Collected Fictions (18 page)

So all right, so who is not so svelte, so sue me!

So your father told a little fib.

So send G-men and tear his tongue out!

The creature is
dieting,
Jerome. Did you hear me? Dieting! So between you and me, as of this date and time did she actually get anywhere with it yet? So svelte was an exaggeration, so svelte was poetic license, so no big deal, okay?

I'm telling you, darling, this woman is so fat it would break your heart just for you to look at her! Hey, you know what I can't wait to say? Because all I can't wait to say is thank God 305 is Gert's area code and you'll never have to notice!

Boychik, are you listening to me?

So you're already the most wonderful son in the whole wide world, no arguments, your father admits it, when was there ever a better boy? So now go be an angel on top of it, Jerome! For a woman who is fat and who is in agony and who is a saint if I your father ever saw one, tell Merv here you come for Gert Pinkowitz, plus for each and every area code from coast to shining coast.

Love and kisses

from your adoring father,

and also Happy High Holidays!

P.S.
Did I tell you about Goldbaum is passing away? The same Goldbaum which went and took the cruise on the slave ship, Jerome, the man which has the son which got married to the blonde? So Goldbaum is on his deathbed and it's good-bye and good luck—so your father didn't tell you already? But all right, Goldbaum is an old man, he's got no alibis, he's got no complaints, that's it and that's it, let's get it over with. So did I tell you this, Jerome? Because I want you with your own two ears to hear what happens next when the man says to his son which is sitting with him like with the deathwatch with him, "Kiddo, you have been a wonderful boy to me, from you as a child in my whole life your father has never himself had nothing but the utmost joyousness, so good-bye and good luck and here personally is a last loving kiss." And the boy, Jerome, he says to Goldbaum, "Well, you have been great, just great, and, no kidding, we'll miss you a lot." And Goldbaum answers him, he says to his son, "Forget it, kiddo, when that's it, that's it, it's time to call it quits." So this is when the man shuts his eyes and lays back down again to show everybody forget it he is ready to pass away. But then the next thing you know Goldbaum opens up his eyes and he like gives the air these little tiny sniffs.

Are you paying attention, Jerome? The man is sitting up and with his nose up in the air the man is going like this, darling—he's going sniff, sniff, sniff. So then he says, "Tell me, sweetheart, is Mama in the kitchen?" And the boy answers him, the boy says to Goldbaum, "Mama is in the kitchen. Mama is making chopped liver in the kitchen."

Do you hear this, Jerome? "Mama is in the kitchen. Mama is making chopped liver in the kitchen." So this is when Goldbaum says to his son, "Look, darling, you will be a sweetheart and you will go into the kitchen and for your father who is passing away you will come back here with a little taste for me, and please God, I only got a couple of seconds, so you'll hurry."

Jerome, did you hear each and every word of this? What Goldbaum says to his son, you really honestly heard? Because I want for you to hear how the son answers the man, Jerome! Even if you could not believe it with your own two ears, I your father want you to hear!

Because, as God is my judge, darling, the man's child says to the man, he says to him, "Daddy, I can't, Daddy—it's for after."

Did you hear this, Jerome?

"It's for after."

With these very words the child answers the father!

"It's for after."

Jerome? Sweetie boy?

So are you listening to me?

There
is
no after!

So God bless you and let this be a lesson to you and now go and do what your father says!

[ENTITLED]

—
WHEN DID YOU FIRST MEET
Gordon Lish?

—Nineteen thirty-four. In Hewlett, which is a place which is about twenty miles outside of New York City.

—Was there anything notable about him at the time? Did he strike you as in anywise out of the ordinary?

—No, not anything I can think of. But the conditions were special. There was, he claims, a blizzard that day—the eleventh day of February, nineteen thirty-four. I know this seemed meaningful to the fellow, a sort of sign of sorts. For as long as I've known the man, he every so often speaks to what seems to him to be the significance of snowstorms in his life. You know, big snows showing up on his birthdays and the like.

