Donald Barthelme

by Donald Barthelme

  Hey there woman come and stand beside me.

  Buzz off buster I’m on the King’s business and have no time to trifle.

  You don’t even want to stop a moment and look at this thing I have here?

  What sort of thing is it?

  Oh it’s a rare thing, a beautiful thing, a jim-dandy of a thing, a thing any woman would give her eyeteeth to look upon.

  Well yes okay but what is it?

  Well I can’t tell you. I have to show you. Come stand over here in the entrance to this dark alley.

  Naw man I’m not gonna go into no alley with you what do you think I am a nitwit?

  I think you’re a beautiful woman even if you do have that bit of beard there on your chin like a piece of burnt toast or something, most becoming. And that mark like a dead insect on your forehead gives you a certain—

  Cut the crap daddy and show me what you got. Standing right here. Else I’m on my way.

  No it’s too rich and strange for the full light of day we have to have some shadow, it’s too—

  If this turns out to be an ordinary—

  No no no nothing like that. You mean you think I might be a what-do-you-call-’em, one of those guys who—

  Your discourse sir strongly suggests it.

  And your name?

  Moll. Mad Moll. Sometimes Moll the Poor Girl.

  Beautiful name. Your mother’s name or the name of some favorite auntie?

  Moll totals him with a bang in the balls.

  Jesus Christ these creeps what can you do?

  She stops at a store and buys a can of gem polish.

  Polish my emerald so bloody bright it will bloody blind you.

  Sitting on the street with a basket of dirty faces for sale. The dirty faces are all colors, white black yellow tan rosy-red.

  Buy a dirty face! Slap it on your wife! Buy a dirty face! Complicate your life!

  But no one buys.

  A boy appears pushing a busted bicycle.

  Hey lady what are those things there they look like faces.

  That’s what they are, faces.

  Lady, Halloween is not until—

  Okay kid move along you don’t want to buy a face move along.

  But those are actual faces lady Christ I mean they’re actual faces—

  Fourteen ninety-five kid you got any money on you?

  I don’t even want to touch one, look like they came off dead people.

  Would you feel better if I said they were plastic?

  Well I hope to God they’re not—

  Okay they’re plastic. What’s the matter with your bike?

  Chain’s shot.

  Give it here.

  The boy hands over the bicycle chain.

  Moll puts the broken ends in her mouth and chews for a moment.

  Okay here you go.

  The boy takes it in his hands and yanks on it. It’s fixed.

  Shit how’d you do that, lady?

  Moll spits and wipes her mouth on her sleeve.

  Run along now kid beat it I’m tired of you.

  Are you magic, lady?

  Not enough.

  Moll at home playing her oboe.

  I love the oboe. The sound of the oboe.

  The noble, noble oboe!

  Of course it’s not to every taste. Not everyone swings with the oboe.

  Whoops! Goddamn oboe let me take that again.

  Not perhaps the premier instrument of the present age. What would that be? The bullhorn, no doubt.

  Why did he interfere with me? Why?

  Maybe has to do with the loneliness of the gods. Oh thou great one whom I adore beyond measure, oh thou bastard and fatherer of bastards—

  Tucked-away gods whom nobody speaks to anymore. Once so lively.

  Polish my emerald so bloody bright it will bloody blind you.

  •

  Good God what’s that?

  Vandermaster used the Foot!

  Oh my God look at that hole!

  It’s awful and tremendous!

  What in the name of God?

  Vandermaster used the Foot!

  The Foot did that? I don’t believe it!

  You don’t believe it? What’s your name?

  My name is Coddle. I don’t believe the Foot could have done that. I one hundred percent don’t believe it.

  Well it’s right there in front of your eyes. Do you think Moll and the emerald are safe?

  The house seems structurally sound. Smoke-blackened, but sound.

  What happened to Soapbox?

  You mean Soapbox who was standing in front of the house poised to bop any mother’s son who—

  Good Lord Soapbox is nowhere to be seen!

