by Peter Selgin
You lived for those letters. Receiving one was like having your own life delivered to you in a stamped envelope.
The man writing this isn’t the one you knew. He died a while ago, Peter, on a mountaintop in Nepal. It was a slow, agonizing death.…
You’d wait for your papa to pedal his rusty Raleigh back from the post office, then check the mail in his handlebar basket for an envelope with your name and address in the teacher’s handwriting.
Shit, Peter, I lie awake daydreaming of how wonderful this world could be for all of us, feeling like a man lying next to the most beautiful woman his heart or mind could ever conjure, but who’s lost his balls to a society that doesn’t know the difference between good and evil and doesn’t give a fig. Blind people in a land of the blind – mute, begging for vision, using sign language I can’t see or understand. At times I wish I were one of the multitude who won’t ever know the difference as they fuck away in roles that other people cast them in. Maslow must have been out of his fucking mind! Does anyone ever really self-actualize? The great gardener in the sky had already weeded all the true selves out of the garden the moment the first tender shoot dared to whisper “I am!”…
Now and then the letters conveyed a note of dismay or disapproval with respect to something you’d said or done, or an unworthy thought, opinion, or belief.
Another part of me thinks, Bullshit! Trite bullshit! Why bother to write? Who is this Peter you haven’t seen in years? What kind of silly fool am I to resurrect old memories that should have died long ago, waking memories of those dried out little turds – Bethel personified – who made my life a living hell in that tunnel-visioned environment in which I was once a prisoner. A powerful bomb dropped in its center wouldn’t bring the semblance of a tear to my eyes. Damn it, Peter, I don’t want to be relegated to a shit-pile of old memories! .…
But mostly the letters were encouraging, offering words of praise, giving advice or reassurance, brimming with hope for the future, for the community the teacher hoped to build – for Castalia, or what you had come to think of as Castalia, picturing a castle-like fortress on a mountaintop, surrounded by lakes, fields and farms, at an elevation so high most of the time it was hidden by clouds, so the ordinary people living down in the valley couldn’t see it.
Dear of the great inquiring probing eyes, sensitive Peter, spiteful Peter, loving Peter… Peter so easily hurt and so easily hurting others. Know I love you, this one statement having the intensity of the entire human race chanting in unison, that that love is deeper than your postures at different stages, that it’s for you as you continue to grow, as you were stages ago and will be stages to come and lifetimes to be. …
* * *
FOLLOWING THE TEACHER’S SURPRISE SUMMER VISIT, through what remained of high school, you felt like an imposter, a grown man impersonating a pimply teenager. And though you played the part fairly well, getting along with friends and classmates and earning decent grades, still, you felt woefully miscast, impatient for the greater roles that you felt destined to perform.
Meanwhile you lifted your rusty barbells, wrote, and sketched in the den that had been your grandmother’s room, its odors of naphthalene, lilac, and soy sauce replaced by that of fresh paint. Nonnie was dead. She died in the nursing home where she spent her last days. One day, your father stopped by for a visit to find her gray cadaver lying there with its eyes open. He’d left you waiting in the parked car. Afterward, as he put the car into gear, an odd sound escaped him – half sniffle, half gasp. It was as close as you had ever come to hearing him cry.
Your father owned a Pinto now. It was his first American car. He had traded in his Simca for it. During junior year, while parked in the rain in the muddy yard of a burned-down hat factory, you lost your virginity in its front seat, a milestone whose legacies included a sore back, a bent gearshift, and your first case of crab lice.
GIVEN THAT YOU were already an actor, when a local community theater put up a casting notice for Camelot, you auditioned for the part of Sir Lancelot, King Arthur’s favorite knight, doomed by his love affair with Guinevere. No sooner did the notice appear in the Bethel Home News than you ran out and bought the original Broadway cast album.
To prepare for the audition you practiced your songs while mowing the grass, the cracks in your voice drowned out by a 5-horsepower lawnmower engine.
Your diligence was rewarded. You got the part.
Guess who was cast as Guinevere?
By then you had a crush on Vivian, who was, after, all, your closest remaining link to the teacher. Those feelings you held for him that couldn’t be conveyed in his absence, and certain other feelings as well, you directed toward her.
