The Universe in Miniature in Miniature

by Patrick Somerville

  I hate that.

  I’d like to say the previous entry was inspired by grapefruit juice. My glass is here at my side. Me, my glass, my glasses, a table, a notebook, a pen. Here we all are. Reading the entry, I’m for the first time (in my life, I mean, with regards to any record of me, in any medium, ever) feeling this feeling that yes, pretty close, I do feel that way. Still. Days later. For once it is not a shifting, disgusting mountain of unidentified emotion burbling below the layer of trash that floats atop my consciousness and serves as my “personality”; for once it feels whole. Cohesive, firm, strong, permanent, alive, raw, honest.

  It’s okay. It’s an okay feeling. Does this mean I’m actualized? Or dead? Jane came to see me. Prompting this entry. Yesterday, she was here. She cried. I didn’t. Consoled her. It’s amazing; it would be impossible to tell which one of us was the psycho, given a photo. Minus my mustache. You have to be insane to have a mustache in this day and age. I should have known—I should have known some storm was brewing within me the day I shaved the beard and left the mustache. I had a vision, life called, I decided to act. Closed my eyes and saw a sort of glorious me, Tremendous Jerry, shirtless, no chest hair, probably forty pounds lighter, muscles, all of that, standing I think on top of a mountain or a cliff with a flag? With the wind blowing? Hair waving? One leg up on a boulder, knee up? Very close look and you can see on the waving flag that the flag has a red background and then an image of me standing on a cliff holding a flag. And I had a mustache in this, and in the little one. (You’re wondering if the flags and the images within them went on forever, smaller and smaller? Don’t know.) Just one of those visions, this whole thing was, but now that I reflect I see too that it was a precursor to the big one, but then it felt more like a daydream. No biggie. I opened my eyes and there I was in the mirror, and a wonderful feeling of power came over me, this sense that I could truly go to that mountain. I have no interest in it but they say Finnegans Wake has a sleeping giant and this is a tremendous metaphor for humanity, they say we haven’t even woken up yet. All this sadness and we haven’t even woken up. Imagine that. Imagine, say, being an amiable young lad walking through a field in the easternmost regions of Europe sometime in the thirteenth century and looking up and a Mongol with a ten foot pike comes around the corner on horseback, screaming, he goes, “Ha!,” and he drives his huge pole right through your heart, all the way, and you go down to your knees right there as the rest of the army sweeps up toward your home, and your last thought can be about how they will definitely be raping your wife and sisters and mother and killing them all or maybe even enslaving them? Imagine that young man also finding out, later, like when he’s on the spaceship loading dock waiting in line, that he existed in an era that would be looked back upon as prehistory, and that real human life wouldn’t begin for another two or three thousand years? That would be an annoying thing to find out. I feel that way too! What is the death of a child? I could use Jane’s Nair on my testicles. I don’t know. I could maybe get all the way to that vision and make it be and I’ll tell you what, it would be a significant thing. It’s the principle of this I’m concerned with, not the actual vision and the mustache, the principle of formation in the mind then moving forward and doing, being, it becoming something you have done. That was two weeks before I saw what I saw on the street. Another one of those walks back to the office. But it makes…it makes no sense, if that’s the case, because I already had the mustache, and if the mustache was evidence of approaching mental problems, how could it have been that I saw what I saw after I went with the mustache? Should be opposite? They say what completely did in Nietzsche was seeing a horse beaten to death with a whip. I found this to be interesting because this is the thing Raskolnikov dreams about in Crime and Punishment, but then I looked up the dates one evening and Nietzsche saw his horse two decades after Dostoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment which means the art predicted the demise of the philosopher somehow. But how could that be? You, Dr. G., would probably say that Nietzsche read the book and was moved by the image, remembered it, and as it was probably a common thing to see a horse beaten to death in the streets back then, he saw it during a period of instability, later, recalled the moment of reading the book, and it all came together like the lightning bolts we’ve discussed, and he went nutso. That would be a reasonable explanation.

