Collected Fictions

by Gordon Lish

  Well, it wasn't out in the open enough, was it? How come people don't appreciate the courtesy of leaving things where you cannot miss them! Why does it have to be his fault if everything's not where fair play would indicate it be?

  He sucked and sucked and accumulated saliva in his mouth and swallowed it waterless—bitter pill, so terrible for such a tiny palliative indeed.

  His fingers—were the bones breaking?

  Not just canny and capable, but thoughtful, actually incomparably thoughtful, once you gave it some thought and actually really thought about it, this family of his, even if none of them knew somebody's overnight bag belonged where a person did not have to spend half his life in a wild hunt for it. Such a fund of solicitude, whatever source it had, it could never be alleged any spoor of it could be tied to him. No, it was not that the man did not wish to be generous with himself when called upon to do so. It was rather that the man noticed not all that much of what was available to notice, so that such a call, made however close to the man's ear, might go unattended even when the caller shrieked. But what little the man did attend would grip his attention with a violence that was unrelenting and even eerie. Oh, no, never think the man was not all too excruciatingly aware of what he deigned to be aware of—torn spines of storybooks irksome in their haphazard stacks, toys luridly expressed in polyurethane deep-banked for the night up against the baseboards, frame after frame of family snapshots gaping in disorderly array from every level of tabletop, everywhere the walls flapping with sheets of crayoned and penciled foolscap, none of it had the man elected to ignore—given the chance, he would have discarded the lot, and with gusto!—not least the photograph of the children's mother—was this person a grandmother, in fact?—that now came plunging into view at the far side of the man's pillow and, with it, the career of the marriage, a contending whose vehemence never flagged and whose object was the vector of the slant—upwards versus downwards, downwards versus upwards—of the Venetian blinds distributed throughout the dwelling in receipt of the—up to that point—happy couple.

  If the woman aimed the slats one way, the man would restore their alignment to the prior disposition. Where the woman had visited would have the arrangement of its window treatment, however maddening the task to effect the detail, reversed upon the man's replacing the woman there.

  Oh, it was endless, endless.

  Until it ended.

  And what had it all had to do with—what?

  Neither the man nor the woman might ever have said—unless it had been the use to be made of sunlight if sunlight were in the moment given—or, at all events, by those who paid attention to change, been promised.

  Well, it seemed to the man it must have had.

  One wanted a radiance either to ignite the ceiling or, otherwise, set fire to the floor.

  Make much of what was above.

  Make no less of that below.

  You choose.

  They chose.

  Or, rather to say, one of them chose and the other, in a word, unchose. Oh, and speaking of which, never a word was spoken on this score. Sentiments inspiring the impasse dividing him from her and her from him never acquired the status of speech.

  Mm, the aphonia of matrimony.

  Compromise between the combatants was as impossible as was acknowledgment that each was pledged to oppose the other in a style of disputation unique in the common experience. Any reference to their differences not carried out in silence, would it not prove—talk, talk—the reigning feature in the loser's defeat? Well, there was no backing down, and the man never backed down. Not that the woman ever did, either—there looking him now full in the face, her furious countenance singling out the father of her children as with all his might the man pushed the pillow from the bed so that, in the morning, he would not have to come fighting his way up from the waters of the night with what was left of him—his neck, Christ, the neck—more punished than he deserved.

  Wait again, wait!

  Was there to be this remembrance of the grandmother and none of the grandfather? Among all these damn pictures, was there honor being paid to the woman and none, by thunder, to the man!

  He got to his feet.

  It made him dizzy for him to do it.

  And his knees, Jesus!

  The pill—good, good—soon, soon—another minute or so and he will have searched the room and determined the worst and then come back to this device to be just in time for the blessing of good old-fashioned oblivion.

  Nothing, he found nothing, not a hint of himself was there anywhere to be found, not even in settings where a family grouping constituted the topic to be developed within the frame.

  Where was he?

  Was the man nowhere at all?

  He staggered from footing to footing, very nearly falling into things a time or two, before finding—the thing exhibited well back on a tabletop so that evidence of the man's existence might have very nearly persisted in keeping itself hidden from all—before coming across the boy sitting astride the door-to-door photographer's droopy-looking, ruined-looking, condemned-looking pony, naked leg, pale anklet, toe of the dark shoe visible from within the enormous-looking stirrup it was, on this side of the animal, possible for the observer to see.

