American Genius: A Comedy

by Lynne Tillman

  Around and before me, in this setting, a dining room, were human waves of inchoate, indeterminate feeling and emotion, which I wasn't supposed to respond to, and to which I didn't, since I understood my place as a newcomer, an animal who might be a threat, and knew it would not be in my interest to arouse undue suspicion. It was the end of breakfast. I was immediately shown into the kitchen to meet the cook, and assistant cook, I believe, and her helpers, college and high school age students, who greeted newcomers pleasantly but awkwardly, and who were themselves somewhat glum or circumspect, though everyone who works here is expected to behave judiciously and be friendly to visitors and residents. One night, when it was very late and no one else was around, when I was restless, reading the town's newspaper, unconsciously looking for something, one of the helpers, a girl of seventeen, advanced with several of her friends into the main room. They squealed with delight at their transgression. The incursion was prohibited to her and her friends, but it was she who did it arrogantly, with a certain disdain for me, when she spied me. She guffawed triumphantly, and stared at me, daring me to object, but I closed my hook and turned down my lips, to indicate my displeasure as well as the fact that she was in danger, endangering me, also, since my peace of mind could be altered, when I'm supposed to be calm here, and shortly afterward, they left the dark brown wood room. Later, there was an awkwardness when she was in the kitchen and I entered, it was a slight obstacle that ruffled my composure, since she and I were expected to know our places and respect them, but I never spoke of her infraction.

  First, the assistant cook wanted to know what I could and absolutely wouldn't eat, and, as I wrote this down on a blue-lined index card, I was conscious of impinging on her time. Then the head cook, who immediately knew what was occurring, as it had again and again with every new resident, she had been the head cook for years, walked into her kitchen, and I saw that her pale forehead creased, her blue eyes receded under eggshell-hooded eyelids, and her head angled toward the low ceiling, which hung over all of our heads. Fearing her boredom or weariness in this repetitious event, I wrote quickly that I ate everything in moderation, except octopus and Jell-O, that I liked greens, fruit, cottage cheese, cheeses, generally, though I wanted to avoid fats and some carbohydrates, ate fish and beef, chicken, didn't like fried foods, and when the assistant cook handed the head cook my list, she read it and nodded but didn't look at me. Instead, the head cook warned, her back turned to me as she fastened her gaze upon tomatoes meant presumably for slicing or chopping, that if I were late for breakfast, I wouldn't be served, though there would be dry cereals out on a table for a while after the breakfast hour had officially ended, which pleased me, though I don't often eat dry cereal, yet I felt, in a pinch, I could.

  But the second or assistant cook was sometimes on duty in the morning, and she wouldn't deny a latecomer a hot breakfast, so it was a better beginning to the day when she was in the kitchen, but on the days she wasn't, it transpired, since she had a frail constitution, though she had a solid build, she might be home with flu, backache, or migraine headaches. At forty, she was a sick woman, it was said by several of the community, when she hadn't appeared yet again, disappointing all the latecomers, of which I was one, because she was a kind woman; she too often lay in bed feverish, her stomach upset or with a headache's sick drumming, and it was easy to imagine that there were other problems causing her body's maladies. The stomach is a second heart, I now believe, but of the first heart, she never talked, and, about hers, no one else did, either.

  I don't remember my parents sick, lying in bed, though I do remember my mother's screams one night, even though I was shut away in my bedroom, because they tore into the fabric of my young night, one I didn't know wouldn't last forever. A glass bottle had exploded and its shards had badly gored my mother's calf. The doctor came to the house, but I didn't see his hag then, or him, but I heard my mother's agonized cries, as he removed the pieces and slivers of glass from her leg and stitched her up, without, my brother told me, later, on a rare instance of contact, anesthetic, and, even so, I never thought of her as sensitive, but she, like everyone, has scars, especially on that calf.

