Brain Damage
In the first garbage dump I found a book describing a rich new life of achievement, prosperity, and happiness. A rich new life of achievement, prosperity, and happiness could not be achieved alone, the book said. It must be achieved with the aid of spirit teachers. At long last a way had been found to reach the spirit world. Once the secret was learned, spirit teachers would assist you through the amazing phenomenon known as ESP. My spirit teachers wanted to help me, the book said. As soon as I contacted them, they would do everything in their power to grant my desires. An example, on page 117: A middle-aged woman was being robbed, but as the thief was taking her purse, a flash of blue light like a tiny lightning bolt knocked his gun out of his hands and he fled in terror. That was just the beginning, the book said. One could learn how to eliminate hostility from the hearts of others.
We thought about the blue flowers. Different people had different ideas about them. Henry wanted to “turn them on.” We brought wires and plugs and a screwdriver, and wired the green ends of the flowers (the bottom part, where they had been cut) to the electrical wire. We were sort of afraid to plug them in, though—afraid of all that electricity pushing its way up the green stalks of the flowers, flooding the leaves, and finally touching the petals, the blue part, where the blueness of the flowers resided, along with white, and a little yellow. “What kind of current is this, that we are possibly going to plug the flowers into?” Gregory asked. It seemed to be alternating current rather than direct current. That was what we all thought, because most of the houses in this part of the country were built in compliance with building codes that required AC. In fact, you don’t find much DC around any more, because in the early days of electricity, many people were killed by it.
“Well, plug them in,” Grace said. Because she wanted to see the flowers light up, or collapse, or do whatever they were going to do, when they were plugged in.
The humanist position is not to plug in the flowers—to let them alone. Humanists believe in letting everything alone to be what it is, insofar as possible. The new electric awareness, however, requires that the flowers be plugged in, right away. Toynbee’s notions of challenge and response are also, perhaps, apposite. My own idea about whether or not to plug in the flowers is somewhere between these ideas, in that gray area where nothing is done, really, but you vacillate for a while, thinking about it. The blue of the flowers is extremely handsome against the gray of that area.
A great waiter died, and all of the other waiters were saddened. At the restaurant, sadness was expressed. Black napkins were draped over black arms. Black tablecloths were distributed. Several nearby streets were painted black—those leading to the establishment in which Guignol had placed his plates with legendary tact. Guignol’s medals (for like a great beer he had been decorated many times, at international exhibitions in Paris, Brussels, Rio de Janeiro) were turned over to his mistress, La Lupe. The body was poached in white wine, stock, olive oil, vinegar, aromatic vegetables, herbs, garlic, and slices of lemon for twenty-four hours and displayed en Aspic on a bed of lettuce leaves. Hundreds of famous triflers appeared to pay their last respects. Guignol’s colleagues recalled with pleasure the master’s most notable eccentricity. Having coolly persuaded some innocent to select a thirty-dollar bottle of wine, he never failed to lean forward conspiratorially and whisper in his victim’s ear, “Cuts the grease.”
A dream: I am looking at a ship, an ocean-going vessel the size of the Michelangelo. But unlike the Michelangelo this ship is not painted a dazzling white; it is caked with rust. And it is not in the water. The whole immense bulk of it sits on dry land. Furthermore it is loaded with high explosives which may go off at any moment. My task is to push the ship through a narrow mountain pass whose cliffs rush forward threateningly. An experience: I was crossing the street in the rain holding an umbrella. On the other side of the street an older woman was motioning to me. Come here, come here! I indicated that I didn’t want to come there, wasn’t interested, had other things to do. But she continued to make motions, to insist. Finally I went over to her. “Look down there,” she said pointing to the gutter full of water, “there’s a penny. Don’t you want to pick it up?”
I worked for newspapers. I worked for newspapers at a time when I was not competent to do so. I reported inaccurately. I failed to get all the facts. I misspelled names. I garbled figures. I wasted copy paper. I pretended I knew things I did not know. I pretended to understand things beyond my understanding. I oversimplified. I was superior to things I was inferior to. I misinterpreted things that took place before me. I over- and underinterpreted what took place before me. I suppressed news the management wanted suppressed. I invented news the management wanted invented. I faked stories. I failed to discover the truth. I colored the truth with fancy. I had no respect for the truth. I failed to heed the adage, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. I put lies in the paper. I put private jokes in the paper. I wrote headlines containing double entendres. I wrote stories while drunk. I abused copy boys. I curried favor with advertisers. I accepted gifts from interested parties. I was servile with superiors. I was harsh with people who called on the telephone seeking information. I gloated over police photographs of sex crimes. I touched type when the makeups weren’t looking. I took copy pencils home. I voted with management in Guild elections.