—He is fascinated with himself.

—Oh, sure, but, you know—who isn't?

—You kept in pretty close touch with Lish after that first meeting?

—You bet. I thought he was tremendously good company, a placid sort and enormously harmless. Oh, he was easy to be with, all right. Not much on his mind, but what little there was he'd share with you, no hesitation, not the least of it. Besides, it was never a problem keeping track of him. I mean, he stayed close to home back in those days—few friends, few outings, a dreamer chiefly. Could sit for hours just staring. It was pleasant. To tell you the truth, it was a comfort just to keep an eye on him—restful, restorative. You know . . . certain persons give you certain feelings. Well, I liked him—I suppose this explains everything.

—He confided in you?

—Whatever was on his mind, sure. But as I've been trying to say, there wasn't much of it. He was . . . what did I say before—placid? He was like that—very placid, very passive—not much energy. Half-asleep, actually—sort of dozing.

—Happy?

—Oh, no question about it—the happiest!

—But then things changed. So far as you could see, what? What specifically?

—You mean the shift in him—from what he was in the old days to what he got to be as time wore on. Well, no telling. But I'm willing to give you my thoughts on this, which is that nothing changed in him exactly.

—You mean, things changed around him? The world went from one thing to another?

—No, no, not that. What I mean is that I don't think what happened to Lish was any different from what happens to anybody. I mean, it's not the world exactly—because the world just doesn't matter that much, if you know what I'm saying. Oh, heck, I'm getting all mixed up. Look, the thing is, it's got to do, I think, with time—with just the time and the time of it—witnessing, too much witnessing. Do you know what I mean, witnessing?

—Witnessing too much of the world?

—The other way around . . . the world witnessing too much of you. Or maybe time doing it. I don't know.

—That doesn't make any sense.

—Well, as I said, it's just my thoughts, is all.

—But you've stayed with him—kept your eye on him at least—didn't, you know, turn a deaf ear.

—No doubt about it. And why not? The man still interests me more than anybody else does. The thing of it is, I've put a lot into the thing, don't forget.

—You see him every day?

—I'd get pretty funny-feeling if I didn't.

—Why so?

—Oh, you know how it is—for each of us there's always going to be at least somebody it just does not feel right for us being out of touch with even for a minute.

—But what if Lish took himself out of touch with
you?

—That's just what I worry about.

—But what if he succeeds? What will happen if him and you, if that's it and that's it?

—You know, that's the very thing I have been sitting here telling the man day in and day out. I say to him, "Gordon, the instant you look around and I am not here for you to have me looking back at you, that's the instant you are going to wish that you were never born."

—And what does he say when this is what you say?

—Him? He says, "It snowed the day I was born. There was a blizzard the day I was born. It was the eleventh of February, nineteen thirty-four. It snowed like that on my thirteenth birthday, too. Both times, there were such big snows. Both times, there was so much snow."

THE DEATH OF ME

I WANTED TO BE AMAZING
. I wanted to be so amazing. I had already been amazing up to a certain point. But I was tired of being at that point. I wanted to go past that point. I wanted to be more amazing than I had been up to that point. I wanted to do something which went beyond that point and which went beyond every other point and which people would look at and say that this was something which went beyond all other points and which no other boy would ever be able to go beyond, that I was the only boy who could, that I was the only one.

I was going to a day camp which was called the Peninsula Athletes Day Camp and which at the end of the summer had an all-campers, all-parents, all-sports field day which was made up of five different field events, and all of the campers had to take part in all five of all of the five different field events, and I was the winner in all five of the five different field events, I was the winner in every single field event, I came in first place in every one of the five different field events—so that the head of the camp and the camp counselors and the other campers and the other mothers and the other fathers and my mother and my father all saw that I was the best camper in the Peninsula Athletes Day Camp, the best in the short run and the best in the long run and the best in the high jump and the best in the broad jump and the best in the event which the Peninsula Athletes Day Camp called the ball-throw, which was where you had to go up to a chalk line and then put your toe on the chalk line and not go over the chalk line and then go ahead and throw the ball as far as you could throw.

