The Collected Stories of Diane Williams

by Diane Williams

That night, at home, my meal with my wife would begin slowly and routinely as usual.

  When Mr. Bird arrived, he was off-color.

  He wore blood-blackened cords and requested the whereabouts of Blanche. I said I could conclude that I had not ascertained her location.

  Which of us is wise in the solemn hour?

  18

  A Young Girl Who Marries

  The next letter from Blanche:

  Dear Enrique,

  Can I be honest? Truthfully, take today for instance. I am ashamed of it. This is what I want and nothing else, to feel like a young girl again who marries. I know you are close to the edge and I am up North and I can­not get your answers.

  Blanche

  19

  “Silver Bacon,” “Scrub”

  I was unaware the envelopes addressed to me did not interest my wife. My wife wrote, at this time, two new songs that have since become hits: “Silver Bacon” and “Scrub.”

  She fills our home with the sound of triumphs we must endure.

  I wrote Blanche a discouraging letter that like the others she’d receive when she returned. I always imag­ine I am able to explain what I mean by my words.

  Dear Blanche,

  I was just kidding around.

  All yours,

  Enrique

  20

  Cold Cut

  After that, like a beauty, Blanche Bird passed close to my house. I followed her to the post office. She was eating what looked like a cold cut sandwich.

  She didn’t see me. Nobody thinks of a ghost of a chance as a real chance.

  In advance of their deaths, the following commu­nication arrived.

  Woytus,

  Two o’clock, Saturday, you are expected.

  B. Bird

  21

  The Bs

  The handwriting was large and cordial-like. The signature matched the script of the text except for the Bs, which went over, round about, and hooked and pinned each other up, like they were sexually stimulated!

  It seemed wrong-headed to miss an interesting event. There’s an old saying: The back foot does not leave the ground until the front foot is planted.

  I took Treat along on the leash. I went there pos­ing as a threat, in a series of actions, passing small grave-fields, mainly mounds.

  22

  The Odor of Fat

  I tried to console myself, but I was not the one doing the praying.

  “God forgive you!” Bird said. His lips were puffed and his eyebrows close by his hairline.

  The weather made it possible to go indoors. It had started to rain. I followed them past the goutweed and the flame honeysuckle at their front door into the house where there was the odor of fat.

  There were drop doughnuts in the kitchen on a tray, draining. There were stools, low tables, high fur­niture, a multi-colored woolen carpet with an allover pattern of cup-and-saucer vine.

  Bird said, “My wife wants to marry you!”

  Was I duty bound to her? For there is no pot so crooked that it cannot be fitted with a crooked lid.

  Fret langsam und du ahnst nieht was du bepacken kannst.1

  23

  The House Rules

  Blanche went into the dining room to get a breather perhaps. The house rules were posted there. There were loop back and fan back chairs.

  Although Mr. Bird looked somber, I could see he had just put food to chew into his mouth.

  The Birds’ rules were detailed in adult handwrit­ing and were posted inside a frame.

  The minimum I need for the zest for life consists of nothing less. I took a stick from the collection inside their front door.

  24

  “I’ll Kill You!”

  “I’ll kill you,” Bird said. “I’ll kill your dog.”

  It didn’t feel like such a hard blow.

  I was eager to get to the garage after checking for my keys and my wallet.

  My dog at some distance stayed with them.

  I had opened my big mouth. I had briefly explained the marital duty and falling in love in a speech—one to one-and-a-half minutes in duration.

  This is like the lure for the Japanese beetles. They fly toward it and once they are there, they fall into the bag and they don’t get themselves out.

  I have, in other words, I have spent the whole of my life permitted to love with plenty of variety, like a camel who whizzed along in the desert.

  They were neighbors one should and one does love. There is that old saying.

  * * *

  1. Eat slowly, and you’ll be surprised what you can pack in.

  25

  I Was Actually

  Horribly Weakened

  I had been given a push. There were demands on my skill and on my ability in the garage. Below my knees, I was actually horribly weakened.

  Why, how did I get back into the Birds’ house? I ask myself, What is the source of all blessings?

  Inside their house Blanche was breaking new ground. She was hard up against her value as a human being and she could not last much longer. She wore a middy and fashionable Bermuda shorts. The buttoned breast pock­ets of her husband’s shirt were packed with things.

  Mr. Bird is a civil engineer and there was a thick unclean blueprint on their kitchen chopping block. He said, “I screw back!”

  26

  I Had Run Up Them

  At every change of direction at the upper part of the stairs—I had run up them—I saw the balustrade and fine flock paper.

  One wall had a pastel portrait bust of Blanche in profile. Her facial skin was pink and white and her bare chest, pale yellowish brown. To this day it remains a moot point how it was I felt so at home in their house. She had this metal in her character, you know, which made her point of view stand firm or made it altogether too unusual for her to manage.

