Donald Barthelme

by Donald Barthelme

  I said nothing. His name was Tomgold.

  They’ll be rolling training grenades under your bunk, he said, just as soon as we teach ’em how to pull the pin.

  I said they wouldn’t do that to me because I wasn’t supposed to be here anyway, that it was all a mistake, that I’d done all this before, that probably my discharge papers would come through any day now.

  That’s right, he said, you do look kind of old. Can you still screw?

  •

  I flicked on the barracks lights.

  All right you men, I said.

  But there was only one. He sat up in his bunk wearing skivvies, blinking in the light.

  O.K. soldier roll out.

  What time is it sarge?

  It’s five-forty-five soldier, get dressed and come with me. Where are the other men?

  Probably haven’t got back from town, sarge.

  They have overnight passes?

  Always got passes, sarge. Lots and lots of passes. Look, I got a pass too.

  He showed me a piece of paper.

  You want me to write you a pass, sarge?

  I said I really wasn’t supposed to be here at all, that I’d done all this before, that it was all a mistake.

  You want me to fix you up with discharge papers, sarge? It’ll cost you.

  I said that if his section chief found out what he was doing they’d put him way back in the jailhouse.

  You want me to cut some orders for you, sarge? You want a nice TDY to Hawaii?

  I said I didn’t want to get mixed up in anything.

  If you’re mixed up in this, then you got to get mixed up in that, he said. Would you turn them lights out, as you go?

  •

  The I.G. was a bird colonel with a jumper’s badge and a general’s pistol belt. He said, Well, sergeant, all I know is what’s on the paper.

  Yes, sir, I said, but couldn’t you check it out with the records center?

  They’re going to have the same piece of paper I have, sergeant.

  I said that I had been overseas for sixteen months during the Korean War and that I had then been reassigned to Fort Lewis, Washington, where my C.O. had been a Captain Llewellyn.

  None of this is in your 201 file, the I.G. said.

  Maybe there’s somebody else with my name.

  Your name and your serial number?

  Colonel, I did all this before. Twenty years ago.

  You don’t look that old, sergeant.

  I’m forty-two.

  Not according to this.

  But that’s wrong.

  The colonel giggled. If you were a horse we could look at your teeth.

  Yes, sir.

  O.K. sergeant I’ll take it under advisement.

  Thank you, sir.

  I sat on the edge of my bed and looked at my two pairs of boots beautifully polished for inspection, my row of shirts hanging in my cubicle with all the shoulder patches facing the same way.

  I thought: Of course, it’s what I deserve. I don’t deny that. Not for a minute.

  •

  Sergeant, he said, I’d be greatly obliged.

  I said I wasn’t sure I had fifty dollars to lend.

  Look in your pocket there, sargie, the lieutenant said. Or maybe you have a bank account?

  I said yes but not here.

  My momma is sick and I need fifty dollars to take the bus home, he said. You don’t want to impede my journey in the direction of my sick momma, do you?

  What has she got? I asked.

  Who?

  Your mother.

  I’ll let you keep my ’lectric frying pan as security, the lieutenant said, showing it to me.

  I’m not supposed to be in the army at all, I said. It’s a fuckup of some kind.

  Where are you from, sargie-san? You can cook yourself the dishes of your home region, in this frying pan.

  I said the food in the NCO mess was pretty good, considering.

  You’re not going to lend me the fifty dollars?

  I didn’t say that, I said.

  Sergeant, I can’t order you to lend me the fifty dollars.

  I know that, sir.

  It’s against regulations to do that, sergeant.

  Yes, sir.

  I can’t read and write, sergeant.

  You can’t read and write?

  If they find out, my ass is in terrible, terrible trouble, sergeant.

  Not at all?

  You want a golf club? I’ll sell you a golf club. Fifty dollars.

  I said I didn’t play.

  What about my poor momma, sergeant?

  I said I was sorry.

  I ride the blue bus, sergeant. Carries me clear to Gainesville. You ever ride the blue bus, sergeant?

  •

  I spoke to the chaplain who was playing the pinball machine at the PX. I said I didn’t love the army much.

