R. The catchy item in your story there, Big Jim, is that, ah, well, the betrayal of your talent. Right? I’ve had experience with this. Gnaw your way through one wall, and whoa, there’s another one! You ever read any L. Ron Hubbard?
Jim shakes his head.
R. No problem, you’re better off for it—hold on to your purity. What about the so-called rule of parsimony? You familiar with that?
J. Okay, what’s “parsimony”?
R. Exactly! Basically it’s the simpleminded orthodoxy that posits an injunction against attributing human traits to animals. If that isn’t a crock, what is? There’s nothing alive that doesn’t have to wrestle with a pressing problem—even a beetle’s gotta reflect. If he didn’t, how could he find the dung?
J. Relax.
R. Sure! Good idea. You got good ideas. We’ll table this stuff for later—I like talking to you. You want me to go under the couch and sleep? Am I starting to make errors?
J. You’re doing fine.
R. Maybe it’s okay to have a problem. “I’m okay, you’re okay”—we got a problem? Wouldn’t be alive if we didn’t, right?
J. Only the dead don’t have problems, is that what you’re saying?
R. But we don’t want to die.
J. That’s the problem.
R. I think we cleared something up here, Big Jim. Trying to be meaningful and significant makes us feel like shit. Die Menschen zusammen unter der Stille!
J. Jesus, you speak German?
R. No! Yes! “Humans together under the quiet.” Only the dead cooperate. You don’t have to be a German to understand that. I saw a crocodile tear off a monkey’s arm!
J. Hold on, Ratty . . .
Ratty suddenly tears around in a little blur of a circle. Jim jumps out of the way, watches him swerve and turn, then fall over, panting.
J. You okay?
It takes Ratty a couple of moments to recover. Dazed, he gets up off the floor. Stumbles over to Jim’s big foot and sits down next to it. Jim wants to move, but doesn’t. Ratty’s eyes, like a little child’s, look up at Jim’s.
R. What did you say?
J. I said, you okay?
R. You’re my best friend, Jim.
Jim moves away. Ratty falls asleep. Jim stands there contemplating him. Then, exhausted, sits, rests his head on the table. He notices an ant, mashes it with his thumb. Another one appears over the edge. He lets that one live. It’s quiet in there for twelve hours. Jim can’t tell if he slept or not. If he did, he dreamed Penny either went shopping or to church. Ratty wakes up and goes at it:
R. Shopping, eh? You know what a research rat is worth in the defense department budget? Eight bucks! That’s right, and who gives a damn? I’ll tell you who! The animal rights people, who are doing what for who? Nothing for rats! They’re going to bat for the canaries! What’s so special about them? They can’t even talk! A parrot I could understand.
J. I don’t think they do experiments with parrots.
R. That’s right, because they’re mean and they’re funny. What do parakeets do?
J. Canaries.
R. Right, excuse me. Dying in coal mines is all they’re good for. The lion is courage, the bull is strength.
He laps what’s left of the whiskey in the dish.
R. And there’s the famous snake in the paradise story and the white whale in the other book, but where the hell is the parakeet—I mean canary! Between medical and so-called scientific, not to mention cosmetic, research, more than sixty million animals a year are murdered—dogs, monkeys, and rats mainly. The liberals are hiring lawyers for the dogs and the monkeys, but who’s going to bat for the rats?
J. You know anything about baseball?
R. What? No, I don’t give a rat’s ass about baseball. See, there’s another one: The ass of the rat is worthless, but a leg of lamb costs money.
J. That’s because people eat lambs.
R. Not Hitler, he was a vegetarian. He admired the mystics. Places in India where rats are worshipped. Rats spelled backwards is star.
J. There’s been some monkey stars. I don’t know about rats. Mickey Mouse, maybe.
R. He’s not a rat. He’s not even real. You can’t trust something that’s not real. A rat you can trust, but you can’t trust a monkey. They’ll go on a rampage. That monkey in the Tarzan series? He lives in Palm Springs, spends his time watching reruns, eating Doritos, and drinking lemonade.
