Donald Barthelme

by Donald Barthelme

  “Elaine,” Harvey said, “would you mind letting me alone for a little while? I have to think about something.”

  Silently the little girl withdrew.

  A hook? Harvey wondered.

  The next day at the firehouse Harvey was playing chess with his friend Nick Ceci. He consciously made all his moves with his new artificial hand in its black glove. Every time Harvey moved, a lot of the pieces fell off the board. Nick said nothing. He just picked up the pieces off the floor and put them back in their proper places. The alarm bell rang.

  Harvey climbed up on the back of the engine, second from left.

  “Get down off there, Harvey. For God’s sake,” the captain said. “This is a serious business we’re in, firefighting. Quit screwing around.”

  “But I have this new hand!”

  “Yes, but it’s no good,” the captain replied. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Harvey, but that hand is just a piece of junk.”

  “I paid two hundred and twelve bucks for it!”

  “You got taken,” the captain said. “I cannot risk the safety of my men on a possibly fallible plastic-and-metal hand which looks to me unsound and junky. I must use my best judgment. That is why I am captain, because I have good judgment. Now will you get your ass down from there and let us get out of here?”

  Harvey hung up his rubber coat and went home to Staten Island. He spent some time looking at a picture of his mother, who was dead. In the picture his mother was reading a book.

  I am a finished fireman, he thought. But yet, a human being, I have courage, resiliency—even hope. I will remold myself into something new, by reading a lot of books. I will miss firehouse life, but I know that other lives are possible—useful work in a number of lines, socially desirable activities contributing to the health of the society . . .

  The fireman told himself a lot more garbage of this nature.

  Then he told himself some true things:

  (1) Women do not like men with one hand as much as they like men with two hands.

  (2) His fake hand was a piece of expensive junk, like a gold jeweled bird that could open its mouth and sing, and also tell the time.

  (3) He had only $213.09 in the bank, after having paid for the hand.

  (4) God had taken his hand away for a reason, because God never does anything mindlessly, appearance notwithstanding.

  (5) God’s action in re the hand could only be regarded as punitive. It could hardly be regarded as a reward or congratulations.

  (6) Therefore he, Harvey Samaras, either had done something wrong or, more specifically, been something wrong.

  (7) His mother was dead. His father was dead. All his grandmothers and grandfathers were dead, as were his uncles, aunts, and cousins.

  (8) He had never had the guts to marry anybody, although Sheila had wanted to get married.

  (9) No children were his.

  (10) Reading a lot of books would solve nothing.

  (11) As he had grown older he had become less brave. That time at the P.S. 411 fire . . .

  (12) In essence, he had failed to improve. He had failed to become a better man.

  (13) There were mitigating circumstances—his very poor education, for example.

  (14) Having a gold jeweled bird that could open its mouth and sing and also tell the time was in no sense as good as having an ordinary left hand.

  (15) He did not know what he had done wrong. But he knew that a better man would have, somehow, done better.

  (16) But how?

  (17) How does that arise, that condition of being a better man?

  (18) Reading a lot of books?

  (19) But to be honest, he did not want to be a better man. All he wanted to do was drink and listen to music.

  (20) He did not love anybody, really.

  (21) No one loved him, particularly. Nick Ceci was friendly but probably that was just his nature, to be friendly.

  (22) We are all replaceable parts, like a bashed-in fender on a Maverick. His left hand was a replaceable part of an organism that was itself replaceable.

  (23) His death, his own death, would not be noticed by the world, would not make the slightest difference to the world.

  (24) He would live anyhow.

  (25) Poorly.

  Tickets

  I HAVE decided to form a new group and am now contemplating the membership, the prospective membership, of my new group. My decision was prompted by a situation that arose not long ago vis-à-vis the symphony. We say “the symphony” because there is only one symphony orchestra here, as opposed to other cities where there are several and one must distinguish among them. The situation had to do with an invitation my wife received from Barbet, the artist, to attend the symphony with him on the evening of the ninth of March.

