The Teachings of Don B.

by Donald Barthelme

  I AM, AT THE MOMENT. . .

  I am, at the moment, seated. On a stump in the forest, listening. Ireland and Scotland are remote, Wales is not near. I will rise, soon, to hold the ladder for you.

  Tombs are scattered through the tall white beanwoods. They are made of perfectly ordinary gray stone. Chandeliers, at night, scatter light over the tombs, little houses in which I sleep with the already-beautiful, and they with me. The already-beautiful saunter through the forest carrying plump red hams, already cooked. The already-beautiful do not, as a rule, run.

  Holding the ladder I watch you glue additional chandeliers to appropriate limbs. You are tiring, you have worked very hard. Iced beanwater will refresh you, and these wallets made of ham. I have set bronze statues of alert, crouching Indian boys around the periphery of the forest, for ornamentation. For ornamentation. Each alert, crouching Indian boy is accompanied by a large, bronze, wolflike dog, finely polished.

  I have been meaning to speak to you. I have many pages of notes, instructions, quarrels. On weighty matters I will speak without notes, freely and passionately, as if inspired, at night, in a rage, slapping myself, great tremendous slaps to the brow which will fell me to the earth. The already-beautiful will stand and watch, in a circle, cradling, each, an animal in mothering arms—green monkey, meadow mouse, tucotuco.

  That one has her hips exposed, for study. I make careful notes. You snatch the notebook from my hands. The pockets of your smock swing heavily with the lights of chandeliers. Your light-by-light, bean-by-bean career.

  I am, at this moment, prepared to dance.

  The already-beautiful have, historically, danced. The music made by my exercise machine is, we agree, danceable. The women partner themselves with large bronze hares, which have been cast in the attitudes of dancers. The beans you have glued together are as nothing to the difficulty of casting hares in the attitudes of dancers, at night, in the foundry, working the bellows, the sweat, the glare. The heat. The glare.

  Thieves have been invited to dinner, along with the deans of the chief cathedrals. The thieves will rest upon the bosoms of the deans, at night, after dinner, after coffee, among the beanwoods. The thieves will confess to the deans, and the deans to the thieves. Soft benedictions will ensue.

  England is far away, and France is but a rumor. Pillows are placed in the tombs, potholders, dustcloths. I am privileged, privileged, to be able to hold your ladder. Tirelessly you glue. The forest will soon exist on some maps, tribute to the quickness of the world’s cartographers. This life is better than any I have lived, previously. Beautiful hips bloom and part. Your sudden movement toward red kidney beans has proved, in the event, masterly. Everywhere we see the already-beautiful wearing stomachers, tiaras of red kidney beans, polished to the fierceness of carnelians. No ham hash does not contain two red kidney beans, polished to the fierceness of carnelians.

  Spain is distant, Portugal wrapped in an impenetrable haze. These noble beans, glued by you, are mine. Thousand-pound sacks are off-loaded at the quai, against our future needs. The deans are willing workers, the thieves, straw bosses of extraordinary tact. Your weather reports have been splendid: the fall of figs you predicted did in fact occur. I am, at the moment, feeling very jolly. Hey hey, I say. It is remarkable how well human affairs can be managed, with care.

  NOW THAT I AM OLDER . . .

  Now that I am older I am pleased to remember. Those violent nights. When having laid theorbo aside I came to your bed. You, having laid phonograph aside, lay there. Awaiting. I, having laid aside all cares and other business, approached. Softly so as not to afright the sour censorious authorities. You, undulating restlessly under the dun coverlet. Under the framed, signed and numbered silver print. I, having laid aside all frets and perturbations, approached.

  Prior to this, the meal. Sometimes the meal was taken in, sometimes out. If in, I sliced the onions and tossed them into the pot, or you sliced the chanterelles and tossed them into the pot. The gray glazed pot with the black leopard-spot meander. What an infinity of leeks, lentils, turnips, green beans we tossed into the pot, over the years. Celery.