  I don’t talk to Jane about things like this. I don’t dare. Almost any word that comes out of my mouth makes her cry. I can say, “Hello, Jane,” and she’ll crumple as though I’ve hit her on the top of the head with a ball-peen hammer. You’ll see the energy and life go right out of her, she’ll fade out. Yesterday I was even wearing normal clothes. In the picture—the picture of us, talking, the one you could look at and not, except for the mustache, be able to identify the psychopath—the picture would be from the side—you’d see the flat surface of the table, you’d see my right arm and her left arm resting on it. This is tremendously sad to me. This photo—and in fact any photo of any human being smiling, ever—absolutely unbearable. We have no reason to smile, ever, and to see a photo of people smiling is to see a photo of people confused. Terrible sadness! Imagine if we were in a movie. Imagine if this was an important scene. Jane’s got her face in her hand, holding it, and I’m reaching across the table, comforting her. Take one guess what we have been discussing. No. No. No. No. No. Yes, that. Also, electroshock therapy. There’s one person here for it and one person here against it. I say, “But I’m not sick,” and she says, “Jerry, you are. How do you know? If I tell you an important symptom of your sickness is that you can’t tell that you’re sick, what do you say to that?” “I say that’s a good way to manipulate somebody,” and her response is to ask, “Well, do you trust me?” and I say, “Yes,” and she says, “So when someone you love is telling you that you’ve lost sight of reason, but there’s a way to regain it, how can you possibly say no to that person, Jerry?” and I tell her, “Look. I can’t. I’ll do it. For you. At the very least, it will help with insurance. But put this down for the record, because who knows what I’ll say afterwards: I’m not sick at all. It’s obvious to me that I’m not. Because look, Jane: I can say the same thing back to you and there’s no reason we should believe you over me other than the general agreement of everyone else in the world that I actually am crazy.” “I think that’s a significant difference,” Jane says. “You would think,” I say to her, “but they’re not right, I don’t think. I think I’m right. But I’ll let them electrocute me if it makes you happy.” “It doesn’t make me happy.” “Has humanity ever seemed more foolish to you?” “What?” “When it comes to a treatment?” “What do you mean?” (She’s crying.) “It’s trial and error,” I say. “It’s like watching Tom trying to put his blocks through the holes when he was a baby. The different shapes? That’s what sending electricity into someone’s brain, hoping it will sort itself out, is equivalent to.” “They say it’s effective, Jerry. I wouldn’t—” “I’m not being fair,” I say (warm tones). “I’m sorry. I’ll do it. And you’re right, I know, they do say it works.” “Please stop talking about Tommy when you’re looking for examples.” “Why would I stop talking about him?” “Don’t, Jerry.” “Don’t stop or stop?” “Please.” “I’ll do it,” I say. “Okay. I’ll do it. Please don’t cry.” Do you know what I am thinking about throughout most of this conversation? Fucking her. Fucking my beloved wife in an insane asylum. We could, I think; it’s not as though I’m handcuffed to the wall in a straitjacket here. I have my own bedroom. I don’t think it would be a problem. Jane loves me and thinks it would be a good idea to do some electroshock therapy, so we’ll do it. Let’s do it tomorrow. I am agreeing to do it tomorrow. I will sleep like a baby. I am in bed already, in my PJs. This could become a story of redemption but I don’t think so, and either way, the journal can’t continue, Drs. For one thing, Dr. G., I’ve admitted I love you, which makes this a document I will pretend emerges from my “temporary” episode no matter what, but also Jerry is simply not
the type to write in a journal, as though he thinks his own or anyone else’s innermost thoughts, coherent or otherwise, need to be recorded. I would like to die with one strip of bacon in my pocket. Have you not been listening? Because for who? For the record, the thoughts and feelings do not die or go away once they are articulated, guys, smart guys, so there goes that whole idea, and if we throw that out we may as well just dump all of it. At what other time would I have the confidence to make such an assertion? I feel godlike today and I’ll be sad to see it go. The day, the state. I’m tired of writing. Dr. G., it was a good assignment and a good thought and I’d like you to laminate these pages and place them on your wall. All of them. I will stop by around Thanksgiving to check. The moment on the street had no horses being beaten, as we no longer live in those times, and in fact there was no haiku sensory moment that brought it on, no little cookie, just the bacon juice slathered on my face and the bright sun and the blue sky and suddenly my whole sense of time just dropped out of me. I smelled hot dogs, then. They’ll laminate anything at my office. They have a woman and it’s her only job. She has an office, a desk, a big-time laminator, and the will to do it. You stop in there with anything. She’ll laminate three-dimensional objects. So I’m on the street and I stopped walking and I saw them: I saw the people, the nomads, walking, moving, migrating. That’s who I saw. Us. Chicago fell away and with it went the buildings and the Loop and the people and I could see them, I was on Pangea or whatever it was, actually no, I think Pangea was long before because they used the ice to get across the water, didn’t they? And feel it: the continents breaking apart and shaking the ancient spectral dust of our Earth. See it, even: from above, those shapes we know and were taught, and they slide. They slide. Interlocking parts. A big puzzle. The times are mixed but that doesn’t matter; they were with the beaten horse as well and my whole sense had dropped out. I feel it. I can feel it right now. It was Pangea, the land was all together. And I stood very still and watched those lonely people walking. They said: We must keep moving, Jerry, at least, to see what else is out there. I said: Why? They said: We’re just going, we’re just doing it. Do you understand? What else can we do? I said: I loved them for this choice, I did. I love you, everyone. (I’m standing there, arms up, yelling it at them as they go by.) Nothing to do but walk, so walk. The land was still together, they were heading out, moving on, and I loved them for this choice. There’s your answer. Take it. That’s all I’ve got.

  The Abacus

  I knew when I woke. The eyes on that day. Different. The way I’ve always felt it, it’s like a mood, but no, nothing so crass as anger.

