There was, though, an important problem: the world is not human. And so in their attempt to live as if the world could be made over in our own image, Riata and her city friends, however much fun they had, were playing out a glittering and useless lie.
Riata knew she had to take action. She returned to her home grounds; she walked through the high desert in the spring when the meadowlarks teased her with raucous suggestions. She visited once more the little bars in her hometown where she waited to drink her whiskey until the transcendent second when it was the warmth of her hand. She went out to see the mustangs come in noon light to the spring just below a limestone outcropping—the roan stallion, four mares, two little foals, circulating slowly there in dusty astonishment and satisfaction.
By these things, she recovered the old, commonplace gifts that in her girlhood had tricked her into hopefulness—gifts that recreated a woman beyond her personal ideas and preferences. But she understood the necessity of this: since the world is not human, the joke is on us—and there’s work to do.
This journey having been accomplished, she went back to the city, and studied how she might introduce these necessary visitations from a next world, which is this world. And so she did the obvious thing—she went to the phonebook and, choosing names at random, began writing postcards.
The postcards were usually one-liners, such things as:
You are the guardian of starlight, and so you’ve got to figure out how to work nights with good grace.
If you are not funny, it’s a lot harder to inherit the earth; for if you cannot laugh, how are you going to tell a story about the deadly serious work you are meant to do?
You want wisdom; but maybe you need pancakes.
If, say, on the sun, you join two atoms together, you can make light. What would happen if, say, on earth, you joined two souls?
Total eclipses of the sun are caused by the wink of a certain tropical songbird; the movements of the sun, moon, and earth are fortunately synchronized.
You are the one, here is the secret, now is the time, and perhaps you shouldn’t be so infernally proud just because you have the ability to pull off a suicide that takes seventy-five years.
Angels can cook with your thoughts and taste you with their smiles. Do you know what to do with them?
On the branch of your years, one day, the flower of what you say. Unless the frost of your ignorance kills it.
Disguise yourself wildly, madly, improbably; be the cement truck filled with honey.
Such were the messages received with regularity all around the city; Riata sent thousands of cards every year. And to what end, with what effect, by what justification?
These questions are easy to answer, and you might as well do so. Send her a postcard.
She would be delighted. For of those who have received postcards from her, so few, so very few, have replied.
Told to me by a writer in Utah, whom I met in Dark Canyon, along the upper reaches where the sandstone walls arch up and go through the clouds. She is so famous under her pen name that it makes her laugh out loud. I would venture to say she is on a first-name basis with the spirits who course through this enigmatic canyon, every day, and every night.
THE BOOKS WERE SO BAD, SHE SET OUT TO MAKE THE WORLD FROM SCRATCH
Since books have become commodities, the culture has gotten lackadaisical. That is, it does not recognize that, by what is now thought to be a contemptible, old-fashioned criterion, a good book is a common, clear, useful gift: a lens focusing the light of our attention upon an irresistible, grace-giving reality beyond words, within this world. Neither, in general, do we any longer recognize that there are a thousand and one chances to find our way, that we need the right form at the right time, that the truth has to do a cartwheel, go wrong, get dirty, whisper to a lover, take a rest, sip a whiskey now and then.
Good books were once so conceived. And bad books, they were said—by one or another curmudgeon—to be a cancer of the understanding. They kill our classical hopes, misconceive our most florescent pleasures, cringe and wallow in bitterness and tragedy, and deny with grim pride the possibility of crafted, lucid, complete lives.
But, we thank our stars, these judgments do not have to be made anymore! Books are not given; they are traded: like pork loins.
It has simplified the task of the writer: all she has to do is go to the recipe book.
The critic, however, has a tougher job: he has to gorge himself on professional dishes and risk dying of a fatty soul.
And where is the reader in all of this? Waiting there, in her blessed, life-saving skepticism, in her expectant understanding, in the concinnity of a future she hopes for, because she can see where we might go. Since she is not wholly pleased by the books thrust upon her, she is going to have to write her own.
It’s rumored that she has taken this effort to its logical extension: she is making a language of her own, creating extraordinary words for use in her manuscripts. The other day, a word of hers was found that had flecks of mica in it, so that it glittered in the sun. Another word was seen to have tattoos, as if it had been drinking in bars in big seaports. Yet another, held in the hand, twirled around and did acrobatic stunts.
When will she, with these new words, make sentences? And as to her books, where might we find them, what is she proposing to us?
She is telling stories—they make coyotes howl, provoke geysers out of the ground, lure songbirds out of the sky and into the house, and have, in general, ordinary and easy commerce with the world.
To put it another way, the stories she is telling are not about herself. She no longer looks into the world in hopes of seeing herself. She has set such coarse obsession aside, in favor of the world, the subtle and brazen life within it, the opalescent pattern of events, the slow-dance of night and day.
It is as if soil and wind, light and flower, now have work with her; so, as she writes, can she be the messenger of what she finds, and what she finds is what was always awaiting her.