  Oh, what a child!

  The child smiled genuinely, genuinely, wonderfully, wonderfully, and the man, feeling himself summoned as all the day long he had not once been, smiled with all his heart right back.

  Genuinely, genuinely, except, one supposes, not so wonderfully, wonderfully, the man smiling back at himself.

  But all right, then!

  Then here he was, then, wasn't he!

  Wasn't this, then, he, him, the boy who was the man?

  The man tried sliding his feet along the floor in order that he might get himself safely home to bed—and there to narratives his nature would hasten to confect for him once the sedative had delivered him all to sleep.

  To dreams.

  Well, in one there was the woman.

  She shrieked at him and shrieked, "Yes, yes, but which way, which? Can't you tell me which?"

  In another there was the woman.

  But it was not the woman who kept screaming in it at him, "Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo, thief!—the uses you make of everything and of all the different things!"

  Then there was the dream without people.

  It was made all of words.

  The thing to do in it was to contrive irritating alliterations—yet there was no agency in it doing it.

  No woman, no man.

  Deficit notwithstanding—no, despite the deficit!—the work was done indeed.

  THE POSITIONS

  FORGET YOUR DRUGGING.

  Forget your fucking.

  Forget your fancy foods and your ham and eggs and your bacon and eggs and your, you know, your eggs with sausages with on the side your home fries on the side and it's when the eggs are fried and they're fried in the style of frying which is referred to as your eggs fried eggs over easy and they're dished up to you, the eggs are dished up to you with this whole extra treat of extra bacon on the plate and on a plate next to the plate there's these slices of toast buttered with butter on the plate and there's also on the side a milk shake on the side or, okay, let's not say there's a milk shake on the side but just a glass of just milk on the side and the milk's made up of the creamy part of the milk which got itself poured off from the neck of the bottle before anybody could get to the neck of the bottle before it was you who you got to the neck of the bottle and got it all poured off-—the creamy part—all for yourself. So go ahead and forget all that.

  So are you listening?

  Because I am telling you what the best thing in my life has been to me. You want to know what the best thing in my life has been to me? Because I am telling you, because I am going to tell you what the best thing in my life has been to me.

  But before I go ahead and tell you, guess what.

  Because no, because what it has not been to me is, no, it has not
been fucking to me and it has not been drugs to me and it has not been going to the movies or been eating franks or been eating franks with sauerkraut on them or with the mustard they used to give you for you to put on the plate next to the franks or for you to put between the franks and beans back when I was a kid.

  Nor been having kids.

  Nor been playing with the kids I had.

  Nor with the kids which anybody had.

  Plus neither shortstop nor pitcher.

  It's not been playing the positions of either of them when I played the positions of either of shortstop or of pitcher and was always eating my eggs and franks as described.

  Or when you got good wood on the ball.

  It's not been when you got good wood on the ball.

  Nor been looking like you were coming close to getting any kind of wood on the ball when it was your mother and your father who were there for them to see you looking like it. No, not been when your mother and father were there when it would have looked to anybody like you were getting all set for you to get some good wood on the ball—or get any kind of quality of anything on anything and then of them seeing you look like you were doing it, or were going to do it, or did it, just did.

  Because I said, because I am saying forget all that, forget all of these things like things like that. Such as please go ahead and forget things like me reading things or like me sitting in the chair I used to squunch all around in for me to sit in the chair and read things in it the best way anybody could sit in that chair and read things in it or sit in any other chair for me to sit and read anything in it.

  Or things like me fucking in a chair.

  Forget things like me fucking in a chair.

  Like me sitting fucking Helen in the chair which, you know, which, okay, which Helen had.

  Like sitting fucking Helen in the chair with us the both of us sitting facing the mirror facing the chair that Helen, which Helen had.

  Or even fucking Helen's sister like this.

  With Helen facing Helen's sister and me and with me fucking Helen's sister like this.

  Well, with the mirror facing all of us sitting and fucking and looking and facing the mirror like this.

  And it was everything to me, everything.

  But even if it was everything to me, was it the best thing of all of the everythings in my life to me?

  Because it wasn't, it wasn't.

  Or weren't you paying attention when I said none of these things were any of them anywhere close to their being the best thing in my life to me?

