Collected Fictions

by Gordon Lish

  I'm not interested.

  It's exclusively the man himself which I am incompetent to be uninterested in.

  But not to the extent you would get me to give you two cents for this person even if he were made of money, which is what I understand the man in his lifetime was.

  I'll tell you about lifetimes.

  I have a creature here who is a kindergartner, so right there this takes care of lifetimes. Whereas I don't have to tell you what Kafka got was nafkelehs.

  You say this Kafka knew a lot. But show me where it says he knew from doily-cutters.

  Or even what cutters were who didn't work in paper.

  Take my dad, for the most convenient comparison.

  The man couldn't make a go of it in business.

  In other words, so far as his fortunes went, if dry goods were hot, then he was in wet ones.

  But who has the energy for so much history?

  Kafka, on the other hand, the louse didn't even know the meaning of the word idle, that's how fast the fellow sat himself down to write his father a letter. But let me ask you something. You want to read to me from the book where it says this letter-writer ever had the gall to ever say as much as even boo to his mother?

  Save your breath.

  I am not uninformed as to the character of the heretofore aforementioned author.

  Pay attention—we are talking about a son who could not wait to stab the son of a butcher in the back—but where is it on exhibit that this Kafka Shmafka ever had the stomach to split an infinitive in his own language?

  Now take me and my mother, to give you two horses of a different color.

  You know what?

  We neither of us ever had one.

  Or even a pony they came and rented you for the itinerant photographer to make a seated portrait.

  You see what I am saying to you? Because I am saying to you nothing is out-of-bounds so far as I myself personally in my own mind as a mental thought am concerned—unless it is something which is so dead and buried I have got nothing to gain from unearthing it, which she, the old horseless thing, doesn't happen, as an historical detail, happen to be yet.

  But Kafka, so how come wherever you turn, it's Kafka, Kafka?—just because, brushing his teeth, the man could not help himself, even the toothbrush alone could make this genius vomit.

  You know what I say?

  I say this Kafka had it too good already, a citizen in good standing in the Kingdom of Bohemia, whereas guess who gets to live out his unpony'd life in the United States of a certain unprincely America!

  In a mixed building yet.

  In yet even an apartment which is also mixed also.

  With a kindergartner—who is meanwhile, by the way, looking to me not just like the bug he looked to me like when he came into this world but also more and more like he is turning into a human being who could turn big and normal and dangerous.

  You want to hear something?

  In kindergarten, they teach reading already. So the teacher makes them make a doily and then lay it down over some Kafka and recite through the holes to her.

  This day and age!

  These modern times!

  Listen, I also had the experience of waking up in my room once, and guess what.

  Because the answer is I was still no different.

  From head to toe, I had to look at every ordinary inch of what I had taken to bed with me.

  Hey, you want to hear something?

  I was unmetamorphosed!

  You look like I look, you think you get a Felice? Because the answer is that you do not even get a Phyllis!

  Fee-Lee-Chay.

  "Oh, Feeleechay, my ancestor is a barbarian, a philistine, a businessman—so lose not a moment, my pretty, if you are for the Virtual, if for the Infinite, then quick, quick, then with all swiftiness suck my dick!"

  But, to be fair, my mother used to say Klee-Yon-Tell.

  Still does, I bet.

  You know what I bet?

  I bet if I ever could get my mother on the telephone, you know what she would say to me? The woman would say to me, "Sweetheart, you should come down here to visit me down here because they cater down here to the finest kleeyontell."

  One time I went to call her up once, went to look for her number once, but never did it, never did.

  Had to scream bloody murder in my office instead.

  Hate to admit it, but I did.

  Boy oh boy, was it a scream.

  From flipping around the Rolodex cards and then from spotting what was on her card when the flipped-around cards fell open to hers.

  You know what I say?

  Who wishes the man ill?

  But I would nevertheless like to see him wake up to what I wake up to.

  Just once.

  Forget it.

  The rogue was small potatoes.

  My dad lived through fifty years as a cutter in girls' coats, whereas Kafka, the sissy could not even shape up and live through his own life.

