The Unreal and the Real, Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin Volume 1: Where on Earth

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  And I have known a good deal of glory. I’m not ungrateful. But it doesn’t last. It doesn’t come together to make a place where you can live, a house. It’s gone and the years go. What’s left? Shrinking and forgetting and thinking about aches and acid indigestion and cancers and pulse rates and bunions until the whole world is a room that smells like urine, is that what all the work comes to, is that the end of the babies’ kicking legs, the children’s eyes, the loving hands, the wild rides, the light on water, the stars over the snow? Somewhere inside it all there has to still be the glory.

  Ervin Muth

  I have been watching Mr. “Toby” Walker for a good while, checking up on things, and if I happened to be called upon to I could state with fair certainty that this “Mr. Walker” is not an American. My research has taken me considerably farther afield than that. But there are these “gray areas” or some things which many people as a rule are unprepared to accept. It takes training.

  My attention was drawn to these kind of matters in the first place by scrutinizing the town records on an entirely different subject of research. Suffice it to say that I was checking the title on the Fane place at the point in time when Mrs. Osey Jean Fane put the property into the hands of Ervin Muth Relaty, of which I am proprietor. There had been a dispute concerning the property line on the east side of the Fane property in 1939 into which, due to being meticulous concerning these kind of detailed responsibilities, I checked. To my surprise I was amazed to discover that the adjoining lot, which had been developed in 1906, had been in the name of Tobinye Walker since that date, 1906! I naturally assumed at that point in time that this “Tobinye Walker” was “Mr. Toby Walker’s” father and thought little more about the issue until my researches into another matter, concerning the Essel/Emmer lots, in the town records indicated that the name “Tobinye Walker” was shown as purchaser of a livery stable on that site (on Main St. between Rash St. and Goreman Ave.) in 1880.

  While purchasing certain necessaries in the Needless Grocery Store soon after, I encountered Mr. Walker in person. I remarked in a jocular vein that I had been meeting his father and grandfather. This was of course a mere pleasantry. Mr. “Toby” Walker responded in what struck me as a suspicious fashion. There was some taking aback going on. Although with laughter. His exact words, to which I can attest, were the following: “I had no idea that you were capable of travelling in time!”

  This was followed by my best efforts to seriously inquire concerning the persons of his same name which my researches in connection with my work as a relator had turned up. These were only met with facetious remarks such as, “I’ve lived here quite a while, you see,” and, “Oh, I remember when Lewis and Clark came through,” a statement in reference to the celebrated explorers of the Oregon Trail, who I ascertained later to have been in Oregon in 1806.

  Soon after, Mr. Toby Walker “walked” away, thus ending the conver-sation.

  I am convinced by evidence that “Mr. Walker” is an illegal immigrant from a foreign country who has assumed the name of a Founding Father of this fine community, that is to wit the Tobinye Walker who purchased the livery stable in 1880. I have my reasons.

  My research shows conclusively that the Lewis and Clark Expedition sent by President Thos. Jefferson did not pass through any of the localities which our fine community of Ether has occupied over the course of its history. Ether never got that far north.

  If Ether is to progress to fulfill its destiny as a Destination Resort on the beautiful Oregon Coast and Desert as I visualize it with a complete downtown entertainment center and entrepreneurial business community, including hub motels, RV facilities, and a Theme Park, the kind of thing that is represented by “Mr.” Walker will have to go. It is the American way to buy and sell houses and properties continually in the course of moving for the sake of upward mobility and self-improvement. Stagnation is the enemy of the American way. The same person owning the same property since 1906 is unnatural and Unamerican. Ether is an American town and moves all the time. That is its destiny. I can call myself an expert.