  Today there are no serious latecomers, and all of us are served breakfast, while in the corner, the two young women whisper, their mouths opening and closing greedily, hushed words falling from them or morsels of food, as they keep their heads close together, intent on spilling and absorbing great secrets, which interest no others, except a tall balding man, who sat at my table and who had recently shown up. He seemed to be sensitive, at least to the propinquity of the demanding man who flailed his arms, because the relative newcomer inched farther from him, even going so far as to move his plate down the table, toward mine. He may have sensed the other man's pain or felt his own, or have felt no pain at all. People can feel a lot of pain and not be sensitive, in the way the word is used, which doesn't include the experience of animals. Many people have sensitive skin and skin problems, and people who are very kind to animals can be entirely insensitive, concerned mostly with their own pain, not others' pain. Some might think I was insensitive because I didn't want to talk with the two women, who listen to music, play chess, read with conviction, are vegetarians, and who never impose themselves upon me, but seem to he preparing to tell me about their lives, which is what people want to do. One of the two has a history of psoriasis, and today it has flared on the backs of her thin hands, and, if her elbows were bare, the inflamed, encrusted flesh, angry and purple, might be visible, too. She is wan, skinny, and never exhibits anger, but always seems malleable, or breakable, too fragile, like a good wineglass, and holds her tidy body erect, drawing her head up, to peer deftly at the world. But she stares, sometimes vacantly, though this is not necessarily anger, and I have caught her watching me, but then she shifts her eyes downward or smiles sweetly. She especially stares at the tall balding man.

  She was one of the first people I came upon, noting her presence, slight as it was, but I didn't really take her in when I arrived, though what was indistinct then has gained in definition with time. Now I remember her in the big room-which is as familiar to me as my family's living room that I rarely went into because of its formality, along with the fear that I might damage it-and, because I've seen her every day after, I can claim to remember what she looked like then, though I didn't really see her, similar to how a line-up works, inadequately. If I were to have noticed people in a line-up before, anywhere, but not in the act of committing the crime of which they are accused, rightly or wrongly, those people could appear to be the perpetrators when they were only people seen before in a different context. Everything here seems familiar today that was, not long ago, uncannily strange and even foreboding, because it was a new place, and everyone who resides with me, in this place, is no longer a complete stranger but an incomplete one. Stranger crime is unusual. Leslie Van Houten assisted in the murder of a stranger, which is unusual, since people usually murder people they know, and at the time, 1969, it was still more unusual that a woman helped to murder another woman, though Mrs. Rosemary LaBianca was already dead by Tex Watson's hands when Leslie Van Houten stabbed her in the lower back nineteen times. It was never in doubt that she participated in the crime, and she never was in a line-up, but what was in doubt, and still is, is why she did it and what exactly she did do, if she committed a murder or had been only a violent follower or merely a fiend, who stuck the knife in, many times, after Mrs. LaBianca was (lead.

  When I was escorted into the big house, into its spacious, dark wood lounge, or main room, I was immediately conscious of an anxious wanting, after I inadvertently noticed the two young women, lounging on couches opposite each other, to whom I was introduced, but whose names I quickly forgot, and a few men, whose names I also forgot, while being handed the keys to my rooms. I adamantly wanted a comfortable chair, an appropriate table, and a good light to read by, I read a lot, I can happily read all day and night, when I should be doing other things, but most important, I ex
plained to those in charge, who stood by impassively while I orated my demands, ones they were familiar with, I needed a good chair, it concerned me most. In a way, it alone concerned me. Nothing mattered but a chair, to whose acquisition I gave all my attention and energy, speaking of its necessity with an urgent eloquence that surprised me and those in temporary charge of my comfort and well-being, which was another reason I scarcely noticed the other residents.

