Collected Fictions

by Gordon Lish

  THE WOMAN GIVES ME on the knee like a tap with her fingers and then she picks herself up and with another groan again she goes and checks on the things she put for her daughter in the machine, whereupon then the woman turns herself around to me and says to me, she says, "Your boy, tell me, are you telling me you got just the one son?"

  But why should she wait for an answer?

  I promise you, people know there is something which, whenever you look at a father's face, you don't need to ask another question.

  "Sure, sure," she says, sticks in two more quarters in her dryer, then comes back to where she was in the first place and plunks herself down in the row of chained-down chairs with another new groan like the last one I forgot the meaning of already.

  She says, "Pardon me, but do I still have your undivided attention? Because I know you got your own mind on your own kid and your own troubles, but you didn't hear yet what happened, which is the child goes down there, and it could not be more perfect—the weather, the service, the accommodations—everything is absolutely first-class, so all she has to do is jump into a bathing suit and start being the happiest girl in the whole wide world. But does she go sit around the pool like the other youngsters do so that maybe there might happen to arise a little excitement from whichever direction? The answer is no—the answer is the girl did not even begin to give herself credit. Instead, she drags herself all of the way out to the beach with the wind and with the sand, which is utterly unnecessary, and with a book which nobody ever heard of and with not even a little bag with her with at least a lipstick in it, not to mention she knocks herself out finding herself a place for her to sit herself which is as far away from everybody in humanity as is humanly possible and, lo and behold, this is how the girl spends the five days, the six days, whatever you actually get when they give you one week's free vacation, and not once, when all is said and done, not once does the girl have a single solitary conversation with a single solitary human being of any gender. She reads a book, and this is the entire nature of her entertainment, period, with the lone sole exception of this friend she makes, this little animal which comes running along the beach to her and which comes up to her, like she thinks like a little Mexican hairless or whatnot, like this tiny little dog like the bandleader, if you remember him, used to hide in his pockets, like a Chihuahua is what they call it, like two Chihuahuas in his pockets. So the whole first day, would the thing go away? Forget it, what it loves in this world is all of a sudden my unmarried daughter. It could not get enough of my own personal daughter—huggy-huggy, kissy-kissy, two permanent lovebirds from the first minute they laid eyes on each other. So naturally the next day the girl can't wait to get back out to the beach again, God forbid her friend should miss her for two minutes, and this time she's got with her what? Because the answer is a handbag. Do you hear this, a handbag! But for lipstick and mascara and eye shadow? Don't make me laugh. Because the answer is it is not for something serious but instead for the child to sneak her brand-new one-and-only in through the lobby and up in the elevator and for the rest of the whole vacation feed it scraps from the table and watch it sleep between two clean sheets in the bed with her like a person, please God it should not all night long have its little head on its own personal pillow. And why not? In all of the girl's whole life, aside from her mother, who ever paid her two seconds of attention before? But on the other hand, outside of her mother, tell me who ever got the chance! Even the girl's own father, may the man rest in peace, he had to hire an army every time he wanted the child to hold still so he could talk to her or get even in the light of day even a good look at her.

  "SO NEXT COMES THE TERRIBLE CRISIS.

  "Are you listening?

  "Because time's up and now you have to gather yourself together and pack your luggage and face the facts that you threw away your one big chance and say so long to paradise. But could the girl even begin to tear herself away from the first real friend she ever in all her born days ever had? This thing, could the child just say to it this is it and this is it, now good-bye and good luck?

  "Don't hold your breath.

  "Weeks later, when she could first open up her mouth to even first begin to speak again, the child actually said to me, ‘Mother, I am telling you I would have eaten poison before I could have left it behind. Do you here me? Poison!'

  "Poison, some joke.

  "Believe me, when you hear what's coming, you will say to yourself the same as me, ha ha, poison, this is a good one, this is some good joke, poison.

  "So don't ask me why, but this is how determined the girl is, because even with all of the reasons nobody in a million years could get away with it, the answer is she did. All the way back to New York, right past all of the big shots with all of their badges and everything, and then right out of the airport past the customs and the rest of it, and then right back here into this same building right here where, God love him, I know, I know, your child has got his own problems too, your own lifelong heartache has got his problems too, what with all of his gorgeous costumes and with his window dressing and who also rents a nice dwelling in the building—from Acapulco to New York, here comes my Deedee, my Deedee, with her beloved!

  "But as soon as it gets here, would it eat? Could she get it to do anything but drink water? Maybe the airplane ride gave it an upset stomach, who knows?—meanwhile all it wants is water and to lay around and vomit, and it wouldn't even touch a single morsel or have the strength to play with her or even let her kiss it. So by now the girl is thoroughly beside herself with panic—she is so frantic the child cannot even see straight—so what does she do but pick the thing up and wrap it up in a towel because it is cold out and God forbid her adorable darling should catch a chill and get any worse off than it already is—and like a maniac she runs out into the street with it—like a crazy woman she runs to go find the dog-and-cat doctor which is up the block from here after you pass the big Shopwell in the middle of the block.

  "God bless him, the man can see with his own two eyes the girl is positively hysterical—so he quick puts everything to one side and takes her right in, says to her, ‘Sit, wait,' he'll be right back with his diagnosis, first he's got to get out his instruments, first he's got to examine, the child meanwhile shrieking, ‘Don't hurt him, please don't hurt him!'"

  The woman looks at me and she says to me, "So did you hear me with both ears—instruments, examine—don't hurt him, please don't hurt him, please?"

