Will you let him see it?
Hard to tell. Dominant tempo of our national life.
Throws you into no-go situations.
Tricycle a bit in the evenings, now.
Spent his time wetting the bottoms of women.
Youth comes to the fore, youth has its hour of glory.
Like a photograph of a photograph.
Probably we should have spoken up before this.
Gray day, gray day.
I was ill, endless series of unpleasant dreams.
Be grateful if you could find the time to see me.
The terrible temptation which was assailing me will now be understood.
Where the buffalo roam.
I had rubbed myself thoroughly with oil and I carried a large flask of whiskey.
Have to be a little bit tougher.
Thought I heard a dog barking.
In wild places far from the heart.
Tiny silvered hairs that I had thought mine alone.
A lady always does.
Told them how Lenin had appeared to her in a dream.
That’s your opinion.
Two dozen white roses accompanied by his card.
I read about it in the Corriere della Sera.
It’s been so long, been so long.
Free to leave at any moment.
Where can a body get a baiser around here?
Attending, departing, arriving, ignoring.
Hoping this will reach you at a favorable moment.
Fish scales, wastepaper.
Inching by dying by.
Not sad or serious.
It was the damnedest thing.
What?
It was the damnedest thing.
What?
Old Danish saying.
What?
Repetition is reality.
I read about it. In Politikken.
The care that a bystander is obliged to exert for an accessible encounter extends past civil inattention to the question of how and when he can present himself for official participation.
I read about it. In a book.
Yes. Erving’s.
Yes. Slit your nose for you.
Your many kindnesses and especial favor.
Eats his kids they say.
One way to look at it.
Thought I heard a hog barking.
Joyous and without joy.
The bourgeois press told stories.
Faces?
Yes faces.
What?
Faces.
Something about faces.
Always been very interested in faces.
I’m not into that.
Forever and ever and ever and ever.
Also possible to be a damned fool.
I’m not into that.
Don’t blame you I was raised in the faith.
What?
I was raised in the faith.
What?
Been so long, so long.
Attending, departing.
He’s a drunk. Which one? All of them. Must be a reason for that.
Have you tried any of the others?
Follow a track by night.
What?
Steer by the stars.
Extremely interested in this position.
Make his ear glow.
Fill his brain full of frisks.
Must be a reason for that.
Her charms had made it possible for her to gain a close insight.
Glad to hear it.
This idiot had led a thoroughly disorderly life.
Sorry to hear that.
Covered with butter.
Chocolate butter?
Yes chocolate butter.
It’s the urge to confess.
I’ve heard about it.
It’s sunset across the bay.
It’s pencil shavings in the wind.
Tried to get a handle on it.
Give you a shot in the kisser.
I can take care of myself.
No you can’t.
There’ll always be another chance tomorrow.
No there won’t.
Want to get better but seem to be getting worse.
That’s your opinion.
Constant memory in the making.
That’s one way of looking at it.
The whole thing hinges.
I’ve heard that.
So as not to have to defecate while being accessible to others for talk.
I can understand that.
Now let us briefly review the kinds of.
Been waiting all day.
She was vulgar.
She was?
Very vulgar.
She is?
Yes very vulgar. Vulgar to a fault.
Really?
One of the most vulgar. Most consistently vulgar.
I’m surprised. I didn’t know.
The vulgarest. Vulgarity everywhere.
Happy to have been able to spend this time with you.
So fucking vulgar you wouldn’t believe it.
It’s red sails in the sunset.
It’s moons over Miami.
I didn’t really mean that really.
I was wrong I realize that now wrong.
Were you raised in the faith?
No.
You weren’t raised in the faith?
Yes I mean I was but I busted out.
Vulgarity everywhere.
The wink is a classic device for establishing.
That’s true.
I thanked the large black woman and withdrew.
Holding on tight.
That’s right. Holding on tight.
Years not unmarked by hideous strains.
I remember.
Wild and free and.
Pray to St. Jude. And Ganesha.
I really didn’t mean that really.
Were you raised in the faith?
I was raised partly in and partly out of the faith.
How did that feel?
Foul.
It felt foul?
Yes foul. Foul foul foul.
Being raised in the faith felt foul?
That’s what I said you hard of hearing or something?
I think foreplay is the most interesting part.
Yes foreplay is the most interesting part.
Some people like consummation.
I’ve heard that. But in my opinion foreplay is the most interesting part. It’s more interesting.
Haven’t thought much about it really I studied English.
Some people like to get it the hell over with.
Yes I’ve heard that.
Most of it is interesting if you are interested in it.
I’ve heard that. You must have studied anatomy.
In extenso.
14
Alexander, Sam, and Edmund. Requesting permission to speak.
Of course, said Thomas. What is it?
Well sir, said Alexander, some of the boys have been thinking.
Yes? What is it they have been thinking?
Well sir, said Alexander, the men have a melancholy.