The Wapituil are like us to an extraordinary degree. They have a kinship system which is very similar to our kinship system. They address each other as “Mister,” “Mistress,” and “Miss.” They wear clothes which look very much like our clothes. They have a Fifth Avenue which divides their territory into east and west. They have a Chock Full o’ Nuts and a Chevrolet, one of each. They have a Museum of Modern Art and a telephone and a Martini, one of each. The Martini and the telephone are kept in the Museum of Modern Art. In fact they have everything that we have, but only one of each thing.
We found that they lose interest very quickly. For instance they are fully industrialized, but they don’t seem interested in taking advantage of it. After the steel mill produced the ingot, it was shut down. They can conceptualize but they don’t follow through. For instance, their week has seven days—Monday, Monday, Monday, Monday, Monday, Monday, and Monday. They have one disease, mononucleosis. The sex life of a Wapituil consists of a single experience, which he thinks about for a long time.
Behavior of the waiters: The first waiter gave a twenty-cent tip to the second waiter. The second waiter looked down at the two dimes in his hand and then up at the first waiter. Looks of disgust were exchanged. The third waiter put a dollar bill on a plate and handed it to the fourth waiter. The fourth waiter took the dollar bill and stuffed it into his pocket. Then the fourth waiter took six quarters from another pocket and made a neat little stack of quarters next to the elbow of the fifth waiter, who was sitting at a rear table, writing on a little pad. The fifth waiter gave the captain a five-dollar bill which the captain slipped into a pocket in the tail of his tailcoat. The sixth waiter handed the seventh waiter a small envelope containing two ten-dollar bills. The seventh waiter put a small leather bag containing twelve louis d’or into the bosom of the wife of the eighth waiter. The ninth waiter offered a $50 War Bond to the tenth waiter, who was carrying a crystal casket of carbuncles to the chef.
The cup fell from nerveless fingers . . .
The china cup big as an AFB fell from tiny white nerveless fingers no bigger than hairs . . .
“Sit down. I am your spiritual adviser. Sit down and have a cup of tea with me. See, there is the chair. There is the cup. The tea boy will bring the tea shortly. When the tea boy brings the tea, you may pour some of it into your cup. That cup there, on the table.”
“Thank you. This is quite a nice University you have here. A University constructed entirely of three mile-high sponges!”
“Yes it is rather remarkable.”
“What is that very large body with hundreds an
d hundreds of legs moving across the horizon from left to right in a steady, carefully considered line?”
“That is the tenured faculty crossing to the other shore on the plane of the feasible.”
“And this tentacle here of the Underwater Life Sciences Department . . .”
“That is not a tentacle but the Department itself. Devouring a whole cooked chicken furnished by the Department of Romantic Poultry.”
“And those running men?”
“Those are the runners.”
“What are they running from?”
“They’re not running from, they’re running toward. Trained in the Department of Great Expectations.”
“Is that my Department?”
“Do you blush easily?”
The elevator girls were standing very close together. One girl put a candy bar into another girl’s mouth and then another girl put a hamburger into another girl’s mouth. Another girl put a Kodak Instamatic camera to her eye and took a picture of another girl and another girl patted another girl on the shapely caudal area. Giant aircraft passed in the sky, their passengers bent over with their heads between their knees, in pillows. The Mother Superior spoke. “No, dear friend, it cannot be. It is not that we don’t believe that your renunciation of the world is real. We believe it is real. But you look like the kind who is overly susceptible to Nun’s Melancholy, which is one of our big problems here. Therefore full membership is impossible. We will send the monks to you, at the end. The monks sing well, too. We will send the monks to you, for your final agony.” I turned away. This wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I went out into the garage and told Bill an interesting story which wasn’t true. Some people feel you should tell the truth, but those people are impious and wrong, and if you listen to what they say, you will be tragically unhappy all your life.
Oh there’s brain damage in the east, and brain damage in the west, and upstairs there’s brain damage, and downstairs there’s brain damage, and in my lady’s parlor—brain damage. Brain damage is widespread. Apollinaire was a victim of brain damage—you remember the photograph, the bandage on his head, and the poems . . . Bonnie and Clyde suffered from brain damage in the last four minutes of the picture. There’s brain damage on the horizon, a great big blubbery cloud of it coming this way—
And you can hide under the bed but brain damage is under the bed, and you can hide in the universities but they are the very seat and soul of brain damage— Brain damage caused by bears who put your head in their foaming jaws while you are singing “Masters of War” . . . Brain damage caused by the sleeping revolution which no one can wake up . . . Brain damage caused by art. I could describe it better if I weren’t afflicted with it . . .
This is the country of brain damage, this is the map of brain damage, these are the rivers of brain damage, and see, those lighted-up places are the airports of brain damage, where the damaged pilots land the big, damaged ships.
The Immaculate Conception triggered a lot of brain damage at one time, but no longer does so. A team of Lippizaners has just published an autobiography. Is that any reason to accuse them of you-know-what? And I saw a girl walking down the street, she was singing “Me and My Winstons,” and I began singing it too, and that protected us, for a moment, from the terrible thing that might have happened . . .
