Collected Fictions

by Gordon Lish

  THAT'S IT. THE STORY STOPS SHORT right then and there with "Aw, God—aw, shit." Because the next thing you know, its morning and I am waking up in one of the upstairs beds. But I cannot tell you how I got there. I cannot even tell you what was what between when I was knocking back those Rob Roys and when I was lying down and lifting away the comforter from my head.

  There was a carillon across the street. Or across the town. Who knows? It was playing hymns. Or what I think are hymns. As for me, I felt entirely terrific—feeling nothing, not even a tremor of what you would expect in the way of any aftereffect. What I mean is this—that I had gotten so bad off that I had actually lost time, lost hours—not in this but in real life. Yet there I was, waking up and never sprightlier, never more refurbished in fiber and spirit. Restored, I tell you—I could have said to you, "Look at me, for Christ's sake, look at me—I am in the pink, on par, up to snuff!" Except for this thing of a whole night having vanished on me—which was something I was not going to let myself think about yet—or which I did not actually really even believe yet—whereas I kept trying to figure out how a thing like this sort of worked, one minute you're on your feet blazing away with a great new friend, the next minute you've skipped over no knowing what, and how did you get to here and to this from there and from that and from whatever that was?

  Thing was, I knew I couldn't ask my wife. Christ, are you kidding? But I could smell the bacon down there, and went down, thinking that if I don't get a certain kind of a look from her, then this will mean I must have behaved passably well enough, even if I was actually out like a light behind my eyes. And this is how the whole thing down there turned out, all of them downstairs—host, hostess, wife, our boys—and nobody—wife least of all—seeming to regard me as other than an immoderately late-riser and indecorous latecomer to the table.

  Coffee is poured, conversation reinstalled.

  But here is where the story stops short again. Because—just by way of making an effort to add myself to the civilities—I said, "Wretchedest luck, that bugger, and such a handsome woman, his espoused, the two of them such a damnably attractive couple, and that little girl with the, you know, with the thing, the lip." I mean, I did a speech as an offering, as a show of my harmless presence, the hearty closing up of the morning circle, the one we seek to form to ward off what there had to have been for everyone of night spells.

  NOT STOPS SHORT ENOUGH, THOUGH. Because somebody was taking me up on it, converting ceremony to sermon. My wife, of course—her, of course—with that carillon going absolutely nuts behind her. I tell you, whoever it was, and whatever he was playing, the man was good on the thing, the man was getting something colossal from those community bells.

  But back to my wife, please—for she nips off a bit of toast and says, "You call it bad luck? Knowing what you know, considering what you know, taking into account all that you know, this is what you say, just bad luck?"

  Ah, but this is madness, this is treachery—saying anything about a thing like this when I know it is a thing that ought to be left unsaid. Besides, we had no business being where we were. Even if it had meant keeping to the city and to squabbling over everything in sight, here is where we belong, the city is where we belong, where all the trees worth climbing are kept well out of sight. Those were rich people. My drink, when I was drinking, it had never been anything with the swagger of the armorial in its name.

  I mean, what the hell was she getting at, just a harelip?

  Listen, I didn't give her the satisfaction. I didn't ask. What I did was go to work on it with my own good sense—trying harder to remember, or to make things up—the result being that on the way home, I came up with a story that goes roughly like this—the fellow with the little girl sort of producing himself from out of the mist of the rest, my not tracking his features any too clearly, my vision already diminished by at least half.

  "Ah, yes," he says, and with his glass he gives my glass a click. He says, "Great to meet the neighbors, don't you say?" He says, "See the fucking neighbors?" He says, "Here's to fucking us."

  And me, what did I do?

  Say l'chaim?

  Click his glass back?

  "Oh, sure, sure," I hear the fellow say. "Sure, sure—right, right—super, boffo, swell, wouldn't you say?"

  I know. We drank.

  Did I ever say, "Surgery can handle that"? Is that what I said? Click the hell out of his glass again and say "It's nothing—a good man can fix it right up"?

  I mean, what had I said to him to get him to say to me, "Had a little chap of his measure once," and waggle his Rob Roy in salute to my boy? Except all of this, it's all invention, isn't it?—because by then it was too hard for me to tell if we were standing in light or kneeling in water. "Bloody garage door took his fucking head off, don't you know? No, really, old chap. Brand new electric sort of a thing. Electronic, I mean."