Oh my, said Thomas. Which?
Well sir, I would say it is the pip. Less a sulk than a sourness.
What are the symptoms?
Headache, vertigo, singing in the ears, much waking, fixed eyes, red eyes, high color, hard belly, short and sharp belchings, dry brains, and pain in the left side. Not each man has every symptom. Most have two. Some have three. One has four.
Me, Edmund said.
Did I not double the rum ration? Thomas asked.
You did, sir, you did, and we are grateful. Yet—
Well what is the issue?
Well sir, I was coming to that. The issue, Alexander said, is ethical.
Oh my. Local or general?
Well sir, we feel maybe we ought not to be doin’ what we are doin’. We feel it’s a scotomizing, you might say.
A what?
A darkening of th
e truth.
What truth and how darkened?
Well sir, Alexander said, look at it this way. It is this: The grand Father’s bein’ all hauly-mauly by the likes of us over bump and bumbust and all raggletailed and his poor bumleg all hurty and his grand aura all tarnagled and June bein’ a bad month for new enterprises and a bad month for old enterprises accordin’ to the starcharts and like that, we that is to say us the men have a faint intustition that maybe the best is not to come in terms of the grand Father the moon-hanger the eye-in-the-sky the old meister the bey window the bit chammer the gaekwarder the incaling the khando kid the neatzam the shotgun of kyotowing the principal stadtholder the voivode the top wali, this Being, I say, being a Being of the highest anthropocentrictrac interest, as well as the one who keeps the corn popping from the fine green fields and the like and the like, is maybe being abruised and lese-majestied by us poor galoots over many meters of hard cheese days in and out but even a galoot has a brain to wonder with and what we wonder is to what end? for what purpose? are we right? are we wrong? are we culpable? to what degree? will there be a trial after? official inquiry? court of condemnation? white paper? have you told him? if you have told him what have you told him? how much of the blame if there is blame is ours? ten percent? twenty percent? in excess of that figure? and searching our hearts as we do each morning and evening and also at midday after lunch and after the dishes have been washed, we wonder whither? what for? can the conscience be coggled? are we doing the right thing? and with all the love and respect we have for you Thomas-the-Tall-Standing and for your wisdom which we do not deny for a moment and for your heart— To put it in the short form, we are dubious.
An occasion. Thomas rising.
Your questions are good ones, he said. Your concern is well founded. I can I think best respond by relating an anecdote. You are familiar I take it with the time Martin Luther attempted to sway Franz Joseph Haydn to his cause. He called Haydn on the telephone and said, “Joe, you’re the best. I want you to do a piece for us.” And Haydn just said, “No way, Marty. No way.”
You have got the centuries all wrong and the telephone should not be in there and anyway I do not get the point, said Edmund.
You see! Thomas exclaimed. There it is! Things are not simple. Error is always possible, even with the best intentions in the world. People make mistakes. Things are not done right. Right things are not done. There are cases which are not clear. You must be able to tolerate the anxiety. To do otherwise is to jump ship, ethics-wise.
I hate anxiety, Edmund said. He produced a flask and tilted it.
Have some? he asked Thomas.
What is it?
Paint thinner with a little grenadine.
I’ll pass thanks, Thomas said.
You have not resolved our dilemma, said Alexander. If you could give us a statement of purpose, no matter how farfetched or improbable … Something we could take back to the boys.
We are helping him through a difficult period, Thomas said, that would be a way of putting it.
Then he was struck, as if by a thought.
It is, you might say, a rehearsal.
15
The Dead Father talking to Emma. Pink hazes of the early morning. Vegetation failures visible, blasted sumac, iris, phlox. Dim low hills beyond. The Dead Father in his golden robes. Emma in her green fatigue pants, green fatigue shirt.
Looking very beautiful this morning, the Dead Father said.
Oh am I, said Emma.
You are a very handsome woman, the Dead Father said.
No no, said Emma, just ordinary. Just an ordinary woman. Another among thousands.
Not at all, not at all. Now I have seen in my time many a one.
Yes, Emma said, I believe it.
Some stunning beauties. Some extraordinary ladies. I can distinguish I think between what is ordinary and what is not. You are sui generis one might say.
Hardly that, Emma said. Just another sand dollar on the beach.
No no no, said the Dead Father, really quite remarkable. The bosom, for example.
Yes, said Emma, there are some who’ve found it adequate.
Adequate! What a word. Why I’ve not seen its like in twenty years.
Yes, said Emma, there are some who’ve found it passable.
I would compare it to that of the Aphrodite of Cyrene if you would take off your shirt so I could see it better.
No, said Emma, I do not think that would be right. You will have to content yourself with the rough approximation of the exterior. The shirt trick is Julie’s.
