Collected Fictions

by Gordon Lish

  "But why are you suddenly so quiet?" I said. I said to the editor of this book, "Didn't you just hear me say to you why are you so quiet?"

  "I'm thinking," she said.

  "What?" I said. "You're thinking what?" I said.

  "Why downtown?" she said. She said, "How come downtown? Why not uptown?"

  "What?" I said, "Downtown, uptown, what?" I said.

  She said, "The little stupid thing you just recited. The two women on the bus."

  I said, "Behind me on the bus?"

  "That's right," she said. "Why downtown on the bus? Why not uptown on the bus?"

  "Suit yourself," I said. "You're the editor," I said.

  "Then make it a trolley," she said.

  I said, "Street car."

  She said, "Too suggestive. Too pointed. Besides, it's been done to tatters—street car, strassebahn."

  "Roller coaster," I said.

  "Please," she said. "Where's your tact?"

  I said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute!" I said, "Do you think you could go for like in a theater or something? How about like in a theater? Let's say I'm sitting trying to watch this movie and there's these two women behind me and one of them, I hear one of them say, ‘Well, she was offended,' and so on."

  "Make it two men."

  "Fine. Okay. Two men."

  "They're sitting in back of you in an airplane."

  "Right. Swell. You got it. In an airplane."

  "The first one says, ‘Well, he was offended' and the second one, the next one, the other one says, ‘Of course, of course, aren't they always offended, was there ever a time when they weren't always offended, name me once when you ever came across a one of them who was not prepared to claim he was offended.'"

  "Right, right!" I said. "I really honestly like it," I said. "These two fellows on an airplane and I'm sitting there in front of them and I'm listening, I'm listening, and I hear one of them say . . ."

  "Hang on," she said. "That's plenty," she said. "That's enough," she said. "One ellipsis is more than enough."

  "You mean I'm adequate?" I said. "There's been adequation?" I said. "You said yes, you said no?"

  "Filled the bill," she said.

  "Pages," I said. "Taken up enough pages?"

  "From three-seventy-one to three-seventy-four," she said.

  "Oh, baby," I said, "edit me, baby—please!"

  THE OLD EXCHANGES

  ASK YOU SOMETHING?

  Thing you have, list you have, running account you keep in order that you be kept in the company of items for you to attend to, you good about keeping it cleaned out of the never-attended-to? Entries that don't in due course get drawn off into experience, they get erased, or do they, in your case, get themselves collected down there as the deposit from an earthward drift of them getting all silty and then stony at the bottom of it?—of this list, call it, you have; of this what-have-you, call it, you have—like this sediment of clotted deferrals you better come take, from time to time, a chisel to, or a jackhammer to, or—better, better!—TNT.

  Because that's me.

  To a T.

  I'm not kidding.

  Stuff gets to be like a stratum of indifferences down there, an impaction of inutility—errands once in mind, ideas once in mind, reminders you once had what you thought was a very pressing need for you to remind yourself of—notions you notionally stacked the deal for and then let drop to the unexploitable region of the underside of the deck.

  Which is why I am doing this.

  Mix some metaphors and get the line bled out.

  Off-load it all.

  The whole sludgy gob of it.

  Apropos of which, here's the first bit of it.

  "Consider yourself kissed."

  So how do you like it?—"Consider yourself kissed."

  It's what my mother used to say to my sister.

  Which is maybe why my sister once woke up once and then went ahead and swallowed more sleeping pills than I guess she guessed she was ever going to be able ever again to ever wake up from.

  Anyway, this is the first bit of it—pick-axed at it for you for a little bit—"Consider yourself kissed."

  Actually, now that I look, isn't it a lot of what the whole geology of it is—speech I'd hear and think, "There—that's the thing!—stick it in some scribbling, they'll never know what hit 'em!"

  Like "First it not ripe, then it ripe, then it rotten."

  Or like prelude, interlude, postlude, right?

  Okay, here's "Las Brisas! Las Brisas!"—that of, for a switch, of the nonutterable category. Anyway, name of eating establishment once went to with woman once was once going with once.

  So there's this swell-looking waitress waiting on us. Have my eye on her and have the thought she has hers on me, but you tell me by what caddish-free art I might get it across to her for her to please not go waitressing anywhere else until I can hurry up and get back to Las Brisas uncompanionated?

  So make myself a mental note of it—"Las Brisas! Las Brisas!"—and then make myself a written note of it—of "Las Brisas! Las Brisas!"—just like, just as I just sat here and showed you.

  But never did.

  Go back to it—not make note of it—no, never did.

  Well, on other side of town. Long walk or complicated ride—from here to there—to get back, that is. But guess you could say my heart was never enough in it. Yet neither was it enough of it in it in getting this it-ness of it nixed off of my list-ness of it either.

  Las Brisas! Las Brisas!

  Jesus.