  But why argue?

  Where's the percentage?

  It wasn't a cockroach on my mother's card.

  It was just a very groggy earwig instead.

  THE HILT

  OH, THE PLEASURE SOLOVEI took in the manner of Shea's death, never mind that it was a suicide and Shea the very paradigm of what Solovei could not but help but helplessly think of whenever he, Solovei, had thought to set himself the meditation of what it must be to be the very gentile—oh so very big-boned, so very large-boned, heavy-boned, long and broad in all the central categories, the blithe inventor of every blocky declension, the very thing of this actual life most actually lived.

  And never mind that Solovei loved Shea.

  Solovei loved Shea's death more.

  Could not keep himself from telling everyone.

  "You hear about poor Shea? Poor devil drove himself off a fucking cliff. Took his car out and went poking up along the coast and found himself the scenic view that must have looked to him to be oceanic enough and then sailed the sonofabitch right off."

  Or so the story went.

  The story that had been carried cross-country to Solovei by those who had still been keeping company with Shea right up until Shea's finale.

  Not that Solovei and Shea had ever had a falling out. Just that Solovei had come to arrive at a time in his life when it was more and more seeming to him to be necessary for him to keep himself more and more to his own small experience. This is why when Solovei told everyone about poor Shea, it was via the telephone that Solovei would pass along the news.

  It made him ashamed.

  "Hello?"

  "Hi, this is Solovei."

  "I'm calling about Shea."

  "You remember, my old buddy Shea—big guy? Great big happy bastard, great big cheerful happy chap, with this sort of what you might call this indomitably red or reddish or reddish-colored hair?"

  "Anyway, I just got this call from the other side of creation and you'll never guess what."

  It seemed to Solovei nothing short of a veritable show of heroics in himself that he could keep telephoning the word around when here it kept making the fellow feel so horribly ashamed of himself for him to be doing it.

  "Ah, God, the fierceness it must have taken in him for him to have taken hold of that goddamn wheel."

  And so saying, have a vision of the hands of his friend Shea—great hams of hands, as Solovei understood these gentiles in these matters to say.

  Meaty.

  Big-freckled.

  Letting go and gripping elsewise and then yanking your mind that long, clattering, blazing, disastrous way.

  Jesus Christ.

  The fucking savagery of Shea!

  To which she said, "Oh, it is certainly not a question of living or of dying but only of the hilt."

  Solovei did not get this.

  He said, "Hilt?"

  She said, "Why it has got its teeth so obstinately into you like this, Shea's doing away with himself—the fact that, like his life,
how he did it was up to the hilt."

  "Oh," Solovei said.

  "Yes, of course," Solovei said.

  "I see," Solovei said.

  "Yes, I suppose so," Solovei said.

  And knew his interlocutor had uncovered the truth.

  She.

  Her.

  One of the ones Solovei had stopped feeling the necessity of keeping up with when he had started feeling the necessity of slowing down for himself.

  "Come on over and we'll fuck," she said.

  "You're spooked," she said.

  "It'll get you unspooked," she said.

  "Come fuck," she said.

  "Maybe sometime soon," Solovei said, and then, with terror in his heart, hung up.

  AS FOR WHAT IS LEFT of the story, Solovei never did manage to have his little visit with her but did have, some months thereafterward, a dream in which he had set out to have it, the visit, and in it saw himself in his motor-car motoring along the highway to her house, whereupon suddenly also saw—that is, the Solovei sleeping saw the Solovei driving—suddenly also saw himself having to perform an amazing sequence of unimaginably shrewd maneuvers to elude the enormous truck that had so abruptly been revealed to be bearing down so brutally down upon Solovei from Solovei's blind side, which was both, in his dream, of Solovei's sides.

  Solovei could even hear himself already telephoning all of the friends he used to have.

  "Hi."

  "It's me."

  "It's Solovei."

  "I was on my way over to see Shea's old wife."

  "I had the car out, just to pay a condolence call, and couldn't have conceivably have been driving more cautiously, when out of the blue there is all of a sudden right out of blue this gigantic fucking truck."

