed with the mechanical age.

  Pairings smiled upon by law were but reifications of the laws of mechanics, inspired by unions of a technical nature, such as nut with bolt, wood with wood screw, aircraft with Plane-Mate.

  Permanence or impermanence of the bond a function of (1) materials and (2) technique.

  Growth of literacy a factor, she said.

  Growth of illiteracy also.

  The center will not hold if it has been spot-welded by an operator whose deepest concern is not with the weld but with his lottery ticket.

  God interested only in grace—keeping things humming.

  Blackouts, brownouts, temporary dimmings of household illumination all portents not of Divine displeasure but of Divine indifference to executive-development programs at middle-management levels.

  He likes to get out into the field Himself, she said. With His flashlight. He is doing the best He can.

  We two, she and I, no exception to general ebb/flow of world juice and its concomitant psychological effects, she said.

  Bitter with the sweet, she said.

  •

  After the explanation came the divorce.

  “Will you be wanting to contest the divorce?” I asked Mrs. Davis.

  “I think not,” she said calmly, “although I suppose one of us should, for the fun of the thing. An uncontested divorce always seems to me contrary to the spirit of divorce.”

  “That is true,” I said, “I have had the same feeling myself, not infrequently.”

  After the divorce the child was born. We named him A.F. of L. Davis and sent him to that part of Russia where people live to be one hundred and ten years old. He is living there still, probably, growing in wisdom and beauty. Then we shook hands, Mrs. Davis and I, and she set out Ralphward, and I, Maudeward, the glow of hope not yet extinguished, the fear of pall not yet triumphant, standby generators ensuring the flow of grace to all of God’s creatures at the end of the mechanical age.

  GREAT DAYS

  To Thomas B. Hess

  The Crisis

  —ON THE dedication page of the rebellion, we see the words “To Clementine.” A fine sentiment, miscellaneous organ music next, and, turning several pages, massed orange flags at the head of the column. This will not be easy, but neither will it be hard. Good will is everywhere, and the lighthearted song of the gondoliers is heard in the distance.

  —Yes, success is everything. Morally important as well as useful in a practical way.

  —What have the rebels captured thus far? One zoo, not our best zoo, and a cemetery. The rebels have entered the cages of the tamer animals and are playing with them, gently.

  —Things can get better, and in my opinion will.

  —Their Graves Registration procedures are scrupulous—accurate and fair.

  —There’s more to it than playing guitars and clapping along. Although that frequently gets people in the mood.

  —Their methods are direct, not subtle. Dissolution, leaching, sandblasting, cracking and melting of fireproof doors, condemnation, water damage, slide presentations, clamps and buckles.

  —And skepticism, although absolutely necessary, leads to not very much.

  —The rebels have eaten all the grass on the spacious lawns surrounding the President’s heart. That vast organ, the President’s heart, beats now on a bald plain.

  —It depends on what you want to do. Sometimes people don’t know. I mean, don’t know even that.

  —Clementine is thought to be one of the great rebel leaders of the half century. Her hat has four cockades.

  —I loved her for a while. Then, it stopped.

  —Rebel T-shirts, camouflaged as ordinary T-shirts by an intense whiteness no eye can pierce, are worn everywhere.

  —I don’t know why it stopped, it just stopped. That’s happened several times. Is something wrong with me?

  —Closely supervised voting in the other cantons produced results clearly favorable to neither faction, but rather a sort of generalized approbation which could be appropriated by anyone who had need of it.

  —A greater concentration on one person than you normally find. Then, zip.

  —Three or four photographs of the rebel generals, tinted glasses, blond locks blowing in the wind, have been released to the world press, in billboard size.

  —Whenever I go there, on the Metroliner, I begin quietly thinking about how to help: better planning, more careful management, a more equal distribution of income, education. Or something new.

  —There have been mistakes. No attempt was made to seize Broadcasting House—a fundamental error. The Household Cavalry was not subverted, discontented junior officers of the regular forces were not sought out and offered promotions, or money . . .

