Class Warfare

by D. M. Fraser

  The struggle is just beginning.

  The struggle is just beginning.

  The struggle is just beginning.

  The struggle is just beginning.

  The struggle is just beginning.

  The struggle is just beginning.

  The struggle is just beginning.

  The struggle is just beginning.

  The struggle is just beginning.

  The struggle has just begun.

  THE LIFE OF THE MIND

  … last night I dreamed I was thrown out of the University of New Jerusalem for reading aloud standing up in the brown-brick high-rise library, & in the same dream we were always getting off a train to welcome ourselves officially to wherever we were (& it was always some version of New Jerusalem, all brown brick and coastal fog, blast furnaces on the horizon); but at the last you refused to get off the train to welcome anybody, you were being untypically firm about that, so I said Fuck You & went off alone, & rode up & down the hills of New Jerusalem in a 1952 Austin Princess convertible looking for love & a place to live, which I didn’t find. That was when I went into the Library & got thrown out, I was reading about the military-industrial complex, & crying, & you kept coming in to interrupt me, you said you were ashamed of me & my childishness, as you called it. You’d caught up to me by then, I don’t remember how. Hopelessness has its own perfection, you said. The library was hung with flags celebrating athletic events, & the librarian was a snaggle-toothed bitch who looked like my mother & carried a golden key on a chain. She said, Why don’t you sit still & read Spinoza like a lady, but I wasn’t listening to her, I was looking around for you because you weren’t there any more, & then she threw me out, she was waving her golden key & screaming, dancing around & yelling Soul Sister, Soul Sister. I rolled down a long grassy hill, through a lot of broken glass & tin cans & used condoms, to the Ganges River, I know it was the Ganges because there was a sign on the bank saying so, & it was full of naked men who looked like you, singing Hare Krishna over and over again. New Jerusalem was on the other side, it looked like Sudbury, Ontario, & there was a railway trestle I had to walk across with my eyes closed, holding your hand. The telephone rang & I got up to answer it, & when I found you again we were still in New Jerusalem, only this time it looked like Calgary, & you’d shaved your head, you said you were joining the Order. I said that was unnecessary, you’d always been a part of it. We were driving down a long flat street in the Austin, & a woman on the radio was talking passionately about scabies. We passed a row of brown-brick houses with For Rent signs in the windows but we didn’t stop, because we knew no one was about to rent anything to the likes of us. We were searching for the railway station because there was a train we’d just got off & had to get back to, but we couldn’t find it because the only map was in the library & we’d already been thrown out of there. We went around the corner & there was the librarian, hitchhiking, she wouldn’t get into the car when we stopped for her. She said she had no authorization to accept rides from strangers. You said, The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night, & I started to laugh, & then you called me a closet reactionary, & spat in the ashtray. I was humiliated but said nothing, I was too proud. The librarian gave you her golden key, & you kissed it & put it in the ignition & drove away with her, chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna. I don’t remember what I did then, but when I got to the railway station you were there, & she wasn’t, & there was a delegation from the U.N. officially welcoming us to New Jerusalem: they were all women & all colours, & they spoke in sentences. Everyone was drinking beer. You stood close beside me & made a short pithy speech about the need for protective tolerance in post-industrial society, & everyone clapped & cheered. I wept, for the joy of it. You were even handsome in your uniform, your hair gleaming blond & waxed, your eyes alert for danger. There is always danger, always, you said, & I believed you. The librarian drove up in the Austin & made a speech about smoking in approved areas only, please. She looked very old & sallow, & everyone observed a moment of silence, for her sake. Some people lit cigarettes, furtively, & I wanted one but didn’t have the nerve. Then the train was leaving & I was on it, but you weren’t, & the last thing I saw before the telephone rang was a row of brown-brick houses with For Rent signs in the windows, & a street that seemed to go to the end of the world, & you in your uniform, crying, walking slowly somewhere else …

  … & that’s what I dreamed last night, as I remembered it & wrote it down when I woke up.