  Sometimes the meal was taken out. There we sat properly with others in crowded rooms, green-flocked paper on the walls, the tables too close together. Decent quiet servitors in black-and-white approached and with many marks of respect and goodwill, fed us. Tingle of choice sometimes we elected the same dish, lamb in pewter sauce on one occasion. Three yellow daffs and a single red tulip in the tall slender vase to your right. My thumb in my martini nudging the olives from the white plastic sword.

  Prior to the meal, the Happy Hour. You removed your shoes and sat, daintily, on your feet. I loosened my tie, if the day’s business had required one, and held out my hand. You smashed a glass into it, just in time. Fatigued from your labors at the scriptorium where you illuminated manuscripts having to do with the waxing/waning fortunes of International Snow. We snuggled, there on the couch, there is no other word for it, as God is my witness. The bed awaiting.

  I remember the photograph over your bed. How many mornings has it greeted me banded with the first timorous light through the blind slats. A genuine Weegee, car crash with prostrate forms, long female hair in a pool of blood shot through booted cop legs. In a rope-molding frame. Beside me, your form, not yet awake but bare of dull unnecessary clothing and excellently positioned to be prowled over. After full light, tickling permitted.

  Fleet through the woods came I upon that time toward your bed. A little pouch of mealie-mealie by my side, for our repast. You, going into the closet, plucked forth a cobwebbed bottle. On the table in front of the couch, an artichoke with its salty dip. Hurling myself through the shabby tattering door toward the couch, like an (arrow from the bow) (spear from the hand of Achilles), I thanked my stars for the wisdom of my teachers, Smoky and Billy, which had enabled me to find a place in the labor market, to depart in the morning and return at night, bearing in the one hand a pannier of periwinkles and in the other, a disc new-minted by the Hot Club of France.

  Your head in my arms.

  SPEAKING OF THE HUMAN BODY. . .

  Speaking of the human body, Klee said: One bone alone achieves nothing.

  Pondering this, people placed lamps on all of the street corners, and sofas next to the lamps. People sat on the sofas and read Spinoza there, an interesting glare cast on the pages by the dithering inconstant traffic lights. At other points, on the street, four-poster beds were planted, and loving couples slept or watched television together, the sets connected to the empty houses behind them by long black cables. Elsewhere, on the street, conversation pits were chipped out of the concrete, floored with Adam rugs, and lengthy discussions were held. Do we really need a War College? was a popular subject. Favorite paintings were lashed to the iron railings bordering the sidewalks, a Gainsborough, a van Dongen, a perfervid evocation of Umbrian mental states, an important dark-brown bruising of Arches paper by a printer of modern life.

  One man hung all of his shirts on the railing bordering a sidewalk, he had thirty-nine, and another was brushing his teeth in his bathrobe, another was waxing his fine mustache, a woman was marking cards with a little prickly roller so that her husband, the gambler, would win forever. A man said, “Say, mon, fix me some of dem chitlins you fry so well,” and another man said, “Howard, my son, I am now going to show you how to blow glass”—he dipped his glass-blowing tube into a furnace of bubbling glass, there on the street, and blew a rathskeller of beer glasses, each goldenly full.

  Inside the abandoned houses subway trains rushed in both directions and genuine nameless animals ate each other with ghastly fervor—

  Monday. Many individuals are grasping hold of the sewer grates with both hands, a manifestation, in the words of S. Moholy-Nagy, of the tragic termination of the will to fly.

  A WOMAN SEATED ON A PLAIN WOODEN CHAIR. . .

  A woman seated on a plain wooden chair under a canopy. She is wearing white overalls and has a pleased expression on her fa
ce. Watching her, two dogs, German shepherds, at rest. Behind the dogs, with their backs to us, a row of naked women kneeling, sitting on their heels, their buttocks as perfect as eggs or 0’s—00 00 00 00 00 00 00. In profile to the scene, Benvenuto Cellini, in a fur hat.

  Two young women wrapped as gifts. The gift wrapping is almost indistinguishable from ordinary clothing, perhaps a shade newer, brighter, more studied than ordinary clothing. Each young woman holds a white envelope. Each envelope is addressed to “Tad.”

  Two young women, naked, tied together by a long red thread. One is dark, one is fair.