J. Fuck the monkey.
R. Right. What’s the worse thing she ever said to you?
J. Who?
R. Accused you of. Penny.
J. Lately? Hasn’t accused me of anything.
R. She must of told you something.
J. She told me I took the joy out of living.
R. That’s a hell of a note.
J. Yeah, but she had a sweet streak too. Had a weakness for kids. Used to be a retarded boy lived down the street, an idiot who she’d let come over, let him watch her water the lawn, teach him how to count, give him a cookie if he could go to ten.
R. What happened to him?
J. Committed an error. Got ahold of a match and started a fire. Lost his visiting privileges.
R. Poor kid.
J. Pissed him off. He’d come over, right up to the edge of the yard, and scream at her.
R. Scream what at her?
J. Fire lady! Then he’d swear at her until she got fed up, had to put the hose on him.
R. I guess he had it coming.
J. Wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know what he was doing.
R. Did you go to bat for him?
J. Sure. No.
R. Sure? No? Which is it? It’s okay, I see what you mean—what’s the point, huh? Maybe I should get out of here.
J. No, no, it’s okay. She’ll stay in bed.
R. Cynophobia is what the white-coats call it. Fear of dogs.
J. She also had fear of comets.
R. Cometophobia, eh?
J. Penny would never go out of her way to watch a comet. But if she heard a dog howl or bark and imagined a comet streak across the sky at the same time, she might go mad. At least that’s what she said. And syphilis. A syphilitic dog could kill her.
R. Sweet Jesus, do dogs get that?
J. I don’t know. Mine never did. I just know she had a fear of it.
R. I can’t help noticing you refer to Penny a lot in the past tense, Jim. Right? Would I be wrong?
Jim drops his head, stares at the floor. Ratty waits. Jim whispers:
J. I poisoned her.
R. Ah! I knew something was up. She didn’t smell it?
J. Nope.
R. Peanut butter?
J. Meat.
R. Wow! Put it in her meat. What kind of meat, Jim?
J. Don’t want to talk about it. You hungry?
R. Not as hungry as I was. I’d like to have a nice little turkey carved out of a block of wood standing on one leg.
J. You like art?
R. Yeah, I like the ads. I like reading ’em, seeing ’em.
J. Lies is what they are.
R. Yeah, but underneath ’em there’s secrets to be found. Right?
J. Secrets are bullshit. Get ’em off your chest and there’s still something wrong.
R. Sounds like you been through it, Jim. That’s why you’re cynical. Me too.
J. You got secrets?
R. They hot-wired my head, fucked with my brains, doped, poisoned, electrocuted, forced me to do unspeakables; I was locked up, made to fight, teased, frozen, starved, and driven nuts. I’m trying to recover. That’s why I came here.
J. That’s not your secret.
R. I’m trying to make friends with you so you don’t kill me. But I al
so kind of wish you would.
J. I’d kind of like to, but now I can’t.
Over the stove the plaster Christ on a wooden cross is what Ratty is looking at.
J. That’s Penny’s.
R. I figured. I’m no expert, but I’ve looked into that story, and I just don’t get it. I mean, where’s the salvation if the Savior dies for love? Or anything else, for that matter. Love kills, is that what that is?
J. You gotta be willing to sacrifice for love, is what that is.
R. Ah! Yeah, I see, okay. The dogs. Right? You made the sacrifice, Jim. If love was easy, everybody would be doing it.
J. If love was easy, it wouldn’t be love.
R. My God, you’re right. If love was easy, it wouldn’t be love. Are you mad at me, Jim?
J. It’s customary to be mad at rats. But no, I’m not.
Ratty gives it a respectful moment.
R. You’re a man to be admired. You had a secret, you disclosed it. What that is, is trust. They could bash out my teeth with a rock and I wouldn’t talk.