  THE RADIANT BODY

  Gerard Macklewain in his room strums his guitar, sings the blues:

  Look over there, Brother

  what do you think you see

  Is it a man marked for death

  and does he look just a bit like me?

  See the man marked for death

  Old Mortality …

  Outside it’s growing light. He could sleep now, easily, but there’s work to do: the accounting is incomplete. Marie Tyrell wrote, “Things get diverted, lost, broken in transit. Often you never find them again, though you search a lifetime long; it is always the same. You know the story as well as I. Hold everything, let nothing go. Never forgive, never. I have not asked you to set me free.” They shaved her head, before they led her to the Chair. Gerard Macklewain sings:

  Play your song, Brother Death

  play your old ambulance siren song

  Play for the men I loved

  the women I done wrong

  Let me know when my time is up

  Make me hustle my ass along …

  Anyway. He has been vouchsafed this mercy, this labour of repair. In the street a paddywagon cruises slowly, as if aimlessly. It is impossible to imagine the separation of life from the body, the radiant body, the cry cut off unuttered, the swift descent.

  DEATH TO THE OPPRESSORS!

  “… on the left side she saw a nightingale, the moaner and mourner: a kite had snatched its young—kite of hooked talons, lover of all thieving—and stood in the middle of the two-fold stem; its beak and jaws devoured the brood; and the nightingale saw it, and shrieked with a cry for her Itys, her Itys.”

  THE LETTERS

  I HAVE NOT answered any of the letters. Before I explain, let me say that it was a conscious decision on my part, a rational decision, not to answer them: I was prepared to take full responsibility for what I was not doing. I wrote several memos to that effect, in triplicate, to the several echelons; I expressed myself in clear, careful English, in prose. In these I stated firmly that my initiative, in not answering the letters, should be considered an extension of, not a departure from, company policy. It was not to be interpreted, however charitably, as an oversight; it was not a question of negligence, or ennui, or accidia, or insufficient motivation; it was not a failure (on my part) to identify adequately with corporate goals; and it was not, strictly speaking, a “job action.” I pointed out, further, that it was certainly not a matter of having other, more interesting or important, things to do. For a variety of reasons, I cited Patrick Henry’s immortal words, the scourge of tyranny, the comfort of desperate men. At this time it was the beginning of the rainy season.

  There have been a great many letters. At first, when I was ambitious, I filed them neatly in five compartments, one for each of the obvious categories: (1) Condolence, (2) Congratulations, (3) Recriminations, (4) Importunities, and (5) Advice. Eventually, after much thought, I was able to streamline the system by reducing the number of categories to four, meanwhile shifting the emphasis from “content” to “origin”: (1) Friends, (2) Enemies, (3) Representatives of Small Businesses, and (4) Family. A few of my associates remarked, unfortunately within earshot, that my method was fundamentally naïve; others said only that it betrayed, in certain respects, a degree of naïveté. I bore these criticisms patiently, with dignity, making no effort to refute them; for this forbearance I was greatly praised. After a fortnight, I abandoned the system.

  In the early days of the rainy season, I composed a memo in which I argued
, among other propositions, that randomness is the true order of the physical world, that “time” is by nature an agglutinative process, and that the hypothesis of God could be confirmed, evidentially, by the fact that while no one was ever observed replacing the toilet paper in the executive washroom, nonetheless there was always an abundant supply of toilet paper. I suggested that, although the standard commentaries on I Corinthians unaccountably beg the question, a progressive theology can scarcely afford not to come to terms with it. “In the end,” I wrote, “we shall have to come to terms with everything.” I directed this memo to the middle and upper echelons, only.

  A copy of the memo was duly returned to me, from what I suspected was one of the middle echelons, with the following annotation: “It may indeed be true that no one has yet seen anyone in the act of replacing the toilet paper, but how do you explain the fact that the light fixture in that same executive washroom has been functionally inoperative for the past seven (7) weeks, and no one has undertaken to replace it?”