  My wife, as it happened, was already planning to attend the performance of the ninth of March with her friend Morton. Barbet had extra tickets and wanted my wife to join his group and was gracious enough to enlarge his invitation to include my wife’s friend, Morton. My wife could join his group, Barbet said, and took special pains to make clear that this invitation extended to Morton also. My wife responded, with characteristic warmth, with a counter-invitation, saying that she already had tickets for the ninth of March including extra tickets, that Barbet was most welcome to join her group, the group of my wife and Morton, and that the members of Barbet’s group were also most welcome to join my wife’s group, the group consisting, at that moment, of herself and Morton. My wife had previously asked me, with the utmost cordiality, if I wished to go to the symphony with her on the ninth of March, despite being fully apprised of my views on the matter of going to the symphony.

  I had replied that I did not care to join her at the symphony on the occasion in question, but had inquired, out of politeness, what the program was to be, although my wife is fully aware that my views on the symphony will never change. My views on the symphony are that only the socially malformed would choose to put on a dark suit, a white shirt, a red tie, and so on, black shoes, and so on, and go to the symphony, there to sit pinned between two other people, albeit one of them one’s own warm and sweet-smelling wife, for two hours or more, listening to music that may very well exist, in equally knowing and adroit performances, in one’s own home, on records. That is to say that such people, the socially malformed (my wife, of course, excepted), go to the symphony out of extramusical need, clear extramusical need. But because of the raging politeness that always obtains between us I asked her what the program was to be on the ninth of March, and she told me that it was to be an all-Laurenti evening.

  Laurenti is a composer held in quite high esteem hereabouts, perhaps less so elsewhere but of that I cannot judge, he is attached to the symphony as our composer-in-residence. It was to be, she told me, an all-Laurenti performance with just a bit of Orff by way of curtain-raiser, the conductor of the symphony, Gilley, which he pronounces “Gil-lay,” having decided that Orff would make an appropriate, even delicious, curtain-raiser for Laurenti. While I am respectful of Laurenti’s tragedy, what is called in some circles Laurenti’s tragedy—that he has not a shred of talent of any description—still the prospect of sitting tightly wedged between two other human beings for the length of an all-Laurenti evening would have filled me with dismay had I not been aware that the invitation from my wife was perfectly pro forma. It appears that Gilley is sleeping with Mellow the new first-desk cellist, who sits at the head of the cellos with her golden cornrows, or so it is said at the Opera-Cellar, where I have a drink from time to time, especially often during the rather hectic period when my wife was both chairperson of the Friends of French Art Fandango and head whipper-in for the Detached Retina Ball.