  Then there's "metaleptic."

  So what does it mean, metaleptic? Because I scribbled it down for me to see it scribbled down for me to know the reason it's been scribbled down is for me to get up and go look it up, metaleptic.

  Well, I didn't, did I?

  Speaking of this, look at this—"Janet: 431-4909."

  Never followed up on this one, either.

  Neither did I ever do anything about "Dad."

  Impulse, was it, to sit here and type up something about some kids who are all of the time going around in the ordinary course of things all of the time bearing around with them this like little teeny tiny father of theirs up under their arms with them, like all of the time up under their arms in a grip with them, or shifting him from grip to grip with them, the old boy sometimes getting himself hiked up over onto a shoulder with them, hefted over from child to child with them, him not dead yet but just all of the time logy and dozy and woozy and indefinite, but not at all unthrilled for him in the meanwhile to be borne forth on the bodies of his own.

  Then there's—or here's there—this one.

  "Brown barn."

  What it has to do with—or what it had to do with—didn't it have to do with me and with her?—with wanting to memorialize the way it once was with us once—the two of us passing past a barn while driving along?

  Her saying, "Oh, how brown I am."

  Her saying, "Oh, so brown," in this, you know, in this barn-style of a voice she said it in.

  I thought, "It's her to a T."

  I thought, "That's her to a T."

  What's next?

  Uh-oh.

  Here's one I don't know what to say about it.

  It's, yikes, it's the look they give you, the wasting-away ones—the ones who are sitting there where they're sitting and wasting away from it ones.

  Ever notice it?

  This is how it looks as an entry written not to you but to myself.

  "How they look—or don't."

  But, okay, put it off for later—and, besides, who isn't, who doesn't, is there anybody who doesn't look like this to somebody else? But please, please—too distressing for me to sit here and just this minute let myself get into it.

  Oh gosh, talk about a change of pace—this one, oh boy, this one'll slay you.

  Get this.

  Amsterdam.

  Judson.

  Stuyvesant.

  Trafalgar.

  Longacre.

  Lacka
wanna.

  Circle.

  Oregon.

  Sacramento.

  Pennsylvania.

  Chelsea.

  Butterfield.

  Atwater.

  Gramercy.

  Algonquin.

  Rhinelander.

  Murray Hill.

  Chickering.

  Bryant.

  Rector.

  Ingersoll.

  Plaza.

  Lexington.

  Canal.

  Terrific, yes?

  Terrific or terrific?

  But some clog down there, I mean it.

  Anyway, it's like her—it's like it's in like in a class by itself.

  Also: Regent—or was it Regency?

  Not to mention, I think, a Merrian or maybe it was, you know, Meridian.

  I don't know.

  Do you know?—Regent or Regency, etc. etc.?

  Here's another one—notation of most blemishless-looking ladies guess who once had himself something to do with once.

  Ann Marvel.

  Norma Sinclaire.

  Grace Pantano.

  Christine Hasborough.

  Valerie Morse.

  Barbara Lish.

  Plus two whose names it's too dangerous for them for me to list for you.

  Plus too dangerous for me.

  But, swell, one we'll call her the "the knee one," or "knees," and one "heels."

  So they'll know.

  Because then they'll know.

  "Call the Chemique Company."

  Which was for me to call to order some more KRC-7, which I am here to testify to is the most powerful brass cleaner, or cleaner of brass, you will ever get your hands on.

  But better wear gloves.

  Copper cleaner—cleaner of copper, too.

  But the heck with it.

  Never called.

  Maybe the heck with ever having brass anymore—and copper, copper—ever as clean as that anymore.

  Does Digby sound like one of them to anybody?

  Digby 5 or Digby 7?

  Except didn't they used to put them in the book like this?—D-I, not D-i.

  God, am I ever going to ever anymore run into anybody anymore who could confirm for me Regent versus Regency, Merrian versus Meridian?

  Or put for me into perspective for me the whole pointless glut of it for me?

  Because bet you she could have.

  Called her Boody.

  Or she me.

  Beats me from whence the practice cameth.

  Or the note about Roxie Raye—as in "Roxie Raye."

  Hey, what's this—"Zig-Sauer?"

  So what's this Zig-Sauer doing down there?

  This is the name of somebody or what?

  2026 Bay State Road, Boston, which is the address of The Partisan Review, isn't it?

  Ethan—"money for Ethan"—my son.

  Check AARP for medical, dental rates—Metropolitan for senior-citizen ditto.

  Metaleptic.

  Sorry, already took care of "metaleptic," didn't I?

  "Artaud's Power of Sickness."

  "Huizinga, Merleau-Ponty, Husserl, Saussure."

  "Redetzky's March," except I think it should have been Redetzkys' probably.

  Ochlocratic.

  Soteriological.

  Lacustral.

  Conatus.

  Nimiety.

