The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 3

by Donald Harington

  “You have been, all these days.”

  “It’s time you learned to take care of yourself.”

  “I learned years ago to take care of myself, and did it for years.”

  “Not quite. You weren’t taking care of yourself when you over-drank.”

  He took out from beneath the sofa my bottle of Scotch, which was empty. “You’d better do a better job of hiding these things, then.”

  “Damn you!” I was furious. “That was my last bottle.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “What will I do for a nightcap?” I demanded.

  “What will I do?”

  He’d already done. I wanted to bean him with the bottle. “I want to—”

  “There must be more.”

  “There’s not,” I said.

  “It’s not important,” he said.

  I laughed. “It doesn’t matter.” I fried him a couple of porkchops. When I had served him, I withdrew to my room, locked the door, and spent the evening in bed reading more of First’s diaries, until I could no longer squint at the handwriting, and closed my eyes, but did not drowse. Some while later there was a knock at my door.

  “Who is it?” I asked, unnecessarily. Who else could it have been?

  “Only a lone goose.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to—”

  The Second occurrence was simply a repetition of the First, except that it was horizontal atop my counterpane, and there was perhaps a little less resistance and a little more yielding on my part, and he, by stealthily rubbing himself against my hip, was able to ejaculate inside his trousers, at which I expressed vexation, asking, “What did you do that for?”

  “There must be more,” he said. “But there wasn’t.” Then he asked if he could merely sleep with me, fully clothed. He claimed he hadn’t slept for nights. I asked him if he wasn’t taking his Dalmane. “Too much of it,” he said, but he still couldn’t sleep. I tried to sleep with him, fully clothed, and rested my head on his shoulder with his arm around me until he fell asleep, but I could not sleep, so I got up and “borrowed” one of his Dalmane, and slept in his bed, which smelled too much like a dying man’s. I woke in the morning to find him under the covers beside me, naked, and not being fully awake I permitted him to play-like an act of interfemoral intercourse, to its completion, which soiled the back of my skirt. He was solicitous about the latter, but I said, It didn’t matter, it wasn’t important.

  I jumped up to prepare a large breakfast for us (with several fruits now in season), and, having consumed my share of it, I rushed off to pay a visit to the lonely Forest Ranger’s Mistress. She and I talked at length about her dreams of restoring the town.

  That night he agreed to read The Book of Kind, and even to add a couple of pages to it, cynical though they are. Here’s one: “Kind is not infallible. Kind realized that the dinosaur was a stupid mistake, that reptiles had got out of hand, and thus corrected the error. Perhaps Kind has realized now that man is a stupid mistake.”

  Here’s the other one: “Thousands of wars have been fought in the name of God (Jehovah, Christ, Allah, Buddha, et al). No war has ever been fought or ever can be fought in the name of Kind…which is not to say that Kind hasn’t planned all of those wars, for population control. In all the wars of mankind, did the ‘superior’ side win? To perpetuate survival of the fittest? In the ultimate nuclear holocaust, if we come to that, have the few fit survivors already been determined?”

  And since, like a rake’s mind if not a satyr’s mind, his mind often dwells upon sex, he pointed out two other things to me, one, that “kind” is an obsolete English reference to the genital organs, and two, that in obsolete English, “to do one’s kind” meant to perform the sexual function.

  Having closed the book, he said, “Let’s be Kind to our kinds.” And so we were, at last. You’ll agree that it was a novel seduction, and while you won’t want me to embarrass you with details, you will be interested to know that we performed “our kind” several times in the course of a long night.

