Middle C

by Gass, William H

  But if all the world were a stage, what was backstage, what lurked in the wings, and where were the actors and the actresses when they weren’t on, and why did everybody talk all at once, and the people playing at war shout their lines while the people playing at peace were trying to read theirs, and why were only some shows sold out to an audience more often than not anxiously fanning their faces and drinking booze, because wouldn’t they be participants, too? And would there be music coming from the pit? Backstage, to be sure, was a deity devising the lines, and a whole host of angels, devils perhaps, imps and fairies, raising curtains and dressing persons, contriving designs and prompting the forgetful. Every performance would have to be a play about a play within a play. It was a daze-inducing thought.

  He did dream of strolling naked as Adam through a garden filled with music the plants made. No … rethink that … he would be more naked than Adam, leafless as a winter tree, untroubled by any companion, Eve or angel. Yes … he would be freestanding the way a column can’t be because a column implies a building—the ruin—of which it was a part. No … re … rethink … he’d have no navel … as naked as Adam after all … he’d be born without parents like a god, even speaking a language only he … only he … the Adam of this figment … understood. He’d be free to do whatever he chose to do, to his blame or to his credit, but he would be relieved of the burden of worldly opinion by the absence of any mouth from which even praise might issue. Joey, Joey had hoped, would become such a released Prometheus. He would grow old in these surroundings, unlike ivy but like oak, sustained by his own roots in a soil that was silent about its disposition. After all, he had no father; he had had no sister; his mother was becoming an exotic plant that he no longer was expected to water; except that the sister had come back to life in someone else’s service, and now his mother wanted him to shift the car she scorned into the sphere of her desires; by now the Major had him under her thumb; he was indebted to Miss Moss for help with things he should be ashamed of; and Hazel Hawkins took him for a laughingstock.

  Yes. To be a good king you would have to forswear having subjects. The moment you moved to rule would be the moment of your undoing. Other people’s flaws—and flaws were the yeast that let their loaves rise—would weaken your will. They would oppose it; they would cajole, they would seduce it. They would want so much—for themselves, for their families, for their friends and all those who they believed wished them well. Be good—to me, to mine—oh great and perfect Being. Joey believed Adam had eaten the forbidden fruit only as a favor. I have taken a bite, just as you begged me to, but only to make you shut up, so hush and let me be thoughtful now, alone in the peaceful shade. But Eve was busy getting pregnant.

  27

  Finally (after a few weeks during which Joey’s blameless spirit grew a loincloth and knee-high stockings, and in an increasingly material form began to sit about like the most contemptible functionary), Joey readied himself for the first day of his employment as his mother’s chauffeur. He winced when he recognized the romantic source of the resemblance. At whose court was he expecting to appear? He did not own a hankie, let alone a scented one, and the language of its use was truly foreign to him. So were Adam and Eve. So was the society of sultans, fans, and Negroes. So was the cultivation of crops.

  Nor did Joey quite understand his aversion to Debbie’s blessed event. Why had he hated the idea of her marriage in the first place? Why should he care if she reproduced her kind, or mind that their mother, whose love he should have expected to share with his sis but had never really had to, was so delighted by her role as a person of whom society unanimously approved. Perhaps it was precisely because of that approval. Still, Joey had not sensed much rebellion in his nature—a great deal of quiet grief, some self-pity, a touch of envy, and an attitude of passive endurance toward a wrongheaded world—yes—but … all right … some unearned feelings of superiority, which he had already decided he must mask … yes, but not as a reveler does at a dance, rather as a surgeon does, shrouding his mouth not his eyes, before he performs his rites.