  It could be relied upon that Barbet, being an artist, would respond with enthusiasm to the notion of yet another disastrous all-Laurenti evening, possibly with the idea of mocking La
urenti behind his hand, although Barbet, as an artist, would not literally mock Laurenti behind his hand but rather in speech, or ironic speech rotten with wit. Barbet, being an artist of a particular kind, no doubt feels that a mocking attitude is appropriate to an artist of his kind, known not only hereabouts but in much larger cities, cities with two and even three distinct symphony orchestras, not even counting a Youth Symphony or one maintained by the Department of Sanitation. Barbet’s reputation rests, not unimpressively, upon his “Cancellation” paintings—or simply “cancellations,” in the language of his métier—a form he is believed to have invented and in which he displays his rotten wit along with the usual exhausting manual dexterity. The “cancellations” are paintings in which a rendering of a well-known picture, an Edvard Munch, say, has super-imposed on it a smaller, but yet not small, rendering of another but perhaps not so well known picture, an El Lissitzky, say, for example the “Untitled” of 1919–20, a rather geometrical affair of squares and circles, reds and blacks, whose impetuses not only contest, contradict, the impetuses of the Munch, the Scandinavian miserablism of the Munch, but effectively cancel it, an action one can see taking place before one’s eyes. I must say in his defense (because what Barbet is doing, has been doing all his life as a painter, is fundamentally indefensible), I must say in Barbet’s defense that the contestation between the two paintings he has chosen to superimpose, one on the other, is of a very high order, is of substantial visual interest just as paint, and that the way the historically unrelated paintings relate to each other as forms or collections of forms is a value in addition to the value one awards the destructive act that is the soul of Barbet’s painting, as much as the decayed wit displayed in titling these things “Improved Painting #1,” “Improved Painting #2,” “Improved Painting #19”—all these values must be taken into account in deciding whether or not Barbet should be shot, on the basis of ill will. But because Barbet is one of our few, our very few, genuine artists, we embrace him. This is not to say that the work of many other painters not our own is not similarly indefensible and that they, too, from a strictly construed moral-aesthetic standpoint, should not be shot. There are forty-four examples of Barbet’s work in the museum, I refer to our quite grand local museum, in which my wife’s family’s money has had quite an important role over the years; it can be imagined how much I detest the phrase “provincial museum” but there is no other way of describing the place, which is, of course, quite grand, with its old part done in the classical mode and its new part done in a mode that respects the classical mode to the point of being indistinguishable from the classical mode but is also fresh, new, contemporary, and ironic.

  This Morton who has been my wife’s friend for ten years at least, who is forever calling her on the telephone so that I have come to recognize his voice although I have never met him—I recognize not only his voice but the characteristic pause before he asks if my wife is there, the freighted pause, I recognize that and say yet, Morton, just a moment, I’ll see if she’s in—this Morton, on the other hand, is a singer, and thus has no irony. He has, however, a legitimate interest in the symphony, as well as a truly frightening voice, easily recognized, a bass voice of remarkable color and strength, and patina; it is not wrong to add “patina” since this Morton is a man of a certain age, not old in any sense, but not young either, and of course not new to my wife, whose constant companion he has been for the past ten years. Morton does not go to the symphony or to musical occasions of any sort merely to make jokes or scoff behind his hand. And considered in the light of the possible attendance of someone like Morton, a sage and well-tempered listener, even some of Laurenti is perhaps worth hearing, the “Songs” perhaps, which draw from reviewers notices that begin “Among the best, perhaps, of this fluent but uneven composer’s efforts are the ‘Songs.’” I must tell you that last night I slept with my wife, I use the term “slept with” in the sense of congress, it was four-fifteen in the morning and I awoke with an itch to sleep with my wife, who was sleeping beside me as she has every night for the past fifteen years or thereabouts. My wife appeared to me to be a young person, that was interesting, I of course have no idea how I appeared to her but she appeared to me to be a young person and together after arduous endeavor we achieved quite sublime heights of sexual communion, such as one does not often achieve, we achieved that, at about four-fifteen in the morning, last night, the children sleeping soundly, the dog awake, she said in the morning, “Good morning, sexy boy.”