  We were coming up on a tollbooth, my wife and I.

  In real life, that is. But I don't have to tell you I wasn't there with all my wits. "Take this!" my wife was saying, and I took a hand off the wheel to take the coins from her hand, meanwhile still making up sentences to keep filling in for where whiskey had done its best to devise an abyss.

  "Nothing against the old homestead, though—no bloody hard feelings."

  Is this what I think the man said next? Or something like, "The fucker drops like a shot the day they finish getting the wiring in."

  I don't think I ever got his name, the man who came for cocktails when the neighbors came over and who then took his leave with the others so that the host and hostess could finally sit us down to something—my wife says to cold lamb. She also says she was standing right there and heard every single word, him saying how they'd lost a son but that God had made it up to them with the girl. My wife says the man said to me, "I'd spotted you, you know," and that I said, "For what?" and that the man said, "For a Jew."

  But I would not put it past her, making that up, just the way me, I am making this up, especially the part about my hearing the sonofabitch say, "Happy fucking Easter," plus the part about my seeing myself get a hand up out of my pocket to hold his chin in place so that I could aim for right on his lips when that was where I kissed him.

  So for what it's worth, that, that's the whole story, and notice, won't you, who just told it cold-sober?

  HISTORY, OR, THE FOUR PICTURES OF VLUDKA

  HE SAID THAT HE HAD BEEN CONSIDERING the convention of the Polish girl, and I said, "In literature—you mean in literature," and he said, "Yes, of course," how else would he mean? touching eyeglasses, beard, lip while noting that he was feeling himself compelled to take up the pose of the poet in eucharistic recollection of etc., etc., etc.—as literary necessity, that is.

  He said, "So can you help, do you think?"

  I said, "From memory, you mean."

  "That's it," he said. "Any Polish girl you ever had yourself any sort of a thing with."

  I can tell you what the trouble with me was—no beard anywhere on me, no eyeglasses either, meat of real consequence to neither of my lips—nothing, at least, to speak of, not enough to give me a good grab of anything, nothing on my face for anyone to hang onto, too little to offer a good grip of me to even myself.

  He said, "Whatever comes to mind, I think."

  Here was the thing with me—I did not know what to do with my hands.

  "Whatever pops into your head," he said, off and at it again, fingering eyeglasses, beard, lip.

  The lout was all feelies, I tell you—the lummox was ledges from stem to stern.

  "So," he said, "anything you might want to conjure up for me, then? I mean, just the barest sketching, of course, no need for names and, as it were, addresses."

  BUT I HAD NEVER HAD ONE. I mean, I hadn't had a Polish girl. What I had had back before this inquiry had come to me was a great wanting to pass myself off as a fellow who had had whatever could any how be got.

  "Vludka," I said, "her name was Vludka."

  "Wonder
ful," he said. He said, "Name's actually Vludka, you say."

  "Yes," I said, "and very, for that matter, like it, too."

  "I see her," he said. "Stolid Vludka."

  "In the extreme," I said. "In manner and in form."

  "Yes, the nakedness," he said. "A certain massiveness, I imagine—wide at the waist, for instance, the effect of a body built up in slabs."

  I said, "Vludka's, yes. And hard it was, too. Oh, she was tougher and rougher than I was, of course—morally and physically the bigger, better party."

  "But smallish here," he said, showing.

  I said, "Even said she was sorry about it for the way they were even before she took her clothes off, and then, when she had got them off, saw that what Vludka should have been warning me of was of how big everything else was instead."

  He said, "Could tell you'd be lost inside her, awash in stolid Vludka, splinter proposing woodworking time to sawmill and lumber."

  I said, "Oh, God —cabinetry, marquetry."

  He said, "It was impossible."

  "I said to her, ‘Vludka, this is impossible.'"

  He said, "She was too Polish for you, much too Polish."

  "So I said to her, ‘Do something, Vludka. Manage this for us.'"

  He said, "She was pliant, compliant—Polish. You said to her, ‘You handle it, Vludka, and I'll watch,' and she did," he said, "didn't she?"

  "Because she was pliant," I said. "Compliant," I said. "Polish," I said.

  He said, "It took her eleven minutes."

  I said, "I sort of knew it would."

