TRASH BASHMANIAN WAS VERY GOOD at public speaking, although he was better at pitching horseshoes and dueling. He was also quite good at taking a dare, and would jump off a high branch of a tree as if it were nothing. The dueling was real swordsmanship, which was taught him by a Frenchman who lived on L Street, not far from our house in Fresno, and who somehow persuaded somebody to let him give free lessons to kids at the nearby California Playground every afternoon from four to five and all day Saturday.
The announcement appeared one day on the bulletin board at the playground, and Trash and several of his Portuguese pals and Armenian cousins, seeing the word “free” in the notice, were there the following afternoon for the first lesson. “I’ve been dueling all my life,” Trash said to the Frenchman, referring to the stick duels he had enjoyed with anybody at school who had been willing to take him on. But the Frenchman produced a pair of ancient foils, authentic dueling devices surely brought over from his lost life in Paris, and was able to demonstrate that dueling wasn’t quite just a matter of thrashing about with broomsticks. It was a courteous if deadly sport, very near the outskirts of art. Trash soon became his star pupil, and Trash’s favorite expression became “On guard!”
Trash, older than me by two or three years, was a real friend as well as a first cousin, and he was excessively cheerful for a Bashmanian. For instance, he never thought of his first name as an insult or even a friendly disparagement, no matter who said it. “Trash” was actually only an ignorant American rendering of his perfectly proper Armenian name, Artarash. The first teacher he had had at Emerson School hadn’t been able to pronounce the name, so Artarash became Trash, and by the time Trash was eight or nine he had almost forgotten Artarash. He was twelve going on thirteen when he took up dueling, and was already a champion horseshoe thrower. He was certainly always able to throw a ringer at will, especially for a penny bet. As for taking a dare, he stood alone in our whole world, until one day, after highdiving into the very shallow water of Thompson Ditch, near Malaga, and almost breaking both arms, he suddenly realized that for years he had been risking his life for no profit whatever. A few days later, he remarked, as if he had gone into another line of business, “I don’t take dares anymore,” and that was the end of the matter.
At this time, back in 1919, public speaking was a highly regarded talent in Fresno, and Trash was the best talker in town. He did his speaking at schools, churches, picnics, and Fourth of July celebrations. In a pinch, he could be counted on to use up anywhere from five to twenty-five minutes, without preparation. He spoke in a voice that was not his regular voice. It had a higher pitch, and as it went along it acquired a rather musical quality, almost as if he were humming the speech or even singing it, and now and then during his speeches he actually broke into songs, to illustrate something or other that he thought needed illustrating.
Trash could talk on any subject, most likely because he knew that nobody was really listening in any case. During a talk at the Courthouse Park, for instance, he suddenly said, “That is why we have the Fourth of July,” even though the preceding part of the speech had been about the Conestoga wagon. What’s more, he heard instant applause. In the tradition of popular oratory, Trash started a talk at random, moved confidently ahead in no particular direction, and, although he spoke very clearly, said nothing.
After Masoor Franswah (as his students were instructed to call him) had taught him dueling, Trash frequently during a speech made a classical charge followed by a withdrawal movement, without explanation. He also kicked his right leg backward three or four times, again without explanation. Once when he did this, during a speech on civic pride, at the Parlor Lecture Club, his audience of women, eager to be cultured, burst into joyous giggles, accompanied by applause, which Trash believed was for what he had just said.
“What was that backward kicking for?” I asked him on our way home.
“I had a cramp. I had to kick it out,” Trash said.
“What about the dueling?”
“What dueling?”
“Three or four times during your talk, you did some dueling.”
“How did it go over?” he asked.
“All right, I guess,” I said. “But what was it for?”
“Just a little decoration.”
“But you’ve done the backward kicking and the dueling in the last three public speeches you’ve made.”
“I get a cramp, I kick backwards. I need a decoration, I make a decoration,” Trash said.
“I thought you were practicing, so you could duel somebody,” I said. “I mean the way they used to duel in the old days—for keeps. At dawn, down by the river, for honor.”
“Yes, that is what I want to do,” Trash said.
“With real swords?”
“Yes, with real swords.”
“For keeps?”
“I’ll decide that at the time of the duel,” Trash said. “I’ll draw blood, but I may not kill.”
“When’s it going to be?”
“According to Masoor Franswah, two things are necessary,” Trash said. “I’ve got to be insulted. Then I hit him on both sides of the face with a glove, and he’s got to accept the challenge.”
“Have you got a glove?”
“I’ve got the glove I wear when I play left field.”
“You hit him across the face with that and he’ll accept the challenge, all right,” I said.
“I hope so,” Trash said.
“Who’s it going to be?” I asked.
“Who’s been insulting me?”
“How about Miss Clifford?” I said. This was his teacher at Emerson School.