You had three weeks to rehearse. In your determination to reach the high E-flat in “If Ever I Would Leave You” (a number the musical director offered to transpose to a more comfortable key for you, which generous offer you declined) you took voice lessons from a private music coach.
The coach, whose name was Madame Yoffa, once toured with the National Opera Company of Vilnus, Lithuania, or so she claimed. A heavyset middle-aged woman, she lived with her three aging dachshunds – all blind, deaf, and prone to diarrhea – in a Victorian on South Street, next door to the Bethel Volunteer Fire Department.
Madam Yoffa wore colorfully embroidered peasant outfits befitting her bohemian past if not her age. Her breath was rankly sour, its sourness only partly explained by the empty vodka fifths in her kitchen trash. Without fail your sessions would be interrupted by the wail of the siren going off next door. While waiting for it to stop, you’d stand and Madam Yoffa would sit at her spinet piano, grimacing, eyes squeezed shut, her fingers in her ears, saying, Ach – ven vill dey vinish do burn down, zo many houzes?
Later, as you ran up and down the scales, she’d crouch behind you, squeezing your ribcage as though it were a concertina, saying, Pooj oud, pooj oud wid yur lungz! With each lesson Madam Yoffa’s hands sank a little lower, until one day, as politely as you could, you indicated this to her. She vaulted from her sofa, shouting, I know vat I’m doink! You tink I don’t know vat I am doink?
Normally at the end of your lessons Madam Yoffa would offer you homemade kiffles with a glass of milk. But that afternoon no kiffles were forthcoming and the lesson turned out to be your last.
DURING THE FINAL week of rehearsals, Vivian phoned to ask if you cared to run lines with her. In your new used car, a rusty MG with four different-sized tires that you’d bought for $200, you drove to her boxy raised ranch house in a development called Chimney Heights. As you were pulling into her driveway, Vivian stepped out of her front door. Carrying a plaid blanket, she marched up to your MG, got in, and slammed the rusty door.
Let’s go, she commanded.
Where to?
Anywhere. As long as there are no goddamn people around.
You drove to Huntington State Park, the same park you’d gone to with the teacher. As you entered the woods, a chorus of cicadas sang the song of a muggy day. Through the overarching branches sunlight flickered, painting pale flowers on Vivian’s cheeks. You carried both scripts, yours and hers. Vivian carried the plaid blanket.
Every dozen yards or so you came to what seemed to you a perfectly good place to run lines, but Vivian kept shaking her head, saying, No; deeper. She walked on ahead of you, turning every ten or so steps to cast you her sly Mona Lisa smile. One time, as she turned back, she collided with a mass of cobwebs leftover from the gypsy moth plague. The web formed a gossamer veil over her face that, like a groom preparing to kiss his bride, you lifted gently off.
Ugh, Vivian said.
Following a series of “deepers,” you settled on a patch of moss between two trees. You spread out the plaid blanket. As Vivian sat on it with her legs crossed, you thumbed through your copy of the script, wondering where you should begin. You were thumbing it that way when suddenly Vivian grabbed it from you.
How about right here? she said, tossing the script over her shoulder and jamming
her tongue hard and deep into your mouth. Breathlessly between tongue-thrusts she uttered:
We can do whatever you want. Just please don’t come inside me. I don’t want anything to do with your children.
You wore a denim cowboy shirt, the kind with pearl and metal snaps instead of buttons. As Vivian thrust herself into you, one of the snaps dug painfully into your sternum.
Hold on, you said.
Vivian tapped her fingers on the blanket as you fumblingly removed your shirt.
Okay, you said when you’d finished. I’m ready now.
Do you have a condom? Vivian asked.
A what? you said.
A condom. A rubber. You know what a rubber is, don’t you?
Huh? Sure – sure I know what a rubber is, you said.
Have you got one?
Huh? Oh, I’m not sure. Wait, let me see …
You pretended to check your pockets.
This is hopeless, said Vivian, standing.
What’s the matter?
I feel like a child molester!
Go on, you said. Molest me!
