The Interrogative Mood

by Padgett Powell

  What is the name of the last person with whom you enjoyed sleeping? What things or people would you use the word hardy to describe? Do you understand how whether baseball players use steroids or not is a matter for the United States Congress to attend? Do you comprehend exactly how more casualties on a battlefield can be said to render previous casualties on a battlefield not to have been in vain? Is the argument beneath this logic not that the losing dead are worse off than the winning dead?

  Is there any hope? Do we need galoshes? Are bluebirds perfect? Is there charity? Can there be reason? Does a kitten settle your nerves? Would you like to play a board game? If you would, do you know which one you’d like to play? In all of human history, would you say mothers or fathers are the more loved?

  If you could see a large-animal trainer mauled in the middle of his or her show, perhaps even killed, would you prefer to see the mauling done by a lion, a tiger, or a bear? If it were a bear, would the pleasure or horror you took from the moment be mitigated or heightened in any way by the presence of bicycle-riding in the show? Is semaphore still used at sea or has it been displaced by the digital age? Would you take final pleasure if acquitted of a serious charge or would you always feel tainted? Do you see the exact humor in “That’s so funny I forgot to laugh”? Does it change things a bit for you to perceive that these questions want you bad? And that they are perhaps independent of me, to some degree? That they are somewhat akin to, say, zombies of the interrogative mood?

  DO YOU EVER THINK you hear someone saying “Liftoff!”? What would it mean if you dreamed you found two baby squirrels and asked two women if they knew a good baby-squirrel formula and when you fetched the squirrels you found they had drowned because you had inexplicably iced them down, and the ice had melted, and now the baby squirrels were sodden gray puppy-looking short-haired turds in a foul juice, and you broke down crying in front of the women, asking, “Why would I have iced them?” Do you try to listen to classical music but feel you don’t ever really advance past knowing it’s better than it sounds? Would any particular failing on your part today be more painful than all other failings?

  Would it require more energy than you have in order for you to really lose it, or do you think really losing it can be a function of having too little energy to prevent losing it? Do the people you do not wish to talk to far exceed the number you do wish to talk to? Do you have much to say to even those to whom you do wish to speak? Do you know where it went wrong with you? Do you own any good copper? Are you favorably disposed to American Indian causes but less so if you must say Native American causes? Are you more at ease in a veneer of civilization or in a true hardwood of barbary? What is your favorite piece of equipment on a playground? Do you know by sight and sound an oboe from a bassoon? When you hear someone say “There’ll be hell to pay,” do you assume generally that there will be or won’t be hell to pay?

  Don’t you think it a fairly prudent plan if in the halcyon early days of a relationship, before they’ve become the good old days of a relationship, one were to periodically say, “I’m sorry,” and, to the reasonable response of the other party, who asks, “For what?” because one has ostensibly done nothing wrong, to say, “For everything,” meaning of course everything that will accrue, as surely as the tides bring barnacles, to convert the early halcyon days into the good old days of the relationship? Do you see any value, I mean to say, in the preemptive-strike apology when times are good before they are bad? Would it delay the accumulation of the barnacles by a second or a minute or two, an hour, a day, a week, a year? Or might it be better to say right in the flush of new-intimate ecstasy, “Look, this is bound to rotten up, probably at my hand, good-bye”?

  Have you read as much Samuel Johnson as you should have? Can you always immediately recall that Darwin’s first name is Charles? Do you take pills you are not precisely sure you can identify? Do you feel no better, better, or inordinately better after you polish something? Are you aware that up to a third of the tongue can be removed and it, the tongue, can regenerate itself more or less completely? What is the color you most enjoy in lipstick? If you are presented a nipple with a ring through it in a sexual situation, is your first move to bite the ring itself, or to take the ring in whole, or to do something else altogether, like run?