  He said. "That's how stolid she was."

  I said, "It was endless. My arm was exhausted for her. I timed her on my watch. Even for a Polish girl, it was incredible. I tell you, she used a blunt fingertip—even, if you can believe it, a thumb."

  "It was ponderous," he said. "Thunderous," he said. "You thinly watching, you meagerly urging. ‘For pity's sake—come, Vludka, come!'"

  WHAT I DIDN'T TELL HIM is that what I was really watching were the four pictures of Vludka on Vludka's bedroom wall instead.

  These are what they were of—of Vludka at the railing of a big wooden-looking boat, of Vludka in a toy runabout with her hands up on the wheel, of Vludka with others on a blanket in a forest, of Vludka squatting on a scooter near a road sign that when Vludka finished doing it to herself she said, "Majdanek, you know what's there? Or was?"

  HE SAID, "Well?"

  I said, "Well what?"

  He said, "What you were thinking—the road sign—Majdanek—what was it that was there?"

  I said, "You read my mind."

  He said, "No. Just the standard stuff about the camps."

  ALL MY LIFE I HAVE NEVER KNOWN what to do with my hands.

  Except for shit like this.

  THE LESSON WHICH IS SUFFICIENT UNTO THE DAY THEREOF

  HAVE I NOT BEEN INSISTING it is the most instructive of stories? In fact, it is the most instructive of stories. Indeed, the great object will be to see if I can uncover the core of the instruction that is prospectively in it. I mean, in the telling, maximize the teaching—do it, and keep on doing it, from the beginning to the end.

  As to what I am talking about, it concerns an apple and an apple tree, the one having fallen from the other.

  Not that that is all that there is to it. I mean, there are people, there are things. But who has the patience for even the enumeration of these?

  Here is the bitter truth.

  You have to have the patience of a saint.

  Whereas I do not even have the patience of a Lish.

  But I should say of a Lishnofski, not of a Lish.

  Considering.

  Considering the name Lish doesn't point to where I meant to. It doesn't point to the tree I fell from.

  LISTEN TO ME talk in metaphor!

  Isn't it always the way? One minute, making excuses for yourself—the next minute, making life miserable for everybody else.

  It's hopeless.

  Let's be honest with each other, I am already exhausted from just this much of it—the story of anything, even the narrating of Gordon Lishnofski.

  But there I go again, piling figuration upon figuration. For one thing, Gordon just stands for Morton—and exhaustion, for another, for boredom.

  Or nobody calling or coming around to say hi, hello, aren't you swell.

  GOD, YOU GET SO FED UP with speech.

  Just the idea of telling anybody anything is enough to make you sick, every word weighing tons more than it did the last time you said it—or saw it—or heard it—or wrote it—or thought it. Who's got the energy? Who's got the strength? Isn't this why the apple falls off the tree—from such a heaviness from life, from what's holding it getting weak?

  BUT SILENCE IS A TIRESOMENESS, TOO.

  This is what my dad's was, wearying all the way. Oh, he was the wordless one, I can tell you. No one came any more wordless than my dad did. But don't think it wasn't a shout to you if you were his son.

  You know what his favorite word was?

  Atrocious.

  Putrid and vile, he liked those ones, too.

  He'd say, "These string beans are atrocious," and for the whole rest of the meal he would say not one other thing at all.

  Or he would say, "These string beans are vile," or "Putrid, putrid—can you guess what I mean?"

  It never occurred to me until right this minute that maybe that this was what they incontestably were. I mean, when I was there at the family table, when did I ever sample any of the vegetables? Who knows, maybe vile and so on, maybe these complaints were restrained complaints insofar as denunciations of my mother's canned vegetables might justifiably have gone.

  Considering.

  Considering my mother could not actually cook anything any good in the can or out of it.

  It was just that I didn't care if she couldn't.

  Bananas—I loved bananas—and olives and crackers—and licorice—licorice was my idea of great eats as great as eats can get.

  You know how my father would eat an apple? You want to hear how my father would eat an apple? Get a bite off of it and chew it and chew it and then hold under his chin the hand that holds the apple, and spit into it, spit into the hand, spit into it nothing but the chewed-up skin.

  I used to think he could do it because of his teeth, or because of his gums, or because of his tongue—or because he had this kind of a cockeyed kind of an enunciation and nyalked nyike nyis.

