Donald Barthelme

by Donald Barthelme

  She takes your arm and you leave the newsstand, walking very close together, so that your side brushes her side lightly. Desire is here a very strong factor, because you are weak with it, and the woman is too, if she has any sense at all (but of course she is a sensible woman, and brilliant and witty and hungry as well). So, on the sidewalk outside the newsstand, you stand for a moment thinking about where to go, at eleven o’clock in the morning, and here it is, in the sunlight, that you take the first good look at her, and she at you, to see if either one has any hideous blemish that has been overlooked, in the first rush of good feeling. There are none. None. No blemishes (except those spiritual blemishes that will be discovered later, after extended acquaintance, and which none of us are without, but which are now latent? dormant? in any case, not visible on the surface, at this time). Everything is fine. And so, with renewed confidence, you begin to walk, and to seek a place where you might sit down, and have a drink, and talk a bit, and fall into each other’s eyes, temporarily, and find some pretzels, and have what is called a conversation, and tell each other what you think is true about the world, and speak of the strange places where each of you has been (Surinam, in her case, where she bought the belt she is wearing, Lima in your case, where you contracted telegraph fever), and make arrangements for your next meeting (both of you drinking Scotch and water, at eleven in the morning, and you warm to her because of her willingness to leave her natural mid-morning track, for you), and make, as I say, arrangements for your next meeting, which must be this very night! or you both will die—

  There is no particular point to any of this behavior. Or: This behavior is the only behavior which has point. Or: There is some point to this behavior but this behavior is not the only behavior which has point. Which is true? Truth is greatly overrated, volition where it exists must be protected, wanting itself can be obliterated, some people have forgotten how to want.

  When he came to look at the building, with a real-estate man hissing and oozing beside him, we lowered the blinds, muted or extinguished lights, threw newspapers and dirty clothes on the floor in piles, burned rubber bands in ashtrays, and played Buxtehude on the hi-fi—shaking organ chords whose vibrations made the plaster falling from the ceiling fall faster. The new owner stood in profile, refusing to shake hands or even speak to us, a tall thin young man suited in hopsacking with a large manila envelope under one arm. We pointed to the plaster, to crevasses in the walls, sagging ceilings, leaks. Nevertheless, he closed.

  Soon he was slipping little rent bills into the mailboxes, slip slip slip slip slip. In sixteen years we’d never had rent bills but now we have rent bills. He’s raised the rent, and lowered the heat. The new owner creeps into the house by night and takes the heat away with him. He wants us out, out. If we were gone, the building would be decontrolled. The rents would climb into the air like steam.

  Bicycles out of the halls, says the new owner. Shopping carts out of the halls. My halls.

  The new owner stands in profile in the street in front of our building. He looks up the street, then down the street—this wondrous street where our friends and neighbors live in Christian, Jewish, and, in some instances, Islamic peace. The new owner is writing the Apartments Unfurn. ads of the future, in his head.

  The new owner fires the old super, simply because the old super is a slaphappy, widowed, shot-up, black, Korean War-sixty-five-per-cent-disability-vet drunk. There is a shouting confrontation in the basement. The new owner threatens the old super with the police. The old super is locked out. A new super is hired who does not put out the garbage, does not mop the halls, does not, apparently, exist. Roaches prettyfoot into the building because the new owner has stopped the exerminating service. The new owner wants us out.

  We whisper to the new owner, through the walls. Go away! Own something else! Don’t own this building! Try the Sun Belt! Try Alaska, Hawaii! Sail away, new owner, sail away!

  The new owner arrives, takes out his keys, opens the locked basement. The new owner is standing in the basement, owning the basement, with its single dangling bare bulb and the slightly busted souvenirs of all our children’s significant progress. He is taking away the heat, carrying it out with him under his coat, a few pounds at a time, and bringing in with him, a few hundred at a time, his hired roaches.

  The new owner stands in the hall, his manila envelope under his arm, owning the hall.