  Would you say “pine-needle green” or “green as pine needles”? If you were to be put into a primitive situation without power in a more or less temperate climate and were offered a lifetime supply of ice or fire, not to say that you could not by natural circumstance periodically gather one or the other as you found it, would you accept the ice or the fire? Doesn’t it seem as if the board game called Chinese checkers was once popular and has now disappeared? What would be your best-case scenario for your being forced, or able, to say, “I accept the lash!” If you wear eyeglasses, how many times a day do you wash them? Have you lived in more houses than you’ve had dogs and cats? Would you like to be on a submarine? Do you have a position on pantyhose?

  Do you love buffalo as much as I? May I tell you that I love buffalo and do not think you could love them as much as I love them? Have you ever seen finches or sparrows on a tree that suggest fleas or lice on a large animal? Under what circumstances would you kill yourself, and what means might you use? What do you think about a small candy factory in Desoto, Georgia, called the Desoto Nut House that once allowed tours of its kitchen while large black women handled great slabs of peanut brittle and other confections on marble tables, all of this in a sweet open warm friendly air of business and pleasure, and you emerge and buy a bag or two of nuts or candy more out of good feeling and cheer than out of any affection for the stuff, so fun was the kitchen and watching the women turn the dangerous boluses of hot sugar, and now when one goes to the Desoto Nut House one is not allowed in the kitchen because tours are no longer allowed for reasons relating to insurance? What I mean to ask is, is it not the kernel of the demise of the world as we knew it that you can no longer watch candy be made “for insurance reasons”? Does not someone need to stand up and say, “If I cannot have people watch my candy be made, as I have done for forty years without incident, because of insurance, I will not have insurance”?

  Have you been to India and seen lingam coming out of the ground, and if you have, do you recall if they are only in holy places or are they also in secular places? Have you ever witnessed elephant foot maintenance? Do you know any apparently very healthy people to have died suddenly from stroke? Will you maneuver to procure very good coffee, or for you is coffee coffee? Whom do you regard as a bona fide intellectual, and have you known personally anyone you regard as a bona fide intellectual? Do you suppose that once a bird knows how to fly he pretty much can expect to fly without incident, more or less as, say, we walk about, or would you think bird flying to be fraught with aeronautical accident? How accurately can you shoot a rubber band? Have you ever been bitten by a horse? When you buy clothes, do you assiduously check the way they fit you, or do you just decide they fit or they don’t and be done with it?

  Do you ever hold hands with anyone? If you do not, are there circumstances in which you might hold hands with anyone? If there were a gun case full of guns, yours or someone else’s, and one of the guns was dirty and fouled from use while the others were meticulously clean, would you want to see that the one gun got cleaned? If you were at a landfill and saw a large pile of girly magazines, which you do not customarily look at, beside a large pile of unopened tins of Skoal, which you have never used, would you go over there and take a pinch of snuff and have a look at a magazine? Do buzzards give you the creeps? Have you ever constructed a sandbox? If you once owned a slide rule and do not have it now, do you know what happened to it?

  When was the last time you saw an ostrich? In what kinds of weather do you most like to walk? Do you enjoy oiling things or is that best left to others? Do you know what comes after “Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man / bake me a cake as fast as you can”? Are you familiar with the sport of kite fightin
g? Do you think of there being a proper point in your debilitation as you age at which you should, if you can, kill yourself?

  Do you have any experience with boils? When people are weeping and fretting about you, do you console or attempt to move away as politely as possible? Do you find Mary Martin in Peter Pan sexually stimulating? Have you ever had cockles? Does Ireland sound like your kind of place or like someone else’s kind of place? Have you ever been exposed to rigorous mathematical proofs, and if so, do you like them? Do you know the term for the kind of trowel, used in applying certain adhesives, that has teeth on its edge so that glue is laid down in fine rows instead of as a film? Does any confusion arise if you see or hear pinecone and cornpone together? Do you have any impulse to wish that everything you own could somehow without overmuch trauma be made to disappear? If you had to threaten someone with either “I’mone slap the taste out of your mouth” or “I’mone knock you into next week,” which colorful expression would you prefer? If someone threatened you with either of these utterances, would you rather reply “Well, pack your lunch” or “You and whose army?”