I remember a bosom, the Dead Father said. Might be a better bosom than your own. Might be a worse bosom than your own. Although they are all beautiful, bosoms, all beautiful, each in its own way, foolish to talk of “better” and “worse,” it’s apples and oranges, really.
What bosom is that that you remember?
The lady was a lawyer. Appeared before me in a matter. I was presiding. Case had to do with a homosexual admiral who’d been caught buggering a black gang. A whole black gang. Down there in the engine room ’midst the steam and grease. Some suggestion of coercion. Some suggestion of abuse of rank. And so on and so on. She was representing the admiral, in her robes. I noticed the robes. There is something very sensual about robes. I was transfixed, couldn’t keep my eyes off her. There is a certain line, bosom under robe, I can’t describe it. Makes one light-headed. She argued very capably, probably the most thoroughly researched brief I’ve ever read. The government’s case on the other hand very sloppily prepared. I found for her. Strictly on the merits. Merits piled on merits. Afterward, a brandy together in my chambers. She said I wasn’t as bad as I’d been painted. I said, Oh yes I was. We had a week together on the island of Ahura. The Bee and the Thistle, as I recall. Incomparable. Taught me a lot of law, she did, and I thought I knew it all. Claudia. Married a sky diver, as I recall. One of those people who fall out of airplanes and drop for thousands and thousands of feet waiting for the umbrella to open. Finally it didn’t. A Wednesday, as I recall. I gave her a judgeship and she has twice been cited by the Bar Association for excellence beyond the believable. That was Claudia.
And the bosom? What has happened to it?
Growing in wisdom and beauty, still beating with the conviction that the world can be made equitable, I would suppose. One of my best appointments, in retrospect.
Fretfulness of Emma. Adjustment of shirt, etc. Pulling up of pants. Nervous play of fingers about the throat.
I am old, said the Dead Father, old, old, old. That is why you don’t want to show me what is under your shirt.
That’s not it, said Emma. Then she changed her mind.
That is it, she said.
What is wrong with me! the Dead Father shouted. You are making me feel like the Congress of Vienna!
Nonsense, said Emma, taking his hand. You are as good as you ever were. Or almost as good as you ever were.
Then come to bed with me, and I will whisper secrets in your ear. Powerful secrets.
Yes, Emma said, secrets, that’s the second-best part, the secrets. The best part in my opinion is buying the furniture. Picking out the towels. The stainless steel. The rug. The potted plant. The bolster for the bedroom. The art object. The can opener.
Emma begins lachrymation (serious).
The can opener, she said, and the colander.
Why are you weeping? asked the Dead Father.
I was thinking about the salads, she said through her tears. Salad after salad. I am wonderful with salads.
Don’t cry, please.
I am so good with salads, she said.
I am sure you are.
Only virgin imported fresh Italian olive oil. Sliced mushrooms and organic or uninstitutionalized tomatoes, from a little place I know. And fronds, fronds of this and fronds of that. Coke, or snow some people call it, sprinkled on top along with salt, pepper, parsley, prepared mustard—
Come to bed, dear salad-head. Come to bed with me.
No I won’t, said Emma. Pardon me for saying it but you are, you are, you are too old.
The Dead Father fell down on the ground and began chewing the dirt of the road.
Don’t do that, dear friend, said Emma, plucking at his shoulder blades. It doesn’t help.
16
Is everyone ready for the big dance?
How can we have a dance with only two women?
The women will just have to dance twice as hard.
Edmund claims the first dance.
No, that is for the Dead Father.
Happiness of the Dead Father.
The Dead Father and Julie dancing.
Edmund and Emma dancing.
Thomas performing upon the kazoo. Alexander upon the flute. Sam upon the banjo.
The “Immigration Waltz” performed.
Light from the bonfires.
Is that horseman still following us?
Yes, still.
You dance very well.
Yes I do dance very well. You dance pretty well.
Thank you. It’s kind of hard to dance with this leg.
No really I mean it’s very smooth, considering, but to tell the truth I really think this is a terrible dance.
Why?
There’s nobody here.
I’m here.
Yes you but there’s nobody else nobody new.
Do you want somebody new?
I always want somebody new.
What’s so good about somebody new?
He’s new. The newness.
That’s a little insulting to those of us who are not new.
Tuff titty.
Why do you keep looking around?
Looking for somebody new.
Who sent out the invitations?
Who hired the band?
Who laid on the champagne?
Who hung the crepe paper?
Who lit the bonfires?
Wish they’d play something else.
What do you want to hear?
Something new.
Anything new?
Anything new.
How about “Midnight in Moscow”?
That’s not new.
I know but it’s pretty.
Can’t dance to it it’s too slow.
You’re a little picky.
I am a little picky.
What?
I am a little picky. I know that. Tell me something new.
Don’t know anything new.
I know that.
What?
Who are those people over there?
I don’t know they may be the horseman who has been following us or some of his friends. Attracted by the music probably.
The Dead Father Page 8