Glyph

by Percival Everett

  there is no such thing as a non sequitur

  Freud would have had me believe that a dream is a psychosis, one shortlived, “introduced with the subject’s consent and terminated by an act of will.” I dreamed of Madam Nanna and my mother playing tennis. Not by consent did I enter into that dream. I sat there watching them pretend there was a ball and I, with them, pretended there was a ball. I even saw the ball go over the high fence. I ran and got the ball. By the absurdities and the illogic I am to construe that, during whatever time it took me to have that dream, I was psychotic. Perhaps I was (and perhaps I am), but not because of the nature of my dream. If my dream had no absurdities, the players being my mother and father, there actually being a ball, then would the dream not be a momentary psychosis? I was angered to the point of laughter as I lay in my crib contemplating that. In my dreams, I thought, it would be psychotic not to abide by the logic of that world. I imagined that I would not go to a costume ball and then complain about everyone’s dress, or to an exercise class and protest because everyone refused to stand still. The dream is the thing until one awakes. And then it’s whatever you want it to be. Much like anything else.

  there is only authorial intrusion

  There were once two philosophers who were sitting at the edge of a pasture observing a flock of sheep and commenting on their lack of wool. One smoked a pipe. The other wore red shoes. The pipe-smoking philosopher blew out a cloud of smoke and said, “I have a feeling there is no such thing as intuition.”

  subjective-collective

  I was strapped into the all-too-familiar safety contraption in the backseat of the station wagon. Madam Nanna’s head floated above the cloth upholstery by the passenger-side window. Uncle Ned’s ample noggin drove the car. We were a picture from television, a Rockwell, an echoing, threadbare phrase. We started early in the morning, before sunrise, and we were headed south. I didn’t know where we were going, only what I was supposed to do. The last readings given to me by the team concerned computers and the security thereof and thereabouts, which, even to their thinking, did not amount to much protection. I was supposed to find, look at, and memorize any and every blueprint, document, schematic, note, or telephone number that crossed my path. All I knew was that those kinds of things might be there.

  We parked in a large parking lot dotted generously with palm trees. The trees were tall and straight, each having many dead fronds hanging down and wrapping the top of the trunk. Madam Nanna got out, opened the back door, and began to free me. She was wearing a pink dress, which softened her appearance considerably, though she was far from the picture I held of my mother. Uncle Ned was without his darkened glasses, his pale blue eyes exposed to the world, and he wore a yellow turtleneck beneath a kelly green blazer. As I understood the story, I was their adopted child, their having been unable to conceive after years of trying, doctors and operations and prayers. Madam Nanna carried me and Uncle Ned his briefcase. He was there for a job interview (wherever there was) and Madam Nanna was there to look around as well, to see the plant, to see the day-care facility in case she chose to take one of the many office-support jobs the firm was willing to offer company wives. All this I heard at the briefing, though I was not the real target of the meeting. My instructions were all too clear. Look and memorize. When possible, wander off into restricted areas and there, look and memorize. When held near the shoulder of someone reviewing or observing a document, blueprint, or computer screen, look and memorize. I didn’t speak, so I was not required to pretend in any way and though they were all impressed by my intelligence, I was still a baby and they could not bring themselves to speak to me as anything but a baby. So, no one said, “Okay now, Ralph, you go in and pretend to be Nanna and Uncle Ned’s baby. Give Uncle Ned and Nanna those looks you babies reserve for the people who feed you and give you stuff.” All they said was, “Look at things, everything, and then you come back here and we’ll play the remembering game. Okay, Ralphie?”

  spacing

  Dear Professor Townsend,

  I thank you very much for the imposing number of off-prints you recently sent me. I admire your efficiency and I wonder how you are able to be so fertile in light of all your other work. During my down years I published very little. Now I have finished a book about Linguistic Traps and Psychological Types, which shall soon be translated into English. I just recently heard from a professor that universities are rapidly dismantling because mental workers are paid less than laborers. I have enclosed a typed text of my recent talk at the Symposium of the Aristotelian Society. Have to run now.