  THESE SMALL BIRDS FLITTING about the top of the pine tree outside my window that I likened to fleas or lice on a large animal—may I say now more accurately that they look like gnats around the head and eyes of a tall creature? Did they get to the bottom of what has killed all the amphibians the world over? Do you think the heyday of hair spray was the 1960s, or has it lived on? Are Kotex still worn on belts? Were you ever familiar enough with gladiators that you preferred one style of combat over others—the net and trident, say, over the short sword? What sort of boat do you fancy best? Would you rather have to deal with a regulatory commission or a codes inspector? Do you have much patience for sanding wood? Have you come over time to think that you know more now than you did when young, know less now than when young, know now there is so much more to know than you knew there was to know when young that it is moot whether you think you knew more then than now or less, or do you now know that you never knew anything at all and never will and only the bluster of youth persuaded you that you did or would?

  Do you keep a neat living place or a messy place? Is it better to work in a messy place and get a lot of work done or a neat place and get nothing done? Do you recall the last time you set something on fire that you were not supposed to set on fire? Do you trust or mistrust people who say “Candy is too sweet for me”? If you had to perform a field amputation to save someone’s life, could you? Do you like ivory? Do you remember those children’s beads that popped apart and were held together by means of stems and balls and sockets of the same material the beads were made of? Does honey come out of the front end or the back end of a bee?

  Are you aware of a more likable kind of person than yourself that you would like to be like? What for you are the characteristics that make a person extremely likable? Have you ever been lain on by a heavy naked person in a boat as it raced by another boat full of heavy naked people? Is the world through with worrying about Communism? Have you known anyone to say “biscuit” in referring to a vagina? Do you subscribe to the position that there is good plastic and bad plastic? Would you rather be a bear who is compelled to eat a hundred dying salmon to make it through the winter or a salmon who has to make it past the bear to spawn and rot and die? Are small green rubber army men still sold? Would you say that civilization is protocol, a set of protocols large and smaller nesting inside each other like those Russian dolls? And that as long as the smaller protocols are followed—the trees in the forest as it were—no one much minds that the large protocol, the forest as it were, might be going to hell? Have you ever been not disappointed by a banana split? If a voice instructed you that the tub of salve levitating over the table before you was invisible cream and invited you to put some on and join the party, would you put the cream on? Would you prefer a child who says “I want one” or one who says “That’s bad” when told in answer to her question “What’s a slave?” that “It’s a person who has to do anything you want it to do”? Do you know the Lindy rhythm? Are you any good at horseshoes? How fast do the fastest birds fly?

  In mustard, do you fancy the fancy or the ballpark? When part of a group, do you favor stepping to the rear or to the fore? Do you know enough about rifles to select one for purchase? Would you think it improbable that a man might be a professional trainer of military and police dogs and also a certified instructor of yoga? I mean to say, is that avocational yoking not unlike having a meal of hamburger and tofu? As you age, do you find you enjoy driving in cars less or more? Do you have the patience or the fortitude for house painting? Would you mind telling me in detail what your proficiency in the realm of sewing is?

  Do you regard yourself a person who has money, a person who is going to have money, or a person who has no money and, barring an accident, is not going to have any money? Who is the best guitar player in the world, in your view? If it had to be the case that a raccoon, a skunk, a possum, or an otter was going to take up residence under your bed, which one would you prefer it be? Do you know what actuaries are? Would the phrase “clapping cancer” mean anything to you? Do you enjoy the ineptitude of local news broadcasters or are you annoyed by it? Do you enjoy the slick professionalism of national news broadcasters or are you annoyed by it? Do you know an anole from a gecko and a skink? Can you love, still? Did you ever love? Is there heartbreak in rain, or cheer? Are you tired?