Having yanked the blanket out from under you, Vivian huffed off. She huffed all the way back to where you’d parked the car, streaming obscenities and snapping tree branches in your face all the way as you followed.
It’s all your fault, she said.
What’s my fault? What the hell are you talking about?
She climbed into the passenger seat.
Take me home, she said.
Not until you tell me what this is about!
Take me home, goddammit. Now!
You got in the car and turned the key. The starter wound and wound, losing power. Just when you thought it wouldn’t, the engine turned over. Vivian got a cigarette from her purse and tried to light it using the dashboard lighter, which like so many things in the car didn’t work. She tossed her unlit cigarette and the lighter into the parking lot.
Homo, she muttered as you backed the car out.
You slammed the brakes.
What?
Shut up and drive!
What did you say?
Vivian sat there with her arms crossed.
I’m not a homo!
You couldn’t prove it by me.
Let’s go back in the woods. I’ll prove it!
Either you put this piece of shit of a car in gear and drive me home or I swear I’ll make you rue the day you were born.
You pulled out of the parking lot.
As you drove her home Vivian sat stiff in the passenger seat, her arms folded over her still unbuttoned blouse, the nipple of one of her breasts – the one closest to you, the left one – exposed. Over the MG’s winding roar and the noise of wind rushing over the windshield you tried to defend yourself against Vivian’s charge, but she wouldn’t hear it, cutting you off, saying, One more peep out of you and I swear to God I’ll steer this hunk of shit into the next tree! You downshifted and floored the gas and white-knuckled the steering wheel, praying for an oncoming vehicle to crash into, picturing Vivian, her arms still folded across her chest, soaring ass-over-teakettle over the cracked MG windshield. But it was Sunday and the roads were empty. You made it safely back to Chimney Heights. As Vivian got out of the car you said:
I still don’t have any idea what the hell all this is about!
I’ll give you a clue, Vivian said, and spoke the teacher’s name while slamming the car door.
What’s he got to do with anything?
If not for you he’d still be here, that’s what. It was thanks to you that he got fired – you and your latent homosexual puppy love!
As you sat with your jaw hanging, dragging the blanket with her, Vivian marched to her front door. When she reached it she stopped, turned, and yelled:
He loved me. That’s right, asshole. We were in love. And now he’s gone and I’ll probably never see him again. All thanks to you, you little queer!
She stormed on into her house.
* * *
THROUGHOUT CAMELOT’S TWO-WEEK-LONG RUN, WITH the exception of King Arthur (whose part was played by a happily married carpeting and floor tile salesman), Vivian made-out with every male cast and crew member, including the other knights of the Round Table and King Pellinore. You’d catch them necking in the folds of a curtain, behind canvas flats, in the parking lot after a performance.
If that wasn’t dispiriting enough, while you made love to her on stage, swearing in song that you’d never leave her in any season – not in summer, winter, fall, or spring (oh no not in spriingtiiimmmmme!), Guinevere poured a stream of expletives into your downstage ear.
You never did reach that E-flat.
MY FATHER WAS AN EXTREME EXAMPLE OF A NON-BELIEVER, a man who refused to attach himself to anyone – or any place, institution, system, God, etc., who wished to be ruled exclusively by the powers of his own reasoning. Yet in choosing to be, as it were, “his own invention,” he denied his origins – a denial that was, paradoxically, irrational. His gods were truth and logic; yet his desire to uproot himself overwhelmed logic and truth.
Though he spoke four languages fluently, his favorite language was German. He enjoyed its portmanteau compound nouns (Windschutzscheibenwischer = windshield wiper) as well as the sometimes complex, precise, and often untranslatable meanings that such words compressed (der Vorwärtseinparker: one who drives forward into a parallel parking space) – i.e., the very qualities of the German language most people find abhorrent. In the same spirit in which he embraced the lowly mice, rats, snakes, and spiders that took up residence in his laboratory, my papa embraced the scorned qualities of this “ugly” tongue.