  Nonsense, the chaplain said, you do, you do, you do or you wouldn’t be here. Each of us is where we are, sergeant, because we want to be where we are and because God wants us to be where we are. Everybody in life is in the right place, believe me, may not seem that way sometimes but take it from me, take it from me, all part of the Divine plan, you got any quarters on you?

  I gave him three quarters I had in my pocket.

  Thank you, he said, I’m in the right place, you’re in the right place, what makes you think you’re so different from me? You think God doesn’t know what He’s doing? I’m right here ministering to the Screaming Falcons of the Thirty-third Division and if God didn’t want me to be ministering to the wants and needs of the Screaming Falcons of the Thirty-third Division I wouldn’t be here, would I? What makes you think you’re so different from me? Works is what counts, boy, forget about anything else and look to your works, your works tell the story, nothing wrong with you, three stripes and two rockers, you’re doing very well, now leave me, leave me, don’t let me see your face again, you hear, sergeant? Good boy.

  I thought: Works?

  •

  Two M.P.’s stopped me at the main gate.

  Where you headed, sergeant?

  I said I was going home.

  That’s nice, said the taller of the two. You got any orders?

  I showed them a pass.

  How come you takin’ off at this hour, sergeant? It’s four o’clock in the morning. Where’s your car?

  I said I didn’t have a car, thought I’d walk to town and catch a bus.

  The M.P.’s looked at me peculiarly.

  In this fog and stuff? they asked.

  I said I liked to walk in the early morning.

  Where’s your gear, sergeant? Where’s your A.W.O.L. bag? You don’t have a bag?

  I reached into the pocket of my field jacket and showed them my razor and a fresh T-shirt.

  What’s your outfit, sergeant?

  I told them.

  The shorter M.P. said: But this razor’s not clean.

  We all crowded closer to look at the razor. It was not clean.

  And this-here pass, he said, it’s signed by General Zachary Taylor. Didn’t he die?

  •

  I was holding on to a sort of balcony or shelf that had been tacked on to the third floor of the barracks. It was about to fall off the barracks and I couldn’t get inside because somebody’d nailed the windows shut.

  Hey, slick, came a voice from the parking lot, you gonna fall.

  Yes yes, I said, I’m going to fall.

  Jump down here, she said, and I’ll show you the secrets of what’s under my shirt.

  Yeah yeah, I said, I’ve heard that before.

  Jump little honey baby, she said, you won’t regret it.

  It’s so far, I said.

  Won
’t do nothin’ ’cept break your head, she called, at the very worst.

  I don’t want my head broken, I said, trying to get my fingers into that soft decayed pine.

  Come on, G.I., she said, you ain’t comfortable up there.

  I did all this, I said, once, twenty years ago. Why do I have to do it all over again?

  You do look kind of old, she said, you an R.A. or something? Come down, my little viper, come down.

  I either jumped or did not jump.

  •

  I thought: Of course, it’s what I deserve. I don’t deny it for a minute.

  The captain said: Harm that man over there, sergeant.

  Yes, sir. Which one?

  The one in the red tie.

  You want me to harm him?

  Yes, with your M-16.

  The man in the red tie. Blue suit.

  Right. Go ahead. Fire.

  Black shoes.

  That’s the one, sergeant, are you temporizing?

  I think he’s a civilian, sir.

  You’re refusing an order, sergeant?

  No I’m not refusing sir I just don’t think I can do it.

  Fire your weapon sergeant.

  He’s not even in uniform, sir, he’s wearing a suit. And he’s not doing anything, he’s just standing there.

  You’re refusing a direct order?

  I just don’t feel up to it, sir. I feel weak.

  Well sergeant if you don’t want to harm the man in the red tie I’ll give you an alternative. You can stuff olives with little onions for the general’s martinis.

  That’s the alternative?

  There are eight hundred thousand gallon cans of olives over at the general’s mess, sergeant. And four hundred thousand gallon cans of little onions. I think you ought to consider that.

  I’m allergic to onions, sir. They make me break out. Terribly.