  He’s not in the hole!

  Let me see there. What’s your name?

  My name is Mixer. No, he’s not in the hole. Not a shred of him in the hole.

  Good, true Soapbox!

  You think Moll is still inside? How do we know this is the right place after all?

  Heard it on the radio. What’s your name by the way?

  My name is Ho Ho. Look at the ground smoking!

  The whole thing is tremendous, demonstrating the awful power of the Foot!

  I am shaking with awe right now! Poor Soapbox!

  Noble, noble Soapbox!

  Mr. Vandermaster.

  Madam.

  You may be seated.

  I thank you.

  The red chair.

  Thank you very much.

  May I offer you some refreshment?

  Yes I will have a splash of something thank you.

  It’s Scotch I believe.

  Yes Scotch.

  And I will join you I think, as the week has been a most fatiguing one.

  Care and cleaning I take it.

  Yes, care and cleaning and in addition there was a media person here.

  How tiresome.

  Yes it was tiresome in the extreme her persistence in her peculiar vocation is quite remarkable.

  Wanted to know about the emerald I expect.

  She was most curious about the emerald.

  Disbelieving.

  Yes disbelieving but perhaps that is an attribute of the profession?

  So they say. Did she see it?

  No it was sleeping and I did not wish to—

  Of course. How did this person discover that you had as it were made yourself an object of interest to the larger public?

  Indiscretion on the part of the midwitch I suppose, some people cannot maintain even minimal discretion.

  Yes that’s the damned thing about some people. Their discretion is out to lunch.

  Blabbing things about would be an example.

  Popping off to all and sundry about matters.

  Ah well.

  Ah well. Could we, do you think, proceed?

  If we must.

  I have the Foot.

  Right.

  You have the emerald.

  Correct.

  The Foot has certain properties of special interest to witches.

  So I have been told.

  There is a distaste, a bad taste in the brain, when one is forced to put the boots to someone.

  Must be terrible for you, terrible. Where is my man Soapbox by the way?

  That thug you had in front of the door?

  Yes, Soapbox.

  He is probably reintegrating himself with the basic matter of the universe, right now. Fascinating experience I should think.

  Good to know.

  I intend only the best for the emerald, however.

  What is the best?

  There are as you are aware others not so scrupulous in the field. Ch
islers, in every sense.

  And you? What do you intend for it?

  I have been thinking of emerald dust. Emerald dust with soda, emerald dust with tomato juice, emerald dust with a dash of bitters, emerald dust with Ovaltine.

  I beg your pardon?

  I want to live twice.

  Twice?

  In addition to my present life, I wish another, future life.

  A second life. Incremental to the one you are presently enjoying.

  As a boy, I was very poor. Poor as pine.

  And you have discovered a formula.

  Yes.

  Plucked from the arcanum.

  Yes. Requires a certain amount of emerald. Powdered emerald.

  Ugh!

  Carat’s weight a day for seven thousand thirty-five days.

  Coincidence.

  Not at all. Only this emerald will do. A moon’s emerald born of human witch.

  No.

  I have been thinking about bouillon. Emerald dust and bouillon with a little Tabasco.

  No.

  No?

  No.

  My mother is eighty-one, said Vandermaster. I went to my mother and said, Mother, I want to be in love.

  And she replied?

  She said, me too.

  Lily the media person standing in the hall.

  I came back to see if you were ready to confess. The hoax.

  It’s talking now. It talks.

  It what?

  Lovely complete sentences. Maxims and truisms.

  I don’t want to hear this. I absolutely—

  Look kid this is going to cost you. Sixty dollars.

  Sixty dollars for what?

  For the interview.

  That’s checkbook journalism!

  Sho’ nuff.

  It’s against the highest traditions of the profession!

  You get paid, your boss gets paid, the stockholders get their slice, why not us members of the raw material? Why shouldn’t the raw material get paid?