  "Anyway, it's a miracle, the stunts I could all of a sudden so incredibly do—the steering, the brakes—my reliable, my viciously reliable, my God, mind."

  MY TRUE STORY

  MYRNA, LINDA, LILY, JANICE, SHIRLEY, Phoebe, Barbie, Barbara, Sylvia, Marilyn, Elaine, Georgia, Iris, Natalie, Patty, Joyce, Binnie, Velma, Molly, Mrs. Shea, Lucille, Marie, Maria, Valerie, Barbara, Grace, Stephanie, Caroline, Tina, Eliza, Edwina, Evelyn, Edna, Joanna, Jeanne, Janet, Enid, Edith, Laurella, Lorrie, Lorraine, Myra, Emily, Kate, Cathy, Constance, Hedy, Heidi, Barbara, Katrina, Denise, Josephina, Carolyn, Cousin Lettie, Leslie, Lettie, Barbara, Geraldine, Theodora, Patricia, Lena, Lena's sister, Felicia, Emmie, Effie, Ellie, Nettie, Nancy, Blissie, Nell, Nellie, Lilly, Nora, Barbara, Lillian, Helen, Helene, Mrs. Rose, Joy, Ann, Nan, Jan, Deb, Sue, Barbie, Susannah, Suzanne, Mary, Barbara, Barbara, Barbara, Martha, Sheila, Sheilah, Deirdre, Barbara, Cynthia, Cindy, Belle, Betty, Belinda, Bertha, Bettina, Barbie, Betsy, Blossom, Brenda, Brigette, Bronwen, Bessie, Barbara, Barbara, Barbie, Barbara, Barbara.

  There have been buckets more than these, of course. But it would be indecent of me for me to list beyond the last name listed. It is sufficient to say I proved to exhibit an exorbitant fondness for the name Barbara and that I finally offered marriage to a person whose name was concludingly thus.

  She accepted.

  We were wed.

  Have lived blissfully ever since.

  O Bliss!

  Have been joyful ever since.

  O Joy!

  This heart is overflowing.

  O Accepta!

  O Wedda!

  O, hoshana in the highest!

  HOSHANA?

  BALZANO & SON

  I EXPECT THAT IT IS NECESSARY for me to tell you the true story of my father's shoes—for I have so often told—if not you, then others—such false stories of my father's shoes, sometimes claiming for my father's shoes some sort of formal irregularity that would enforce the thought of there being a certain abnormality of the feet my father had.

  But there was nothing exceptional about my father's feet. My father's feet were perfectly routine feet. My own feet seem to me no different from my father's feet, and my feet are—can I not see my feet as they are?—entirely routine.

  Ah, but here I am, already cheating.

  I mean, it is shoes, my father's shoes, that I have been inviting you to prepare yourself to hear me tell the truth of, not the feet my father fitted into his shoes.

  The firm of Balzano & Son made them, made all of them, dozens of them for each of the four seasons and for all of their uses, all with the maker's mark worked somewhere cunning into the buttery lining of each shoe's interior, Balzano & Son in the left shoe, Balzano & Son in the right shoe, and for each Balzano & Son shoe there would be a bespoke Balzano & Son shoe tree, each rubbed contour a vortical conjugation in wood grain, all formed to fit the exact form of each shoe exactly, this foot, that foot, it too, each shoe tree too, declaring its demand to argue for the theory of its provenance, the name Balzano & Son burnt into each layered grip of each shoe tree, into the grip of the left one and into the grip of the right one, Balzano & Son in the grip of the left one, Balzano & Son in the grip of the right one.

  But where is the truth in any of this?

  I cannot prove Balzano and his son were not liars.

  Who is to say what Balzano's name was before it was Balzano? And the son, what of him? Great Jesus, who's to say the fellow wasn't adopted?

  Fellow!

  Why fellow?

  How fellow?

  This Balzano, could not the swindler have elected to change a sex or make an offspring up!