  It is the case that Barbet actively dislikes Morton, whereas Morton is absolutely indifferent to Barbet. Morton acts upon Barbet like a rug that makes you ill, a rug that is your own rug, clean, in good condition, not frayed or stained, but suddenly looking at the rug you are made ill, a wind around the heart, looking at the gray, green, and yellow rug, with its melon-shaped figure, purchased, yes, at Klecksel’s, where the very best recent rugs, V’Soke and the like, are to be found (as well as both Klecksel and Jeri, his girlfriend, yes, even Klecksel has a girlfriend, so bounteous/fortunate are the times, even Klecksel has a girlfriend and the two are always at the symphony, or at the opera, or at the ballet, giving one very odd feelings, in that the person who sells you rugs, whom you regard as a rug person, someone who swims into your ken when rugs are an issue, and then swims out again when the issue has been resolved, must also be regarded as part of a social pair on quite another plane, and not just part of a social pair but part of a set of new lovers, God help us all), illness ensues. Morton is a very fine singer, a bass with the opera, where he sings Hunding in “Die Walküre,” Méphistophélès in “La Damnation de Faust,” etc. I find a slightly nasal quality to his singing, but perhaps I am imagining it. He is a handsome fellow, of course, my wife’s self-regard would not allow her to be seen out with anyone who is not a handsome fellow. The nose is quite large but there is, I suppose, no necessary connection between the quite large nose and the slightly nasal quality he brings to Hunding or Méphistophélès or Abul in “Der Barbier von Baghdad,” the last a role in which his comic flair, what is called in the newspaper his comic flair, is employed to great advantage. I have seen him many times at the opera (which offers something for the eye as opposed to the symphony where one can watch the kettledrums going out of tune) and have found his performances juicy and his comic flair endurable and have chosen him as a member of my new group, an honor he may, of course, decline.

  My group will be unlike any existing group, will exist in contradistinction to all existing groups, over against all existing groups, will be in fine an anti-group, given the ethos of our city, the hysterical culture of our city. My new group will contain my wife, that sugarplum, and her friend Morton and a Gypsy girl and a blind man and will take its ethos from the car wash. My new group will march along the boulevards shouting “Let’s go! Let’s go!” with the enthusiasm of the young men at the car wash who are forever shouting “Let’s go! Let’s go!” to inspirit their fellows, if there is a moment of quiet at the car wash someone will take up the cry “Let’s go! Let’s go!” and then others will take up the cry “Let’s go! Let’s go!” shouting “Let’s go! Let’s go!” over and over, as long as the car wash washes.

  CHRONOLOGY

  NOTE ON THE TEXTS

  NOTES

  Chronology

  1931

  Born Donald Barthelme, Jr., on April 7 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first child of Helen Bechtold and Donald Barthelme, Sr. (Helen Bechtold [1907–1995], a Philadelphia native, was a teacher, writer, and aspiring actress. Donald, Sr. [1907–1996], the son of a prominent lumberyard owner in Galveston, Texas, was an architecture student at the University of Pennsylvania, where he met Helen, and went on to become a demanding and outspoken champion of modernist architecture, an acolyte of Mies van der Rohe, Eero Saarinen, and Le Corbusier. His aesthetic greatly influenced Donald, Jr., with whom he nevertheless quarreled frequently. Helen and Donald, Sr., married in June 1930, and after graduation he went to work for a Philadelphia
architecture firm that also employed Louis Kahn. Helen put aside a career of her own and devoted herself to raising a family, which eventually included five children, all of whom became writers of one sort or another.)

  1932

  Family moves to Galveston, where father, unable to find an architecture job in Philadelphia, works for grandfather’s lumberyard. Sister Joan is born.

  1937

  Family moves to Houston, where father joins the architecture firm of John F. Staub. Starts classes at St. Anne’s School, run by the Basilian order of the Catholic Church. Along with the conventional subjects, Donald’s brothers later recall, it also teaches guilt.

  1939

  Brother Peter born. Father, about to go into business for himself, builds house of his own design in the new West Oaks neighborhood on the suburban edge of Houston. A low, flat-roofed, copper-clad rectangle with irregular projections, it’s so unusual that it becomes a kind of tourist attraction. On Sundays, Donald later recalls, people would park their cars out front and stare, and sometimes the family would come out and do high kicks in a chorus line. Inside, the place is a constant remodeling project. The furniture is Aalto, Eames, and pieces designed by Donald, Sr., and then built by the children.

  1943

  Brother Frederick born. Starts classes at St. Thomas Catholic High School, also run by the Basilians, where he is an indifferent student but excels at writing. Begins reading The New Yorker and decides he wants to write for it someday. Becomes interested in jazz and takes up the drums. Plays so often and so loudly that both the family and the neighbors begin to complain.

  1947