  Because the best thing in my life to me—are you crazy, don't be crazy!—because the best thing in my life to me wasn't any kind of a thing like any of these kinds of a thing to me. Which goes, which also goes for the day which was the first day of all of the brand-new spring days for me.

  I mean the one when it was okay for you to first go out with your short pants on.

  Not to mention short sleeves.

  And in the air there was this smell in the air which you could smell in the air which was like the smell of smelling the sun in the air—or which, when you smelled it, it was like smelling the beginning of everything smellable in the air.

  Oh, it was nice, so nice—the beginning of smelling even the beginning of everybody leaving the air all to me.

  Am I not saying it was nice?

  But the best?

  My God, the best in my life to me?

  Because the best in my life to me, it wasn't even coming with anyone, was it?

  Or getting off with anyone.

  Or getting gone for good with any of the women.

  Not even with Helen in the mirror with Helen's sister in the mirror and with all of the women watching.

  It was lint.

  I'm sorry, but it was lint.

  I'm telling you the answer is lint, it was lint, lint!

  You hear me?

  Listen to me if you want to hear me—lint, it was lint—the best thing in my life to me, the most wonderful thing to me in my life to me, it was lint, it was getting the lint, it was getting down on my hands and knees with this hanger I went and got and getting down on my hands and knees with it and getting it opened up so it was all bent open and as unbent as you could get it to come out like it was this one long thing like a long thing and then sticking it down in under the dryer and sticking it all of the way back down in under the dryer and scooting it all of the way around and then scooting it all of the way back out to me again to me with all of these gobs of this thick gobby stuff stuck on it in like these big globs of this built-up lint on it.

  So I tell you the thing.

  But do you listen to the thing?

  Because this was the thing which I am telling you which was the one best thing in my life to me.

  Getting lint.

  Getting all of that wadded-up lint.

  Which came out in such globby gobs of it when I got down on my hands and knees with the idea of now is the time for me to go see what I can get out from down under way back in the back of under where it's underneath the dryer again.

  Unless you think, unless everybody thinks hey, buddy, isn't the best is yet what has yet to come for you?

  As far as referring, I mean.

  I mean as far as me referring to what has been going ahead and wadding itself up right back up again back down in under the back of in the back of there ever since.

  As far as the dryer, I mean.

  As far as the lint underneath the dryer, I mean.

  Or wherever else the wadding never quits.