  It talks?

  Most assuredly it talks.

  Will you take a check?

  If I must.

  You’re really a witch.

  How many times do I have to tell you?

  You do tricks or anything?

  Consulting, you might say.

  You have clients? People who come to see you regularly on a regular basis?

  People with problems, yes.

  What kind of problems, for instance?

  Some of them very simple, really, things that just need a specific, bit of womandrake for example—

  What’s womandrake?

  Black bryony. Called the herb of beaten wives. Takes away black-and-blue marks.

  You get beaten wives?

  Stick a little of that number into the old man’s pork and beans, he retches. For seven days and seven nights. It near to kills him.

  I have a problem.

  What’s the problem?

  The editor, or editor-king, as he’s called around the shop.

  What about him?

  He takes my stuff and throws it on the floor. When he doesn’t like it.

  On the floor?

  I know it’s nothing to you but it hurts me. I cry. I know I shouldn’t cry but I cry. When I see my stuff on the floor. Pages and pages of it, so carefully typed, every word spelled right—

  Don’t you kids have a union?

  Yes but he won’t speak to it.

  That’s this man Lather, right?

  Mr. Lather. Editor-imperator.

  Okay I’ll look into it that’ll be another sixty you want to pay now or you want to be billed?

  I’ll give you another check. Can Vandermaster live twice?

  There are two theories, the General Theory and the Special Theory. I take it he is relying on the latter. Requires ingestion of a certain amount of emerald. Powdered emerald.

  Can you defend yourself?

  I have a few things in mind. A few little things.

  Can I see the emerald now?

  You may. Come this way.

  Thank you. Thank you at last. My that’s impressive what’s that?

  That’s the thumb of a thief. Enlarged thirty times. Bronze. I use it in my work.

  Impressive if one believed in that sort of thing ha-ha I don’t mean to—

  What care I? What care I? In here. Little emerald, this is Lily. Lily, this is the emerald.

  Enchanté, said the emerald. What a pretty young woman you are!

  This emerald is young, said Lily. Young, but good. I do not believe what I am seeing with my very eyes!

  But perhaps that is a sepsis of the profession? said the emerald.

  Vandermaster wants to live twice!

  Oh, most foul, most foul!

  He was very poor, as a boy! Poor as pine!

  Hideous presumption! Cheeky hubris!

  He wants to be in love! In love! Presumably with another person!

  Unthinkable insouciance!

  We’ll have his buttons for dinner!

  We’ll clean the gutters with his hair!

  What’s your name, buddy?

  My name is Tree and I’m smokin’ mad!

  My name is Bump and I’m just about ready to bust!

  I think we should break out the naked-bladed pikes!

  I think we should lay hand to torches and tar!

  To live again! From the beginning! Ab ovo! This concept riles the very marrow of our minds!

  We’ll flake the white meat from his bones!

  And that goes for his damned dog, too!

  Hello is this Mad Moll?

  Yes who is this?

  My name is Lather.

  The editor?

  Editor-king, actually.

  Yes Mr. Lather what is the name of your publication I don’t know that Lily ever—

  World. I put it together. When World is various and beautiful, it’s because I am various and beautiful. When World is sad and dreary, it’s because I am sad and dreary. When World is not thy friend, it’s because I am not thy friend. And if I am not thy friend, baby—

  I get the drift.

  Listen, Moll, I am not satisfied with what Lily’s been giving me. She’s not giving me potato chips. I have decided that I am going to handle this story personally, from now on.

  She’s been insufficiently insightful and comprehensive?

  Gore, that’s what we need, actual or psychological gore, and this twitter she’s been filing—anyhow, I have sent her to Detroit.

  Not Detroit!

  She’s going to be second night-relief paper clipper in the Detroit bureau. She’s standing here right now with her bags packed and ashes in her hair and her ticket in her mouth.

  Why in her mouth?

  Because she needs her hands to rend her garments with.

