The Novels of Lisa Alther

by Lisa Alther

  Last week, walking to supper, they came upon a derelict lying across the sidewalk, newspapers lining his overcoat. Everyone else, rushing home from work, was stepping over him. Emily insisted they prop him up on some garbage cans. She also insisted he stuff a ten-dollar bill in the man’s pocket. The old man raised his mangy head, looked at Raymond through bloodshot eyes, and snarled, “Fuck you, buddy.”

  Emily turned away with tears streaming down her cheeks. He wished he knew what was going on with her.

  Justin was talking to her, so Raymond turned to Maria, who lay on her side on a pillow, wearing a flared skirt, black tights, a black turtleneck, and African trading beads. Her long dark hair concealed half her face. “For God’s sake, sit down, Raymond,” she ordered. “You look as though you’re about to run the mile.”

  He looked down at himself—one knee raised, forearms resting on thighs. His father and uncles and cousins squatted this way on the porches and in the yards of Tatro Cove. The men in the mill village squatted like this at ball games and picnics. Blushing, he sat down. He’d worked on his drawl, his rayon shirts and reindeer sweater vests, his bigoted attitudes, but reminders of his origins were always taking him by surprise. Fortunately, no one here but Emily and himself would have recognized the Country Store Squat

  And Emily was too wrapped up in what Justin was saying, “Justice … crackers … brotherhood of man … struggle … equality… rednecks …”

  Raymond wondered if he should shave off his beard, leaving a Pancho Villa mustache like Justin’s. It made him look fierce. Raymond felt he could use some fierceness. Combing his beard with his fingers, he watched Justin turn his profile to Emily and gaze with steely eyes into the farthest reaches of the loft, as though at the future he was pledged to usher in. A cigarette hung from his lips. Emily craned her neck trying to meet Justin’s eyes. Maria had once told Justin that he had a heroic profile. And he did—with his narrowed eyes, hollow cheeks, and straight nose. Now he took every opportunity to display it.

  Emily was murmuring, “Oh-really-you-don’t-say-how-very-interesting-aren’t-you-wonderful.” Raymond caught her eye and received a faint wry smile that gave him the creeps. She’d done this with him for years—nursed his ego, a skill from her mother and from his own sister-in-law, the lovely Lady Sally of the cotton-candy hair. Like bicycle pumps, they’d inflate their men to weather-balloon size and then roll them out the door to face the world. But Emily would have to eradicate this slavish Southern Belle in herself if she was going to make it with FORWARD. Straightforwardness and utter equality were the qualities FORWARD valued and nurtured. He frowned at Emily, hoping to convey this.

  Maria yelled, “Aw, bullshit, Justin! You’re full of crap!” Now there was a woman for you—a woman who said what she meant and meant what she said. An intelligent woman, a politicized woman, a strong, courageous, independent woman. He hadn’t known such women existed, after a lifetime of watching his mother stand behind his father’s chair at meals. Maria terrified him, but she also excited him as no woman ever had. He hoped Emily would get to know her, spend some time with her, shed some of the attitudes Newland had burdened her with—just as being around Justin had helped him shed his own crippling attitudes.

  Justin and Maria were arguing about Democratic Centralism. Raymond wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. He read the books everyone had recommended. Last night he’d stared interminably at the sentence, “Each thing is a combination of contraries because it is made up of elements which, although linked together, at the same time eliminate one another.” And he’d come close to going crazy trying to understand it. Yet the others could argue for hours about its ramifications. Either something was wrong with his brain, or the others were on a higher mental plane because of having been to college.

  On the other hand, he did understand some things. For instance, he knew that Maria and Justin had been lovers and were splitting up. He knew the former by the glances they used to exchange, the latter by the ferocity of their current ideological disputes. Raymond reflected that if you grew up among hypocrites, you learned to ignore the stated content of a conversation, and instead to study facial expressions and gestures and the feeling tone of words.

  Morris sauntered in wearing overalls and a wool undershirt and drawled to the group at large, “Hey, baby how you making it?” He had bushy black hair and glasses with tinted lenses. Raymond was surprised to realize how little he knew about Morris—only that he was a graduate assistant in political science at NYU. Presumably every member of FORWARD had a complicated life beyond the confines of this room, but Raymond knew only what they all looked like here and what they said during meetings and project work. He liked this situation just fine. In his experience, the more he knew about a person, the less he wished to know. The closer he got to people, the more they resembled the people he’d grown up among in Newland.