  No, I cannot tell you the true story of my father's shoes. I withdraw the statement of my ambition to do so. It was foolish to have boasted of such a project. Such a project is not projectable. Indeed, it may even be that I cannot tell you anything true of anything, save—irrelevantly—to remark that when he succumbed—I mean, of course, my father—I came to have his wristwatch and that it is an Audemars Piguet wristwatch and that it is said to be possessed of such properties as to fetch—appraiser after appraiser so stated to me when I took the object around to them to make my aggrieved inquiries—just shy of $18,000.

  Oh, but no again!

  I just thought of something.

  With respect to my father's shoes, it just this instant occurred to me that there is a little tale I might disclose to you and which could at least have the look of verifiability enough.

  This:

  That I would take a very good square of flannel to my father's shoe closet to take the dust from the shoes therein, this to show the sign of my devotion to him.

  After school and before he came home.

  Undoing all of the laces to a depth of three sets of eyelets so as to enhance my labor's not going without the small prospect of being at least a little noticed.

  It exhausted me, and exhausted it—the playtime of my childhood—this activity of my youth.

  Hours, so many hours.

  I suppose.

  It does not please me that I lost them.

  So do not ask me what time it is.

  He is dead and I will be no more nimble.

  But will have darkened, and preserved, the name.

  THE FRIEND

  I LIVE IN A BIG BUILDING and my son lives in a big building, so I meet all kinds and I hear what I hear. And why not, why shouldn't I listen? I am a person with such an interesting life I couldn't afford to be interested in someone else's? They talk, I pay attention—even if when they are all finished I sometimes have to say to myself, "The deaf don't know how good they got it. The deaf, please God they should live and be well, I say they got no complaint coming."

  Take years ago, this particular lady—we are sitting biding our time down there in my boy's place, the room in the basement they got set aside for the convenience of the laundry of tenants.

  Some convenience.

  Who is a tenant?

  I am not a tenant.

  This lady is not a tenant.

  What is the case here is our children, they are the tenants—my boy, her girl—and theirs are the things which are in the washing machines and are in the dryers and why it is that I and the lady in question are sitting
in a terrible dirtiness waiting. So pee ess, it's two total strangers twiddling their thumbs in a room in a basement down underneath a big building, when what you hear from one of these people—not from me, should you be worrying, but from her—when you hear from this woman I just mentioned a noise like she wants you to think it's her last.

  You know.

  You have heard.

  It is the one which, give us time, we all hear—because who doesn't, just give yourself time, in the long run finally make it?

  So I naturally say to the woman, "What? What?"

  And the woman says to me, "Do yourself a favor—you don't want to know."

  That's it for the preliminaries.

  Here is what comes next.

