Donald Barthelme

by Donald Barthelme

  “I happen to think that guy in the White House is doing a pretty darn good job.” Peterson’s barber, a man named Kitchen who was also a lay analyst and the author of four books titled The Decision To Be, was the only person in the world to whom he had confided his former sense of community with the President. “As far as his relationship with you personally goes,” the barber continued, “it’s essentially a kind of I-Thou relationship, if you know what I mean. You got to handle it with full awareness of the implications. In the end one experiences only oneself, Nietzsche said. When you’re angry with the President, what you experience is self-as-angry-with-the-President. When things are okay between you and him, what you experience is self-as-swinging-with-the-President. Well and good. But,” Kitchen said, lathering up, “you want the relationship to be such that what you experience is the-President-as-swinging-with-you. You want his reality, get it? So that you can break out of the hell of solipsism. How about a little more off the sides?” “Everybody knows the language but me,” Peterson said irritably. “Look,” Kitchen said, “when you talk about me to somebody else, you say ‘my barber,’ don’t you? Sure you do. In the same way, I look at you as being ‘my customer,’ get it? But you don’t regard yourself as being ‘my’ customer and I don’t regard myself as ‘your’ barber. Oh, it’s hell all right.” The razor moved like a switchblade across the back of Peterson’s neck. “Like Pascal said: ‘The natural misfortune of our mortal and feeble condition is so wretched that when we consider it closely, nothing can console us.’ The razor rocketed around an ear. “Listen,” Peterson said, “what do you think of this television program called Who Am I? Ever seen it?” “Frankly,” the barber said, “it smells of the library. But they do a job on those people, I’ll tell you that.” “What do you mean?” Peterson said excitedly. “What kind of a job?” The cloth was whisked away and shaken with a sharp popping sound. “It’s too horrible even to talk about,” Kitchen said. “But it’s what they deserve, those crumbs.” “Which crumbs?” Peterson asked.

  That night a tall foreign-looking man with a switchblade big as a butcherknife open in his hand walked into the loft without knocking and said “Good evening, Mr. Peterson, I am the cat-piano player, is there anything you’d particularly like to hear?” “Cat-piano?” Peterson said, gasping, shrinking from the knife. “What are you talking about? What do you want?” A biography of Nolde slid from his lap to the floor. “The cat-piano,” said the visitor, “is an instrument of the devil, a diabolical instrument. You needn’t sweat quite so much,” he added, sounding aggrieved. Peterson tried to be brave. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Let me explain,” the tall foreign-looking man said graciously. “The keyboard consists of eight cats—the octave—encased in the body of the instrument in such a way that only their heads and forepaws protrude. The player presses upon the appropriate paws, and the appropriate cats respond—with a kind of shriek. There is also provision made for pulling their tails. A tail-puller, or perhaps I should say tail player” (he smiled a disingenuous smile) “is stationed at the rear of the instrument, where the tails are. At the correct moment the tail-puller pulls the correct tail. The tail-note is of course quite different from the paw-note and produces sounds in the upper registers. Have you ever seen such an instrument, Mr. Peterson?” “No, and I don’t believe it exists,” Peterson said heroically. “There is an excellent early seventeenth-century engraving by Franz van der Wyngaert, Mr. Peterson, in which a cat-piano appears. Played, as it happens, by a man with a wooden leg. You will observe my own leg.” The cat-piano player hoisted his trousers and a leglike contraption of wood, metal and plastic appeared. “And now, would you like to make a request? ‘The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian’? The ‘Romeo and Juliet’ overture? ‘Holiday for Strings’?” “But why—” Peterson began. “The kitten is crying for milk, Mr. Peterson. And whenever a kitten cries, the cat-piano plays.” “But it’s not my kitten,” Peterson said reasonably. “It’s just a kitten that wished itself on me. I’ve been trying to give it away. I’m not sure it’s still around. I haven’t seen it since the day before yesterday.” The kitten appeared, looked at Peterson reproachfully, and then rubbed itself against the cat-piano player’s mechanical leg. “Wait a minute!” Peterson exclaimed. “This thing is rigged! That cat hasn’t been here in two days. What do you want from me? What am I supposed to do?” “Choices, Mr. Peterson, choices. You chose that kitten as a way of encountering that which you are not, that is to say, kitten. An effort on the part of the pour-soi to—” “But it chose me!” Peterson cried, “the door was open and the first thing I knew it was lying in my bed, under the Army blanket. I didn’t have anything to do with it!” The cat-piano player repeated his disingenuous smile. “Yes, Mr. Peterson, I know, I know. Things are done to you, it is all a gigantic conspiracy. I’ve heard the story a hundred times. But the kitten is here, is it not? The kitten is weeping, is it not?” Peterson looked at the kitten, which was crying huge tigerish tears into its empty dish. “Listen Mr. Peterson,” the cat-piano player said, “listen!” The blade of his immense knife jumped back into the handle with a thwack! and the hideous music began.