  Large (eight by ten feet) sheets of white paper on the floor, eight of them. The total area covered is about four hundred square feet; some of the sheets overlap. A string quartet is playing at one edge of this area, and irregular rows of formally dressed spectators sit in gilt chairs across the paper from the players. A large bucket of blue paint has been placed on the paper. Two young women, naked. Each has her hair rolled up in a bun; each has been splashed, breasts, belly, thighs, with blue paint. One, on her belly, is being dragged across the paper by the other, who is standing, gripping the first woman’s wrists. Their backs are not painted. Or not painted with. The artist is Yves Klein.

  Nowhere—the middle of it, its exact center. Standing there, a telephone booth, green with tarnished aluminum, the word PHONE and the system’s symbol (bell in ring) in medium blue. Inside the telephone booth, two young women, one dark, one fair, facing each other. Their naked breasts and thighs brush lightly (one holding the receiver to the other’s ear) as they place calls to their mothers in California. In profile to the scene, at far right, Benvenuto Cellini, wearing white overalls.

  Two young men, wrapped as gifts. They have wrapped themselves carefully, tight pants, open-throated shirts, shoes with stacked heels, gold jewelry on right and left wrists, codpieces stuffed with credit cards. They stand, under a Christmas tree big as an office building, and women rush toward them. Or they stand, under a Christmas tree big as an office building, and no women rush toward them. A voice singing Easter songs, hallelujahs.

  Georges de La Tour, wearing white overalls (Iron Boy brand) is attending a film. On the screen two young women, naked, are playing Ping-Pong. One makes a swipe with her paddle at a ball the other has placed just over the net and misses, bruising her right leg on the edge of the table. The other puts down her paddle and walks gracefully around the table to examine the hurt; she places her hands on either side of the raw, ugly mark . . . Georges de La Tour picks up his hat and walks from the theatre. In the lobby he purchases a bag of M&M’s which he opens with his teeth.

  The world of work: two young women, one dark, one fair, wearing web belts to which canteens are attached, nothing more. They are sitting side by side on high stools (00 00) before a pair of draughting tables, inking in pencil drawings. Or, in a lumberyard in southern Illinois, they are unloading a railroad car containing several hundred thousand board feet of southern yellow pine. Or, in the composing room of a medium-sized Akron daily, they are passing long pieces of paper through a machine which deposits a thin coating of wax on the back side, and then positioning the type on a page. Or, they are driving identical yellow cabs which are racing side by side up Park Avenue with frightened passengers, each driver trying to beat the other to a hole in the traffic. Or, they are seated at adjacent desks in the beige-carpeted area set aside for officers in a bank, refusing loans. Or, they are standing bent over, hands on knees, peering into the site of an archeological dig in the Cameroons. Or, they are teaching, in adjacent classrooms, Naked Physics—in the classroom on the left, Naked Physics I, and in the classroom on the right, Naked Physics II. Or, they are kneeling, sitting on their heels, before a pair of shoeshine stands.

  Two young women, wearing web belts to which canteens are attached, nothing more, marching down Broadway again. They are followed by an excited crowd, bands, etc.

  Two women, one dark and one fair, wearing parkas, blue wool watch caps on their heads, inspecting a row of naked satyrs, hairy-legged, split-footed, tailed, and tufted, who hang from hooks in a meat locker where the temperature is a constant 18 degrees. The women are tickling the satyrs under the tail, where they are most vulnerable, with their long white (nimble) fingers tipped with long curved scarlet nails. The satyrs squirm and dance under this treatment, hanging from hooks, while other women, seated in red plush armchairs, in the meat locker, applaud, or scold, or knit. Hovering near the thermostat, Vladimir Tatlin, in an asbestos tuxedo.

  Two women, one dark and one fair, wearing parkas, blue wool watch caps on their heads, inspecting a row of naked young men, hairy-legged, many-toed, pale and shivering, who hang on hooks in a meat locker where the temperature is a constant 18 degrees. The women are tickling the men under the tail, where they are most vulnerable, with their long white (nimble) fingers tipped with long curved scarlet nails. The young men squirm and dance under this treatment, hanging from hooks, while giant eggs, seated in red plush chairs, boil.