  Mantic.

  Limpet.

  Sedge.

  "Math afterward," say math afterward instead of saying aftermath.

  Or at least math after.

  Prelude, interlude, postlude.

  It's really nice.

  Don't you think it's really nice?

  Prelude, interlude, postlude.

  But what can compete with Amsterdam, Judson, Stuyvesant, Trafalgar, Oregon, Circle, Lackawanna, Longacre, Sacramento, Pennsylvania, Chelsea, Butterfield, Atwater, Gramercy, Algonquin, Rhinelander, Murray Hill, Chickering, Bryant, Lexington, Plaza, Rector, Ingersoll, Canal? Hey, you can't compete with that.

  Oh, and "renew copyrights."

  Anyway, it's a look.

  They can't look—but they are trying to look—but the head, the head, they cannot get the head lifted up enough for them to look up enough for them to see you in your eyes—but they try, they are trying, and this is what it is which gives the look to have that look of it—the trying but they can't.

  Too weary, too weak, too broken.

  But if you never noticed it, fuck it.

  Okay, am calling 431-4909.

  Instant I quit this, am, okay, calling 431-4909.

  Telling her just thought of Lehigh, of Hamilton, of Melrose, of Cypress, of Eldorado, of Yukon, of Oxford.

  Am telling her am adding them and then am adding on top of them Schuyler and Susquehanna and Wisconsin and Talmadge.

  Then Templeton and Twining.

  Then Twining and Esplanade.

  Telling her this is the thing of it for you to do—for you to add, to add, to always add!—not for you ever to ever, not for you anybody ever, for you ever to take anything, even one thing, away.

  Like Benveniste, like Bleuler, like Watkins.

  And how about Humboldt, Hamann, Herder, and—wait a minute, wait a minute!—Spring?

  But maybe some of these, maybe I said—I don't know—maybe I said some of them already.

  Did I already say some of them already?

  Or say any of them twice?

  Because I'd look back up to see if I did, but then you'd have to have to see me try.

  Too weary, too weak, too broken.

  Even for all of the quotation marks owed.

  NIGHT OF THE HARNESS, DAY OF THE TRUSS

  STORY I AM GOING TO TELL YOU is going to—had better, had better!—form itself out of the business of my telling you what I am telling you, which is forming itself—which is to say the act of telling is—out of the act of not going to bed, which is probably really a react, not an act—but go fight City Hall, wrong word, word made of noun not, you know, in form of noun!

  Anyway, I don't want to go to bed.

  Nobody is waiting for me in my bed.

  There used to be somebody waiting for me in it—and sometimes somebody waiting for me in other beds not rivaling but resembling this bed—and maybe those beds, maybe I didn't want to go to bed in those beds, either—anybody or not waiting for me in any of them or not.

  Well, waiting—was anybody ever in any of them ever really waiting for me in even one of them?

  Or did I ever keep anybody in any of them waiting for me in even one of them?

  These are pretty tough questions.

  It stands to reason these are pretty tough questions.

  Swear to God, would give it try after try at restating them and at studying on them some more on them—but beats me how else to say either one of them—besides which, it's anyway already, all of this, already getting way over my head.

  My bed's my bed.

  I am not against it. I harbor no grudge against my bed. I like it better than any other living space which I can think of. I would not trade you your bed for my bed even if your bed had you in it and even if you swore up and down to me it was always going to have, no questions asked, you waiting for me in it.

  On the other hand, it's okay with me if you want to come wait for me in mine.

  All you have to do is please send your name and address to the publisher of this book.

  Oh, and another thing.

  Look, so long as you are probably going to be in touch with Oakes and Robinson, could you also do this when you are?

  Could you also tell them to let me know if you were anywhere around Miami Retreat in 1954, I think it was.

  1954.

  But I'm not positive.

  The date, I mean, I'm not positive.

  But don't say nobody never gave you a figure for you to work with.

  So if you were anywhere around there then—Miami Retreat in the year of 1954—make sure you tell the publisher to let me know if you were.


  Because I need people who know anything about me from back when it was then.

  So you remember when it was then?

  It was the year of 1954.

  Look at it this way—haven't I been sitting here in good faith?

  I have been sitting here in good faith.

  Trying to do what?

  Have I been trying to do something for you or do something for myself?

  Who have I been trying to set you up with a little entertainment in their life?

  Trying to supply you with a little needed entertainment in your life!

  Thinking of you first, and then, only then, of myself.

  So I couldn't do it.

  But so okay, so tough shit.

  But I tried, didn't I?

  So how about now you go do something for me for once in your life!

  Let the publisher know if you know anything about me from where I told you and when.

  Because there is always the chance you know more about me than I know about myself.

  There's got to be somebody who must!

  As anyway concerns there and then.

  Because maybe then I was even worse off then than I am if you look at me now.

  But maybe I wasn't.