  MERCANTILISM

  THANK YOU FOR THE OPPORTUNITY to express my views and opinions. I am happy here. What is it. It is solicitous. Yet the dickens if I am not obliged to count another day when chicken a la king made no appearance for itself on the bill of fare. What can this mean. Is chicken fricassee also under fire. I have heard there are pressures. If forces are in sway, it is only fair I be told. Plus all thanks for my room. I used to be so crazy. I was really crazy. Throw your mind back to McCreery's. Maybe it wasn't spelled McCreery's. I used to have the impression a bug got in me from broccoli. Well, that's broccoli for you. I am a victim of constipation. It's my whole story. Is this really Bloomingdale's. I was in Russek's. I was in J. Thorpe. The biggest time I ever had was when I was in Wanamaker's and Arnold Constable's. Throw your mind back to DePinna's. Throw your mind back to B. Altman's. That's when there was smooth sailing with the chicken dishes. Remember chicken croquettes. So who is in the kitchen. Is there a procedure. Did I just worsen everything asking. What worsens things. I have to have more information. Which is it, laundromat or washateria. If I enjoy rights, I want to exercise them, thanks. They assigned me in Saks Fifth Avenue a sitting specialist as far as my sitting more conducively for evacuation purposes. I could use guidance. I would benefit from guidance. Well, here's hoping we see improvement. I'm no expert, but this can't be democracy in action. What do you think of this. Somebody such as myself sees his mother and father hugging each other and shuddering with each other when it rains on this pile of plywood outside their window, or is it plasterboard. Please extend to me the courtesy of answering. I'm looking for widespread approval and pronominal agreement. You know Korvette's, you know Filene's, you know Marshall Field. There never was a dissatisfaction in the old era. I hate to bother you with this. It's not I couldn't, if I put my mind to it, live without chicken croquettes. It's curiosity. Unless instead it's idle curiosity, which if it is, then fair enough, no problem, I stand corrected. Rogers Peet, Best's, they didn't want to come to grips with anything in Rogers Peet or Best's. Oh my God, Abraham & Straus and Peck & Peck and Gimbel's and Macy's. But if the rule is no outbursts, then here's my word on it, I never burst out. Praise be this is Bloomingdale's. Ever see tots dragged around Abercrombie & Fitch. Mentally, it's not sensible for consumers to say. Let's not split hairs. I spoke without thinking. Long Island Lighting Company and Brooklyn Union Gas. You ever hear of Long Island Lighting Company and Brooklyn Union Gas. What do you want to bet
me, what do you want to bet me they're Market Span now, that they're Market Span now, and Sears Roebuck called me crazy. They don't tell you on the transistor. They don't tell you on the radio. Is this hypercritical. Please, did you ever come across anything as little as this is. The mistake I made dates back to Wallach's or Ohrbach's. In a word it was succotash. You can't wash anything too much. They speak of overwashing, but what don't they speak of. Look, if one thing is in there, then two things are in there. Work up your suds. Don't cut corners. Diligence pays off. Be thorough—plus that other word. Conscientious. I have not spoken concerning the Sunday Social Get-Together Hour. At the risk of monopolizing things, I would like to propose something. It's shy of an hour. It's short of an hour. Besides, I'm positive they're only oatmeal-flavored. There was a time when Bullock's was for everything this nation stood for. Don't take my word for it. I'm no whiz on elections. Another thing of vilification is what happened to the small fry. Please publish this with my name at the top of it, not at the bottom. Everything is so sick of being only itself. Well, you proffer your view and you proffer opinion and they sit there and take umbrage. It's a thankless job, don't worry, nobody's denying it. They're always so unappreciative of the pains you take. Well, they have their hands full. I was in Bergdorf Goodman when he was assigned to me. They act like you're mental. Facially, they were nothing to speak of. But at least the bill of fare, please, be serious, Swiss steak, Salisbury steak, pepper steak, you name it and it was accounted for, plus tapioca. This was America. Even in Klein's. Even in Two Guys. Even in May's or that other word, Walmart. They didn't stint. The kitchens blazed. This was back before the foreigners. This was when if you wanted light, if you wanted gas, then fine, fine, you opened your wallet and stated your wishes. They had things. They had desserts. It wasn't just all pleading innocent and mixing ammonia and bleach. If your mother and father don't tell you, who tells you. It's tragic what's going on. Is it down-to-earth. No, it is not down-to-earth. They tried stewed prunes on me. They knocked themselves out trying out stewed prunes on me. Morning, noon, and night, it was this constant incessantness of stewed prunes on me. The waste of it, the waste of it. How can everybody be fooled. They bamboozle you. The stewing industry gets together with themselves and pulls the wool over your eyes. You know the word hoodwink. You know the word bamboozle. Okay, so they pull a fast one—it's still pulling, it's still pulling, isn't it still the same difference. The dirty filthy rotten intelligentsia of it, Jesus. Wait a sec, wait a sec—hornswoggle, it's hornswoggle. They talk about the jet stream, but do they mean it. Once a month you hear them saying okay, we're sending out invitations for another steak dinner in the White House, but is it cancer or what. It's not just here, it's not just there, it's everywhere. You know what we've lost—we've lost our frame of mind. And what about minute steak—show me one menu anywhere with a minute steak on it. Or pudding. What about butterscotch pudding. Sure, the chairs are comfortable, sure. Nobody said the seating was not accommodating and judicious. Did I imply otherwise. I