  All right Mr. Lather send her back around. There is new bad news. Bad, bad, new bad news.

  That’s wonderful!

  Moll hangs up the phone and weeps every tear she’s capable of weeping, one, two, three.

  Takes up a lump of clay, beats it flat with a Bible.

  Let me see what do I have here?

  I have Ya Ya Oil, that might do it.

  I have Anger Oil, Lost & Away Oil, Confusion Oil, Weed of Misfortune, and War Water.

  I have graveyard chips, salt, and coriander—enough coriander to freight a ship. Tasty coriander. Magical, magical coriander!

  I’ll eye-bite the son of a bitch. Have him in worm’s hall by teatime.

  Understand, ye sons of the wise, what this exceedingly precious Stone crieth out to you!

  I’ll fold that sucker’s tent for him. If my stuff works. One never knows for sure, damm
it. And where is Papa?

  Throw in a little dwale now, a little orris . . .

  Moll shapes the clay into the figure of a man.

  So mote it be!

  What happened was that they backed a big van up to the back door.

  Yes.

  There were four of them or eight of them.

  Yes.

  It was two in the morning or three in the morning or four in the morning—I’m not sure.

  Yes.

  They were great big hairy men with cudgels and ropes and pads like movers have and a dolly and come-alongs made of barbed wire—that’s a loop of barbed wire big enough to slip over somebody’s head, with a handle—

  Yes.

  They wrapped the emerald in the pads and placed it on the dolly and tied ropes around it and got it down the stairs through the door and into the van.

  Did they use the Foot?

  No they didn’t use the Foot they had four witches with them.

  Which witches?

  The witches Aldrin, Endrin, Lindane, and Dieldrin. Bad-ass witches.

  You knew them.

  Only by repute. And Vandermaster was standing there with clouds of 1, 1, 2, 2-tetrachloroethylene seething from his nostrils.

  That’s toxic.

  Extremely. I was staggering around bumping into things, tried to hold on to the walls but the walls fell away from me and I fell after them trying to hold on.

  These other witches, they do anything to you?

  Kicked me in the ribs when I was on the floor. With their pointed shoes. I woke up emeraldless.

  Right. Well I guess we’d better get the vast resources of our organization behind this. World. From sea to shining sea to shining sea. I’ll alert all the bureaus in every direction.

  What good will that do?

  It will harry them. When a free press is on the case, you can’t get away with anything really terrible.

  But look at this.

  What is it?

  A solid silver louse. They left it.

  What’s it mean?

  Means that the devil himself has taken an interest.

  A free press, madam, is not afraid of the devil himself.

  Who cares what’s in a witch’s head? Pretty pins for sticking pishtoshio redthread for sewing names to shrouds gallant clankers I’ll twoad ’ee and the gollywobbles to give away and the trinkum-trankums to give away with a generous hand pricksticks for the eye damned if I do and damned if I don’t what’s that upon her forehead? said my father it’s a mark said my mother black mark like a furry caterpillar I’ll scrub it away with the Ajax and what’s that upon her chin? said my father it’s a bit of a beard said my mother I’ll pluck it away with the tweezers and what’s that upon her mouth? said my father it must be a smirk said my mother I’ll wipe it away with the heel of my hand she’s got hair down there already said my father is that natural? I’ll shave it said my mother no one will ever know and those said my father pointing those? just what they look like said my mother I’ll make a bandeau with this nice clean dish towel she’ll be flat as a jack of diamonds in no time and where’s the belly button? said my father flipping me about I don’t see one anywhere must be coming along later said my mother I’ll just pencil one in here with the Magic Marker this child is a bit of a mutt said my father recall to me if you will the circumstances of her conception it was a dark and stormy night said my mother . . . But who cares what’s in a witch’s head caskets of cankers shelves of twoads for twoading paxwax scalpel polish people with scares sticking to their faces memories of God who held me up and sustained me until I fell from His hands into the world . . .