  Yours Sincerely,

  Jacques Derrida

  libidinal economy

  Colonel Bill, for no other reason than because he could, flew his jet fighter from March Air Force Base to Washington, D.C. and back, stopping for refueling at Strategic Air Command in Nebraska each way. There, while a crew of six men gassed up his baby, he sat in a doughnut shop and flirted with a waitress named Rita. He drank coffee, ate a cruller, and told Rita that he’d see her when next he landed there, giving her a wink as he slid off his stool at the counter and said, “Know what I mean?”

  Back at March, the Colonel was met by Madam Nanna who was dressed in a crisp blue-skirted uniform.

  “Speak to me,” Colonel Bill said.

  “He’s a go. The baby’s a go,” she said.

  “How does he work?”

  “The team doesn’t know how he works. They only know that he does work. He’s truly remarkable. But there’s nothing different about him. He’s normal except for his intelligence.”

  “Then we can’t replicate him. Is that what you’re telling me, Nanna?” He slipped in behind the wheel of his Hummer.

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  Colonel Bill stared ahead through the windshield and bit his lower lip. “But he’s usable.”

  “Highly usable.”

  “Very good.”

  “How was the President?” Madam Nanna asked.

  Colonel Bill turned the key and started the Hummer’s engine. “The President is a fucking asshole, Nanna. He doesn’t know his ass from that piece of shit who’s his VP. Clumsy bastard, too.” He shook his head. “Nixon, now there was a president. Sweaty palms, trembling lips, back-stabbing. Yeah, there was a President.”

  Madam Nanna stood away from the car. Colonel Bill looked at her as if for the first time, coming down from the apparent euphoria considering Nixon had created. “You’re a fine-looking woman, Nanna.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Why don’t you come over here and sit on Colonel Bill’s lap?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There now. Isn’t that better?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  unties of simulacrum

  Suppose I made all e’s t’s and all r’s w’s and all c’s a’s and all p’s q’s and all l’s h’s and s’s n’s and all o’s k’s and all g’s d’s and all i’s u’s and vice versa. Then water would now be RCETW. And suppose I made such substitutions throughout the alphabet. Would it still be English? Yep. Wchql rkihg neuhh nqtco Tsdhunl.

  Language was my bed. More, writing was my bed. I felt safe in it. I needed it. I trusted it. I wrote notes to myself and read them. I wondered what they meant. I put notes away and tried to forget them so I could find and read them. I would tear them up and rearrange the words, read them backwards, read every other word.

  Ysuwu dwu pn ywlbqx lp vlbylnp. Ysu dzynw lx pny audv.

  degrees

  The Weight of the Encephalon

  My head hurts

  the way it hurts,

  weighing in at fifty-two

  ounces soaking wet.

  The pain weighs

  as much,

  just more than 3 pounds,

  rolling like a great round stone

  from floor to roof.

  Fifty-two ounces,

  an ounce for every card

  in the deck.

  Thirteen ounces

  for every eight hours,

&
nbsp; during which I trace

  the topography

  with a match.

  seme

  Madam Nanna was dressed contingently. What was it, I wondered, for a word to not fit? I observed often the space between the words at either end of the word in question. Was it size? The number of vowel sounds? Meaning? Madam Nanna was a husky woman. Not quite true. Madam Nanna was an irksome woman. Madam Nanna was colorfully attired. But, in fact, despite her clothing, was Madam Nanna that thing? Madam Nanna had and was wearing brightly colored clothes. Madam was not dull.

  Of course, the fat Dumpty told me, a metaphor means nothing outside of its metaphorical context. Much as there is no sailing without a boat and water. Which is to say that the metaphor itself has no meaning. But but but but I was a confused tike, wondering how it was that a “stitch in time” made any sense to me without a context, until I realized that it didn’t. So, if I speak of the death of language?

  anfractuous

  Inside the lobby of the Dionysus Missile Works, Uncle Ned was met by a tall man wearing tortoiseshell glasses. “So, glad you could come and look us over, Mr. Jones. I’m Mr. Chaein. We talked on the phone. And this must be your family.”