  The day after the hideous music began the three girls from California arrived. Peterson opened his door, hesitantly, in response to an insistent ringing, and found himself being stared at by three girls in blue jeans and heavy sweaters, carrying suitcases. “I’m Sherry,” the first girl said, “and this is Ann and this is Louise. We’re from California and we need a place to stay.” They were homely and extremely purposeful. “I’m sorry,” Peterson said, “I can’t—” “We sleep anywhere,” Sherry said, looking past him into the vastness of his loft, “on the floor if we have to. We’ve done it before.” Ann and Louise stood on their toes to get a good look. “What’s that funny music?” Sherry asked, “it sounds pretty far-out. We really won’t be any trouble at all and it’ll just be a little while until we make a connection.” “Yes,” Peterson said, “but why me?” “You’re an artist,” Sherry said sternly, “we saw the A.I.R. sign downstairs.” Peterson cursed the fire laws which made posting of the signs obligatory. “Listen,” he said, “I can’t even feed the cat. I can’t even keep myself in beer. This is not the place. You won’t be happy here. My work isn’t authentic. I’m a minor artist.” “The natural misfortune of our mortal and feeble condition is so wretched that when we consider it closely, nothing can console us,” Sherry said. “That’s Pascal.” “I know,” Peterson said, weakly. “Where is the john?” Louise asked. Ann marched into the kitchen and began to prepare, from supplies removed from her rucksack, something called veal engagé. “Kiss me,” Sherry said, “I need love.” Peterson flew to his friendly neighborhood bar, ordered a double brandy, and wedged himself into a telephone booth. “Miss Arbor? This is Hank Peterson. Listen, Miss Arbor, I can’t do it. No, I mean really. I’m being punished horribly for even thinking about it. No, I mean it. You can’t imagine what’s going on around here. Please, get somebody else? I’d regard it as a great personal favor. Miss Arbor? Please?”

  The other contestants were a young man in white pajamas named Arthur Pick, a karate expert, and an airline pilot in full uniform, Wallace E. Rice. “Just be natural,” Miss Arbor said, “and of course be frank. We score on the basis of the validity of your answers, and of course that’s measured by the polygraph.” “What’s this about a polygraph?” the airline pilot said. “The polygraph measures the validity of your answers,” Miss Arbor said, her lips glowing whitely. “How else are we going to know if you’re . . .” “Lying?” Wallace E. Rice supplied. The contestants were connected to the machine and the machine to a large illuminated tote board hanging over their heads. The master of ceremonies, Peterson noted without pleasure, resembled the President and did not look at all friendly.