  I take exception to ugly, badly made or poorly designed chairs, uncomfortable chairs, and I have an interest in well-made, well-designed chairs, marveling at their efficiency and beauty, though when I was a child, I didn't. In the family den of the comfortable house I loved that was sold over my protests, there was an Eames table and chairs, around and on which we sometimes ate, though I was unaware of the kind of furniture it was or what it meant, or that its possession meant anything, but I liked the set, blond and modern, even though some of the chairs' backs loosened and fell off later, the black rubber splitting from the blond wood, and, when the house was sold, the set was, also. I often think of those chairs and that table, but especially the chairs, since anything can be significant later in the present or future that wasn't in the past. The chairs were different from the sober brown velvet club chairs and pale gold brocade couch in the living room, where I rarely went, though it was comfortable, but the couch needed to be plumped, and if I sat down, especially to hear the sighs of the stuffed cushions collapsing under my young body, I would have to plump them up again. The other chairs and couches in the den were made of wood, like the Eames chairs, covered in hard foam rubber that didn't show traces of bodies pressed upon them, not nine, fundamentally, and that furniture appealed more, since it was durable and as remote and invulnerable to my childish roughhousing as the Swedes who designed it, who lived far away from the place and people into which I was born and about which I had no choice.

  More time goes into designing chairs than any other kind of furniture, a chair is more like a car than a bed, and many read sitting on chairs whose shape most closely resembles a human body, its base or bottom is especially for the bottom or buttocks and its hack the spine, imitating the human back, but people also like to read on beds, the way I do. The Eameses, Charles and Ray, designed the chairs in our den in the early 1940s when they, like my father and his brother, either sought new materials or new ways to use material, in the case of the Eameses, molded plywood, but in the case of my father and uncle, who couldn't use natural fibers, as cotton was needed for war, they experimented with modern techniques to innovate synthetic fibers. Invention flourishes in war, for the war effort, and there's always change and reversals of fortune, progress in industry, and even society, which requires more progress to correct, since wars have consequences about which few have a choice, almost no one, and fewer make decisions. But design is chiefly about choice, design is satisfying. Few people want to fight, and fewer want to make designs, but some wars and designs are universally reputed to be better than others, though opinions shift, since what is most definite about the contemporary is that it is primarily temporary.

  The history of chairs records human sensitivity, or consciousness, since chairs, over time, have become ever more closely molded to the body, to fit its growing dominance, though it was long after the Enlightenment, especially after the 19th century, that chairs were really designed for comfort and style. Long ago, chairs, while made for people, had rigid backs, their seats were unpadded, and people adjusted to the chair, its design and exigencies, or people didn't expect to be comfortable or comfort was once different, and always relative, or maybe people didn't sit long, since many worked in the fields, ate miserable dinners in squalid huts or hovels, though kings and queens probably were seated for hours on hard, ornate chairs, wearing clothes, which today might be called costumes, that were heavy and also uncomfortable. For a long time people mustn't have complained too much about stiff clothes or rigid backed chairs, since it wasn't until 1297 that chairs were even mentioned in a poem, "up I chaere he sate adoun, al vp be see sonde," and at that time the word "chair" changed from a three syllable pronunciation to two, and then finally there was, in English, the one syllable word.

  I wanted a sensible chair, since I don't like too much ornamentation, but I can like some, though what kind is changing, which is why I remember the Eames chairs, as they were sleek, bare of decoration, and they should have been more comfortable than they were, though they were not uncomfortable, especially for short people, like children, or medium-sized people like my parents. My mother is shrinking, though she doesn't have osteoporosis, and I must be shrinking, too, though I don't feel it and don't want to be measured, since there are some things I don't want to know. But other things I really want to know, such as, what is going on in the mind of the cryptic, balding man when he notices the psoriasis on the hands of the young woman, who clearly is affected just by his touch, but does he want to touch her. Some things are easy to learn, since if you are interested in why people do or think what they do, which may be foolhardy, impulsive, self-defeating, or unworthy, people will usually answer your questions and tell their stories, if your interest isn't merely self-serving or salacious, since mostly everyone likes to talk about themselves and would usually rather speak than listen. Most people will divulge more than you want to know. People often want to recite the tragic events that have deformed their lives, offering up their pasts as a series of tableaus of deceptions, or unspeakable insults, since people blame others endlessly, and these assaults and imprecations clutter, like a dog's defecations on the street, their lives and stories. What is said is often unremarkable, though sometimes horrible, but it's still easy to feel the tiresomeness of another's life, as well as your own, since interest in other people is also an interest in yourself, because human beings are interested in themselves and in ways of survival. All stories are somehow survival stories, with had or good fortunes.