  The new owner wants our apartment, and the one below, and the two above, and the one above them. He’s a bachelor, tall thin young man in cheviot, no wife, no children, only buildings. He’s covered the thermostat with a locked clear-plastic case. His manila envelope contains estimates and floor plans and draft Apartments Unfurn. ads and documents from the Office of Rent and Housing Preservation which speak of Maximum Base Rents and Maximum Collectible Rents and under what circumstances a Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption Order may be voided.

  Black handprints all over the green of the halls where the new owner has been feeling the building.

  The new owner has informed the young cohabiting couple on the floor above us (rear) that they are illegally living in sin and that for this reason he will give them only a month-to-month lease, so that at the end of each and every month they must tremble.

  The new owner has informed the old people in the apartment above us (front) that he is prepared to prove that they do not actually live in their apartment in that they are old and so do not, in any real sense, live, and are thus subject to a Maximum Real Life Estimate Revision, which, if allowed by the City, will award him their space. Levon and Priscilla tremble.

  The new owner stands on the roof, where the tomato plants are, owning the roof. May a good wind blow him to Hell.

  Terminus

  SHE AGREES to live with him for “a few months”; where? probably at the Hotel Terminus, which is close to the Central Station, the blue coaches leaving for Lyons, Munich, the outerlands . . . Of course she has a Gold Card, no, it was not left at the florist’s, absolutely not . . .

  The bellmen at the Hotel Terminus find the new arrival odd, even furtive; her hair is cut in a funny way, wouldn’t you call it funny? and her habits are nothing but odd, the incessant pumping of the huge accordion, “Malagueña” over and over again, at the hour usually reserved for dinner . . .

  The yellow roses are delivered, no, white baby orchids, the cream-colored walls of the room are severe and handsome, tall windows looking down the avenue toward the Angel-Garden. Kneeling, with a sterilized needle, she removes a splinter from his foot; he’s thinking, clothed, and in my right mind, and she says, now I lay me down to sleep, I mean it, Red Head—

  They’ve agreed to meet on a certain street corner; when he arrives, early, she rushes at him from a doorway; it’s cold, she’s wearing her long black coat, it’s too thin for this weather; he gives her his scarf, which she wraps around her head like a babushka; tell me, she says, how did this happen?

  When she walks, she slouches, or skitters, or skids, catches herself and stands with one hip tilted and a hand on the hip, like a cowboy; she’s twenty-six, served three years in the Army, didn’t like it and got out, took a degree in statistics and worked for an insurance company, didn’t like it and quit and fell in love with him and purchased the accordion . . .

  Difficult, he says, difficult, difficult, but she is trying to learn “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” the sheet music propped on the cream marble mantelpiece, in two hours’ time the delightful psychiatrist will be back from his Mexican vacation, which he spent in perfect dread, speaking to spiders—

  Naked, she twists in his arms to listen to a sound outside the door, a scratching, she freezes, listening; he’s startled by the beauty of her tense back, the raised shoulders, tilted head, there’s nothing, she turns to look at him, what does she see? The telephone rings, it’s the delightful psychiatrist (hers), singing the praises of Cozumel, Cancun . . .

  He punches a hole in a cor
ner of her Gold Card and hangs it about her neck on a gold chain.

  What are they doing in this foreign city? She’s practicing “Cherokee,” and he’s plotting his next move, up, out, across, down . . . He’s hired in Flagstaff, at a succulent figure, more consulting, but he doesn’t want to do that any more, they notice a sullen priest reading his breviary in the Angel-Garden, she sits on a bench and opens the Financial Times (in which his letter to the editor has been published, she consumes it with intense comprehension), only later, after a game of billiards, does he begin telling her how beautiful she is, no, she says, no, no—

  I’ll practice for eighteen hours a day, she says, stopping only for a little bread soaked in wine; he gathers up the newspapers, including the Financial Times, and stacks them neatly on the cream-colored radiator; and in the spring, he says, I’ll be going away.