  The program began with Arthur Pick. Arthur Pick got up in his white pajamas and gave a karate demonstration in which he broke three half-inch pine boards with a single kick of his naked left foot. Then he told how h
e had disarmed a bandit, late at night at the A&P where he was an assistant manager, with a maneuver called a “rip-choong” which he demonstrated on the announcer. “How about that?” the announcer caroled. “Isn’t that something? Audience?” The audience responded enthusiastically and Arthur Pick stood modestly with his hands behind his back. “Now,” the announcer said, “let’s play Who Am I? And here’s your host, Bill Lemmon!” No, he doesn’t look like the President, Peterson decided. “Arthur,” Bill Lemmon said, “for twenty dollars—do you love your mother?” “Yes,” Arthur Pick said. “Yes, of course.” A bell rang, the tote board flashed, and the audience screamed. “He’s lying!” the announcer shouted, “lying! lying! lying!” “Arthur,” Bill Lemmon said, looking at his index cards, “the polygraph shows that the validity of your answer is . . . questionable. Would you like to try it again? Take another crack at it?” “You’re crazy,” Arthur Pick said. “Of course I love my mother.” He was fishing around inside his pajamas for a handkerchief. “Is your mother watching the show tonight, Arthur?” “Yes, Bill, she is.” “How long have you been studying karate?” “Two years, Bill.” “And who paid for the lessons?” Arthur Pick hesitated. Then he said: “My mother, Bill.” “They were pretty expensive, weren’t they, Arthur?” “Yes, Bill, they were.” “How expensive?” “Five dollars an hour.” “Your mother doesn’t make very much money, does she, Arthur?” “No, Bill, she doesn’t.” “Arthur, what does your mother do for a living?” “She’s a garment worker, Bill. In the garment district.” “And how long has she worked down there?” “All her life, I guess. Since my old man died.” “And she doesn’t make very much money, you said.” “No. But she wanted to pay for the lessons. She insisted on it.” Bill Lemmon said: “She wanted a son who could break boards with his feet?” Peterson’s liver leaped and the tote board spelled out, in huge, glowing white letters, the words BAD FAITH. The airline pilot, Wallace E. Rice, was led to reveal that he had been caught, on a flight from Omaha to Miami, with a stewardess sitting on his lap and wearing his captain’s cap, that the flight engineer had taken a Polaroid picture, and that he had been given involuntary retirement after nineteen years of faithful service. “It was perfectly safe,” Wallace E. Rice said, “you don’t understand, the automatic pilot can fly that plane better than I can.” He further confessed to a lifelong and intolerable itch after stewardesses which had much to do, he said, with the way their jackets fell just on top of their hips, and his own jacket with the three gold stripes on the sleeve darkened with sweat until it was black.

  I was wrong, Peterson thought, the world is absurd. The absurdity is punishing me for not believing in it. I affirm the absurdity. On the other hand, absurdity is itself absurd. Before the emcee could ask the first question, Peterson began to talk. “Yesterday,” Peterson said to the television audience, “in the typewriter in front of the Olivetti showroom on Fifth Avenue, I found a recipe for Ten Ingredient Soup that included a stone from a toad’s head. And while I stood there marveling a nice old lady pasted on the elbow of my best Haspel suit a little blue sticker reading THIS INDIVIDUAL IS A PART OF THE COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY FOR GLOBAL DOMINATION OF THE ENTIRE GLOBE. Coming home I passed a sign that said in ten-foot letters COWARD SHOES and heard a man singing “Golden Earrings” in a horrible voice, and last night I dreamed there was a shoot-out at our house on Meat Street and my mother shoved me in a closet to get me out of the line of fire.” The emcee waved at the floor manager to turn Peterson off, but Peterson kept talking. “In this kind of a world,” Peterson said, “absurd if you will, possibilities nevertheless proliferate and escalate all around us and there are opportunities for beginning again. I am a minor artist and my dealer won’t even display my work if he can help it but minor is as minor does and lightning may strike even yet. Don’t be reconciled. Turn off your television sets,” Peterson said, “cash in your life insurance, indulge in a mindless optimism. Visit girls at dusk. Play the guitar. How can you be alienated without first having been connected? Think back and remember how it was.” A man on the floor in front of Peterson was waving a piece of cardboard on which something threatening was written but Peterson ignored him and concentrated on the camera with the little red light. The little red light jumped from camera to camera in an attempt to throw him off balance but Peterson was too smart for it and followed wherever it went. “My mother was a royal virgin,” Peterson said, “and my father a shower of gold. My childhood was pastoral and energetic and rich in experiences which developed my character. As a young man I was noble in reason, infinite in faculty, in form express and admirable, and in apprehension . . .” Peterson went on and on and although he was, in a sense, lying, in a sense he was not.