And there is brain damage in Arizona, and brain damage in Maine, and little towns in Idaho are in the grip of it, and my blue heaven is black with it, brain damage covering everything like an unbreakable lease—
Skiing along on the soft surface of brain damage, never to sink, because we don’t understand the danger—
City Life
ELSA AND Ramona entered the complicated city. They found an apartment without much trouble, several rooms on Porter Street. Curtains were hung. Bright paper things from a Japanese store were placed here and there.
—You’d better tell Charles that he can’t come see us until everything is ready.
Ramona thought: I don’t want him to come at all. He will go into a room with Elsa and close the door. I will be sitting outside reading the business news. Britain Weighs Economic Curbs. Bond Rate Surge Looms. Time will pass. Then, they will emerge. Acting as if nothing had happened. Elsa will make coffee. Charles will put brandy from his flat silver flask into the coffee. We will all drink the coffee with the brandy in it. Ugh!
—Where shall we put the telephone books?
—Put them over there, by the telephone.
Elsa and Ramona went to the $2 plant store. A man stood outside selling individual peacock feathers. Elsa and Ramona bought several hanging plants in white plastic pots. The proprietor put the plants in brown paper bags.
—Water them every day, girls. Keep them wet.
—We will.
Elsa uttered a melancholy reflection on life: It goes faster and faster! Ramona said: It’s so difficult!
Charles accepted a position with greater responsibilities in another city.
—I’ll be able to get in on weekends sometimes.
—Is this a real job?
—Of course, Elsa. You don’t think I’d fool you, do you?
Clad in an extremely dark gray, if not completely black, suit, he had shaved his mustache.
—This outfit doesn’t let you wear them.
Ramona heard Elsa sobbing in the back bedroom. I suppose I should sympathize with her. But I don’t.
2.
Ramona received the following letter from Charles:
Dear Ramona—
Thank you, Ramona, for your interesting and curious letter. It is true that I have noticed you sitting there, in the living room, when I visit Elsa. I have many times made mental notes about your appearance, which I consider in no way inferior to that of Elsa herself. I get a pretty electric reaction to your taste in clothes, too. Those upper legs have not been lost on me. But the trouble is, when two girls are living together, one must make a choice. One can’t have them both, in our society. This prohibition is enforced by you girls, chiefly, together with older ladies, who if the truth were known probably don’t care, but nevertheless feel that standards must be upheld, somewhere. I have Elsa, therefore I can’t have you. (I know that there is a philosophical problem about “being” and “having” but I can’t discuss that now because I’m a little rushed due to the pressures of my new assignment.) So that’s what obtains at the moment, most excellent Ramona. That’s where we stand. Of course the future may be different. It not infrequently is.
Hastily,
Charles.
—What are you reading?
—Oh, it’s just a letter.
—Who is it from?
—Oh, just somebody I know.
—Who?
—Oh, nobody.
—Oh.
Ramona’s mother and father came to town from Montana. Ramona’s thin father stood on the Porter Street sidewalk wearing a business suit and a white cowboy hat. He was watching his car. He watched from the steps of the house for a while, and then watched from the sidewalk a little, and then watched from the steps again. Ramona’s mother looked in the suitcases for the present she had brought.
—Mother! You shouldn’t have brought me such an expensive present!
—Oh, it wasn’t all that expensive. We wanted you to have something for the new apartment.
—An original gravure by René Magritte!
—Well, it isn’t very big. It’s just a small one.
Whenever Ramona received a letter forwarded to her from her Montana home, the letter had been opened and the words “Oops! Opened by mistake!” written on the envelope. But she forgot that in gazing at the handsome new Magritte print, a picture of a tree with a crescent moon cut out of it.
—It’s fantastically beautiful! Where shall we hang it?
—How about on the wall?
3.<
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At the University the two girls enrolled in the Law School.
—I hear the Law School’s tough, Elsa stated, but that’s what we want, a tough challenge.
—You are the only two girls ever to be admitted to our Law School, the Dean observed. Mostly, we have men. A few foreigners. Now I am going to tell you three things to keep an eye on: 1) Don’t try to go too far too fast. 2) Wear plain clothes. And 3) Keep your notes clean. And if I hear the words “Yoo hoo” echoing across the quadrangle, you will be sent down instantly. We don’t use those words in this school.
—I like what I already know, Ramona said under her breath.
Savoring their matriculation, the two girls wandered out to sample the joys of Pascin Street. They were closer together at this time than they had ever been. Of course, they didn’t want to get too close together. They were afraid to get too close together.
Elsa met Jacques. He was deeply involved in the struggle.
—What is this struggle about, exactly, Jacques?
—My God, Elsa, your eyes! I have never seen that shade of umber in anyone’s eyes before. Ever.
Jacques took Elsa to a Mexican restaurant. Elsa cut into her cabrito con queso.
—To think that this food was once a baby goat!
Elsa, Ramona, and Jacques looked at the dawn coming up over the hanging plants. Patterns of silver light and so forth.
Donald Barthelme Page 33