In other words, as we read, as we live, we are ourselves being read, studied, contemplated. The world which has us in hand, when we take in hand a good book, bears an intelligence which in some historical periods (periods now thought by our culture to be ignorant and irrelevant) has even been given a name: reality. This is one of the reasons why all good readers will thrive, now and forever—they’re in the one company, the one and only company, whose hopes for us, attention to us, and need for us, never fail.
And there’s another, evermore obvious reason: language and light have the same origin. And so the reader, at last, with surprise, with joy, goes with her book to a place she knows, because there she is swept up in a destined, beckoning, open spectrum. There she can, as she has been meant to always, read and study and answer the decisive signals in ordinary daylight.
She will answer, and we will live.
Told to me by an old woman, in the village of Maidenhead, England, not far from London. I have reason to suspect she was Nancy, such was the delicious satisfaction she took in the details of this account. I remember so clearly the music of her English, the mint green of her eyes, and her teasing way of telling a story, both courteous and amorous.
PROPOSITION FOR NANCY
Our friend Nancy was accustomed to seeing on the street all manner of clever beggars, sharpers, bunco men, catcallers, bankers, and friends. That is, she lived in a city, and found sustenance in its bellicose, happy-go-lucky, perilous days. And so it was that while walking about, she was not startled by the approach of a well-dressed gentleman who bowed to her and with a homely, winning smile requested her permission to make a “noteworthy, if not supernatural proposition.” Now, propositions were not unknown to our Nancy, who had received them left and right, day and night, presented smack in the middle of the morning, tucked in the last corner of twilight, in plain view of the afternoon sun, in the promising darkness of the night.
Nancy would listen to anyone, to assess his or her inventiveness, if nothing else.
And so she listened: the gentleman proposed that he might be allowed to give her various gifts as the day progressed, gifts that were, he implied suavely, essential to her. The only condition was that she not inquire precisely what use would be proven for each of these gifts.
The inquiry being made, her suitor stood patiently for her reply. Nancy gazed at him slowly and critically; she pondered how best to make a circumspect yet hardboiled decision; she held her thoughts up to the light to study the reflections that they made; she pondered, she cogitated, she hacked and spat.
Finally she said: “Sure, why the hell not? What have you got for me first?”
And the man gave her five hundred dollars cash, said he would be seeing her soon, and vanished. Abrupt fellow, thought Nancy; and she went on with her errands.
Nancy had not counted three blocks when a burly man came from nowhere, seized her, and dragged her into tarnished shadows in the far corner of an alley. Whirling around to see if anyone had observed him, he fell flat on his face. Picking himself up, and looking as sheepish as ever a thief has looked, he drew a pocketknife, and while trying to open it he cut himself severely. Next, while trying to rip his shirt to make a compress to stem the bleeding, he broke two fingers—
“Are you new at this?” asked Nancy.
“It’s my first time,” replied the thief timidly.
“Could I offer you five hundred dollars for that knife?” she asked.
“Sold,” he said.
He handed her the knife, she gave him the money, and she helped him dress the wounds sufficiently for a trip to the hospital. At the hospital, what with his tomfoolery of injuries, he rendered up (including gratuities) two hundred dollars for the care received. Once on his own, the man marched forthwith to the opticians to buy eyeglasses, for his sight was subject to the most wretched distortions. It was his desperate, honest, souldeep need for eyeglasses that had driven him to attempt a robbery; and had, by a secret operation of fortune, led him to Nancy. With the glasses he was able to see what he had been about to see when his eyes began to fail; that is, a series of religious visions given him, numerously and freely.
So was he able to study, in the vernacular of light, messages sent to him, lessons meant for him. He saw exactly how a good couplet can make dance music rise out of city streets. He saw the detail of future centuries in the speech of certain children. He saw how the steps we take in our travels, if made with the right combination of fidelity and good laughs, do not trace out the treasure map, but set down in detail the treasure itself. He saw just how to open an idea to let in the correct amount of sunlight. And knowing by the correction of his sight all these things, he began to write up what he had learned. Though his manuscript has not yet been published, it has been circulated privately, and is said to be most highly regarded by readers of little stories.
As to his remaining money, he surrendered it to a man whom he knew was about to do, for lack of money, a desperate, foolish thing; and to another curious fellow who needed extra cash to buy an excellent meal at a coffeehouse, in which place this gentleman would meet Nancy, and there begins—but that is another story . . .
To return to this story, Nancy left the hospital and had not sauntered two blocks before she ran into the courtly gentleman whose cash and prophecy had started all this nonsense—
“Well,” said Nancy, “what trouble are you going to get me into now?”
“A very surfeit of trouble, I hope, my precious young woman,” replied the gentleman.
“Out with it,” said Nancy.