  Sometimes you are involved with the questions of accounting and I do not know why, but I am one of the accountants—I have been chosen as one of the accountants and I am certain there are others, but I have never thought to seek those others out, as I believe they are hidden and supposed to be hidden and that is fine.

  I am an accountant.

  A day begins and finally some quotient most are not privy to has leaned too far and I am sent out to do the computations. What can’t matter is who. And I am not one of those who seeks out my types and in truth I get no pleasure from it, so far as I can tell. I get pleasure from the normal things. Like cake.

  But do you know? Today I am standing on the corner, I am in the Loop, it is a day of the week, I don’t know which, but I am just watching.

  I have my coffee and my place of work is not far and they think I am at the dentist. And do you know?

  It dawns on me that today, unlike the other days, I will be captured.

  Sad.

  A great melancholy dawns on me at the thought, but it doesn’t last. Not too long. This is not my choice.

  Calm comes. I am on this street. I am here, now, at this moment. But do you know?

  There are people—there are so many people. Just crossing. Just passing to and fro. They are animals. As am I. Chicago is the zoo. This city. But I know better.

  There is something about imagination, too.

  There is danger to what can be imagined, which is me.

  I am the abacus. The bead slid. And I see my bead.

  A young man.

  I start to walk.

  I follow him and watch his backpack.

  Why not?

  It will be my X.

  People Like Me

  I’ve broken the house into quadrants and I’ve drawn these quadrants on poster board and I’ve taped this poster board to the kitchen wall. There are different colors.

  The first two weeks were all basement. I went down and cleaned out the boxes and burned the cardboard in the backyard. I got down on my knees and scrubbed the concrete. I scrubbed every cobwebbed, grimy corner. I cleaned the exposed pipe in the ceiling. I laid carpet. I pulled the washer and dryer away from the wall and got all that crap underneath. I tilted the machines on their sides and cleaned them, too.

  When the doorbell rings I am standing in front of the blender. I am wondering whether I should take it apart and scrub its parts. Within a blender there will most likely be difficult-to-manage and very small pieces of metal. I have steel wool, I have my cleaning agents. Lime-based. Do I need tweezers? The house is sparkling, but what about the inside of objects? You could do surgery on the kitchen table. But could you do surgery inside of the washing machine?

  Lanie’s at her brother’s. She wants me to go to Anger Management. Either that or we’re done, she said, and I asked her if she honestly thought me talking to some people in a high school gymnasium about, oh, I don’t know, bayoneting (in the face) the man who jumped on me from the roof of a bungalow in Hyderabad was really going to make the difference. Will that unburden me? I asked. She said Yes, it might help. You’d be surprised. At least it’s something. I said: You realize that is not a hypothetical example, that’s me drawing from an actual well of actual examples, and the well is full of them, and she said Yes, I do realize that, Aaron. That is the problem.

  But I go on.

  The bell rings, I stand in silence, I look at the rectangular buttons, I think, I go to the door. There are two men. One I know, one I don’t. The man I know is named Wesley Chambers. He’s my direct supervisor for my final two jobs at ICS. He’s softer-looking than he actually is. I once saw Wes kick an Indonesian kid in the teeth so hard his neck clearly broke. Crack-crack!

  Right now, Wes looks like a well-to-do, manicured lawyer in his civilian clothes. About ten years younger than me, he has a boyish face and an expensive-looking haircut. He’s wearing a black peacoat and underneath I can see a collared shirt and tie. He’s holding a bouquet of very, very ugly flowers.

  The other guy I don’t know.

  “Wes,” I say, nodding, holding on to the side of the door. “Other person,” I say to the other man. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

  I look at the flowers.

  “Or how can I help those?”

  “What’s up, man?” Wes says, eyes wide, hyperactive. Somewhat menacing, but in a nice way.

  “You’re at my house,” I say.

  “In the neighborhood,” he says.

  “No you weren’t.”

  “Thought we’d give it one more try.”

  “I see.”

  “This is Norman.” Wes jerks a thumb at his buddy, then looks past me, into the house. “Lanie home? Can you talk?”

  “She’s not home,” I say.

  I have never once mentioned Lanie to him, but it’s not a surprise that he’s saying her name like they’re friends.

  “You wanna invite us in?” he says. “It’s colder than cold. I know it gets cold in this city but this is the mega for a dude from California. Hahaha. Right? Haha.”

  He really talks like that.

  “Come in,” I say, and step back. “Take your shoes off.”

  They don’t complain. Wes says, “Haha.” I find a vase for the flowers as they take them off, then they follow me into the kitchen. As I cut the stems on the butcher block I ask them if they’d like something to d
rink. I suggest various lethal chemicals.

  Wes, still bright-eyed, says, “I actually don’t drink.” He smiles and points. “You didn’t know that about me, buddy?”

  “I didn’t,” I say. I look at the other guy. “You?” I ask.

  “I like lemonade.”

  “I don’t have any lemonade.”

  “No thanks, then,” he says. “Nothing.”

  I get a beer for myself and I sit down.

  “How’s the time off been?” Wes asks.

  “What do you want?” I ask.