  DO YOU DO YARD sales? Are you happy with your teeth? Do you in general trust or mistrust earnestness? Do you attend parades? Do you gamble? Do you like pull candy? Have you any weapons on you at the moment? Would you buy a pearl choker? Are you important? Do you have any skin disabilities such as eczema or psoriasis? Can you envision saying seriously to someone, “You just holler for help, and I’ll come arunnin’”? Do you like to use terms like “triangulation” and “extrapolation” when not speaking mathematically? Are you bold, would you say? Can you count in languages other than your mother tongue? Would you like for your life to be more, or less, dangerous than it is? Have you ever experienced any sort of hernia? Is baseball all it’s cracked up to be? Do people stink, mostly? Is there life on other planets, or after death on this one, as it were? Do you like stalling for time? Can you lob a grenade accurately, would you think? Are there interstices in your character?

  Is it hard for you to resist the demands of whiny people? Have you ever wound an armature for an electric motor? Do you know precisely what a chilblain is? Do you bite your tongue or grind your teeth at night? Have you ever witnessed any credible sign of ghosts? Do you read a newspaper to discover what is going on or for other reasons? If you were now thirteen again, what would you do that you did not do when you were thirteen the first time, and what would you not do that you did? Do you own Allen wrenches? Does it seem to you that the phenomenon of people secretly drinking on the job has virtually disappeared? Have you ever dropped something like a box of books out a third-story window and found its impact inordinately funny? Do you prefer loose pants, to the point of slovenliness, or tight pants, to the point of dapperness? Are you thrilled by new automotive concepts? Can you execute a one-handed cartwheel?

  What period of history most interests you? If someone knocked on your door and handed you the leash to a large standard poodle and said it was yours, would you resist or acquiesce in the receipt of this animal? Would you rather see a clown act at the circus predicated on cartoon violence or see a big cat get in a good swipe at the lion tamer and cut him badly? Do you recall the moment you first rode a bicycle? Do you actually handle bullies or do you just know what is to be done with bullies but don’t do it? Do you use any glue to hand or are you made nervous by not having the correct glue for this or that repair? Do you know the names of your first three lovers?

  Why do plants and trees rot agreeably but animals rot so disagreeably? What today would make you cry? Are you sure your relatives like you? Do you still use the word retarded? Are you interested in military history more than your read
ing in or knowledge of military history might suggest? What do you think of when you hear the term “strap-on”? Do you know the literal translation of bas relief, and do you know if there is any other sort of relief? Do you have long-range plans for self-improvement or have you about given up in that area? Would you rather lift weights until you sweat or sit in a sauna until you sweat? Do you favor any sort of cracker over other crackers?

  Would you prefer to spend a day at a mental hospital or a day at a mall? The jewelry called turquoise—is that the original noun, correctly used, from which the color turquoise has been appropriated, similar to the appropriation of “gold”? Do you know any outright buffoons? Can you take apart a clothes dryer and get it going right? Do you know what bean futures are? Would you say there is anything you care passionately about? Can you imagine accurately certain smells—say, the smell of cedar? Are you preintellectual, anti-intellectual, intellectual, or postintellectual? Would you have a life with sugar cane and a mule and land, or a life with an apartment and some cans of soup and a phone? Do you know what the phrase “turtle head” means when used so: “My sister was standing under the hoop not moving because she said she had a turtle head”? May I tell you that the author of that sentence illustrating turtle head is not me and I don’t know who the author is? Do you use facial cleansers with abradant particles in them? Do you enjoy hockey? Are there circumstances in which you would take off your clothes in public, excluding their being on fire? Do you find black lipstick attractive? Have you ever worn any “moleskin” pads against corns? Would you be interested in having a deglanded skunk as a pet?

  Did you know that when a cow is slaughtered you want it stunned, but not dead, from the time you raise it by a chain on one rear leg (you’ll be dodging the other three) and swing the cow over a drain and cut its jugulars or carotids by quick vertical slashes to the throat that release gallons of blood, the ready falling out of the cow and pumping out of the cow of which is chiefly why you want the cow not dead but stunned, and that as this blood pours forth the cow enters a deepening sleeplike state, its heart continuing to pump, its muscles continuing to contract, its legs thrashing less violently, all of which is important for the blood to be able to keep exiting, and that well after the blood has trickled to a stop, when the skinned head is put in a rack for a pathology inspection, the facial muscles will be crawling as if rather large worms are at work in the face?