  Love,

  Liz

  Chapter thirty

  Tuesday

  Dear Linda (if I may),

  Your and my friend Liz Cunningham has asked me, or rather consented to my offer, to write you in her stead, because she is “all tuckered out,” as folks would say in these parts, although I suppose her true condition would actually only rhyme in part with the expression. This is your well-known harmonica, taking this opportunity to meddle my way into the Trio, and to thank you for what Liz tells me is your long-standing interest in me. I’m very complimented, to be sure; I’m tickled pink at your interest in me; I’m also grateful to you for giving Liz a more generous or favorable impression of me. She showed me parts of your recent letter, in which you took her to task for her jealousy of me, and pointed out how much the Dying Man (oh, I wish I could call him the Living Man) needs me also, as well as her. You are quite right that we serve entirely different functions for him: I am, willy-nilly, some Kind of mother substitute for him, and the stories I tell him of my life are active to his passivity, which is a relief or diversion from his having to be active to her passivity by telling her so much of his life in his courtship of her, which has led apparently to her extreme fatigue—I don’t mean the stories, but the courtship, and it’s no secret to me that the two of them have spent entirely too much of their time in “retiring” together at all hours of the day, day after day, and, I suspect, night after night as well. They both need something more productive to do.

  It’s understandable, but not very seemly, that Liz has been so jealous of me. I’m jealous of her. There’s too much of this jaundiced heartburn floating around. My grandson is jealous of the Dying Man. The Forest Ranger’s Mistress is jealous of Liz. That grandson told the Forest Ranger, who in turn told his Mistress, that they should take a couple of day’s rest from working on the cancer cure, or else they would burn themselves out, and my grandson devoted his two days to trying to woo Liz away from the Dying Man. Whether he entirely or even partly succeeded I don’t know. I asked her about it, but I couldn’t very well come right out and say, “Have you been having relations with my grandson, too?” I do know they went swimming together, both days, far up the creek, and I do know that while they were swimming the second day, Jick appeared to me, and eight of his ten fingers had “clothing” on—crude suits and dresses—but two of them, the left little finger and the right middle finger, were “nude.” “What does that mean, Jick?” I asked him. He only replied, “Guess.” So I suppose that my grandson has seen Liz looking even more like your Bouguereau “Bather(s)”—whether he saw First and Second as One or as Two I can only imagine.

  The Dying Man did not know that she went swimming twice with my grandson, but still he was very unhappy over her absence, and he went to Foreman and practically begged him for a drink—the first time he had been really “thirsty” since he and Liz had commenced their regular habits of intimacy. I was so pleased to see that such intimacy, even if its regularity was taxing their energies, was totally weaning him from the bottle, which tends to verify my contention that for many years the bottle (or jug) had been his mistress, and now that he’s got a real mistress who is as available and almost as frequent as the jug, he doesn’t need the latter anymore…until Liz unwisely gave in to her temptation to get better acquainted with my grandson. I’m not even on close-enough speaking terms with my grandson to come right out and ask him, “Have you been having relations with Liz?” but I will find some way of putting the question to him. I would hate for their mutual attraction to each other to un-do all that I’ve been giving a boost to, farther along.

  Now I’ll try to answer as best I can the questions that you wanted Liz to ask me. I don’t mind. Whatever I can do to satisfy your curiosity or just entertain you, I will be glad to do, because as I say, I appreciate your interest in me.

  1. No, I can’t say for sure that “French horn” was not merely my own “inner voice
.” But I can point out that he seemed to be omniscient in a way that I am not.

  2. Whose idea was it that the several of us become musical instruments? Well, if I said that was entirely French horn’s idea, it would certainly discount the possibility that he was only my “inner voice.” I, too, have sometimes wondered about the fact that only the hair-comb-and-tissue and the hammered dulcimer can actually play their respective instruments, whereas Horn couldn’t and I can’t play a harmonica. What do you think that means? I should also point out that hogs or pigs have been known and shown, by scientific evidence, to be particularly appreciative of music, of any sort, so perhaps all of this instrumentation has simply been for their benefit.

  3. Yes, a present tense was used in the first part and a past tense in the second, I’m not sure why. Will the future tense become used in this part? We will just have to see.

  4. How did you know that I ever had a dream of Jesus? No, I haven’t had any similar dreams since learning about Kind. I haven’t had any such dreams about Kind, because Kind, of course, is not incarnate (or “personalized,” as the Forest Ranger’s young son remarkably put it) as a male or as any sort of sex. Kind is sex, you know. And in answer to the second part of this question, yes, in all likelihood, when you get to be my age, you will be as passionate as ever. Forgive me for not being able to answer the third part of the question.

