Middle C

by Gass, William H

  How totally appropriate to this blissful moment its title was, Joey thought, still breathing heavily from his search, and from his hurry home. My God, he still had his position, his house, his good name and station. At least, Professor Joseph Skizzen did. Just as it had seemed about to be taken from him, and Miriam’s garden wrenched from her while she held it to her breast like a grandchild. How cruel that would have been on top of everything else: a loss of face, of future, of income, then of one’s beautiful creation. O but he had pulled it off. Old fat Hursthorse may have been caught and possibly hung out to dry, who knew what Palfrey had in mind; but he, Professor Joey Joseph Skizzen, the pianist, composer, scholar, teacher, had prevailed. O now he would stride the length of his classroom like the head of a marching band, and he would teach these kids a musical thing or two. He might let on about his true thoughts, as well, if he could get clear what they were, he’d been so long in his roles, his postures in the world.

  He’d have to keep his guard up, maintain the caution appropriate to an animal in the wild, no doubt about that, but every moment he lived now he cemented his presence to this agreeable place: he fastened his figure to an airmail stamp. What did these lines say?

  “This is the way …”

  He didn’t want collegiate rowdy, he wanted home sweet home; he wanted drink to me only with thine eyes; he wanted red sails in the sunset, which wasn’t in the book. He wanted no hymns either though the book was full of them. God was always getting the applause. A show of hands for Joey the music professor! Then something odd occurred to him: the makeup of that committee was strange. Where, in an ethics investigation, was the parson, the Sunday sawyer who hung on Palfrey’s every non sequitur, a yea verily man if ever there was one? He’d appoint no lawyer, Palfrey wouldn’t want to take a chance on someone in town. Those people blabbed as regularly as the chapel’s bells. Joey began to dance, something he called “twist that torso.” Or: the President Palfrey waltz.

  This is the way … this is the way we way we … flop our mops … blow our tops … learn the ropes … tell old jokes …

  Miss Moss warned him not to read what he had found. The Major urged him on. Go ahead. I dare you. But it must be out loud. Miss Spiky laughed at him but her bear turned his head away in shame. Why in the world … all that love for a tubby little bear … why? He had not needed to give up his seat on the bus. There were plenty of seats. She—Hazel—had chosen to sit beside him … all of her—heavy arms and heavy hips. The road was slowly filling with snow.

  How totally appropriate to this blissful moment was the labored screed he held off mouthing as though it were the last chocolate in the box. So what if one of him had done it. Bless this blissful moment, O hurrah for his team. Perhaps he could now enlarge upon his Viennese years—oh carefully, oh cautiously, memorizing, scrutinizing, taking notes; and perhaps he should let his hair grow, get a new cap. Miriam didn’t care for clothes anymore, just equipment: knee pads, trowels, a little bench to carry about and kneel on. To pray to her god the garden. Saved through her son’s sacrifices. Made possible, she would have to admit, by his gift of seeds and security: this house she now disdained and ignored, it was its land she loved and labored in. Miriam filled no rooms with light, sweet air, or vases filled with blooms. After they had gotten their starts, most of her plants grew up every year in the garden, giving their color to each passerby. Flowers were meant to live and die where their roots did, Miriam repeatedly claimed. Like them, she was meant to remain in Austria at her family farm. Beneath her skirt she hid something called “roots.” “This is the way we wash our clothes …” soften blows … count our toes …

  Our house rises from this ground too, shouldn’t it be allowed to flower? Joseph could hear her laugh at “our.”

  He scarcely remembered his return down that familiar path from the college, he flew along so fast, his limbs elastic. How many knew the satisfaction that occupies the soul when the labors of a lifetime—yes, it was true, labors of a lifetime—have been justified. His worries were never needless, and even after this terrible threat has been removed, and its terrible scare survived, he must tread cautiously down a trail of traps; nevertheless, he felt ensconced, glued in place, a piece upon the board that refuses to be moved, though knights die beside it.

  The authorities had never caught his father either. His father had received an unexpected benevolence after several years of trial and suffering, just as Joey had now gone scot-free in following his father’s lead. “Scot-free.” Why does one say “scot-free”? What was this poem doing here? Perhaps, like Schubert, he would set it to music, over and over again. The same song. Only faster and faster. This is the way we cheat at play … he felt an anger that was normally foreign to him, and he read aloud, as if in his attic, as if he knew the words that were coming. How did that academic bunch, as though hidden in dark gowns, dare to inflict their ignorance upon him, their incompetence, their hypocrisies … employ travesty after travesty … because that meeting was a comedy … it had worried him so … a joke … with its situation, its load, its cock and snapper too.

  The Faculty Meeting

  This is the way we smirk and sigh, lurk and spy, favor buy,

  this is the way we smile and lie

  to prepare for the faculty meeting.

  This is the way we bluff our way, fluff our way, gruff our way,

  this is the way we puff and bray

  throughout the faculty meeting.

  This is the way we cheat and bleat, bow and scrape, preen and prate,

  this is the way we obfuscate

  during the faculty meeting.

  This is the way we wash our hands, beat our bands, call our clans,

  this is the way we hatch our plans,

  at the faculty meeting.

  This is the way we tip our hat, smell a rat, bell the cat,

  this is the way we take a nap,

  in the midst of the faculty meeting.

  This is the way we clear our throats, burn our boats, turn our coats,

  this is the way we change our votes,

  in the faculty meeting.

  This is the way we hatch our plots, cast our lots, pick our spots,

  this is the way we get our gots

  by steering the faculty meeting.

  This is the way we kiss an ass, lick a dick, turn a trick,

  this is why we get quite sick

  to learn what the dean is scheming.