  He disapproved of her husband and their rustic life, her workaday world, her smooth and easy accommodation to American ways, her enviable disposal of the past, yet what sort of level of living did he enjoy? Was there any lock he felt he would fit? one whose opening would make him a pasha, a gallant, a piano player, even? He had never felt he needed a reason for his distaste of Debbie’s showy ways, her saddle shoes, her short skirt, her letter sweater, her

  beaux ………………………………………………

  her ………………………………………………

  her attachment to something so shallow as a school……………

  her………………………………………………

  careless glee …………………………………………

  Debbie’s soybean and potato farm did not enjoy a traditional white two-story clapboard house with its mandatory wraparound porch. Its managers had settled for a prefab ranch: low, sprawling, and painted a color Joey’s mother had described as “dying daffodil.” A concrete slab was its only connection with the earth. The front windows were as wide as the draw of their drapes and faintly bayed like a distant dog, though curtains clouded the view, such as the view was: of plastic chairs idling in the yard, an empty road in front of an empty field, a postbox lonesome as a sentry. With its requisite rusty grill, a picnic table rotted in the rear. Because of a heavy overhang, the house appeared to be wearing a hat and seemed to have strayed from a suburb that, in turn, had strayed from its city. Now it sat in the middle of a flatness that also belonged to another state, shaded by its one big tree and encircled by a lawn of winter-yellow grass that made it seem in the beam of a theatrical spot.

  You reached this house down a gravel road. The road was accompanied by two weed-filled ditches that occasionally stopped altogether as if they had grown tired of running alongside and then, revived by their rest, took up the race again. A fence post could be counted, less often a cattail, and, almost as an afterthought, a thicket, a foolhardy shrub. The land on either side had been stripped of its crop and lay cold wet dark and fallow. Birds had fled to find trees. Joey’s mood was morose; it was melancholy; it was angry; it was the mood of one who felt put upon, betrayed, discovered in the wrong, disturbed in his life when life seemed to be, for a change, proceeding properly.

  The interruption was his mother’s doing. Miriam could not understand Joey’s attitudes and would not try to imagine why the prospect of Debbie’s baby was not a cause for rejoicing and a feeling of fulfillment, as if some significant aim in life had been realized. Begetting was so inevitable, Joey thought, it was as routine as dying, consequently it could be safely left to nature, and otherwise ignored, the way Portho’s presence was ignored even when he slunk indoors, even when he scattered magazines donated by doctors’ offices on one of the polished tables, even when he dropped off, even when he snored. In due course people were born, in due course they managed to walk, they learned to talk, they attended school, they got a job, partied, married, had kids, sold stuff, bought more, overate, drank to be drunk, were relieved to be regular, labored in order to loaf, lived that way a spell—its passage sometimes stealing years—coasting down due’s course—while they lost their hair, sight, hearing, teeth, the use of limbs, the will to live, until, in due course and as their diseases desired, they took to bed; they laughed their last; they said good-bye to the ones they said were loved ones—they curled up in a fist of aches—said good-bye to the ones they said were closest to them—complained about their care—said good-bye to the ones who came to kiss them off, said good-bye to comfort themselves with the sight of another’s going, said good-bye while the designated goer complained, complained of neglect, complained of fear, complained of pain, and disinclined going, but would go, go over, cross Jordan, nevertheless. They uttered last words that no one could understand; they curled up like a drying worm; they cried to no avail because weeping begot
only weeping, wailing was answered with wails; they repented to no one in particular; they died as someone whose loss was likely to be felt no farther than the idler’s door, and dying, quite often, in debt for a cemetery plot, the service of a funeral parlor, in the pursuit of a false ideal. Joey didn’t see much to interest him in any of this. It was what was done between times that fascinated him, when due course was interrupted by dream or discovery, murder or music, though wars were, he had to admit, due course to a faretheewell. And he thought, more and more, that death, assuredly dire, was also something due.

  His attention, now and then, took to leaning in Portho’s direction. He thought about those whose lives were so lean and broken there was no due course within them to enjoy, no lifeline to snap, for whom complaisance could never be a complaint about them, who didn’t know a norm, could not experience even the average, reach a grade of C on any exam, would never bathe in tepid water or enjoy warm, whose lives were simply endless stretches of suffering, and numbness was a coveted relief, death a reward. Maybe Debbie was concealing herself beneath a blanket of middle-class comfort. Didn’t she deserve both comforting and comfort? Didn’t she deserve an American identity? Joey had felt its force, the lure of security. Didn’t he also merit a little griefless good and his own soft harmless life?

