Where Three Roads Meet

by John Barth

  Winifred Stark's entire hysteria; Wilfred Chase's groaning speechlessness; Alfred Baumann's calm consumption of the last of his beef cubes, washed down with the red jug-wine to which the Three Freds treated themselves on Friday evenings before repairing to the Trivium and thence et cetera: In time, perhaps, one would be up to rendering such things into language.

  "One better fucking had be," now growls Al's ghost. "That's what you're fucking for!"

  Well...

  "Well, hell! Take it from the edge, as we musician types used to say: Tell the Three Freds Story over and over, damn it, till you get it right! Even after you get it right, if you ever do."

  Yes, well, Al...

  "Check our job descriptions, man: I did my thing, and then got my fat ass offstage on cue. Win did hers by spreading her legs for me and then for you and then for Doc Mat-son's D and C. So now you do yours: Tell me! Tell us!"

  Narrator had aspired to do no less: the protracted though mercifully pain-dulled dying, which would have been expedited by suicide, friend-assisted or otherwise, but for Al's determination to press on to the end with the final-drafting of his Rebirth of the Ur-Myth thesis. Winnie's late-July dilation and curettage, assented to reluctantly by her fiancé but right readily by his contrite cuckolder, and performed discreetly by gynecologist Matson under the pretext, routine in those days, of removing a suspicious cervical lesion. ("That's taking the Imperiled Infancy thing a bit far, no?" Al joked wearily—all but bedridden then and about to be shifted, of necessity, from Briarwood 304 back to his boyhood bedroom in his parents' house, his hoped-for remission having proved only partial and his need of nursing care ever more pressing.) His quiet December expiration, with his dissertation's closing chapter—"Will He Return?"—still in revision. The Three Freds' subsequently going, like the arms of an equiangular Y, their separate ways: Al to the Baumann family grave plot in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Winnie to a season of prostrate guilty grief and halfhearted psychotherapy, but then on to her college graduation after all, followed by a restorative summer in France with two Goucher classmates and a new life thereafter on North America's other coast, having nothing to do either with music (so Will heard through the Briarwood grapevine) or with her erstwhile fellow Cheatery preceptor—himself by then involved with another lover. Their Trivium-trio was replaced by a nameless electric-guitar/-bass/-keyboard outfit playing an overamplified new pop music called rock-and-roll, which its devotees predicted (absurdly, in Fred Three's mistaken opinion) would be to the century's second half what jazz in its several forms—Dixieland, swing, progressive, bebop—had been to its first.

  And the nowise heroical Wilfred Chase? Still not yet twenty at the time here told of, just entering his junior undergraduate year at VVLU, he'll find that quite as he'd been shocked speechless by his Sidekick's Friday-night-fondue announcement of fatal malignancy, that irreplaceable comrade's dying will shock him, as it were, into speech—anyhow into a redoubled conviction of his calling, whether or not he proved capable of adequate response: an impassioned resolve to tell, not only Al Baumann's story, the Three Freds Story (trifles in themselves, and yet, and yet...), but also, though he could not then have put it into these words, the story of those stories. Maybe even somehow (rest in peace, bass-shaped buddy, while your determined tutee does his damnedest to keep the beat!) the capital-S Story's story, whatever that might be.

  "Chances are, of course, he won't manage it," comments the slope-shouldered spirit of his erstwhile Helper. "The odds against him are about the same as against any given motile spermatozoon, even. And he's got so fucking much yet to learn!"

  Granted, Al. Nor is he one of your capital-H Heroes, for sure.

  All the same (concludes the Three Freds Story), he's going to try.

  II

  I'VE BEEN TOLD: A STORY'S STORY

  Once upon a time, I've been told, we Stories kicked off with "Once upon a time," or some other such Square One formulation, and then took it from there: Leda lays egg, egg hatches Helen, Helen lays Paris, Greeks lay waste to Troy, et cetera. Or, closer to home, "My name is I've Been Told. I began two sentences ago with Once upon a time, and here I am: wide-eyed hatchling, old as the hills but clueless as to who and where I might be this time and what'll happen next."