  27

  My Head, My Spine

  My assessment of grip pressure and other factors led me to believe my head of humerus might have been broken or my spine of scapula, but I was mistaken.

  28

  Fifty-Two or Fifty-Three

  Blanche is either fifty-two or fifty-three years of age when she dies. Mr. Bird was sixty years when he died instantly.

  Meanwhile, Stella is dead and Rose is dead. Ruth and Hy are dead. Willie is dead. Harold is dead. Al is dead. Yale is dead. Jon is dead. Harvey is dead. And Patricia and Bob are dead recently.

  29

  “Our Position Is Hopeful”

  I keep a diary of events. In my pocket diary I just read, “Our position is hopeful.”

  The cliffs were probably green with plants, huge deer, trees, and fish lizards are up there.

  I saw the same cliffs and lights close by. There was pressure putting me back. I was sitting in McDon­ald’s because I needed to get off of my feet because my ankle was badly twisted. My calf was bruised. Something out there was green and left hanging alongside the paved lot. It is not clear how people dis­regard all of the indications of danger.

  30

  After Doing Some

  Harmful Things

  After doing some harmful things, I made a pencil mark to begin the vacation plan. Later, I added headings.

  Against this backdrop, my wife and I, we took up two tiles in the hearth. Don’t look at me like that! The body had been kept out of all air and light.

  The dead body was not Blanche Bird.

  This event took up many months of our time.

  Certainly nobody may be hidden from my wife Bernadette. Even so, Bernadette nearly died of it that time. It didn’t occur to her to stop trying for the name of the deceased. She couldn’t speak it without brim­ming over because she wanted to spill the beans.

  The house was so full of tramping, and splas
hing, pretty chintzes, and the motor sound.

  31

  I Saw a Hawk

  Bernadette was sitting by her rock crystal sphere in front of the roll-up blind.

  I saw a hawk through the window lose its footing and fly.

  “Go ahead of me on the stairway,” Bernadette said.

  We have a half-tester bed and jugs and bowls on the side table.

  A claw caught her knee and both Tammy and Treat jumped up on her and I sweated. It was like my trying to have a tender-hearted nature.

  This is how love can be featured.

  32

  I Also Saw the Deutzia!

  Over the centuries people live happily and make pictures of it. I thought I might be witnessing some of this.

  I saw trees I didn’t recognize from the window, but I also saw the deutzia!

  My trouser was stained and some of the color was on my carpus.

  We are pleased to get all over this on a regular basis.

  I found myself with pain, exactly like a burn, chair-bound and with a slightly twisted trunk, my thigh to the flank of my wife. Both the physical and the emotional elements almost forced me to have moderate satisfaction.

  I lifted my testicles. Maybe this will put balance into the story.

  33

  This May Put Balance

  into the Story

  A red, long-haired dog—who didn’t belong to the Birds—may put balance into the story. He belonged to the other neighbors down the hill. He was—I can’t get the breed. Irish setter is what he was, named Flame. He was very often around the house. These neighbors never took care of him and he loved to be around the house and my wife would feed him and then one day we had a barbecue and we prepared steaks and put the herbs on, ready to go to the grill, and, then, when the crucial time came—the steaks and Flame were gone! I suddenly flashed on Flame.

  34

  I Was Undressed and Listening

  I was undressed and listening to soft music. My wife was pleasant and smiling. She has pin veins in her legs that I especially like. My reason for loving her has been brought under control.

  I did some upward pulling with the pulp of my fingertip beneath the opening at the end and damp­ened myself.

  With a rug over her knees, she had held out her arms to me. But you ask yourself: Where does one end begin and the other end end?

  35

  Dat Is Schene

  I have swollen fingernails and toenails, dry mouth. Einer allene, dat is nich schene. Aber einer und eine und dann allene, dat is schene.2

  I had lost the feelings of being swept and/or of being pushed—which I often look forward to for more of. There was a cold front and the seeping around of moisture and lowland rain. It was sort of a night. Bernadette used her clear stone for gazing.

  An interesting point about crystal-gazing is that the image usually is not where you’d expect it to be—inside of your head! It is inside of the ball. Our ball could show us any of our experiences.

  We could see ourselves in the short dry yellow grass in our own yard. And we saw a cougar, a barn owl with yellow eyes, an ape. We were stared at by an ape. Two unknown persons came through the yard, too. One was lightly crying, the other one was alarmed, I think.

  36

  A Sign that Says Welcome

  I was staking out the area. I was figuring how they were in relation to the sun. When I saw them I said, “I’ll never get them out of here.” I think it took me two days. But the feeling after—I am extremely proud of myself.

  * * *

  2 One man alone, that is not pleasing. But one man and one woman and then alone, that is pleasing.

  The Glam Bird

  That’s the way to eat lunch. We shared the macaroni and cheese. We both had the pestilential drink. The forest beyond is green. The table is brown. There is more than one coyote, it’s a dog.