“Miss Clifford insults everybody in the sixth grade,” Trash said. “Besides, it’s got to be a man.”
“A boy, don’t you mean?”
“A boy’s insults don’t count,” Trash said. “You hit him one in the nose and that’s the end of it. If I’m going to swipe—if I’m going to borrow Masoor Franswah’s swords and draw blood and maybe kill, it’s got to be a man. So who’s been passing remarks behind my back? In the male adult community?”
“Nobody, Trash,” I said. “Everybody likes you. You make these patriotic public speeches. You start them all just right and end them all just right. ‘Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Chairman, Mrs. Chairman’s mother, Dr. Rowell, Mr. Setrakinn, members of the Board of Education, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,’ and all that other stuff at the beginning. And then at the end, how about the prayer that you say, that makes tears come to the eyes of so many people? ‘Almighty God, let me try to be like Lincoln, not like Booth. Who’s Booth, Trash?”
“The dirty little sneak that shot Mr. Lincoln, that’s who,” Trash said. “Listen, has anybody been passing remarks behind your back? You’re my kid cousin, you know.”
“I don’t think so, excepting members of the family,” I said, “but it’s always in front of my back.”
“Members of the family don’t count, either,” Trash said. “Think hard. Who do I hate?”
“You don’t hate anybody, Trash. Unless it’s that dirty little sneak, Booth.”
“He’s been dead for years,” Trash said. “I know I hate somebody, but I just can’t seem to remember who. Let me think. Isn’t there somebody we all hate?”
“Each other once in a while, is all I can remember.”
“That’s different.”
“How about Masoor Franswah?”
“He’s my friend,” Trash said. “That little Frenchman taught me everything I know about being civilized.”
“Do you hate Italians, maybe?” I asked.
“No, of course not.”
“How about Germans? Indians? Mexicans? Hindus? Japanese? Serbians? Chinese? Portuguese? Negroes? Spaniards?”
“No, I like them all.”
“Then you better forget about drawing blood,” I said.
“It isn’t a matter of forgetting,” Trash said. “It’s a matter of honor.”
“What is honor?” I said. “I mean, what
is it?”
“Honor?”
“Yes, Trash.”
“Well, honor is . . . yourself. Every Bashmanian in the world has got a lot of himself.”
“I never heard of any of them dueling anybody,” I said.
“I’m the first Bashmanian who knows how. Find out who I hate and let me know, will you?”
The next day, he came to my house, and I was ready for him. “Trash,” I said, “I think I found out who you hate.”
“Who?”
“Turks.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I knew there was somebody I hate. Now we’re getting somewhere.” He picked up a stick and began to duel, and he looked very good. “Who’s a Turk, in town?”
“We’ve got Assyrians, Syrians, Persians, and maybe a few Arabs,” I said.
“There’s got to be a Turk somewhere in town, too,” Trash said.
“Well, there’s Ahboudt,” I said. “You know—the man I work for in the Free Market Saturdays. I’m there from six in the morning until three in the afternoon, for twenty-five cents and a paper sack full of whatever he’s stuck with. How about him?”
“Ahboudt? Sounds Turkish,” Trash said. “Ask him. Let me know.”
The following Saturday, I asked Ahboudt, and he looked at me in a funny way, and then he said, “Shine the eggplants, please.” At the end of the day, when he gave me the quarter, he said, “Are you asking the Turk question for the government, or for yourself?”
“For myself, Mr. Ahboudt.”
“I am not a Turk,” he said. “I am an Arab.” And then, “Christian.”
“Do you know a Turk?” I asked.
“Why?”
“My cousin Trash wants to duel him.”
“Why does he want to do that?”
“Trash likes everybody except Turks,” I said, “and you only duel people you don’t like. Is there a Turk somewhere in town?”
“There was a Turk,” Ahboudt said, “but he was an old man and he died.”
I passed along this information to Trash, who said, “I’ve got to find me a Turk. Enough is enough. I’ve got an idea. Be ready at seven o’clock at your house, and I’ll take you with me to the Civic Auditorium tonight.”
“The wrassling matches?”
“No, they’re having New Citizens’ Night. Maybe one of them will be a Turk, God willing.”
“Are you going to make a public speech?”
“I may be called on to address the new Americans,” Trash said.
When he came by at a quarter to seven and we started walking to the Civic Auditorium, I said, “Have you got your speech ready?”
“I think so.”
“What’s your topic this time?”
“If Mayor Toomey asks me to get up on the stage and talk for ten minutes, the way he usually does, I’m going to say something about the real meaning of America.”
“What are you going to say?”
“In America we forget old hatreds,” Trash said. “Now nobody is anybody else’s enemy. We are all members of the same family. We are all Americans. When we arrived in America, we stopped being what we were for so long.”
I recognized this as something I had already heard six or seven times in class at Emerson School.