  Not quite so. If some of my plain-folks ancestors (and some not-so-plain ones who for one reason or another wore Plainness as a camouflage) began as if straightforwardly at their "beginnings," others equally venerable thought it best to start off in the middle of things: in medias res, as Coach Horace famously put it, not ab ovo with the egg abovementioned. Which fateful ovum, be it noted, wasn't really the Troy tale's Square One anyhow, since in order for Ms. Leda to lay the thing, Zeus-in-swan-drag had to lay Leda, and back we go, chicken
  Fact is, an old pro like Yours Truly can have it both ways: Once upon a time, e.g., there was a story that began not only in the middle of things but well past that middle, just a hop/skip/hobble from Climax and Curtain—and that story c'est moi, guys, and here's how I go, now that I've got myself cranked and more or less under way:

  Who "I" am, see, is your world-renowned, ball-busting Myth of the Wandering Hero—but you can just call me Fred. Or Frank or Florence, Fiorello or Fiddle-Dee-Dee; I've used a thousand aka's, and none of 'em's me, so Fred'll do. Old-Fart Fred, let's say: the kind of Seedy Senior you might see straggling west along the shoulder of the interstate, long raggedy hair and beard, patchwork clothes like some displaced Robinson Crusoe's, all his earthly possessions in cruddy sacks slung over his shoulders, heedless of the SUVs and eighteen-wheelers roaring by, which aren't allowed to stop and offer him a lift even should they so incline. Which you can bet your bottom buck they don't, any more than you would—who, however, have been enough taken by the queer apparition at least to slow down, shake head, and wonder where in the wide world I'm coming from, and where headed and why, and how I got this way, and what I think of myself and the story of my life, and how I'll manage to scrounge my next meal out here on the eight-laner, and where I'll lay my flea-bit carcass down to sleep tonight. Thanks for that, Reader dear.

  "Story of my life," did I just hear me say? And (somewhere back there) "I've been told..."? Boyoboy, friends, have I ever, a hundred hundred times over! Being told, you might say, is the story of my life and the life of my story; told over and over, whether by different tellers or by the same teller at different times and in different ways: straight up and slantwise, minimally and maximally, realistically and fantastically, comically and tragically—and as narrative or drama, in prose/verse/song, set in sundry locales at sundry "times" with sundry casts of characters, but under all those trappings the same old me, Same Old Story, starring same old Oedipus/Perseus/Odysseus/Aeneas aka Peripatetic Pete or Freaked-Out Fred, all of whom and a shitload more I've "been" and none of whom's me, as I may've mentioned already, inasmuch as I'm no really real person (granted, we all feel that way now and then) nor even "really" a Fictional Character like those hero types abovementioned. Fact is, friends, I'm a fucking fiction, know what I'm saying? Just an old-fart story, maybe the oldest in the books—but let's just call me Fred. If I seem to ramble here and there, that may be because I ramble here and there, as geezers will. Or it may be (Reader take note) that I only seem to ramble, while actually getting a bunch of that left-hand business done.