  We walked barefoot on the pebbles. We looked at the bleeding hearts. My mother cooks bacon. My father makes foreign foods, pies, preserves, cro­quettes, and all the equivalents.

  A car pulled into our driveway and the tires’ con­tact with the pebbles sounds like lucky me counting out my paper money.

  I think I’m modern. I’ve got to where I am today by going around being pretty. Aren’t the houses all around us like blankets of glittering buttons? The sky is like a nose that’s been pierced as a mark of prestige. I am like a woman who wears a hat medallion!

  Three of us deeply believe in me.

  What a Great Man Learned about Reflection and Emotion

  There is a little money for him and a deficiency of sex.

  A tad unwisely he supervises his little infant and he fumbles with its little foot.

  Now let us suppose, no matter how right, he has a mush of understanding which is a false alarm because on their way to him are a little more wealth and a little health.

  Sweet

  It was so sweet of you to come. I am glad you are here because otherwise I’d be so lonely.

  To get me here they had to pick me up off of the sidewalk and put me into the limousine and I tried to stop them from doing that.

  One assumes there is an end to this initial phase.

  I saw Lesley and asked to talk to her because she is usually nice. She just wants to be finished with this and to become a doctor. For some time now she’s been considering that employment.

  The man remember I told you about?—who calls me?—called me and he wanted to come over and I told him that now really wasn’t a good time for me to have sexual relations, but he came over and what we did was peculiar, not very good, very odd, not right.

  He said, “I always tell them hot! hot! hot! Other­wise it’s cold. What is the matter with you?”

  (I can’t believe I told you that.)

  There is in his face a dingy hopefulness. As the afternoon increases itself, of course, he is hopeful.

  At Bloomingdale’s, he put tinsel down the neck of my jacket in the back so that he wouldn’t lose me.

  He is tall. He has red hair and a goatee. That’s what he looks like. I met with him this morning and at length we discussed that things have not been going swimmingly.

  He is standing right here. In level flight he is faster. He is probably flying out of here on Friday. He’s a pilot.

  I have more of the story of my life and not much of his. He barely does a thing, and then he goes ahead and does it.

  He is plenty sore when weather keeps him from traveling with the wind. He hit the ground to avoid hitting another biplane. He burnt his hands. He had a fracture of the skull—I mean scalp wounds—and then what adds to the confusion is the dreamlike crack that developed on his head which some call a gash, others say it is the invisible damage.

  I think it will be hard to give you an accurate report—a gross report, yes.

  I sleep for a few hours, turn around and drive all the way to Baltimore without stopping and run into Chester. We are sitting at a front table and I feel comfortable that my attention is on incredibly important matters. Equally important to me is my deepening and developing interest in national and global politics.

  This is the next day and I go buy expensive silk pajamas and two very heavy books.

  Even though I’m broke I take several people with me to a restaurant. Across the street at the bank I take three hundred dollars from my account.

  I get into bed when I become displeased. My brother and his wife stop by and I tell them we will eat a late dinner. I have had a bad case of food poison­ing. All in all it is a fine Christmas. It’s efficient and polite. Although, in the same manner a bowel move­ment is held back—a feeling dawns in me—which is not hiding, and which seems quite separate from my other feelings: I feel good that circumstances are well in hand, that I have returned from being alive.

  The Ring Stuck
On

  I drank a warm soup solution after. I felt mental symptoms. I threw up. After all, many who have dined with me have done so.

  Significantly, I have a picture-perfect headache and hard stool in the rectum.

  Into the telephone I said, “What did I tell you?” I said, “Leave me alone!”

  I ignored the bedclothes or I just endured them.

  I wanted to hear his voice again. I telephoned him, but said nothing, and the spirits of the dead must have hit the roof.

  A moth toiled in the pointy peaks of flowers in the tureen before I killed the moth.

  I felt strengthless the next day, although I kept speaking to you!—much of it to my mind too thor­oughly personal.

  Perhaps it is only in a story that a woman or a man can be amusingly betrayed.

  Paving a way to the entrance of this house of brick and of stone, there are woodland trails. The exterior decoration of the house (I did not build it) is in a grayish, brownish stone and there are many ways to overstep the influence of this torsade band, awkwardly.

  At breakfast, “Eat,” I told myself. “Talk.” I served myself salt mackerel and a little stalk with the leaf still attached to it, which I had paid for with hard cash.

  The end of the line is massive. There is laurel all over the garden, as well as my dog Cyril, and the fowl who walk without the benefit of their arms and hands to swing. And, there is a live oak—squarish, nude, and badly executed—carved from one solid piece of pearwood.

  I Was Very Hungry!

  How often do trees move with such quick light steps? In fact, the place is pierced through with pear trees that approach the house. The efforts of Elizabeth Hodson have produced a young orchard.

  I don’t think you’ll like it, but I like gaudy things.