  —Yes, an afternoon on the links! I’d never been out there before—so green and full of holes and flags. I’m afraid we got in the way, people were shouting at us to get out of the way. We had thought they’d let us just stand there and look or walk around and look, but apparently that’s not done. So we went to the pro shop and rented some clubs and bags, and put the bags on our shoulders, and that got us by for a while. We walked around with our clubs and bags, enjoying the cool green and the bright, attractive sportswear of the other participants. That helped some, but we were still under some mysterious system of rules we didn’t understand, always in the wrong place at the wrong time, it seemed, yelled at and bumping into people. So finally we said to hell with it and left the links; we didn’t want to spoil anybody’s fun, so we took the bus back to town, first returning the clubs and bags to the pro shop. Next, we will try the jai-alai courts and soccer fields, of which we have heard the most encouraging things.

  —Blocking forces were not provided to isolate the Palace. Diversions were not created to draw off key units. The airports were not invested nor were the security services neutralized. Important civilians were not cultivated and won over, and propaganda was neglected. Photographs of the rebel leaders were distributed but these “leaders” were actors, selected for their immense foreheads and chins and blond, flowing locks.

  —Yes, they pulled some pretty cute tricks. I had to laugh, sometimes, wondering: What has this to do with you and me? Our frontiers are the marble lobbies of these buildings. True, mortar pits ring the elevator banks but these must be seen as friendly, helpful gestures toward certification of the crisis.

  —The present goal of the individual in group enterprises is to avoid dominance; leadership is felt to be a character disorder. Clementine has not heard this news, and thus invariably falls forward, into the thickets of closure.

  —Well, maybe so. When I knew her she was just an ordinary woman—wonderful, of course, but not transfigured.

  —The black population has steered clear of taking sides, sits home and plays, over and over, the sexy part of Tristan und Isolde.

  —We feel only 25 percent of what we ought to feel, according to recent findings. I know that “ought” is a loaded word, in this context.

  —Are the great bells of the cathedrals an impoverishment of the folk (on one level) or an enrichment of the folk (on another level), and how are these values to be weighted, how reconciled?

  —They won’t do anything for the poor people, no matter who gets in, and that’s a fact. I wonder if they can.

  —The raid on the okra fields was not a success; the rebel answering service just hisses.

  —There’s such a thing as
a flash point. But sometimes you can’t find it, even when you know how.

  —Our pride in having a rebellion of our own, even a faint, rather ill-organized one, has turned us once again toward the kinds of questions that deserve serious attention.

  —Is something wrong with me? I’m not complaining, just asking. We all have our work, it’s the small scale that disturbs. Maybe 25 percent is high. They say he’s one of the best, but most people don’t need his specialty very often. Of course, I admit that when they need it they need it. Cattle too dream of death, and are afraid of it. I don’t mean that as an excuse. I did love her for a while; I remember. His strategy is to be cheerful without being optimistic; I’ll go along with that. Maybe we ought to have another election. The police are never happier than on Election Day, when their relation to the citizens assumes a calm, even jokey tone. They are allowed to take off their hats. Fetching coffee in paper cups for the poll watchers, or being fetched coffee by them, they stand chest out not too close to the voting machines in fresh-pressed uniforms, spit-polished boots. Bold sergeants arrive and depart in patrol cars, or dash about making arrangements, and only the plainclothesmen are lonely.

  —As a magician works with the unique compressibility of doves, finding some, losing others in the same silk foulard, so the rebels fold scratchy, relaxed meanings into their smallest actions.

  —I don’t quarrel with their right to do it. It’s the means I’m worried about.

  —Self-criticism sessions were held, but these produced more criticism than could usefully be absorbed or accommodated.

  —I decided that something is not wrong with me.

  —The rebels have failed to make promises. Promises are, perhaps, the nut of the matter. Had they promised everyone free groceries, for example, or one night of love, then their efforts might have—

  —Yes, success is everything. Failure is more common. Most achieve a sort of middling thing, but fortunately one’s situation is always blurred, you never know absolutely quite where you are. This allows, if not peace of mind, ongoing attention to other aspects of existence.