J. Who’s “they”?
R. Just a figure of speech. But it’s deeper than that. It’s like I’m your own creation now, your very own little white rat who knows what’s in your heart.
J. The heart, just a damned muscle. It’s a blood pump.
R. You know what I mean. This is like a beginning. Like the first day of creation.
J. There was no first day of creation.
R. The beginning, then.
J. No beginning, no end, that’s just the way we think.
R. Keep teaching me, Jim.
J. Okay, rat, you understand that now is not the same as then, right?
R. Couldn’t you call me Ratty, like you did before?
J. No reverse gear in the transmission of time. It’s gone, like an ash that used to be a tree. Ratty. Okay?
R. What’s gone, the tree?
J. I’m saying everything goes from more to less; more is what’s gone.
R. More or less of what?
J. Sense.
R. The older it gets, the more sense it makes?
J. And the less sense it makes, because everything increases. You see? Stupidity, intelligence, space, time, birth, death. The new stuff sits down on the old stuff. The old stuff gets squeezed out.
R. So if you’re older and more, you make less sense?
J. Try to pay attention.
R. I am!
J. The Gorves increase, but not the Dowlves.
Ratty squints at Jim.
J. There’s always something new that wasn’t there before, and the more there is of that, the less there is of the other.
R. The other being what used to be. What was. The Dowlves. The squeeze-outs?
J. You got it. That’s as simple as it gets. The more organized the system is, the more confusing it becomes. The perfect confusion is what the universe aspires to be. And you know what stops it from getting there?
R. The Gorves?
J. Don’t fuck with me.
R. I’m not, I’m trying to . . . Okay, you say each and every thing is not really real, because all it can ever be is how we see it. Which is the Gorves, a shape based on how we see it?
J. Has nothing to do with it! Gorves don’t have a shape.
R. But the Dowlves do—is that right?
J. No! It’s not. You don’t know shit about the Dowlves.
R. I’m trying, Jim. But this stuff is hard.
Jim shakes his head. It is hard.
R. Come on, don’t give up on me, we’re just getting started.
Jim has a drink.
R. I love the way you drink.
Jim pours a little more into Ratty’s dish.
R. So, you were saying, irreversible . . .
Jim nails Ratty with a look.
J. What is?
On the spot, Ratty, doe-eyed.
R. Cosmic evolution?
J. Here’s what happens. The system fails because it can’t survive what’s outside it.
R. So what’s outside it? The system.
A shrewd and telling grin from Jim. Ratty notices his mentor’s eyes are crossed.
R. You mean death?
J. Ha! Death is nothing compared to what’s outside it. Death is predictable as dirt, in a uniform. But what’s outside it . . .
Ratty waits. Ratty can’t wait.
R. Don’t mean to be a pest, Jim, but what’s outside it?
J. Not the Gorves and the Dowlves. We know what they are. You see where this is headed?
R. You may as well kill me.
J. It won’t make a difference. Not anywhere is where it’s headed. There is nowhere to go. There is no go. Go doesn’t mean anything.
R. So what does?
J. Stay. It’s the most important thing ever said: Stay! It’s one thing we can never do.
R. That makes sense.
J. No, it doesn’t. It never will.
R. You’re smart, Jim. Excuse me.
Ratty finishes off his saucer.
J. I took a course in engineering, but I couldn’t cut the math.
R. But I bet you do the crosswords, right?
J. My fallback was the dogs. Yeah, sometimes I do.
R. That’s why you’re so good with the words.
Jim fixes Ratty with a look.
J. You know what it means to rat on somebody?
R. Snitch on ’em, like Judas did to Christ?
J. He ratted him out.
R. I get it, but rats don’t do that.
J. It’s the rat who leaves the sinking ship.
R. Be a fool not to.
J. I smell a rat. What about that?
R. If you think I might not be reliable or loyal, you would be wrong. You could’ve kept this business about Penny to yourself if you really didn’t trust me.