  UNSPEAKABLE PRACTICES,

  UNNATURAL ACTS

  To Herman Gollob

  The Indian Uprising

  WE DEFENDED the city as best we could. The arrows of the Comanches came in clouds. The war clubs of the Comanches clattered on the soft, yellow pavements. There were earthworks along the Boulevard Mark Clark and the hedges had been laced with sparkling wire. People were trying to understand. I spoke to Sylvia. “Do you think this is a good life?” The table held apples, books, long-playing records. She looked up. “No.”

  Patrols of paras and volunteers with armbands guarded the tall, flat buildings. We interrogated the captured Comanche. Two of us forced his head back while another poured water into his nostrils. His body jerked, he choked and wept. Not believing a hurried, careless, and exaggerated report of the number of casualties in the outer districts where trees, lamps, swans had been reduced to clear fields of fire we issued entrenching tools to those who seemed trustworthy and turned the heavy-weapons companies so that we could not be surprised from that direction. And I sat there getting drunker and drunker and more in love and more in love. We talked.

  “Do you know Fauré’s ‘Dolly’?”

  “Would that be Gabriel Fauré?”

  “It would.”

  “Then I know it,” she said. “May I say that I play it at certain times, when I am sad, or happy, although it requires four hands.”

  “How is that managed?”

  “I accelerate,” she said, “ignoring the time signature.”

  And when they shot the scene in the bed I wondered how you felt under the eyes of the cameramen, grips, juicers, men in the mixing booth: excited? stimulated? And when they shot the scene in the shower I sanded a hollow-core door working carefully against the illustrations in texts and whispered instructions from one who had already solved the problem. I had made after all other tables, one while living with Nancy, one while living with Alice, one while living with Eunice, one while living with Marianne.

  Red men in waves like people scattering in a square startled by something tragic or a sudden, loud noise accumulated against the barricades we had made of window dummies, silk, thoughtfully planned job descriptions (including scales for the orderly progress of other colors), wine in demijohns, and robes. I analyzed the composition of the barricade nearest me and found two ashtrays, ceramic, one dark brown and one dark brown with an orange blur at the lip; a tin frying pan; two-litre bottles of red wine; three-quarter-litre bottles of Black & White, aquavit, cognac, vodka, gin, Fad #6 sherry; a hollow-core door in birch veneer on black wrought-iron legs; a blanket, red-orange with faint blue stripes; a red pillow and a blue pillow; a woven straw wastebasket; two glass jars for flowers; corkscrews and can openers; two plates and two cups, ceramic, dark brown; a yellow-and-purple poster; a Yugoslavian carved flute, wood, dark brown; and other items. I decided I knew nothing.

  The hospitals dusted wounds with powders the worth of which was not quite established, other supplies having been exhausted early in the first day. I decided I knew nothing. Friends put me in touch with a Miss R., a teacher, unorthodox they said, excellent they said, successful with difficult cases, steel shutters on the windows made the house safe. I had just learned via an International Distress Coupon that Jane had be
en beaten up by a dwarf in a bar on Tenerife but Miss R. did not allow me to speak of it. “You know nothing,” she said, “you feel nothing, you are locked in a most savage and terrible ignorance, I despise you, my boy, mon cher, my heart. You may attend but you must not attend now, you must attend later, a day or a week or an hour, you are making me ill. . . .” I nonevaluated these remarks as Korzybski instructed. But it was difficult. Then they pulled back in a feint near the river and we rushed into that sector with a reinforced battalion hastily formed among the Zouaves and cabdrivers. This unit was crushed in the afternoon of a day that began with spoons and letters in hallways and under windows where men tasted the history of the heart, cone-shaped muscular organ that maintains circulation of the blood.

  But it is you I want now, here in the middle of this Uprising, with the streets yellow and threatening, short, ugly lances with fur at the throat and inexplicable shell money lying in the grass. It is when I am with you that I am happiest, and it is for you that I am making this hollow-core door table with black wrought-iron legs. I held Sylvia by her bear-claw necklace. “Call off your braves,” I said. “We have many years left to live.” There was a sort of muck running in the gutters, yellowish, filthy stream suggesting excrement, or nervousness, a city that does not know what it has done to deserve baldness, errors, infidelity. “With luck you will survive until matins,” Sylvia said. She ran off down the Rue Chester Nimitz, uttering shrill cries.