  Well you’ve a nice little problem there, haven’t you, sergeant? I’ll give you thirty seconds.

  •

  The general was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt, blue seersucker trousers, and gold wire-rimmed glasses.

  Four olives this time, sergeant.

  I said: Andromache!

  What to Do Next

  SO.

  The situation is, I agree, desperate. But fortunately I know the proper way to proceed. That is why I am giving you these instructions. They will save your life. First, persuade yourself that the situation is not desperate (my instructions will save your life only if you have not already hopelessly compromised it by listening to the instructions of others, or to the whispers of your heart, which is in itself suspect, in that it has been taught how to behave—how to whisper, even—by the very culture that has produced the desperate situation). Persuade yourself, I say, that your original perception of the situation was damaged by not having taken into account all of the variables (for example, my instructions) and that the imminent disaster that hangs in the sky above you can be, with justice, downgraded to the rank of severe inconvenience by the application of corrected thinking. Do not let what happened to the dog weaken your resolve.

  Yes, the dog is dead, I admit it. I’m sorry. I admit also that putting eight-foot-square paintings of him in every room of the house has not consoled you. But, studying the paintings, you will notice after a time that in each painting the artist has included, in the background, or up in the left-hand corner, not only your dog but other dogs, dogs not known to you—perhaps dogs that were formerly friends of your dog but that you did not know he knew. Thus the whole concept “other dog” suddenly thrusts itself into your consciousness, and looking more intently now at those strange spaniels, retrievers, terriers, you understand that one of them, or one very much like one of them, might just possibly become the “new dog”—the “new dog” of which you have been, until now, afraid to think. For life must go on, after all, and that you have been able to think new dog is already a victory, of a kind, for the instructions.

  Next, write your will. I know that you are too young to take this step, or at least this is what you have always told yourself, when will-writing time rolled around; this time, do it. Leave everything to your wife, if you have one; or to your old school, if you have one. This prudent action, which you would not have taken had it not been for the instructions, implies nothing about your future health and well-being. Don’t worry. Next, see your Loan Officer, and borrow a sizable sum to leave to people, for what good is a will if it does not have the strong arm of hard cash to implement it with? You are tidying up, yes, but do not permit this kind of activity to frighten you. Lose yourself in the song of the instructions, in the precise, detailed balm of having had solved for you that most difficult of problems, what to do next.

  Now, housecleaning. It is true that what she is saying doesn’t interest you very much, but don’t tell her (or, if you are a woman, him—the instructions are flexible, the instructions do not discriminate). Smile. Smile and tell her that the two of you have come to “the end of the line”—she is interesting but false. (It is not true that she is interesting but it is true that she is false.) Your true love lies elsewhere, and always will. I know that it’s depressing, this maneuver (she has hung her shirt in your closet, and now you must give it back) but your life is more important than any of these merely temporal alignments, which give you someone to sleep with, yes, but on the other hand require a lot of smiling—smiling that you cannot spare, if you are to turn a smiling face and a ready, acquiescent nod to the just demands of the instructions. There! The thing is done. Lead her, weeping, from the closet, the green garment you never liked much dangling from one hand, and put her on a bus. Goodbye, Elsie.

  I know that you are depressed, but pay attention: the instructions have arranged a diversion for you. Sea air! Passage has been booked in your name to Hong Kong on the Black Swan, the Black Tulip, or the Tanta Maru. Running away from trouble is always an excellent partial solution, but we anticipate using this tactic only temporarily, until other measures, still being honed and polished (there you are in the crew’s mess, drinking anisette with Rudi and Hans, the crew members who have befriended you, and listening to their stories about waves, to which you respond a shade too enthusiastically, like those people, usually English, one finds at a jazz place over-enjoying the music, their mouths open too ecstatically, their fingerpopping too Anglo-Saxon), are ready for presentation to the green breast of the New World. You need not thank the instructions just yet; they have not completed their designs, although they are pleased that you are pleased with the life of the forecastle, which you would never have tasted in all its saltiness had it not been for them.