  O.-F. Fred, then, whose Whole Story compriseth no fewer than four full "acts," although various of my
tellers have contented themselves with just one or another thereof. If you know the drill already, skip this paragraph. If not, let me remind you that I "begin" (you know what I mean) with my star-of-the-moment's Unusual Conception (Mom a Royal Virgin, literal or figurative; Dad rumored to be a God, ditto) and Imperiled Infancy (Threat and Rescue, Wound and Scar—the last of those useful for later ID); his Obscure Childhood "in another country" (lit. or fig.); his eventual Summons to Adventure; his Setting Out with help of Helper (and/or magical Weapon, Token, Password), bound either Homeward or Bottom-of-Thingsward or both, and his loss of Way/Weapon/Sidekick/Whatever as he approaches or crosses the Threshold of Adventure, from Day-lit Waking World to Twilight Zone. Sound familiar? I should hope so, unless you were born yesterday (in which case, watch your back, kid, and keep your guard up). My Act Two? Obstacles and Adversaries! Riddles and Combats! Tests and Trials of every sort and size, overcome with help of re-found Helper or whatever else my guy lost back there at the Threshold. Descent to Underworld's dark heart; slaying of ultimate Dragon or Ogre; penetration of Mystery's innermost sanctum and/or of Captive Princess's. Sacred Marriage, is what I'm saying: mystical Illumination, consummate Consummation, Transcension of Categories, un-mediated Knowledge, and like that? No wonder (Act Three) the bloke often needs goosing out of bed and back on course: a Summons to Return home-baseward from the Axis Mundi, delivered just about one-eighty around the Heroic track from where he got his original marching orders. So back upstairs he goes, maybe with Ms. Pronged Princess in tow or some other souvenir from the Bottom of Things, and maybe shifting shapes and costumes en route to give pursuers the slip, so that when (Act Four) he recrosses through Customs to the World Upstairs, he may be either in drag or else so morphed by his Adventures Thus Far that the homeland-security folks draw a blank till he flashes his afore-established Scar or other unequivocal ID. Which done, he Routs the Pretenders, assumes his rightful place as his hometown's Chief-in-Chief (or founds a New Burg, either on a hilltop or, like a stop-at-nothing real estate developer, in a marshfill), lays down the Law, and rules the waves, so to speak—he having, so to speak, waived all the rules—for, oh, eight years or thereabouts? Couple of Olympiads, let's say, or U.S. presidential terms? Anyhow, until he wakes up one not-so-fine morning to find himself and his administration inexplicably Fallen from Favor with gods and parishioners alike: the old magic flown, his authority kaput. Nothing for it, tant pis, but Exile (voluntary or otherwise) from his City, and the lonely trudge toward his Mysterious Finis—most often in a Sacred Grove, so I'm told, on a more or less Magic Mountain or at least a Spooky Hilltop, not un-reminiscent of the Square One site of his Unusual Conception. Where his remains remain, nobody's certain, but several towns claim that touristical attraction. Some say the chap's not really dead, just taking a sabbatical leave from Heroing. Some swear that he'll be back, one of these days.

  Heard that tune somewhere before, have you, luv? Then it should come as no surprise that after so many remakes and reruns I find myself "identifying," as they say nowadays, with my Protagonists: those serial slam-bangers from every age and culture who after a while amalgamate into one, and whose story becomes my story. Consider, s.v.p.: Mom a Virgin Queen and Dad a Maybe-God? You'd better believe it; how else did I get to be the Boss-Man Story I am, or anyhow was? Oldest in the book, first out of Ma Muse's womb and lord of the litter, sired by we-might-as-well-say Divine Imagination. And as for Imperiled Infancy and the rest, what tale's not in mortal danger till its testicles descend and it finds its voice? Which is to say, its Sidekick/Helper—in my case, the ablest yarnspinners on Planet Earth, whose words have been my Magic Passport. Obstacles and Adversaries? Try book burnings and other censorships, lost manuscripts and sacked libraries, whole civilizations destroyed or petered out, not to mention trivialization, Disneyfication, bumbling bards, and other such hazards. I marvel that I'm here at all! But upon my own Princess/Queen, the Muse of Archetypes, I've sired a worldwide web of Guys-Like-That tales, codified and commentaried by mythologers and pedants of every stripe.

  A not-bad career, in short, and over its long course each episode in turn has been the one that seemed most Me-like. Until recently that had been the Triumphal Reign bit, from which I would look back with proprietary satisfaction (and not a little headshaking relief) at those harrowing earlier installments—just as, in ages past, I'd looked forward, eagerly, to the episodes ahead, while feeling most akin to Endangered/Abandoned Tot, Fledgling Adventurer, Full-Fettled Dragonslayer/Princess-Penetrator, and Returnee-in-Disguise about to rout Pretenders and reclaim Throne. Each in turn, I say, has felt like Where I'm At; 'tis a symptom of encroaching old-fartity, I don't doubt, that a time came when I found it ever harder to see myself as Oedipus the Rex, Odysseus the Suitor-Slayer, Aeneas the Empire-Founder, the Ur-Tale Victorious. What I got to sensing instead was ... oh, I don't know: something like a fidget in the audience? As if the old shtick were losing its shine, like one of those smash-hit TV sitcoms that's dulled its edge because it's become its own adversary: its own hardest act to follow, if you follow me. So many dead Dragons, routed Pretenders, punctured Princesses and newfounded Cities—who needed yet another? It wasn't the Perseuses and Aeneases I came to feel most akin to, but the Lears and Prosperos: "my magic all o'erthrown," my City urban-blighted and suburban-sprawled, my Laws crusted and clotted with niggling amendments and commentaries-on-commentaries. Budget deficits, creaking infrastructure, cabinet ministers and heirs at sixes and sevens, calls for impeachment, even, and the barbarians arming out in the boonies! So okay, you might say: Who doesn't sometimes feel like a stranger in his/her own house, her/his own skin? But with O.-F. Fred it was no longer "sometimes."