  Starra Walinow Amethyst

  I keep practicing love. I was in love with that French actor Gerard but it’s really hard to say his last name. Frenchmen attract me. When I watch Star Trek The Next Generation reruns I’m in love with Captain Jean-Luc Picard, but I can’t stand Commander Riker. I used to be in love with Heathcliff when I was twelve and Miss Freff gave me Wuthering Heights to read. And I was in love with Sting for a while before he got weirder. Sometimes I think I am in love with Lieutenant Worf but that is pretty weird, with all those sort of wrinkles and horns on his forehead, since he’s a Klingon, but that’s not really what’s weird. I mean it’s just in the TV that he’s an alien. Really he is a human named Michael Dorn. That is so weird to me. I mean I never have seen a real black person except in movies and TV. Everybody in Ether is white. So a black person would actually be an alien here. I thought what it would be like if somebody like that came into like the drug store, really tall, with that dark brown skin and dark eyes and those very soft lips that look like they could get hurt so easily, and asked for something in that really, really deep voice. Like, “Where would I find the aspirin?” And I would show him where the aspirin kind of stuff is. He would be standing beside me in front of the shelf, really big and tall and dark, and I’d feel warmth coming out of him like out of an iron woodstove. He’d say to me in a very low voice, “I don’t belong in this town,” and I’d say back, “I don’t either,” and he’d say, “Do you want to come with me?” only really really nicely, not like a come-on but like two prisoners whispering how to get out of prison together. I’d nod, and he’d say, “Back of the gas station, at dusk.”

  At dusk.

  I love that word. Dusk. It sounds like his voice.

  Sometimes I feel weird thinking about him like this. I mean because he is actually real. If it was just Worf, that’s OK, because Worf is just this alien in some old reruns of a show. But there is actually Michael Dorn. So thinking about him in a sort of story that way makes me uncomfortable sometimes, because it’s like I was making him a toy, something I can do anything with, like a doll. That seems like it was unfair to him. And it makes me sort of embarrassed when I think about how he actually has his own life with nothing to do with this dumb girl in some hick town he never heard of. So I try to make up somebody else to make that kind of stories about. But it doesn’t work.

  I really tried this spring to be in love with Morrie Stromberg, but it didn’t work. He’s really beautiful-looking. It was when I saw him shooting baskets that I thought maybe I could be in love with him. His legs and arms are long and smooth and he moves smooth and looks kind of like a mountain lion, with a low forehead and short dark blond hair, tawny colored. But all he ever does is hang out with Joe’s crowd and talk about sport scores and cars, and once in class he was talking with Joe about me so I could hear, like, “Oh yeah Starra, wow, she reads books,” not really mean, but kind of like I was like an alien from another planet, just totally absolutely strange. Like Worf or Michael Dorn would feel here. Like he meant OK, it’s OK to be like that only not here. Somewhere else, OK? As if Ether wasn’t already somewhere else. I mean, didn’t it use to be the Indians that lived here, and now there aren’t any of them either? So who belongs here and where does it belong?

  About a month ago Mom told me the reason she left my father. I don’t remember anything like that. I don’t remember any father. I don’t remember anything before Ether. She says we were living in Seattle and they had a store where they sold crystals and oils and New Age stuff, and when she got up one night to go to the bathroom he was in my room holding me. She wanted to tell me everything about how he was holding me and stuff, but I just went, “So, like, he was molesting me.” And she went, “Yeah,” and I said, “So what did you do?” I thought they would have had a big fight. But she said she didn’t say anything, because she was afraid o
f him. She said, “See, to him it was like he owned me and you. And when I didn’t go along with that, he would get real crazy.” I think they were into a lot of pot and heavy stuff, she talks about that sometimes. So anyway next day when he went to the store she just took some of the crystals and stuff they kept at home, we still have them, and got some money they kept in a can in the kitchen just like she does here, and got on the bus to Portland with me. Somebody she met there gave us a ride here. I don’t remember any of that. It’s like I was born here. I asked did he ever try to look for her, and she said she didn’t know but if he did he’d have a hard time finding her here. She changed her last name to Amethyst, which is her favorite stone. Walinow was her real name. She says it’s Polish.