  Quickly now, avoid that other sticky development that is developing on the left, a hazard you would not have identified had it not been for the sage wisdom of the instructions, which anticipate everything, even their own blind spots, of which they possess not a few. The instructions are, for example, blind to the blandishments of the soft life, which other sets of instructions uphold, cultivate, make possible. But that life is not for you, you do not have the panache to carry it off. You are in fact a rather poor specimen, in some ways, and entering a fashionable hotel in Bern with a vastly beautiful woman on your arm, her thin skeleton curling toward you, and forty or fifty pieces of good luggage following, you would only look ridiculous. Where did you purchase those trousers? Trousers made out of old rugs have not been haut monde for two years. Remember Elsie. Forget Zoë. Stop plucking nervously at your rugs. Pay attention.

  Because we are ready to move toward the center of your difficulties, which is the fact that you are no good. This great handicap, which many of our best people have labored under, is irrevocable. This is the nut of your dilemma, and to crack it you must proceed in the following way (remember that you still have a new dog to buy, and a true love to fail to find, and while we are at it we have been thinking about certain alterations that n
eed to be made on your house—a wall torn out here, a soffit to be plastered there, the plumber summoned to make the drains drain, all crucial to giving your leaning personality the definition that it lamentably lacks). The instructions, at this point, call for a rewriting of your fundamental documents through useful work. Many considerations now intrude. Your former employment as a pilot project for A.A., although possessed of some degree of social worth, does not, in our analysis, finally qualify. It stressed your objecthood, your existence as vessel, your flasklike qualities, and neglected, to our mind, the creative potentialities you might contain. We have thought about possible alternatives. The Bengal Lancers are no longer recruiting. I.B.M. is a very large company but all of the good jobs are already taken. Your love of life would seem to equip you for a role on “Love of Life,” but, we have discovered, others, similarly equipped, have got there ahead of you. There is a chief’s rating open on the Tanta Maru and a cook’s on the Black Tulip, but these have been filled by Rudi and Hans, who have asked to be remembered to you. You could become a dog painter in the tradition of Landseer, but there are already seventy thousand of these in New York City alone—leadership in that field is not easily come by.

  Starting fresh, as it is called, requires that you know the appropriate corn and rain dances, but also that you can stand the terrific wrenches of the spirit that accompany frontier-busting, as it is called. When you change your life, you also break your back (or have an equivalent serious illness) within the next twelve months—that is a statistically sound statement. But the instructions will protect you, more or less, from these hazards (and it would not surprise me if, at this point, you wondered aloud why the instructions are being so kind to you, specifically you; the answer is simple, you have taken the trouble to read them). The culture that we share, such as it is, makes of us all either machines for assimilating and judging that culture, or uncritical sops who simply sop it up, become it. Clearly it is better to be the first than the second, or at least that is our provisional judgment, at this time. Because you stick out from the matrix of this culture like a banged thumb, swelling and reddening and otherwise irrupting all over its smooth, eventless surface, our effort must be to contain you, as would, for example, a lead glove. (Note your movement from container, which you were in your former life, before you renewed yourself, with the aid of the instructions, to contained, the latter a much more active principle, lively and wroth-causing—another success story for the cunning and gay instructions, which, although they may seem to you a shade self-congratulatory and vain, are in truth only right.) We have therefore decided to make you a part of the instructions themselves—something other people must complete, or go through, before they reach their individual niches, or thrones, or whatever kind of plateau makes them, at least for the time being, happy. Thus, we have specified that everyone who comes to us from this day forward must take twelve hours of you a week, for which they will receive three points credit per semester, and, as well, a silver spoon in the “Heritage” pattern. Don’t hang back. We are sure you are up to it. Many famous teachers teach courses in themselves; why should you be different, just because you are a wimp and a lame, objectively speaking? Courage. The anthology of yourself which will be used as a text is even now being assembled by underpaid researchers in our textbook division, drawing upon the remembrances of those who hated you and those (a much smaller number) who loved you. You will be adequate in your new role. See? Your life is saved. The instructions do not make distinctions between those lives which are worth saving and those which are not. Your life is saved. Congratulations. I’m sorry.