  She’s setting the table and humming “Vienna”; yes, she says, it will be good to have you gone.

  They’re so clearly in love that cops wave at them from passing cruisers; what has happened to his irony, which was supposed to protect him, keep him clothed, and in his right mind? I love you so much, so much, she says, and he believes her, sole in a champagne sauce, his wife is skiing in Chile—

  And while you sit by the fire, tatting, he says . . .

  She says, no tatting for me, Big Boy . . .

  In the night, he says, alone, to see of me no more, your good fortune.

  Police cars zip past the Hotel Terminus in threes, sirens hee-hawing . . .

  No one has told him that he is a husband; he has learned nothing from the gray in his hair; the additional lenses in the lenses of his spectacles have not educated him; the merriment of dental assistants has not brought him the news; he behaves as if something were possible, still; there’s whispering at the Hotel Terminus.

  He decides to go to a bar and she screams at him, music from the small radio, military marches, military waltzes; she’s confused, she says, she really didn’t mean that, but meant, rather, that the bell captain at the Hotel Terminus had said something she thought offensive, something about “Malagueña,” it was not the words but the tone—

  Better make the bed, he says, the bed in which you’ll sleep, chaste and curly, when I’m gone . . .

  Yes, she says, yes that’s what they say . . .

  True, he’s lean; true, he’s not entirely stupid; yes, he’s given up cigarettes; yes, he’s given up saying “forgive me,” no longer uses the phrase “as I was saying”; he’s mastered backgammon and sleeping with the radio on; he’s apologized for his unkind remark about the yellow-haired young man at whom she was not staring— And when a lover drifts off while being made love to, it’s a lesson in humility, right?

  He looks at the sleeping woman; how beautiful she is! He touches her back, lightly.

  The psychiatrist, learned elf, calls and invites them to his party, to be held in the Palm Room of the Hotel Terminus, patients will dance with doctors, doctors will dance with receptionists, receptionists will dance with detail men, a man who once knew Ferenczi will be there in a sharkskin suit, a motorized wheelchair— Yes, says the psychiatrist, of course you can play “Cherokee,” and for an encore, anything of Victor Herbert’s—

  She, grimly: I don’t like to try to make nobody bored, Hot Stuff.

  Warlike music in all hearts, she says, why are we together?

  But on the other hand, she says, that which exists is more perfect than that which does not . . .

  This is absolutely true. He is astonished by the quotation. In the Hotel Terminus coffee shop, he holds her hand tightly.

  Thinking of getting a new nightie, she says, maybe a dozen.

  Oh? he says.

  He’s a whistling dog this morning, brushes his teeth with tequila thinking about Geneva, she, dying of love, shoves him up against a cream-colored wall, biting at his shoulders . . . Little teed off this morning, aren’t you, babe? he says, and she says, fixin’ to prepare to get mad, way I’m bein’ treated, and he says, oh darlin’, and she says, way I’m bein’ jerked around—

  Walking briskly in a warm overcoat toward the Hotel Terminus, he stops to buy flowers, yellow freesias, and wonders what “a few months” can mean: three, eight? He has fallen out of love this morning, feels a refreshing distance, an absolution— But then she calls him amigo, as she accepts the flowers, and says, not bad, Red Head, and he falls back into love again, forever. She comes toward him fresh from the bath, opens her robe. Goodbye, she says, goodbye.