  5. Are there other women like me in this part of the country? I should hope not. I don’t mean for that to sound the least bit swell-headed, but I never met another woman who reminded me of me, and I hope you never meet one who reminds you of you, regardless of how much Liz says that she and you are alike. You and Liz may be Kindred spirits, but I doubt that you are doubles.

  Elaborating on #4, if I may, although this might be irrelevant, and although you did not ask the question as such, but I find it wedged between the lines: the Dying Man is quite highly sexed—if not oversexed, for his age, which isn’t so old, after all. I suppose most young people suspect, or even fear, that when they approach middle age their powers or appetites will diminish. It does happen, and I recall that my son-in-law, my grandson’s father, was not quite as old as the Dying Man when he discovered that he was almost totally impotent, according to my daughter. But that seems the exception more than the rule, and my late husband…well, never mind about my late husband.

  I took advantage of Liz wandering off swimming with my grandson to complete telling the stories of my life and of the Hermit’s life to the Dying Man. It only partially kept his mind off Liz’s absence, but he now knows, as you seem to do, just about all that happened in this town between my return in 1932 and the present. By the way, when are you coming for a visit? I know that Liz must intend to invite you eventually, yet she perhaps fears that the time isn’t ripe, that she must allow her romantic triangle to develop on its own without your turning it into a quadrangle. But I understand that you are most happily married, a condition that is extremely scarce hereabouts. Everyone seems to be, if not widowed or widowered, like myself and my son-in-law, simply living together, or alone, or separated or divorced. I don’t know just what there is about this town that prevents, or ends, marriage. You are welcome to visit me at any time. Bring your family. I have read and enjoyed with great interest your essays, “Gleanings on a Glowworm” and “Portrait of a Woman Born.” I also believe that we have a common fondness for Alfred Lord Tennyson, so we should have much to talk about.

  There is little other news around here at the moment; I’m sorry my harmonica sounds so flat. Jick is putting in full days at the pork products factory; his only regret about it is that his long absences from his mountain hideaway have caused his pets to grow restless, and, by latest account, to wander off in search of mates. Perhaps it is just as well, as they were clearly not intended for each other, cousins though they be. Jick reports that he last saw Ursulie at a distance playing amorously with a large male bruin, while Robber’s mate has already borne triplets and they have taken up residence elsewhere. I don’t think Jick will miss them too severely; in fact, I think he is seriously considering moving into town, into one of the many abandoned houses around here, if and when the Dying Man agrees to supervise its restoration.

  Almost as if in admonishment, my grandson received in the mail the first word he has received from his Mistress since she left, right after his “secret swim” with Liz. His Mistress reports that she is so happy to be with her sons again, and they with her, that she hasn’t even given further thought to this Kindforsaken town. My grandson’s feelings appeared to be a complete mixture of sadness and relief. He had hoped that if he consented to the restoration of the town, it would help bring her home. But he seems also bent upon some sort of relationship with Liz. As my old and dear but possibly imaginary friend the French horn said, many, many pages back, the plot thickens, at long last.

  Excuse me. Someone’s in the breezeway, rapping on my door.

  ————

  It was our mutual friend Liz, exhausted but perturbed, who stayed a while. She came into this wing of my dogtrot, looking around her, and then said, “He’s not here.”

  “Which one?” I asked, with a touch of sarcasm.

  “The Dying Man.”

  “No, I haven’t seen him since this morning.”

  “Well, I haven’t seen him since lunch.” She even looked under a couple of my tables, as if he might be hiding.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s not important.”

  From her search of the room, she abruptly snapped her head up and fixed me with her eyes. “Have you been reading my letters? Or has the Dying Man been telling you our theme song?” I shook my head. She collapsed into a chair, all tuckered out. Then her eyes fell upon my cherrywood writing box, upon this letter I’ve been writing. “Who’s that to?” she asked.

  “Your friend Linda. You said you didn’t mind if I wrote her.”

  “Did she tell you our theme song?”