  SHE SAYS, "YOU—you got a son—don't worry, I know, I know—and don't think I don't also know what you are going through, either—because I know—I got eyes—I see, I know—so you don't have to tell me anything—you don't have to breathe one word—I am a woman with eyes in my head for me to see for myself, thank you—so no one has to tell me what the score is—believe me, your heartache is your own affair—but so just so you know I know—with him you got plenty, with him you got all anyone should ever have to handle—but I say just go count your lucky blessings anyway—because I got worse—because there is worse in the world than a window dresser for a son—because there is worse in the world than a delicate child—sure, sure, don't tell me, I heard, I heard—and don't think my heart does not go out to you, bad as I got plenty worse of my own—a daughter, not a son—a daughter—Doris—Deedee—forty-odd and still all alone in the world—and for why, for why?—not that someone is claiming the girl is any Venus de Milo—but so who is, who is?—and is this the be-all and end-all, to be so gorgeous they all come running?—believe me, she is some catch for the right boy—for a boy which knows which end is up, this is a girl which is some terrific catch for such a boy—but shy?—a shyness like this you could not even fathom—a shyness like this, who knows how it develops?—even to me, to the mother herself, it is not fathomable, I can tell you—so a rash, a rash—like a dryness even, like not like even a rash but just a dryness, I'm telling you—the skin here—the cheeks here—so like it is not exactly appetizing to look at this child at certain periods of the season, if you know what I am saying to you—but so what is this?—is this the end of the world, is this the worst tragedy I could cite to you, a little dryness the child could always rub something into and who would notice?—but skip it—the girl is mortified—the girl is humiliated—the girl is total mortification not to mention humiliation itself—because in Deedee's eyes, forget it, this is all there is, because in the whole wide world there is nothing else but the child's complexion, the child's skin—so it flakes a little, so it sheds a little, so for this life should come to a halt—you don't give them a special invitation, does anyone notice?—no one notices—who cares?—no one cares—no one even sees—dry skin, you think people don't look and see character first?—first, last, and always what they see is what is a person's worth first—but who can tell her?—who can reason with her?—it is nothing, absolutely nothing, the very mildest of conditions—but for Deedee, forget it—for her it is curtains—that shy, that bashful, ashamed of her own shadow—so could you get her to be a little social?—you couldn't get her to budge for nothing—God forbid someone should have eyes in his head—a little nothing here—where I am showing you—makeup would cover it up so who could even notice?—but does this please her?—nothing pleases her—her own company pleases her—a movie every other week, this is for Deedee a big adventure, this is for my forty-odd daughter the romance in this life—but for me, if you want to know, from just when for two seconds I think about it, my child alone for all her life, I could cut my throat for her from ear to ear—forget boyfriend—does the girl have a friend even?—because the girl has nothing—the girl has her complexion to look at—forget a nice decent marriage to a nice decent boy—and just to add insult to injury, what with so many of them deciding to be boys like yours is, where even are the high hopes anymore for a decent healthy girl of forty-odd anymore?—but meanwhile is it too much to ask that for my Doris there should be at least a companion to travel the road of life with?—because, I ask you, doesn't everybody have a right to somebody?—but her, she wouldn't even go out looking, God forbid somebody should see a little redness, a little dryness, some peeling where if she only used a good moisturizer on herself and did it on a regular basis with some serious conscientiousness, I promise you, the whole condition would disappear quicker than you could snap your little finger—but her—her!—who can talk to her?—my Deedee—my Doris—God love her—but just thank God the story at her office it is a different story entirely—just thank God at her place of business they couldn't get enough of her—always Doris this and Doris that—I am telling you, they are devoted to the girl—devoted—what they wouldn't do for her—like you wouldn't believe it, but just this last Christmas they send her off for seven days gratis—not one red penny does the girl have to reach into her own pocket for—the whole arrangement is already all bought and paid for—the whole arrangement, to coin an expression, is signed, sealed, and delivered—and not Atlantic City neither, mind you, but where but Acapulco—Acapulco!—this is how indispensable to these people this child of mine happens to certain individuals to be—all expenses paid, every red nickel—first class from start to finish—the best—bar none—so when I hear this, I say to myself, ‘God willing, the child will get away, it will be a change of pace, a nice change of scenery, et cetera, et cetera—and who knows but that maybe a little romantic interlude for her is just around the corner—after all, a nice resort, a nice hotel, these Latin fellows, whatever'—but now I have to laugh—you heard me—laugh!—because you think Deedee does not come back worse than when she went?—go think again—this is why I am here where you see me right now—this is why I have to be here to do for her and to do for her—the wash, the cleaning, the shopping, whatever—with my legs, you see these legs?— twice a week, from Astoria, I have to come in all the way on my legs from Astoria—but thank God the girl has a mother who can still wait on her hand and foot—because thanks to Acapulco, look who's got on her hands a nervous wreck for a daughter—you heard me, a total bundle of nerves—but utterly—but utterly—say boo to the child, she jumps from here to there—and you know what?—I don't blame her—you wouldn't neither—when you hear what you will hear, believe me, you would not believe it neither—upstairs up there in her apartment up there and just sits around all the time listless, no color in her face, a figment of her former self—would she go outside for just some air?—goes to the bathroom and that's it and that's it—who even knows if she goes and makes her business when I her mother am not here?—me!—coming in all the way from Astoria—with legs like these!—if you could believe it, not once but twice a week—you heard me, twice!"