  The first thing the baby did wrong was to tear pages out of her books. So we made a rule that each time she tore a page out of a book she had to stay alone in her room for four hours, behind the closed door. She was tearing out about a page a day, in the beginning, and the rule worked fairly well, although the crying and screaming from behind the closed door were unnerving. We reasoned that that was the price you had to pay, or part of the price you had to pay. But then as her grip improved she got to tearing out two pages at a time, which meant eight hours alone in her room, behind the closed door, which just doubled the annoyance for everybody. But she wouldn’t quit doing it. And then as time went on we began getting days when she tore out three or four pages, which put her alone in her room for as much as sixteen hours at a stretch, interfering with normal feeding and worrying my wife. But I felt that if you made a rule you had to stick to it, had to be consistent, otherwise they get the wrong idea. She was about fourteen months old or fifteen months old at that point. Often, of course, she’d go to sleep, after an hour or so of yelling, that was a mercy. Her room was very nice, with a nice wooden rocking horse and practically a hundred dolls and stuffed animals. Lots of things to do in that room if you used your time wisely, puzzles and things. Unfortunately sometimes when we opened the door we’d find that she’d torn more pages out of more books while she was inside, and these pages had to be added to the total, in fairness.

  The baby’s name was Born Dancin’. We gave the baby some of our wine, red, white, and blue, and spoke seriously to her. But it didn’t do any good.

  I must say she got real clever. You’d come up to her where she was playing on the floor, in those rare times when she was out of her room, and there’d be a book there, open beside her, and you’d inspect it and it would look perfectly all right. And then you’d look closely and you’d find a page that had one little corner torn, could easily pass for ordinary wear-and-tear but I knew what she’d done, she’d torn off this little corner and swallowed it. So that had to count and it did. They will go to any lengths to thwart you. My wife said that maybe we were being too rigid and that the baby was losing weight. But I pointed out to her that the baby had a long life to live and had to live in the world with others, had to live in a world where there were many, many rules, and if you couldn’t learn to play by the rules you were going to be left out in the cold with no character, shunned and ostracized by everyone. The longest we ever kept her in her room consecutively was eighty-eight hours, and that ended when my wife took the door off its hinges with a crowbar even though the baby still owed us twelve hours because she was working off twenty-five pages. I put the door back on its hinges and added a big lock, one that opened only if you put a magnetic card in a slot, and I kept the card.

  But things didn’t improve. The baby would come out of her room like a bat out of hell and rush to the nearest book, Goodnight Moon or whatever, and begin tearing pages out of it hand over fist. I mean there’d be thirty-four pages of Goodnight Moon on the floor in ten seconds. Plus the covers. I began to get a little worried. When I added up her indebtedness, in terms of hours, I could see that she wasn’t going to get out of her room until 1992, if then. Also, she was looking pretty wan. She hadn’t been to the park in weeks. We had more or less of an ethical crisis on our hands.

  I solved it by declaring that it was all right to tear pages out of books, and moreover, that it was all right to have torn pages ou
t of books in the past. That is one of the satisfying things about being a parent—you’ve got a lot of moves, each one good as gold. The baby and I sit happily on the floor, side by side, tearing pages out of books, and sometimes, just for fun, we go out on the street and smash a windshield together.

  The Mothball Fleet

  IT WAS early morning, just after dawn, in fact. The mothball fleet was sailing down the Hudson. Grayish-brown shrouds making odd shapes at various points on the superstructures. I counted forty destroyers, four light cruisers, two heavy cruisers, and a carrier. A fog lay upon the river.

  I went aboard as the fleet reached the Narrows. I noticed a pair of jeans floating on the surface of the water, stiff with paint. I abandoned my small outboard and jumped for the ladder of the lead destroyer.

  There was no one on deck. All of the gun mounts and some pieces of special equipment were coated with a sort of plastic webbing, which had a slightly repellent feeling when touched. I watched my empty Pacemaker bobbing in the heavy wake of the fleet. I called out. “Hello! Hello!”

  Behind us, the vessels were disposed in fleet formation—the carrier in the center, the two heavy cruisers before and behind her, the destroyer screen correctly placed in relation to the cruisers, or as much so as the width of the channel would allow. We were making, I judged, ten to twelve knots.

  There was no other traffic on the water; this I thought strange.

  It was now about six-thirty; the fog was breaking up, a little. I decided to climb to the bridge. I entered the wheelhouse; there was no one at the wheel. I took the wheel in my hands, tried to turn it a point or two, experimentally; it was locked in place.