“Well, I don’t think the Bashmanians stopped being what they were,” I said.
Trash brought his outfielder’s glove from the back pocket of his pants and studied it, and then he studied me.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“You’re the first man who has ever insulted me,” he said. “Me, Trash Bashmanian, patriotic American. And you’re my own kid cousin, my own first kid cousin. I’ve known you all your life. I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, don’t hit me with that glove,” I said, “because I don’t know anything about dueling, and if I insulted you I didn’t mean to, and I apologize.”
“Thank God,” Trash said. “Apology accepted. Don’t ever do it again—you don’t know what happened to me when you said what you said.”
“What happened?”
“My blood boiled.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I was really surprised when you said that in America nobody is anybody else’s enemy, because for two weeks I’ve been looking all over town for a Turk for you to duel and maybe kill.”
“So what?” Trash said. “When you find the Turk, let me know, that’s all. I’ll think of something.”
At the Civic Auditorium, we took seats in the first row, and right from the beginning everything began to go a little wrong, which was all right with me. At ten minutes to eight, Mayor Toomey said, “Dr. Chester Rowell, who is to make the main talk of the evening has been unavoidably detained, and Miss Shakay Takmakjian, who is to render a violin solo, has not yet arrived, so our program is unfortunately off schedule. We have a few minutes of spare time, and therefore it gives me great pleasure to call on our young friend Trash Bashmanian to come up here and . . . say something.”
Trash jumped out of his seat, ran to the steps, and was standing beside Mayor Toomey by the time the Mayor said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Trash Bashmanian.”
Crossing himself quickly but almost casually, like a professional man of God, Trash launched into another of his famous public addresses.
“What is America?” he asked in his high-pitched, special voice, and that was all he needed to get the glory and the oratory rolling. Soon he was asking a lot of other unanswerable questions, and talking smoothly, and now and then suddenly dueling or kicking backward. After about twelve minutes, it seemed as if Trash was about to bring his talk to an end, but Mayor Toomey called out from the side of the stage, “A few minutes more, Trash,” and Trash changed from a concluding tone to a tone of starting up again. He was just getting into the swing of this new start when Mayor Toomey called out, “Tie it up, Trash. Here he is.” And so, simultaneously dueling and kicking backward, Trash paused, looked upward, and said, “Almighty God, let me try to be like Woodrow Wilson, not Henry Ford.”
The audience rose to its feet and broke into applause—perhaps because the first citizen of the city, Dr. Chester Rowell, had just appeared on the stage. Trash bowed, but only once, and came down the steps and sat down.
On our way home, I said, “You sure told ’em, Trash.”
“What did I say?”
“You said we are all brothers—all of us—just as Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and Caruso taught us to be.”
“Who?”
“That’s what I was wondering.”
“Did I put Caruso in there with those other guys?” he asked.
“Yes. What’d you do it for?”
“I don’t know,” Trash said, “but there must be a reason.”
“And then you sang ‘O Sole Mio,’” I said.
“I knew there was a reason,” Trash said. “It was so I could sing the song he sings on that Victor Red Seal phonograph record at our house. How was my voice?”
“It was good,” I said.
“Was my diction all right, singing the Italian words?”
“I guess so,” I said. “It certainly sounded like Italian to me. You won’t be wanting me to find a Turk any more then, will you?”
“Why not?”
“Because you told me in your speech not to.”
“I did?” Trash said.
“Yes. Don’t you remember when you were coming to the end of the talk the first time—before Mayor Toomey told you to keep going? Well, you were almost singing a lot of other things, kind of humming the words, and then all of a sudden you said, ‘Look not in the world for the Turk, you will not find him there.’”
“‘Look not in the world for the Turk, you will not find him there’?” Trash related.
“That’s right.”
We walked along in silence for quite a while, and then Trash said, “Was it a good public speech, would you say?”
“Very good,” I said.
“As good as my others?”
“Better,”
I said “But no more of this Turk business then—is that right? No duel, no drawing of blood? ‘Look not in the world for the Turk, you will not find him there.’ That’s what you said. Trash.”
“What a fool I was,” Trash said. “Now what am I going to do with all this dueling talent?”
What he did was have me take lessons from Masoor Franswah, so that now and then we could take turns being the Turk in the world, and in our own hearts, each of us winning and losing every time, whichever side we took.
Copyright © 1936, 1937, 1938, 1944 by William Saroyan
Copyright © 1988, 1989 by The Saroyan Foundation
Copyright © 1994 by New Directions Publishing Corporation
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Publisher’s note: The eleven stories in this collection were selected from William Saroyan’s story collections Madness in the Family and The Man with the Heart in the Highlands, both available in their entirety from New Directions.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited
First published as a New Directions Bibelot in 1994
ISBN 978-0-8112-2650-9
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation,
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011
Fresno Stories Page 7