Jim looks away, stares at the wall.
R. Maybe we should go outside, sit in the garden.
J. We don’t have a garden.
R. Looks like a garden.
J. It’s just grass. Let’s have another drink.
But Jim doesn’t move; he’s gone grim, just stares at the wall.
R. Snap out of it, Jim! We were talking about the heart, remember? Not the muscle, like you said, but that it’s big and wants to help.
J. Help who do what?
R. Help us understand how come we’re misunderstood!
J. You understand why you’re misunderstood, then what?
R. Then you don’t blame somebody else for it.
J. Somebody comes up behind you, hits you in the head with a hammer. You say, how come you did that? Whatever the answer is, two to one, it’s bullshit.
R. That’s philosophy, Jim—go on!
J. Then there’s the physithurisms.
R. What are those? Physithurisms.
J. The sound that the leaves make in the trees, in the breeze. But the parasites and the coffin flies make a sound too. Put ’em in a paper sack and pop it, have it for lunch. Or they have you. Then there’s the other school of thought; save yourself so you can save something better. Which is like putting an armchair in your grave. Either way.
R. Lay down your life for a better Mexico?
J. This isn’t Mexico.
R. It isn’t?
J. No, it isn’t.
R. Did it used to be?
J. Everything used to be something it isn’t. Like a grasshopper in a cup of coffee. No matter how good it is to make a plan, it’s always better when it’s canceled.
R. That makes sense.
J. No, it doesn’t.
At any second, Jim could have yelled
Knock it off! and that would have been that. But he didn’t, and now Ratty wants to kiss him, but lacks the lips, and if that weren’t the case, he still wouldn’t kiss him because Big Jim wouldn’t allow it.
There is half an eggplant on the counter, a bowl of sugar Ratty sampled before he was caught, and two unwashed dishes in the sink. This is not the kitchen of his dreams.
Jim had counseled him to take none of it seriously. Yet Jim was struggling to set it straight. The Gorves and the Dowlves. Ratty wasn’t born yesterday; he knew there were no such things. Keep drinking and pretend to teach is the thing. Ratty and Jim, narrowing the divide.
I changed my name again. Last night I decided on a new one, a name that will stick. Cargot. Not like got; the last syllable should be pronounced like go, the French way, Car-got. A name to accommodate a big load of talent. No first name, just an initial. They’ll say, What’s the S for? Sam? Nope, guess again. And they might, but they won’t get it, and I won’t say it. That’s it, I’m not going to change anything about myself again.
Lots of days and too many nights dreaming about what needed to be done, and now I’m doing it. Way back when he was big, I knew Troy Donahue. That’s when I got the bug, but for some reason, fear maybe, I avoided the risk of actually taking the plunge, of making the commitment. I remember one day, Troy brought his agent over for a barbecue, a lawn party, not unlike this one I’m about to attend, and I had a chance, the chance to make an impression, but I was shy, I felt ugly, insecure, and I blew it. That agent died a long time ago, he got fatter and fatter and then he was dead. And now I hear Troy is gone, but I’m still here, and today I come out of my shell.
There comes a time when talent, no matter how much it’s repressed, must come forth and claim its place with those others, the greats who’ve preceded me. I know it’s a journey, but no matter what the obstructions that rise up before me, I’ll get around them, over them, plow right through them if need be. It’s a question of tenacity. No matter how high the peaks, the steaming swamps, the flat arid deserts, the insurmountables, I’ll reach the goal. An actor worth his salt is a pilgrim to Mecca. (I don’t like salt.)
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep’st me blind / Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find. Shakespeare! Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. Williams! I love Tennessee. I’ve worked on them all and read everything that’s come my way. The mystery of that radiant clarity that occurs when the inner identity of a thing shines forth and is about to break out of it’s shell. I go forth. To find in motion what is lost in space—that’s Tennessee again, God bless him.
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