Among my father’s many unpublished manuscripts is one titled The Missing Words of Four Languages, in which he does a comparative analysis of English, French, German, and Italian, discovering which words have no equivalents in certain languages. “Shadenfreude” is one such word; “simpatico” another. In his study, my father makes the case that where specific words are lacking so are the qualities that they describe. While an English speaker may occasionally feel something like “shadenfreude,” he doesn’t feel precisely what that term means; the word does not translate, therefore neither does the emotion, and vice versa.
I wonder if something of the sort is true with respect to heritage, if certain attributes and emotions are lost in translation – if, for instance, in translating himself from Italian to English, my father sacrificed certain of his qualities, and in forsaking his Jewish origins he sacrificed others. Of course, a new language presents new opportunities, and the loss didn’t come without gains. But as Papa demonstrates in his book, what’s lost in translation can at best be approximated.
By filling in some of the holes in the past – my father’s, the teacher’s, my own – I’m hoping to reclaim some of what’s been lost in translation.
* * *
PAPA’S DOG FOOD EPISODE. MOTHER SUFFERING FROM migraine, having one of her attacks. Dr. Mandel came with his kit to give her a shot of morphine. A few hours later, my mother asked my father for ginger ale. He brought her a glass. Later, she became hungry and asked him to bring her a bowl of cereal and milk. A short while later, she heard a crash. Papa appeared at the threshold of Mom’s bedroom holding a gallon jug of milk, a spoon, and an upside down box of what he’d thought was cereal, but was in fact the dog’s food, which had fallen out of the inverted box as he climbed the stairs, the cereal pellets spilling down them like a waterfall. Sick though she was, my mother spent the next half hour picking up pellets of dry dog food while my father watched the evening news.
My mother told me that story as well as one about how Papa would help her rake the leaves. Seeing her hard at work, raking and carting off enormous bundles of leaves, Papa would volunteer to lend a hand. He’d fill one blanket half full of leaves, claim he had urgent business to attend to down in the Building, and that would be that.
We laugh at these stories now, my mother and I, though at the time for her they couldn’t have been very
funny. Strange, isn’t it, how in retrospect when speaking of the dead bad behavior inspires affection.
From Patent No. 3,387,151, “ELECTRIC MOTOR”: An end view of the motor showing the three pairs of contacts and the cam wheel which operates them. This view also shows a schematic wiring diagram.”
XIII.
The Touch
New York City, 1977
THE NEXT TIME YOU SAW THE TEACHER YOU WERE AN art student living in New York City, a city you loved ever since you were six years old, when your papa took you there with him for the first time on one of his so-called “business trips.”
Remember those trips to New York City with your papa?
Never mind: I’ll do it for you.
YOU’D LEAVE ON Friday mornings. The trip took just a little over an hour, but you might as well have been taking off for Pluto or Neptune, it seemed so very far. As your father backed the Simca around the white birch in the turnaround you’d see your mother and your brother standing there, next to the garage, your mother waving, your twin brother crying, as you would cry next Friday when it would be George’s turn.
You rode past the War Memorial, the Danbury fairgrounds, the Dinosaur Gift & Mineral Shoppe, with its pink stucco tyrannosaurus. The Interstate had yet to be built, so you took the Saw Mill River Parkway. Past reservoirs, orchards, and nurseries you rolled, through Katonah, Chappaqua, Pleasantville, tallying bridges and groundhogs.
Your father hummed the Blue Danube and sang Maurice Chevalier songs, his Kent cigarette dangling, his arm out the window, preferring it to the turning signal, his other hand steering, its knuckles stained with metal grime. The Simca’s glove compartment burst with service station roadmaps, but he never consulted them. The city’s outskirts were a tangle of parkways, thruways, expressways, toll roads, and turnpikes; that your father could untangle them amazed you. But then they seemed to belong to him, those tangled highways, as did everything to do with New York City.
At the Henry Hudson Bridge he’d toss a nickel into the toll basket. You rolled under the girders of the George Washington Bridge. Here the city began in earnest. The Cloisters, Grant’s Tomb. Among drab shapes in the distance patches of color appeared, the bright funnels of ocean liners in their berths. To your left, a skyscraper garden flourished, the Empire State Building a deco fountain rising from its center. Amid the architectural profusion a giant fuel storage tank proclaimed GAS HEATS BEST.