did not hear myself imply otherwise. But on a personal basis, we can't just keep ignoring what's staring us in the face. It's ridiculous. I'm used to acrimony, I'm used to accusation, I'm used to recrimination, I'm used to invective. But no customer on earth should be required to take guff like this. I take umbrage. I am taking umbrage. People are human beings. You want to know what I'd like to know. I'd like to know just who exactly controls the controlling interest. But you make a stink and what do they do. It's atrocious. It's abominable. You know the cloche, I know the cloche, everybody knows the cloche, but does it make us one bit healthier. You go to the main floor. You begin with the main floor. This is what I am asking you. So then you say to yourself all right, fine, fine, I will venture up to the mezzanine. But does it matter to them. Do they honor you for it. Sometimes I just want to cry. Sometimes I just want to wave a wand and make everybody have to blow on their bisque in the same cafeteria. But there is not a one of them—not one, not one—which doesn't take the position they're a private dignitary. And another thing I would like to inquire of you—when it comes to views and opinions, where is the ileum. And what precisely does it have to do with Lord & Taylor. You wonder in your mind what's it all coming to, what's making it all keep going downhill like this, but when in the world was wondering its own reward. I lay it all at the feet of vindictiveness. To be absolutely frank with you, I couldn't look another fruit cup in the eye. But does this let anybody off the hook. This is no Penney's, this is no Bond's, this is Bloomingdale's, for pity's sake. Nevertheless, somebody gave the order for them to clamp down on the givens. Or is it distribution, distribution, distribution, distribution. All of a sudden you suddenly notice everything is persona non grata on the bill of fare. You know what happened to Robert Hall, don't you. Don't we have better things for us to do than for me to make a nuisance of myself. Yet who could warn prior administrations. The smartest people tried to reason with them, but would they listen. I'd sue if I wasn't just a figment of my imagination. I mean what I say—I'd get on the phone and get a lawyer and sue. I'd sue the broccoli manufacturers just on general principle. You think I'm being frivolent, but I'm not being frivolent. Things can also hide in string beans. If you were a bean in a pod, isn't it logical you would not be in sight in it. That's what happened to me even before I was aware of peas. Don't give me Bendel's, don't give me Burdine's, don't give me Bonwit Teller either. It starts with a vegetable. Or that other word, fruit. This is what it is to enact legislation. Watch for shifts. Be vigilant. Traditionally, when hasn't there been suspicion surrounding eggplant, kumquat, rutabaga, pear. First it flourishes, then it digs itself in, then it goes latent on you, or that other word, dormant. There is nothing that cannot come back to life as a nevus, as a clavus, as a papule, as a bleb. Don't expect me to make sense out of it for you. But neither should you brush me aside as a mere bagatelle. There is no action in political action. They want the wheel, let them have the wheel. You know the word joyride. You are familiar with the word joyride. Yes, I took the brunt of it but not because there was a ballot on it but because I know knavery when I see knavery. Plus underhandedness and mischief. This was the decade of the debate over due to and owing to, which one to cast your vote for, which one to cast your vote for, and now listen, now listen, will you just fucking please just listen. Because now it's all because, because, because, because. No one remembers, no one gives credit. Where are the mezzanines of yesteryear. You know what the battle cry once was. Give the citizenry gum. Bloomingdale's was the one hold-out. Is it still the one hold-out. This is what I'm asking. We believed in something. It's what our forefathers went to court for. It wasn't just Davega one day, Nordstrom's the next. There's not one speck of stomach for jurisprudence anymore. Where's light, where's gas. You want to be smart. Stay close to the radio. Get a transistor. Do you have batteries. Stock up on batteries. I'm high. Get a high room like I have. Mine could just sit and do it. Either one of them, they could just say to you okay, I'm ready to go and go. You're nuts if you think you can place any confidence in pine or in the other word, maple. Trust plywood. Even plasterboard if necessary. Remember Johns Manville. Here's a bulletin for you. They cut in and said it's Market Span. Forget Brooklyn, forget Long Island—it's the dirty filthy rotten Bronx we better get a committee together over and sit down and have an emergency symposium for. You see what I'm saying about passivity. It's alchemy. It's all this dreadful selfishness. My advice is lend yourself to the reclamation of the lowlands if you want anybody to believe you have any sincerity as far as the struggle to develop wellsprings. It's this thing in me. It's this old devil moon in me. Can you just feature it, the two of them hugging and shuddering in the precipitation. Did I write to my congressman or to the contrary. I'm talking weatherwise, completely weatherwise. Free access to the window. Lax groundskeeping. It's not like the old era when you had your Montgomery Ward and that was that. It's simple science. They come and swim up into you up inside of you even if if if if you never got down on your hands and knees and
had even one lousy irrigation. Or even a nose drop. Look, are they trying to get us to subscribe to the idea chicken tetrazzini vanished of its own accord. Skip it. I am not retaining counsel. It was you and your thugs who sought me out, not to the contrary. Or that other word, shopping. Let alone inkling, how about inkling—so long as the whole thesis is only for everybody to sit around and act like they are better than I am and be just so fucking in a hurry about it on the escalator down to the bargain basement.