  Joey and his mother arrived still arguing over the use of his car, because, as he had pointed out more than once, Debbie and her husband had a car of their own, and why couldn’t they, at least now and then, pay a visit to Mom, their martyr, so that she could size up her enlarging daughter and determine the remaining distance to the tape, the birth weight of the baby, its sex, the color of its eventual hair and eyes, the side of the family it would most resemble, and inquire of its name—had there been a choice of kinds? Hermann for a beefy kid, Hans for ordinary, or Heinrich if he was going to be tall, Gretchen if she was fated to be fat.

  But Grandmother could not remember that the baby’s name was Boulder, would remain Boulder, and that Hans or Hermann Boulder was not a felicitous combination—as if much went with Skizzen either—or plainly face the problem that would arise if the baby was a girl—Heidi Boulder? Gretel then? or Melanie? Melanie Boulder, for heaven’s sake.

  They sat in the drive for a moment to conclude wounding each other in a nice way before they knocked at Deborah’s door like explorers who switch on their lamps when entering a cave: smiles like headlights, eagerness concealing caution in one case, apprehension in another.

  After having stared at his sister with the requisite interest, Joey said, I don’t see any difference; you look the same to me, cheerleader lady. Oh no, the roundness is easy to be present, his mother exclaimed, releasing Debbie from her first, wet-eyed embrace. Later, feeling a bit more welcome than she worried she might be, Miriam touched the cloth that covered her daughter’s sacred stomach the way she might pat the head of a pet. You will be showing soon. I shall sew some skirts. With a maternity panel.

  Deborah wasn’t wearing bobby socks and a letter sweater. She was wearing an apron. Joey’s remark had been both stupid and dishonest. He felt sorry for the first, ashamed for the second. She did look different. Her hair was no longer ponytailed but full of waves that fell to her shoulders, her face was fatter, too, and rosy, her eyes didn’t appear to be looking into a mirror, no makeup was noticeable, no crimson nails. She was as matter-of-fact as a spoon. There was one positive outcome to this exchange of clichés. Joey had concealed his consternations.

  Their further greetings were equally conventional and consequently cordial. Roger will be in shortly; he’s at the barn repairing the tractor, Deborah said, he’ll be along, and how about tea? They followed her into a sunny kitchenette. How convenient the machine proved to be, Joey thought, Roger didn’t have to be here. The tractor could play broke and its driver miss the visit. Joey began to put words to their discussion of how important her husband’s presence would be. To Miriam, only the sight of the unseeable baby mattered. Joey was green as a shriveled lime. But Debbie? Her attitude he could not discern.

  The table was ready for them. A pot of jam, he saw, had been set on a robust red tomato, the largest among the many tomatoes that hung from several long thin inadequate vines inked into the cloth. The sun rollicked along the lips of the teacups, already put about. Lemon slices had been cut, and sugar cubes collected in a kind of square bowl whose odd configuration was meant to be moderne. No cake?

  Miriam asked many questions, none requiring an answer, while Joey worried about Roger, who was in what barn? Joey’d not seen a barn, or any—what were they called?—outbuildings of the sort that usually sat around like ill-treated dogs and glared at the main house they were not allowed to visit. Miriam and Deborah shared a laugh as Debbie drew some buns from her oven. Sugar buns, well, what a treat, Joey said, though neither listened, except perhaps the stove did, despite having its door closed.

  On a fan of fingers, Miriam counted the crucial months before the baby was due. Never had he felt so shut out, even when, on their various journeys, he was often excluded because of his age and inexperience. In those migratory days Joey was sometimes the very subject from which he was being shielded; but now, though as large in the room as they, he was noticed no more than the tomatoes that even several saucers and a trivet could not conceal from his eyes; even though each of these implements was being gay and prancy on his behalf, while sugar and sunlight were stirred into pourings of tea.

  I don’t see any barn. Where is the barn?

  – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

  Does it fold up during the night and only appear when you need it?

  – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

  I remember noticing that your car was gone, Deb, is your barn, then, a drive distant? That’s unusual, isn’t it? not to be nearby? I don’t remember missing the barn when we were out here for the wedding.

  It’s a drive. I haven’t been sick a day so far. Roger walks it sometimes. I feel the same each morning as I felt the day before.