I did.

I won.

It was 1944 and I was ten years old and I was better than all of the other boys at that camp and probably all of the boys at any other camp and all of the boys everywhere else.

I felt more wonderful than I had ever felt. I felt so thrilled with myself. I felt like God was whispering things to me inside of my head to me. I felt like God was asking me for me to have a special secret with him or for me to have a secret arrangement with him and that I had better keep on listening to his secret recommendations to me inside of my head. I felt like God was telling me to realize that he had made me the most unusual member of the human race and that he was going to need for me to be ready for him for me to go to work for him at any minute for him on whatever thing he said.

They gave me a piece of stiff cloth which was in the shape of a shield and which was in the camp colors and which had five blue stars on it. They said that I was the only boy ever to get a shield with as many as that many stars on it. They said that it was unheard-of for any boy ever to get as many as that many stars on it. But I could already feel that I was forgetting what it felt like for somebody to do something which would get you a shield with as many as that many stars on it. I could feel myself forgetting and I could feel everybody else forgetting—even my mother and father and God forgetting. It was just a little while afterwards, but I could tell that everybody was already forgetting everything about it—that the head of the camp was and the camp counselors were and the other campers were and that the other mothers and the other fathers were and that my mother and my father were and that even that I myself was, even though I was trying with all of my might for me to be the one person who never would.

I felt like God was ashamed of me. I felt like God was sorry that I was the one which he had picked out and that he was getting ready for him to make a new choice and for him to choose another boy instead of me and that I had to hurry up before God did it, that I had to be quick about showing God that I could be just as amazing again as I used to be and that I could do something, do anything, else.

It was August.

I was feeling the strangest feeling that I have ever felt. I was standing there with my parents and with all of the people who had come there for the field day and I was feeling the strangest feeling which I have ever felt.

I felt like lying down on the field. I felt like killing all of the people. I felt like going to sleep and staying asleep until someone came and told me that my parents were dead and that I was all grown up and that there was a new God in heaven and that he liked me better than even than the old God had.

My parents kept asking me where did I want to go now and what did I want to do. My parents kept trying to get me to tell them where I thought we should all of us go now and what was the next thing for us as a family to do. My parents kept saying they wanted for me to be the one to make up my mind if we should all of us go someplace special now and what was the best thing for the family, as a family, to do. But I did not know what they meant—do, do, do?

My father took the shield away from me and held it in his hands and kept turning it over in his hands and kept looking at the shield in his hands and kept feeling the shield with his hands and kept saying that it was made of buckram and of felt. My father kept saying did we know that it was just something which they had put together out of buckram and of felt. My father kept saying that the shield was of a very nice quality of buckram and of felt but that we should make every effort for us not to ever get it wet because it would run all over itself, buckram and felt.

I did not know what to do.

I could tell my parents did not know what to do.

We just stood around with the people all around all going away to all of the vehicles that were going to take them to places and I could tell that we did not, as a family, know if it was time for us to go.

The head of the camp came over and said that he wanted to shake my hand again and to shake the hands of the people who were responsible for giving the Peninsula Athletes Day Camp such an outstanding young individual and such a talented young athlete as my mother and father had.

He shook my hand again.

It made me feel dizzy and nearly asleep.

I saw my mother and my father get their hands ready. I saw my father get the shield out of the hand that he thought he was going to need for him to have his hand ready to shake the hand of the head of the camp. I saw my mother take her purse and do the same thing. But the head of the camp just kept shaking my hand, and my mother and my father just kept saying thank you to him, and then the head of the camp let go of my hand and took my father's elbow with one hand and then touched my father on the shoulder with the other hand and then said that we were certainly the very finest of people, and then—he did this, he did this!—and then he went away.