  Truth to tell (and we myths do that, believe us or not, in our old-fashioned fashion), I got to feeling just about ready to hang it up, pack it in, bid the homefolks hasta la vista, and clear out of here; hobble offstage while I could still hobble, and hit the old road again, to wherever. There's that Hilltop I'd so often told or been told of, somewhere Out Yonder; maybe it was time for me to trudge thataway? But I couldn't help half wishing—just reflex, I suppose; long-established habit—that I could pull off one more Biggie before I bowed out; close my curtain with a bang. Problem was, even we big-boss mythic-wandering-hero-tale types can't dream up our own specifics and tell ourselves: We need a particularizer, a reorchestrator, an inventive sidekick/mouthpiece—in a word (dot dot dot) a Teller.

  So, Reader/Listener/Fellow Traveler: You know now who I am and where I'm coming from, right? What in the storytelling business we call the Exposition. And you've learned where I'm at at the time I tell of and what my capital-P Problem is—my Ground Situation, if you will: "a more or less voltaged state of affairs pre-existing the tale's Present Action," as they say in Taletelling 101. So you needn't be in the biz yourself to guess what's supposed to happen next: the famous And then one day that shifts narrative gears from the general and habitual to the specific and different; the novel element, character, or turn of events that introduces what we old hands call the Dramatic Vehicle, whose job (pardon the tech talk) is to precipitate a Story out of that afore-established Ground Situation.

  Ready? You couldn't be more so than was Call-Me-Fred, whose all-'round out-of-it-hood reaches the point (now it can be told) where he packs his Narrative Bags (a-moldering on the shelf for lo these many seasons) and bids family and disaffected citizenry bye-bye. Hits the figurative road, does Figurative Fred; slips incognito out of town, as it were, looking not unlike that Seedy Senior on the interstate afore-invoked. But he gets no farther than—oh, some Place Where Three Roads Meet, shall we figuratively say? Pauses there to scratch head/arse/whatever; sits himself down (on a handy rock-seat smack in the middle of that fabled intersection) to Consider—and here I sit yet, as if at a bus stop in mid-Nowhere, talking to myself whilst awaiting my Dramatic Vehicle. Back yonder, the once-impressive ramparts of my City, cruddy now from deferred maintenance. Somewhere off either thataway or this, that consummatory Hilltop where et
cetera. And over thisaway or that? Don't ask me, folks; I'm a stranger here myself.

  And then one day...nothing happened? Nah, that was yesterday. Too many yesterdays.

  And then one day...a certain Who-Knows-Whom chugs up in as high-mileage a queer old brokedown buggy as ever clunked down the narrative road. Sees me sitting there a-twiddling my thumbs and asks me, Need a lift? Depends, says I, all the while giving him and his beat-up three-wheeler (yup) the once-over, as did he me: Where you bound for? I couldn't tell for sure, vis-à-vis that idling not-so-hotrod, whether it was some antique Real McCoy or a high-tech trike in rattletrap drag. No two ways about its idling driver, though: a graybeard geezer like Yours Truly, plaid flannel shirt and worn-but-clean blue jeans; one whose experience and know-how, if such he had, might or might not make up for slowed-down reflexes and loss of muscle.

  Damned if I know, says he—maybe honestly, maybe not, as his expression included a twinkle among its seams and creases. You look like a fellow who's been around the block a time or two: I was hoping you could tell me which road leads where.

  To which I heard myself reply, Check out our job descriptions, Stranger: Telling's not my department. Anyhow, if you and these wheels are what I take you-all for, and if I'm what it suits you to have me be, then we both know what lies ahead no matter which way we go.

  By which I meant, of course, Complication of Conflict, Escalation of Stakes, and general up-ratcheting of Action toward Climax and Denouement. In a word, the usual.