  So this is the way we’ll buck the trends, fake amends, forget our ends,

  this is the way we’ll fuck our friends

  by the end of the faculty meeting.

  This is how our tenure concludes, in pissy moods and platitudes,

  a career of complaint and attitudes

  in the course of the faculty’s meetings.

  This is the way retirement starts, with a chorus of jeers, and a volley of farts.

  They’re the true heart of academy sorts,

  who depart the faculty meeting.

  This is the way to the grave we chose, the eyes we close, the nose we lose,

  this is how each faculty goes,

  when the worms attend our meeting.

  Yes, Skizzen thought, my sentiments exactly. I cannot but agree. However there were a few words in among the rest like bugs waiting for a bite, that wouldn’t suit Schubert’s style. They certainly didn’t suit Joey either, but he wondered sometimes about his own blandness, reticence even, in a world of obscenities and curses. He refused to join them, but he had to admit that from time to time a loud “fuck you” might be just the thing. When he first encountered that overused word it had been splashed in red on a shattered wall. He still associated bad language with London. Miriam said she didn’t give a damn where they put such sentiments so long as they weren’t in German. For her, they had no weight as words in a foreign tongue.

  How would he dare approach her with his plate of joy, so he could share his happiness with her without his information? Perhaps they could celebrate the o
ccasion with a nice Austrian stew. After which they might tidy up the place. He would sit down at the keys of an evening, great music in both his hands, while a loving twilight tiptoed across the piano.

  Ach du lieber. He laughed as he supposed an Austrian would. Ach du lieber. What a funny phrase. Alas, he didn’t dare mention his—he supposed narrow—escape to Miriam: not his worries, not his success, because she hadn’t known of either. She had eyes only for her flock. And a few vague suspicions she didn’t want cleared up. As her flowers moved in a breeze, she moved. She found her future in these stems, in their transformations, their blooms, and, like them, burst into a celebration of petal color in her old age. Instead of receiving his good news as good news, she’d take it as bad. For her, it would be like hearing that a bridge she had just safely crossed was expected to fail, when she knew she’d have to go over the same bridge next day.

  Oh but Joey was planning some picnics, no need to say why but simply to salute the autumn, she might like that, and, of course, he would have to facilitate visits to his sis and her lot, the pebbles, rocks, and boulders. It meant so much to … to his relatives. My God, he had relatives.

  “I’m a careless potato, and care not a pin

  How into existence I came;

  If they planted me drill-wise or dibbled me in,

  To me ’tis exactly the same.”

  He’d never understood what families were for beyond bearing and raising babies. They carry you away from what you were hoping to become like leaking boats. Bail, boy, if you want to stay afloat. You’ll die with a can in your hand, family man.

  Ah, there was a line worth working over: you’ll die with a can in your hand family man. Like Moore’s “If they planted me drill-wise or dibbled me in.” It had a lilt, as if it were asking for more of its music. Perhaps it wasn’t as strongly regimental as “this is how we wash our clothes,” but that might be an advantage. And it wasn’t quite as universally threatening as “Formerly I thought the world might go up in smoke, but now I’m forced to give up hope.”

  His father had a dream: to keep his hands forever clean. Joey wasn’t clear whether his father had ever understood that it takes a lot of digging in the dirt to do that. But he knew his students were now actually his, and that what he was giving them was his own hard-won lie-soaked example of fathering. That strangely exhilarating roundelay was wrong about committees too. This very day Skizzen had participated in one that didn’t turn out so badly. Palfrey would probably do nothing and wait for the fat man to go away.

  Joey was sorry he couldn’t share his happiness with anyone. The world should be sorry; but you didn’t burden friends with your own good luck. In no time, he would find himself relieved of his relief. Those bursts of celebratory energy he enjoyed would be replaced by the weariness left within their scorched shells. Already he felt his elation make a few farewell waves. As far as his mother went, silence was surely the better strategy. No need to know—that was the popular expression. He returned the songbook to its place on the bedside table. This time, reverently. Perhaps he would contest Miriam’s claim after all. What did she want with this dreary leftover room? It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen her in … what? one, two, several days. She must be in the garden, digging like a dog, quite out of sight. He felt like a little piano practice, a return to more virtuous days. The museum had regained its voice, and also demanded his presence. He knew a can that deserved kicking. Skizzen pled guilty of neglecting these duties. Newspapers were accumulating in sliding piles. He needed flypaper, and would have to go downtown in a day or two to fetch some. Last time, the kid in the hardware who served him exclaimed, “You must have a lot of flies.” You hadn’t noticed? Skizzen should have said. There are a lot of flies. The professor also had a few things to say to the assembled … Joey laughed—call them to quorum—Joseph winced—are there enough to have a hearing?—this is an assembled multitude? Be more forceful with your speaking. No more deliver a simple “say.” As for your vocal level, exhibit more gradients than a shout. He ought to instruct his imaginary multitude about the virtues of marching bands. Then they will understand what has here been achieved. No need to search, some late afternoon, Miriam might turn up of her own accord. She couldn’t cultivate her garden forever.

  [– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –]

  A Note About the Author

  William H. Gass—essayist, novelist, literary critic—was born in Fargo, North Dakota. He is the author of six works of fiction and nine books of essays, including Finding a Form, Tests of Time, and Life Sentences. Gass is a former professor of philosophy at Washington University. He lives with his wife, the architect Mary Gass, in St. Louis.

  Other titles by William H. Gass available in eBook format

  Life Sentences 978-0-307-95744-3

  A Temple of Texts 978-0-307-49824-3

  The World Within the Word 978-0-307-82429-5

  For more information, please visit www.aaknopf.com