  Some tragic cases relate their stories with verve, though their accounts are no less sad than others' boring recitations, but they are compellingly told, and often these people draw others to them, no matter what story they tell. There are terrible stories set, especially, in hospitals and jails, and I realize it is inevitable that one day, for one illness or another before I die, a hospital will claim me, but I've never done time in jail, and I don't want to, ever. According to Contesa, whose occupation was social work and who initiated and ran the Center for Urban Peasantry, which endeared her to me further, but whose preoccupation is Franz Kafka, his writing, his loves, particularly Felice Bauer, Jean Genet, whom, it turned out, Gardner-the Count-had met in Paris, claimed he didn't care about Kafka's writing, because it was infused with the terror of going to jail, a middle-class person's fear of public shame and humiliation, and because he, Genet, had been to jail and didn't fear it, Kafkas writing didn't interest him at all. I thought, at first, since cleverness resides in glossy surfaces over which even thoughtful characters glide like skaters, that Genet's was a reasonable, even apt observation, but with more attention I decided that Genet's imaginative powers were as limited by his having been to jail, which allowed him assumptions about Kafka, as Kafka's fear of it, so if I'm not interested in people who have gone to jail, I'm not interested in Genet's writing.

  Some of the acts I've committed have been illegal. When I was five, I stole candy inadvertently from the candy store several blocks from my house, on a main road, in the suburb where I grew up, because its sign said, Take One, and later I stole lipstick from the town five and dime, and then shoplifted clothes from department stores, packing a skirt into the voluminous shoulder of a ratty fur coat, and purchased small amounts of cocaine, all relatively mild infractions of the law. Other people, who have scant education, less economic or skin privilege, might have been arrested, convicted, and sent upstate for the same relatively harmless but illegal acts, and other people have records against them that are public, so that anyone can find out what these people have done wrong, and while I have no record of crimes again
st property or person, nothing that would show up on police blotters or computers, nothing that I am aware of, or that might hurt me, though I am not aware of everything that might hurt me, I have committed illegal acts that have gone undetected, but I know what I have done, and I know what was wrong and illegal. Legally, I am sane.

  Contesa asserts that, without desiring it and unacknowledged to Kafka or maybe in unconscious enjoyment of his cruel but limited power, he tested Felice Bauer, as he did himself-she was twice his fiancee-and dangled her from a rope of ambivalence until the possibility for a marriage he thought he should have, because she was the woman he should have loved but couldn't, snapped, but then, Contesa also contends, he wasn't equipped for a middle-class life, not capable of it, or of marriage, since he wasn't inclined to its petty rigors, and he wasn't physically well. I wondered if Contesa were talking about the Count, or herself, since, as she put it, she'd fled for her life from her upper-middle-class Negro family of doctors and lawyers, in Mount Vernon, New York, one of whose ancestors had received his freedom early, making his fortune farming in New Hampshire, because the black bourgeoisie was as boring as the white, and, after being forced to debut in a cotillion, she sailed to Paris, where she met the Count and where, she said, we Negroes were appreciated, Josephine Baker, le hot jazz, it was a philonegro thing, she declared, amused by her neologism. She'd sooner take that over its American version, negrophobia. She added, with irony, that Kafka dangled Felice from his elegant hands, and why wouldn't he, she was free to object and leave him, and the Count and she nodded, barely concealing their mutual satisfaction, and I didn't contest her, though I believe that about most things we usually don't have a choice, yet in love there seems to be some liberty, but that may be a very necessary illusion.