  “She hasn’t told me anything yet. Except indirectly, of course, by sending you those nice papers she wrote, which you let me read.”

  “Then why did you say, ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s not important.’?”

  “Because it doesn’t, and it isn’t. Why should it matter where the Dying Man is? Do you have to keep account of all his movements? Do you let him keep account of all of yours?”

  “I did, and that’s the trouble. He kept pressing me, and I was curious to see what jealousy would do to him. So I told him I went swimming twice with your grandson.”

  “The second time in only your birthday suits.”

  “I didn’t tell him that! Who told you that? Did your grandson tell you that? Did you tell that to the Dying Man?”

  “No. No, I was just guessing. Why did you tell the Dying Man?”

  “I didn’t tell him that! I told you, I just wanted to see if he would be jealous if he knew I went swimming with your grandson.”

  “Why didn’t you go swimming with the Dying Man?”

  “He didn’t invite me. Maybe he can’t swim.”

  “You know very well that he’s an excellent swimmer.” And then I touched my letter to you, Linda, and added, “And so does she.”

  “Well, your grandson invited me, so how could I refuse?”

  “Whose idea was it to swim without suits, yours or his?”

  Have you ever seen your friend blush? I’m sure you must have, if you’ve known her for two years. So I needn’t describe her pinking cheeks. “We forgot, and left our suits at home. Mine was still drying on the back porch from the previous swim. His was still drying on the radio aerial of his truck.”

  “There must be more,” I said.

  “Darn you!” she said. “There aren’t any swans, only a lone goose, and he’s lost, and I don’t know where to find him.”

  “I want to—”

  “Yes? Yes? What do you want to—?”

  “I want to tell you where you could probably find him.”

  “Then tell me!”

/>   “His cave.”

  She is gone now, and I must bring this letter to a close, for I have neither her nor your talent for prolix paragraphs. I know that you both consume a lot of energy writing to each other, so don’t feel obligated to answer my letter. As I say, I just wanted to meddle my harmonica into the Trio, and maybe I’ve been too meddlesome. Thank you again for referring to me as “a pearl without price,” and as “a diamond in the rough,” but let me remind you of the line from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, “Diamond me no diamonds! prize me no prizes!”

  But since Liz has acquired a habit of ending with appropriate quotes from The Book of Kind, in all those various handwritings, permit an old lady to cite two which she added thereto, both from our Tennyson, the first from The Two Voices: “Tho’ thou wert scattered to the wind, / Yet is there plenty of the Kind.” And the second from Lady Clara Vere de Vere, “Howe’er it be, it seems to me, / ’Tis only noble to be good. / Kind hearts are more than coronets,…”

  Yours in Kind,

  Another “L.”

  Chapter thirty-one

  Monday

  Dear Linda,

  So, “the love he had confessed for me was love for, not the woman I actually am, but the woman he had shaped in his fancy.” Did you make that up yourself, or crib it from the introduction to some Victorian romance? Could not the reverse be equally true? That he is the man I have shaped in my fancy? But no, we “sisters” know, don’t we? that the chiefest of differences between women and men is that girls grow into women, especially when they have given birth to children (incidentally, how’s your daughter? you rarely mention her), while boys never really succeed in growing into men, but always remain boys. So I am no more the real woman that he has encountered at the age of 43 than I am the idealized woman that he fabricated at the age of, say, Huck Finn. Yet a corollary might equally apply (and isn’t all of this intellectual exercise a delightful way to recuperate from all of that animal exercise?): I think it was Gide who said, “Involuntarily—unconsciously—each one of a pair of lovers fashions himself [or herself] to meet the other’s requirements—endeavors by a continual effort to resemble that idol of himself [or herself] which he beholds in the other’s heart…Whoever really loves abandons all sincerity. [my italics]” The abandonment of sincerity must, I think, account for the frivolity of “It doesn’t matter,” “It’s not important,” etc. Enough! I’m getting prosy again, when I ought to wax poetic, or at least sublimate or transmutate my sexual urges, which had grown accustomed to immediate employment, into something higher and finer. There must be more.