  Oh, that’s fortunate. But it’s early. I remember how sick you made me … ach … as sick as that evil English clotted cream that brought me to bed that time, remember? you were eight? No, it was the eight days running I threw up, I’m thinking of. You were how old?

  Isn’t it unusual for the barn … you know … to be so far away?

  Gee, I don’t remember. All that—it’s as if it happened in another life. This house was built under the only tree.

  I was very impressed by tractors when I was a kid. Well, the ones I liked were bulldozers really.

  For me it’s like yesterday, that other life, Miriam said in her serious voice. I see it plain as that windowpane. I hear it—the sirens and the plosions and the burning—I hear them in my head, especially at night. At night, you must remember, we waited for the rockets.

  They kept shoving rubble into piles so trucks could cart the bombing off. Joey tried to hang this contribution in what proved to be a closet.

  No flows for a while, no cramps. What a relief. I do the same things I always do.

  That’s fortunate, but that will change, oh my, will it. I swear I used to feel my skin stretch.

  I always wanted to sit on one. You suppose Roger could hoist me up?

  Joey sensed some wheels on the gravel drive—it was probably Roger—but then he heard an engine rev, and the wheels moved out of earshot. He fastened his gaze on a saltcellar made entirely of knobbles.

  Is it red—the tractor, he heard himself ask. Is it red?

  Miriam admired the tomato-covered cloth.

  Coloring-book red, his sister said. I did it myself. The colors are fast.

  Do you have pink things set aside, his mother wanted to know.

  Plenty of time for that. Have some more? Plenty of time.

  It’s only a pebble right now, but it will be a boulder someday, Joey considered saying but wisely did not.

  No hurry now
, Miriam said, you’ll be in a hurry soon enough.

  All smiled. Including the cups.

  The tractor? Is it …?

  – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

  Joseph informed the Major of his new duties, and even spoke about some of his misgivings, confiding in her, to his surprise, more fully than he had his mother. But of course the Major could ride free on his train of thought while Miriam wouldn’t want to pay the fare.

  My sister will bear a Boulder.

  Marjorie didn’t smother a laugh.

  No, I mean her husband’s name is Boulder. We’ve never mentioned it. As if it were unspeakable like God’s. Or as if Deborah’s husband didn’t exist. We never used his given name either. Roger Boulder. Mr. and Mrs. Roger Boulder request the presence of a name at the christening of … Now … now that colony he calls his family is frantically trying to find suitable names for the coming kid. Like Nick. Or Rocky. Bad enough that Deborah’s should end in—

  While he’s still a baby you can call him Pebble.

  See, that’s what I mean. In my heart I already have—made a pebble of the fetus.

  Melody. No, Melodious. What do you think of Melodious Boulder? … or Carrie?

  Barry Harry Downie.

  I think Very Much would be a good pair. And for a boy—Clint—no—Cliff.

  I have it. Izzy.

  You are gifted. I dated a boy once whose name was Steve Sleeve. They laughed in happy unison as if they had just seen a bluebird.

  28

  Impatiens, or Touch-Me-Not, Busy Lizzie.

  Professor Skizzen was sitting sidesaddle on an orange crate he had upended in a dormer of his attic. This leftover space had become his office because he could carry on business better from any cranny that refused to accommodate a telephone. Though hidden from almost all eyes, it was lit by a single high window that provided lots of southern sun and a good view of the distant trees. If Joseph heaved up the sash, he could peer directly down upon his mother’s garden, upon the tops of hedges and low shrubs, and take in the outlines of her carefully laid out beds. In the middle stood the great vine-smothered beech, its bench, and a puddle-sized pool where Skizzen would often vainly search his reflected face for a tuneful line. Sometimes he would catch sight of his mother hunched over while wielding a hoe or, trowel in hand, sprawled upon the ground, her legs sticking out from behind a bush, her hat poking up through a forest of fronds. He had discovered to his horror (it had now dwindled to a small disturbance) that Miriam liked to sniff the earth, plus the low stems of her plants, precisely at the point they went into the ground. Where the living and the dead intersect, Joseph had observed, but his mother would have none of it. The earth is as lively as you or I, she said. I smell it, but I also listen to it breathe.