  “Yes,” Uncle Ned said.

  “This is my wife, Mary, and our adopted African American son, Jamal.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Jones.”

  “Likewise.”

  “And right on to you, little fellow.” Chaein shared a chuckle with Uncle Ned. “Right on,” he repeated.

  “I want to thank you for the opportunity to come see the plant and talk to you in person.”

  “Are you kidding? With your credentials? We’re just glad you’re considering us. I tell you what.” Chaein signaled to a woman who was standing some feet away at a desk. “Let’s get down to business. I’ll show you the lab facilities and Lonnie here will show the little woman and the little bro around.”

  “Actually,” Uncle Ned said, “I was hoping we could all stay together. You know, it would help us later when we’re talking things out.”

  Chaein was slightly taken aback by the request, but recovered quickly. “That’s fine, of course. Lonnie will just come with us to keep the wife company.”

  “That sounds great,” Uncle Ned said.

  “Lonnie, Mr. and Mrs. Jones and their adopted African American baby, Jamile.”

  “Jamal,” Madam Nanna said.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What a cute little pickaninny,” Lonnie said, pushing a wiggling index finger toward my chin.

  We followed behind Uncle Ned and Chaein. The lobby was an explosion of glass and chrome. Chrome waste cans and glass desks and glass bricks and chrome rails along the stark white walls. Busy women just like Lonnie walked by carrying coffees and papers.

  “I just love your dress,” Lonnie said to Madam Nanna.

  “Thank you.”

  “So, will you be looking to work here with us, too?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “Well, even if you don’t, we’ll see a lot of each other. We have a book club and a bowling league. What a cute little boy.”

  “We have the latest and best equipment,” Chaein said to Uncle Ned. “If you need any piece of hardware, you just tell us and we can make it. You don’t have to worry about anything. We have a Digitalis NX Logic Analyzer on every floor and networked to every computer on the floor. If you need more computer power, just say the word.”

  We stopped at a large window and looked through to a huge model of a town and surrounding landscape. There were hills and streams and rivers and houses and churches and little plastic people.

  “It’s pretty much northern Virginia,” Chaein said. “Though we didn’t have a particular town in mind. But it really upsets the boys at the CIA.” He laughed for a couple of beats. “This is our HO scale Actual Impact Model, AIM. This is where we explode scaled-down versions of our bombs to observe the devastation. The model is 3-D computer-generated and it costs us close to thirty-seven thousand dollars to have the computer make a new one after each detonation.”

  Uncle Ned whistled.

  “Not quite as good as blowing up the real thing, but we catch a lot less flack.” He smiled back at the women and me. “Of course, this doesn’t matter much to you, being a deployment specialist. What good are our little toys if we can’t blow them up where the people are, right?” Chaein slapped Uncled Ned’s shoulder. “The good old days of just flying over somebody and simply dropping one are all over. Now we need you.”

  Madam Nanna smiled at Lonnie and said, “My husband is a fuel-injection genius.”

  “You can say that again,” Chaein said. “Fuel prices kill us. We’ve got to use less fuel to make using these things more cost-effective and that’s where men like you, Jones, come in.”

  Uncle Ned hung his head shyly.

  “Well, let’s move on,” Chaein said and led the way. He took us into a large lab where many white-jacketed men worked at computers. “Here’s some of the support staff,” he said. “Any blocks you run into, bring them here. Don’t waste your time with calculations. That’s what these people are for. We want you to be creative. What you do is an art1 and we want to nurture that. I mean, what good is a nuclear device that just sits in your front yard? Deployment, that’s the name of the game. I want you to think of Dionysus Missile Works as your gallery.”

  Madam Nanna moaned and said, “This child just gets so heavy sometimes.” And then she put me down on the floor.

  I watched the adults talk, Chaein and Uncle Ned about blowing the world to smithereens and Lonnie and Madam Nanna about the wives’ taning club. Then I waddled away, weaving between desks and past the backs of chairs and white-jacketed problem-solvers. I looked at screens and notes and did what I was supposed to do, look and memorize. A couple of men looked at me strangely, but I was a baby and they turned away and continued their work.