  She gives her chest a grab like there is gas inside of it, and she says to me, "Go check your machine—there's time yet—because with problems like ours, who are we kidding, where do we think we are running?"

  YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW a storyteller like this one? I promise you, I myself in this department was not exactly born yesterday, these people with their teasings, with their winks, with their punch lines. But by the same token, who wanted to offend such a person? Because, for one thing, you never know when you might require the company, and meanwhile let us not forget who else of my acquaintanceship also makes his residence in the very building and could always use a friendly neighbor's mother with an open-minded opinion. So this I can give you every assurance of, I myself did not intend to go burn up any bridges behind me.

  This is why I got up and felt inside of the dryer—even though I did not even have to actually touch anything to see that they all had for them a little way still to go yet. And then, like a perfect gentleman, I come back and I sit down and I signify to the woman I am all ears and at her beck and call whenever she is ready to please continue. But strictly between you and me, so far as punch lines go, in all of history they still never invented a second one.

  She says, "Two seconds."

  She says, "The man is inside of there all of two seconds with his instruments and his examining."

  She says, "The man comes out with his white coat and with his rubber gloves and he says to the child, he says, ‘Darling, I am afraid I must inform you your pet has a mild case of rabies—you didn't get ne
ar any of its saliva, did you?'

  "‘Oh, God, God!' my daughter screams, and then it dawns on my Deedee, rabies, and she shrieks, ‘No, I'm fine, I'm fine—just give me back my dog, I want to get a second opinion, I want to see another doctor!'

  "So what does this one say to that?

  "Mister, are you listening to me when I ask you what this one says to that? Because here is the answer the whole wide world has been waiting for. Which is that this man, this doctor, this specialist, he gives the girl a look and he says to her very calmly to her, he says, ‘Dog? That animal in there is no dog, lady. That animal which you brought in here is a rat!"

  YOU KNOW SOMETHING?

  Because I am telling you the truth when this is what I sit here and tell you.

  For some crazy reason, after I hear what I hear, I do not know what the next thing for me to do is. I mean, my son's clothes—I do not know if I can bear to touch them anymore—not even when I know that if I go to get them, they would be as clean and as dry as—that's right!—a bone.

  AGONY

  IN THAT INSTANCE, THERE WERE two men and a woman. The photographer may also have been a woman, for there to be someone to go with one of the men. But I never looked to see. I only looked to notice the others—which is to say, the three persons who were readying themselves for the photograph and who, accordingly, kept their backs turned to me.

  Perhaps their span hid the fourth party—which is to say, the party with the camera.

  Which is to say, why did I not notice the photographer, since the persons getting themselves ready for the photograph faced away from me and, therefore, I must have faced the fourth party?

  I cannot say what the three of them looked like, since I only saw them from the back—except that the men were husky by my standard, wide-waisted, one man considerably the taller of the two. And there was this: the woman had no appeal that I could see.

  My attention was mainly elsewhere. It was captured by the placement of the arms of these people as they prepared themselves for the photograph, the woman between the men, the men reaching back behind the woman to rest a hand on each other's shoulder, the woman with both arms reached out behind the men, to hold each man from behind, her fingers taking the man tight by the waist—wide waists, as I remember it, in each case, the men's waists.

  They all hugged like this when they were ready.

  Then they dropped their arms, and you knew, without your needing to be notified, that the photograph had been completed, or don't we say taken?

  I kept standing there, to see them stand there for a while, facing away from me, all three, the two men and the woman, their arms at their sides—each of the three of them with arms no longer involved in the exertion of a pose.

  I remember something else now.

  One of the men—the shorter, I think—wore very bright corduroy trousers, a very bright green, I would say, and a very pale yellow sweater.

  Ah, but then they had their arms reached back up into place again. Or places, do we say?

  They were getting themselves in readiness again.

  They hugged.

  I could tell they were hugging hard.

  Then they let their arms fall to their sides again, or is this to say that each person lowered his arms promptly to his sides?

  You could anyway see another photograph had been made—or taken—and that this was to be the last of the photograph-making or photograph-taking. Or photography, don't we say?

  MY SON WAS IN MY COMPANY for the day.

  It was to be a day for us in the park.

  He was riding his bicycle and I was with him to see him do it. But for the time I was noticing the people with the camera, I was not seeing my son ride.

  But when I resumed doing what I had been doing, I saw he was riding very well—and even doing some tricks. Or if we say acrobatics, then that.

  I called to him.

  I said, "Come over here a minute!" He rode up to me.

  He said, "How did you like it?"

  I said, "I've got a good idea."

  He said, "Did you like the way I did it?"

  I said, "Let's go home and get the camera and then we'll come back here and we'll take a picture of you with your bike."

  He said, "What do you think of what I did?"

  I said, "Let's go home. Let's get the camera."

  WE DID IT.

  Which is to say, my son and I went home. But we never got the camera for us to go make a photograph of him in the park with him on his bike.

  Something came up.

  I don't remember what.

  But something did.

  My plan was to produce a photograph.

  My plan is to have the camera with me the next time we go. My plan is to find somebody and show him how the camera works.

  My plan is to hand over the camera and then take my place behind my son.

  The way I see it, the bicycle will be positioned broadside to the camera, my son situated on the seat, in an attitude of motion and of happiness perhaps. I will be standing just rearward of him, my arm arranged across the shoulders, this or some other such gesture to indicate that I am touching him and am keeping him, will always keep him, from falling over.