  I don’t know what his name was. I don’t know what he did. I don’t care. It’s like nothing happened. I’m never going to belong to anybody.

  What I know is this, I am going to love people. They will never know it. But I am going to be a great lover. I know how. I have practiced. It isn’t when you belong to somebody or they belong to you or stuff. That’s like Chelsey getting married to Tim because she wanted to have the wedding and the husband and a no-wax kitchen floor. She wanted stuff to belong to.

  I don’t want stuff, but I want practice. Like we live in this shack with no kitchen let alone a no-wax floor, and we cook on a trashburner, with a lot of crystals around, and cat pee from the strays Mom takes in, and Mom does stuff like sweeping out for Myrella’s beauty parlor, and gets zits because she eats Hostess Twinkies instead of food. Mom needs to get it together. But I need to give it away.

  I thought maybe the way to practice love was to have sex so I had sex with Danny last summer. Mom bought us condoms and made me hold hands with her around a bayberry candle and talk about the Passage Into Womanhood. She wanted Danny to be there too but I talked her out of it. The sex was OK but what I was really trying to do was be in love. It didn’t work. Maybe it was the wrong way. He just got used to getting sex and so he kept coming around all fall, going “Hey Starra baby you know you need it.” He wouldn’t even say that it was him that needed it. If I need it, I can do it a lot better myself than he can. I didn’t tell him that. Although I nearly did when he kept not letting me alone after I told him to stop. If he hadn’t finally started going with Dana I might would have told him.

  I don’t know anybody else here I can be in love with. I wish I could practice on Archie but what’s the use while there’s Gracie Fane? It would just be dumb. I thought about asking Archie’s father Mr. Hiddenstone if I could work on his ranch, next time we get near it. I could still come see Mom, and maybe there would be like ranch hands or cowboys. Or Archie would come out sometimes and there wouldn’t be Gracie. Or actually there’s Mr. Hiddenstone. He looks like Archie. Actually handsomer. But I guess is too old. He has a face like the desert. I noticed his eyes are the same color as Mom’s turquoise ring. But I don’t know if he needs a cook or anything and I suppose fifteen is too young.

  J. Needless

  Never have figured out where the Hohovars come from. Somebody said White Russia. That figures. They’re all big and tall and heavy with hair so blond it’s white and those little blue eyes. They don’t look at you. Noses like new potatoes. Women don’t talk. Kids don’t talk. Men talk like, “Vun case yeast peggets, tree case piggle beet.” Never say hello, never say good-bye, never say thanks. But honest. Pay right up in cash. When they come in town they’re all dressed head to foot, the women in these long dresses with a lot of fancy stuff around the bottom and sleeves, the little girls just the same as the women, even the babies in the same long stiff skirts, all of them with bonnet things that hide their hair. Even the babies don’t look up. Men and boys in long pants and shirt and coat even when it’s desert here and a hundred and five in July. Something like those ammish folk on the east coast, I guess. Only the Hohovars have buttons. A lot of buttons. The vest things the women wear have about a thousand buttons. Men’s flies the same. Must slow ’em down getting to the action. But everybody says buttons are no problem when they get back to their community. Everything off. Strip naked to go to their church. Tom Sunn swears to it, and Corrie says she used to sneak out there more than once on Sunday with a bunch of other kids to see the Hohovars all going over the hill buck naked, singing in their language. That would be some sight, all those tall, heavy-fleshed, white-skinned, big-ass, big-tit women parading over the hill. Barefoot, too. What the hell they do in church I don’t know. Tom says they commit fornication but Tom Sunn don’t know shit from a hole in the ground. All talk. Nobody I know has ever been over that hill.

  Some Sundays you can hear them singing.

  Now religion is a curious thing in America. According to the Christians there is only one of anything. On the contrary there seems to me to be one or more of everything. Even here in Ether we have, that I know of, Baptists of course, Methodists, Church of Christ, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Catholic though no church in town, a Quaker, a lapsed Jew, a witch, the Hohovars, and the gurus or whatever that lot in the grange are. This is not counting most people, who have no religious affiliation except on impulse.