  The letters continued to accumulate, unanswered. I read them all slowly, attentively, cherishing each word, the occasional felicitous phrase, the whimsical vagaries of punctuation, spelling, stance. Often I could not restrain a chuckle. “Life,” I thought at such times. “Ah yes, life.” One day at lunch hour I bought a paperweight in the shape of a stuffed Pekingese, and thereafter kept the choicest of the letters under it. This somewhat enhanced my prestige, within my own echelon: it was recognized that I was becoming, at last, a “personality.”

  Some pertinent facts, empirical observations, may be called for here. It must be said, for example, that the language of the letters was in all instances entirely congruous with the subject matter. That is: ire was conveyed in irate language, enthusiasm in enthusiastic language, and so on. I noticed, too, that correct postage had been applied to the envelopes (in the customary place) in all but a negligible percentage of cases; the exceptions could be presumed to be the work of children, recent immigrants from underdeveloped nations (those, perhaps, without a postal system of their own), or wilful eccentrics. In that period the official mailing code was still in its infancy, and I made no attempt to compute how often it was used, or how accurately. That will be the task, if it becomes necessary, for the lower echelons.

  I will not deny that, at the outset, my decision worried me slightly, chiefly on ethical grounds: to decline to act, where action is normatively demanded, is to invite ambiguity, the disruptive element, into the familiar dispensation of things. I was aware of that. I understood that I was, as a consequence, leaving myself open to a number of allegations: that I was, in fact, a “dissident influence,” that I lacked “team spirit,” that I was imperfectly “oriented” toward my “role-expectations.” It was apparent that my colleagues would have to rethink their original evaluation of my “profile.” In those weeks, early in the rainy season, I spent a great deal of time (admittedly at company expense) in front of the washroom mirror, repeating helpful homilies. “Stick to your guns, Kid,” I exhorted myself. “Fight the good fight, Lad,” I said. “History will absolve you, Buster.” It was very reassuring, to consider that History would, after all, absolve me. I discovered, as well, that certain “pet” names, applied to myself, had an immediate and regenerative effect on my morale. When I called myself Kid, or Lad, or Buster (or, for variety, Chum, Buddyboy, Old Son, or Ralph), I felt at once infused with competence. I had only to utter these names, and competence shone round about me.

  I let it be known, to all who enquired, that I was willing to “face the music” in the matter of the letters. The music played and played. The principal instruments seemed to be harpsichord, clavichord, oboe, cello, saxophone, and electric bass. I affected a courtly, upright posture, in the manner of David Niven in My Man Godfrey, and let my hair grow past the regulation length. Cognizance, I may say, was taken of this. I began to compose poems, in a primitive mode, on the subject of rain. Late in the rainy season, I took a mistress.

  I rehearsed the following statements, with which to articulate my position (if it came to that):

  1. “Life is real, life is earnest, and its end is not the grave.”

  2. “Strike while the iron is hot.”

  3. “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.”

  4. “Moreover it is reasonable that things which share in a common nature and are counted as one, should not be altogether without relation to one another.”

  5. “To the confusion of our enemies.”

  Later I rehearsed the following peroration, to be recited solemnly, at the right time, to the accompaniment of drums:

  “Some of us were not killed outright. Some of us were dismembered slowly, over a period of weeks. Others were subjected to a multiplicity of tortures, as follows: The North American Telephone Torture, The Radio City Music Hall Torture, The Neo-Dada Mixed-Media Total Environment Torture. Despite extreme provocation, no one cracked. Tomaso Albinoni did not crack. Domenico Cimarosa did not crack. Benedetto Marcello did not crack. My dear Johann Pachelbel did not crack. Civility was maintained, precariously, despite extreme provocation. There remained time for reflection, for serious thought, for memories limpid, lucid as rain. I tried to remember what it had been like, when I was young and handsome, standing in luxurious rooms, drinking cocktails. The women in their little black dresses, their cultured pearls. The beautiful women, with their cultured voices, mascara, well-kept hands holding martinis, Manhattans, daiquiris, old-fashioneds, black Russians, in softly carpeted rooms. And the talk, the graceful talk of investments, dividends, worldly things. When I was young and handsome, on my way up, and sportive. When everyone was married. Farewell to Nova Scotia, the fogbound coast. Let your mountains dark and dreary be.”