  It scared me silly—somebody eating an apple like that, somebody nyalking nyike nyis.

  Hey, where did I all of a sudden get all this get-up-and-go from? To speak with such vim and vigor with!

  Considering.

  Considering that I have been trying so hard to get across to you and to your fruiterer the impression that I absolutely do not give a shit.

  So what do you think—fact or fiction, Morton Lishnofski?

  I WONDER WHAT it would have felt like, kissing a person with a funny-looking lip. Kissing the person right where the funniest-looking part of his lip is—just imagine it! All I can say is, praise be that in my house we had a host of rules set up to keep the specter of contagion at a distance, or in check. Wiping off the mouthpiece of the telephone with anything disinfectant—there was one of them for you, and kissing someone on the cheek, there was a second.

  I can't think of a third.

  Sorry, mind's not quite on enough on what I am saying, I think.

  So which was it, Pine-Sol or Breath O'Pine or CN?

  I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU—but me, I have had enough of this. I mean, how much is it that they can expect a man to take?

  Considering, of course.

  Considering today's another Father's Day.

  Considering that here I am having to sit here and hear myself say all of this.

  It's nyile and nyutrid, isn't it?

  Or, to get it really hard and right—carbuncular is as carbuncular does—nyanyonyis for atrocious.

  Apples falling, falli
ng, falling at all, and then where, where they fall, when they do.

  CAN YOU TOP THIS?

  LISTEN TO ME, there are a pair of hippopotamuses standing in a river, such a filthy dirty river, it is horrible, it is simply horrible, and the sun, my God, you would not believe it, who could believe it, what with the heat and with the sun and with how sticky and muggy and awful it is, it is stifling, it is absolutely unbelievable how stifling, it is positively beyond all believability, a day so stifling like this day is, a day which could kill you like this day could, a day which could do away with you in just one hour, in just one minute, in just one breath, but meanwhile all day long, from when the sun comes up in the morning to when the sun is going down at night, all day long this pair of hippopotamuses is standing here in the scorching water like this, they are up to their ears, they are up to their eyeballs in the scorching torpid water like this, and it is this filthy dirty hot disgusting dirty scorching torpid water like this, not either one of them moving a single muscle in it, the two of them not budging, not even one inch, not even leaning a fraction of an inch in this direction or in that direction, except for maybe if you want to count these little tiny twitches of the eyelids, these little tiny twitches of the ears, these little tiny trembles you would probably call them, these little tiny trembles and twitches, but otherwise the two hippopotamuses are like granite, like stone, like standing here in the disgusting filthy water from first thing in the morning to the time when it is almost sundown, all day long the two of them all covered up by the filthy hot dirty torpid scorching dirty water like this except for just where their little ears are sticking up out of it and are constantly twitching little twitches and for where their big bulgy eyes are poking up a little bit out of it and the eyelids, the eyelids, you can see the eyelids are giving these little bitty trembles, these little tiny itty-bitty trembles, these little tiny tremblings like, like maybe from flies probably or like maybe from little nits like or like from something even tinier than this, or it could be from some kind of teensy almost invisible itsy-bitsy thing which likes to creep around on the eyelids of hippopotamuses—but barring this, but barring the twitchings of the ears and the twitchings of the eyelids, the two hippopotamuses are just standing here and standing here and you could not even see them even breathing even, because this is how still as stones they're standing, because this is how still as boulders they are standing, and the water meanwhile, it just just goes gurgling all around them like it is some kind of filthy dirty torpid scorchy syrup probably, or more like it is torpid dirty ooze than it is like anything like even water even, more like it is some kind of special water which can get totally exhausted from just being water, and this is it, this is how it is, this is how the whole situation of it is from just after when the sun first comes up in the morning to almost when the sun is getting good and ready to go down again at night, which is when one of the hippopotamuses, which is when, lo and behold, the hippopotamus which is the slightly older hippopotamus and which is the slightly more overweight hippopotamus, which is when this particular hippopotamus all of a sudden moves his little feet a little teensy tiny bit and more or less just gets them moved into place into a somewhat slightly new position a teensy tiny bit, and then he opens his eyelids all of the way open and he looks all around a little bit and he says, "I don't know—all day long, I still can't get it through my head today is, you know, not Monday but Tuesday."