  THAT GUY IN THE BACK ROOM . . .

  That guy in the back room, she said. He’s eating our potatoes. You were wonderful last night. The night before that, you were wonderful. The night before that, you were terrible. He’s eating our potatoes. I went in there and looked at him and he had potato smeared all over his face. Mashed. You were wonderful on the night that we met. I was terrible. You were terrible on the night we had the suckling pig. The pig, cooking the pig, put you in a terrible mood. I was wonderful in order to balance, to attempt to balance, your foul behavior. That guy with the eye patch in the back room is eating our potatoes. What are you going to do about it?

  What? he said.

  What are you going to do about it?

  He’s got a potato masher in there?

  And a little pot. He holds the little pot between his knees. Mashes away with his masher. Mash mash mash.

  Well, he said, he’s got to live, don’t he?

  I don’t know. Maybe so, maybe not. You brought him home. What are you going to do about it?

  We have plenty of potatoes, he said. I think you’re getting excited. Getting excited about nothing. Maybe you’d better simmer down. If I want frenzy I’ll go out on the street. In here, I want calm. Clear, quiet calm. You’re getting excited. I want you to calm down. So I can read. Quietly, read.

  You were superb on the night we had the osso buco, she said. I cooked it. That seemed to strike your fancy. You appreciated the effort, my effort, or seemed to. You didn’t laugh. You did smile. Smiled furiously all through dinner. I was atrocious that night. Biting the pillow. You kept the lights turned up, you were reading. We struggled for the rheostat. The music from the other room flattered you, your music, music you had bought and paid for, to flatter yourself. Your good taste. Nobody ever listens to that stuff unless he or she wants to establish that he or she has supremely good taste. Supernal good taste.

  Did you know, he said, looking up, that the mayor has only one foot? One real foot?

  Cooking the pig put you in a terrible mood. The pig’s head in particular. You asked me to remove the pig’s head. With a saw. I said that the pig’s head had to remain in place. Placing the apple in a bloody hole where the pig’s neck had been would be awful, I said. People would be revolted. You threw the saw on the floor and declared that you could not go on. I said that people had been putting the apple in the pig’s mouth for centuries, centuries. There were twenty people coming for dinner, a mistake, of course, but not mine. The pig was stretched out on the counter. You placed the pig on two kitchen chairs which had been covered with newspaper, the floor had been covered with newspaper too, my knee was on or in the pig’s back, I grasped an ear and began to saw. You were terrible that night, threw a glass of wine in a man’s face. I remember these things.

  Kinda funny to have a mayor with only one foot.

  The man said he was going to thump you. I said, Go ahead and thump him. You said, No one is going to thump anybody. The man left, then, red wine stains staining
his pink cashmere sweater quite wonderfully. You were wonderful that night.

  They say, he said, that there are flowers all over the city because the mayor does not know where his mother is buried. Did you know that?

  THEY CALLED FOR MORE STRUCTURE. . .

  They called for more structure, then, so we brought in some big hairy four-by-fours from the back shed and nailed them into place with railroad spikes. This new city, they said, was going to be just jim-dandy, would make architects stutter, would make Chambers of Commerce burst into flame. We would have our own witch doctors, and strange gods aplenty, and site-specific sins, and humuhumunukunukuapuaa in the public fish bowls. We workers listened with our mouths agape. We had never heard anything like it. But we trusted our instincts and our paychecks, so we pressed on, bringing in color-coated steel from the back shed and anodized aluminum from the shed behind that. Oh radiant city! we said to ourselves, how we want you to be built! Workplace democracy was practiced on the job, and the clerk-of-the-works (who had known Wiwi Lönn in Finland) wore a little cap with a little feather, very jaunty. There was never any question of hanging back (although we noticed that our ID cards were of a color different from their ID cards); the exercise of our skills, and the promise of the city, were enough. By the light of the moon we counted our chisels and told stories of other building feats we had been involved in: Babel, Chandigarh, Brasilia, Taliesin.