In answer the gentleman held out to her a single coin, of small denomination, and bade her take it. She did, with some disparaging remarks on how brief a flourishing has generosity in this world. She was aware, though, that the buying power of a coin did not necessarily represent its value. And so she went on her way, and soon found herself detained on the street by two arguing men, who implored her to settle their differences. They were arguing about heaven and hell, truth and freedom, the merits and disadvantages of industrial development, the hopes and iniquities of art and science; and both were now entangled so thoroughly in the net of point and counterpoint, proposal and rebuttal, that they had decided to ask the first passerby, Nancy, to settle all these outstanding issues by flipping a coin. Such is the history of ideas.
By inspiration, Nancy pulled from her pocket the very coin given her by the gentleman, and as the two adversaries watched, she flipped it high in the air. As it rose, its rate of spin increased until it was so rapid it threw sunlight in all directions and, of course, made the street sparkle with the oracular fire usual to such moments; and so spectacular was the luminous play that no one really noticed that the coin was not descending. And sure enough, from the radiant space high up where the coin had been there suddenly arched long strings of circus-colored confetti that reminded them all of the necessity of celebration. Champagne and cheap beer were brought. A slide guitar and good chamber music were heard. The world was a painting, the jokes were robust, and clowns massed for a charivari. There was seen at the end of arguments a life where the bolts and shackles fall clanking from our thoughts.
The party lasted all night. As for the men who were arguing, they eventually proved how all honest arguments, just like rivers, lead to an ocean we may describe as—but that is another story. Let us find Nancy, who, in the high satisfaction of fatigue, walked the streets again and encountered there her gentleman friend.
“You!” she exclaimed. “That was some trick with the coin.”
“A trick, maybe,” he said. “But everything has its price.”
“What’s the charge?” she asked.
“The very same coin,” he replied.
And she held her hand out so that the coin, spinning still high up in the air, could find her and fall again into her grasp.
“There you are,” she said, handing it back to him. “What do we do now?”
“This time,” said the gentleman, “I am going to give you something you are now in a position to appreciate.”
“And so?” said Nancy warily.
“I give you this: I give you nothing at all.”
“At least we’re still at work,” she said cheerfully.
“Good day to you, my dear woman,” said the gentleman, “and good-bye.”
She watched sadly as he walked away. And, being given nothing, she felt an unusual need to consider her future. She wandered off to a secluded coffeehouse, a favorite place of hers, pervaded by the aroma of espresso and the tranquility of fine old friendships. The only available chair was at the table of a stranger, who beckoned to her. Without hesitation she sat with him. He, of course, was ready to buy her an excellent meal, and they talked about onions and epics, honeysuckle, justice, pleasure; about little fables, whose readers always go on to travel in savory, inconceivable lands; about the man’s brother, a maker of supernatural propositions, and about the amorous undertakings the evening promised.
Later, they went off together into the twilit streets. The city was quiet, the air cool; they walked close, and as a long story found life within them, between them, because of them; as the spiritous, artful night, attentive and trusting, came to take them home; as their hands joined and told the truth, the story where they met ended.
This story was sent to me from Argentina, by the sister of a friend of a friend. We had met very briefly, established a common interest in Borges and Neruda (who didn’t even like each other), and so decided to write to one another.
Yet this story is the entirety of the only letter I ever had from her. She appended a note that said, “So how many pennies do you have, you fool?”
THE PANHANDLER
Once there was a woman who, through strange and random circumstances, lost her job. She took it hard, as might have been expected, for she was down on her luck anyway. Everything seemed to have gone wrong at once. She had wild mood swings, was easily offended, got discouraged, and had terrible feelings of remorse about a failed love affair. She suffered occas
ionally from sneak attacks of accidie, a general lack of concentration, and an addictive personality. In other words, she was just like the rest of us when bad times make an unholy alliance with a bad mood.
Unlike most of the rest of us, however, she decided to put off getting a new job, and she hit the streets as a beggar. She had never begged for anything in her life, nor even considered it; and so she had the brilliant success of the blessedly ignorant. It may have had something to do with the signs she made, which bore appeals such as:
LOOKING FOR A SPECULATIVE INVESTMENT? TRY ME
CLOSEOUT BEGGAR! ONE WEEK ONLY!
GIVE WHILE YOU CAN!
ALCHEMIST HERE! I CAN MAKE GOLD
OUT OF YOUR SPARE CHANGE
THE SMALLEST GIFT WILL MAKE MY SOUL
STAND UP AND TAPDANCE
I AM A FALLING STAR—MAKE A WISH
By such expedients, she gathered enough money to rent an apartment and get back to work. But things were different: her mind, resuscitated by the sign-making arcana of her begging career, now had a new shape. She resolved to give everything she made away to those who needed it. And she could, somehow, tell who needed it, just by observing them.
So she did the obvious thing: she went back on the street and panhandled—except that instead of looking for people who would give money to her, she looked for people who would accept money from her. At first, people were startled when she walked up to them to ask:
The Hot Climate of Promises and Grace Page 11