  As things turned out, I was given no opportunity, or reason, to perform this recitation. I did, however, have a number of copies made, clandestinely, for distribution among the echelons.

  Toward the end of the rainy season, things began to happen which gradually convinced me that, whatever their corporate obligations, my associates were resolved to form a “united front” on my behalf. Intimations were made to this effect. One of the office girls, Shirley, made a little box, decorated with semi-precious stones, to hold my favourites among the letters. One of the liaison people, Frank Oppenhopper, offered to “put in a word” for me, “upstairs.” In due course I was permitted to see a memo, from the uppermost echelon, directing the “grapevine” to spare me any “scuttlebutt.” I was invited to participate in a consciousness-raising; subsequently I was asked, cordially, to join a Group. The letters were not mentioned.

  I have every confidence, now, that the issue will be allowed to die down—to become, in time, a dead issue. There have been suggestions that I apply for a transfer, within the company, to a more “productive” sector. Material incentives have been spoken of; fringe benefits have been discussed. It is subtly flattering to realize that these conversations are taking place, and that I am, in a way, their subject. The prospects are interesting, as we say (frequently) in the company.

  I have already been approached, informally, by an eminent collector of curiosities, an agent of the National Archives, and two courteous gentlemen from a distinguished private institution, making discreet enquiries regarding the letters, and my plans for their eventual disposal. I have advised interested parties to submit sealed bids, as in other transactions. Whatever profit accrues, from the sale of the letters, will of course be donated to the charity of my choice. (I may reserve the price of a bottle of bourbon, for my associates.) The company assures me that this action is perfectly acceptable to the upper echelons, and is in any event not within its jurisdiction, technically speaking. Independence is encouraged here, in the decision-making sphere.

  The rainy season is drawing to an end. I have cut my hair to the regulation length. I know now that I will never be David Niven, but I am not dismayed. My mistress, Dolores, has luminous grey eyes and exquisite breasts; we are reading Dante togethe
r, in the original, in bed. My peers are generous in their commendations. I am happy. When the letters are gone, at last, I shall use the jewelled box to store cufflinks, tie-tacks, commemorative medals, and other memorabilia.

  THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE

  MOST OF HIS MAIL, these days, is fan mail. People keep inviting him to dinner, fishing for secrets, for his secret especially. Strangers wave at him, pretty girls beckon and blush, in the streets. He smiles benignly. In the company of friends, he affects to be embarrassed by this attention, or to disdain it: “How little they realize.” He orders rounds of beer, asks difficult questions, awaits familiar answers. “When are you going to do it?” he asks. “When are you going to get off your ass and finish it?” Everyone knows what he means; everyone looks away. The jukebox is playing a song of the period, something about clean country air, innocent lovin’, the Simple Things. He is acquainted, conversant, with the Simple Things. He, too, has sat before a pine fire, toasting marshmallows, thinking placid thoughts. “We may fancy ourselves intellectuals, artistes,” he says, “but we are not for that reason excused from action. When the day comes, we shall not be exempt. Remember what Socrates said.” Everyone remembers, gratefully, what Socrates said.

  He is having supper tonight with the Empress of India. They will fry prawns in exotic sauces; the table will be set with linen, rough-textured stoneware, candles, dried reeds in a brass bowl. They will drink a virtuous red wine, in moderation, sniffing the bouquet critically; he will tell her, not without irony, about his childhood, his first car, his early sexual terror, now happily abated. “What an oaf I was,” he will say, reminiscently. Later, he will play his guitar for her. There will be muffled applause, cries of “Bravo!” and “Wow!” The sun will set discreetly, behind the grape arbour; elsewhere the moon will rise. Everything will partake of the sweetness of life.