  Finally, the adults found me, all smiles and chuckles.

  “Kids,” Chaein said.

  “He’s a fast one, too,” Uncle Ned said.

  “In the blood,” said Chaein and they all laughed.

  Madam Nanna hoisted me up to her chest again and gave me a couple of playful bounces.

  The pressure sensor possesses an inductive

  data transmitter attached to an electronic

  time switch in the control unit. Two evac-

  uated aneroids facilitate the moving of the

  plunger in the magnetic circuit of the

  transformer and so change its inductance.

  The throttle closed, the manifold absolute

  pressure is low, and the aneroids are

  dilated, moving the plunger out of the

  magnetic circuit. The inductance is low,

  giving a quick pulse.

  incision

  The question becomes, especially for one who chooses not to speak, whether there is a phenomenological value of the voice itself, whether it has any transcendence. Does the voice have an appearance? Can a voice be good? And does voice, the sounding voice, the speaking voice, carry the same impact as the voice of writing? And can the two work together or against each other, possibly even working to negate meaning altogether? A kind of complicity between sound and sign. I could change my voice even then, write them a baby note, a nasty note, a scary note. But it was always a note. The crew would look at it and ask, “What does the note say?” Never, “What did he say?”

  bridge

  “Hey, you can’t leave me in here with this woman,” Dr. Davis called through the rusty, but still-fast bars of the cell. She looked back at Steimmel who was sitting cross-legged on the bare mattress of the lower bunk, her eyes closed, her hair loose and wild about her face. “Hey!”

  “Shut up,” Steimmel said, her eyes still shut. “I’m not going to kill you. Not just yet.”

  “Guard!”

  Steimmel opened her eyes and looked up at Davis. “What did you and that half-wit Boris think you were doing?”
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  Davis turned and faced Steimmel, braced herself by grasping the bars behind her back, put on a tough face. “Us? Why, you were going to try to keep that boy all to yourself.”

  “You’re damn right.”

  “But you kidnapped him.”

  “What were you trying to do?”

  Davis was caught short. “That’s beside the point.”

  “No, that is the point. You know as well as I do what that kid could mean. All I needed was some time with the little bastard.”

  Davis moved cautiously toward the bunk where Steimmel sat. “Don’t you see, that’s why we should be working together. If we go at the subject from a couple of angles then we have a better chance of figuring it out.”

  Steimmel closed her eyes again.

  “No, don’t shut me out. Listen, if the two of us could work on the baby, then…well, who knows? Me and you, Davis and Steimmel, we could have that infant sliced, diced, and sacrificed to science in no time flat.”

  Steimmel opened one eye and looked at Davis. “Steimmel and Davis. But before I leap up and kill you, let me point out that not only are we incarcerated in the big house, the pokey!, the slammer!!, the clink!!!, but we don’t even know where the little weiner wagger is!!!!”

  “I know that. But what if we escape?”

  “Escape? Are you out of—” Steimmel stopped and looked up at the ceiling and stretched her neck and back. “If a dumb, uneducated, redneck peckerwood like James Earl Ray can escape from prison, then why can’t a couple of overachieving Vassar girls with Ivy League Ph.D.’s?”

  “Now, you’re talking.”

  Back at the playroom, I was debriefed by the crew and Uncle Ned. I was sitting at the small desk, a notepad in front of me and Madam Nanna was sitting on the floor behind me, rubbing my little neck. No doubt, she was doing this to keep me loose so the information would flow easily. I regurgitated everything I had seen, but I placed nothing into context for them. Still, they seemed excited to see the equations and the phone numbers and the schematics. Their experiment had been a success, I gathered. I had understood from the beginning that the actual information garnered would be irrelevant, but what was of significance was the fact that I had effectively moved through the course and accomplished my mission. I worked. More, I was fully operational and functional. Uncle Ned was on the phone to the President immediately after my interview, telling him that the world was safe for democracy and baseball and that he could go play golf in Palm Springs with complete impunity.