  That is a considerable variety for a town this size. What’s more, they try out each other’s churches, switch around. Maybe the nature of the town makes us restless. Anyhow people in Ether generally live a long time, though not as long as Toby Walker. We have time to try out different things. My daughter Corrie has been a Baptist as a teen-ager, a Methodist while in love with Jim Fry, then had a go at the Lutherans. She was married Methodist but is now the Quaker, having read a book. This may change, as lately she has been talking to the witch, Pearl W. Amethyst, and reading another book, called Crystals and You.

  Edna says the book is all tosh. But Edna has a harder mind than most.

  Edna is my religion, I guess. I was converted years ago.

  As for the people in the grange, the guru people, they caused some stir when they arrived ten years ago, or is it twenty now. Maybe it was in the sixties. Seems like they’ve been there a long time when I think about it. My wife was still alive. Anyhow, that’s a case of religion mixed up some way with politics, not that it isn’t always.

  When they came to Ether they had a hell of a lot of money to throw around, though they didn’t throw much my way. Bought the old grange and thirty acres of pasture adjacent. Put a fence right round and God damn if they didn’t electrify that fence. I don’t mean the little jolt you might run in for steers but a kick would kill an elephant. Remodeled the old grange and built on barns and barracks and even a generator. Everybody inside the fence was to share everything in common with everybody else inside the fence. Though from outside the fence it looked like the guru shared a lot more of it than the rest of ’em. That was the political part. Socialism. The bubonic socialism. Rats carry it and there is no vaccine. I tell you people here were upset. Thought the whole population behind the iron curtain plus all the hippies in California were moving in next Tuesday. Talked about bringing in the National Guard to defend the rights of citizens. Personally I’d of preferred the hippies over the National Guard. Hippies were unarmed. They killed by smell alone, as people said. But at the time there was a siege mentality here. A siege inside the grange, with their electric fence and their socialism, and a siege outside the grange, with their rights of citizens to be white and not foreign and not share anything with anybody.

  At first the guru people would come into the town in their orange color T-shirts, doing a little shopping, talking politely. Young people got invited into the grange. They were calling it the osh rom by then. Corrie told me about the altar with the marigolds and the big photograph of Guru Jaya Jaya Jaya. But they weren’t really friendly people and they didn’t get friendly treatment. Pretty soon they never came into town, just drove in and out the road gate in their orange Buicks. Sometime along in there the Guru Jaya Jaya Jaya was supposed to come from India to visit the osh rom. Never did. Went to
South America instead and founded an osh rom for old Nazis, they say. Old Nazis probably have more money to share with him than young Oregonians do. Or maybe he came to find his osh rom and it wasn’t where they told him.

  It has been kind of depressing to see the T-shirts fade and the Buicks break down. I don’t guess there’s more than two Buicks and ten, fifteen people left in the osh rom. They still grow garden truck, eggplants, all kinds of peppers, greens, squash, tomatoes, corn, beans, blue and rasp and straw and marion berries, melons. Good quality stuff. Raising crops takes some skill here where the climate will change overnight. They do beautiful irrigation and don’t use poisons. Seen them out there picking bugs off the plants by hand. Made a deal with them some years ago to supply my produce counter and have not regretted it. Seems like Ether is meant to be a self-sufficient place. Every time I’d get a routine set up with a supplier in Cottage Grove or Prineville, we’d switch. Have to call up and say sorry, we’re on the other side of the mountains again this week, cancel those cantaloupes. Dealing with the guru people is easier. They switch along with us.

  What they believe in aside from organic gardening I don’t know. Seems like the Guru Jaya Jaya Jaya would take some strenuous believing, but people can put their faith in anything, I guess. Hell, I believe in Edna.

  Archie Hiddenstone