  Morris slapped Ralph’s palm. “Ralph! My man!” Then he squatted behind Maria, blew in her ear, and kissed her cheek. Gazing at Justin defiantly, he put his arm around her, his hand molding a breast. Justin glared back, then focused resolutely on Emily.

  Maria, jabbing Morris in the stomach with her elbow, snarled, “Get stuffed, creep.”

  Morris, laughing, sat down next to Bud, a short squat man in army fatigues and an olive Eisenhower jacket. He had no neck and a red face, looked like an olive stuffed with a pimento. He kept passing around an agenda which no one would read. Some nights meetings never happened because anyone who tried to call them to order was accused of perpetrating a “cult of personality.” Raymond really admired FORWARD’S determination to do away with hierarchy.

  Morris yelled to Maria and Justin, “OK, you two, shut up. Now what about this fund-raising statement?”

  Justin looked up. “Do you mind, Morris? I was in the middle of a sentence.”

  “Mind? Hell no, Justin. I should mind if we’re here all night while you finish your sentence?” He folded his arms.

  Five minutes later Justin concluded his sentence and asked, “All right. What is it we need, guys?”

  The room fell silent Morris’s face colored. Raymond wasn’t sure why.

  “We need a statement of purpose,” explained Bud, “for a grant application that’s due tomorrow.”

  Raymond studied the breast that Morris had fondled. Maria raised her eyes and caught him. Rather than look away, he forced himself to let his eyes linger, then slowly raised them to hers. A faint smile played around the corners of her mouth.

  Raymond realized he was letting personal preoccupations interfere with his politics. He tried to concentrate on Morris: “… our role should be primarily that of a channel of support and communication among groups that have arisen from the direct action of the people themselves, working to alter the status quo in the South, that could serve to solidify evolving societal patterns, and simultaneously …”

  “I’m not following you, Morris,” Raymond muttered.

  “That’s because you weren’t listening,” Maria announced. “You were staring at my tit”

  Everyone laughed. Raymond blushed. Justin looked at him, then turned his profile to Maria. Raymond hadn’t suspected until that moment that Justin could feel threatened by him. What a bizarre thought. Justin was everything Raymond hoped to be, once he’d re-educated himself.

  “Shit, Southerners can’t grasp anything that isn’t couched in a Br’er Rabbit tale. They got cornmeal mush for brains,” snarled Morris.

  Raymond realized this was probably true. You asked Justin or Morris a question, and you got back statistics, or a quote. You asked Emily or him a question, and you got an interminable anecdote involving several generations, like an Old Testament chapter. He only hoped his condition was curable. He vowed to memorize some of the statistics he’d been reading.

  Bud was challenging Morris’s term “channel”: “The time has come for the current phase of disorganized protest to be replaced by a dedicated cadre of revolutionary visionaries. Lenin says, ‘A vanguard which fe
ars that consciousness will outstrip spontaneity, which fears to put forth …’”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’ve all read Toward the Seizure of Power, Bud,” growled Morris.

  “It’s not Lenin,” Justin informed him. “It’s Guevara. Guerrilla Warfare.”

  “Fuck it man! I know where I read it! It’s Lenin.”

  “Wanna make a bet? Five bucks?”

  “You’re on, buddy.” They shook hands, glaring.

  “That vanguard stuff always sounds so elitist to me,” mused Maria.

  This triggered a discussion of Democracy, Fascism, State Socialism, and Communism. Raymond reclined on his pillow, feeling stupid. He’d give anything to be able to join in. He glanced at Emily, who was gazing at Justin’s profile. Did she wonder why Raymond wasn’t participating? Did she realize he wasn’t able to? He sat up straight and assumed a severe expression. He sneaked a glance at Maria. Dating had never been easy for him. He’d held himself aloof in Newland. Now that this was no longer necessary for self-preservation, he didn’t know how to behave any different. Whenever he tried to get romantic up here, girls always said, “Oh Raymond, let’s just be friends.”

  But goddam, he didn’t want to just be friends, he wanted to get laid. Everybody’s favorite kid brother. How had he gotten stuck with this image? Maybe he did need him a Pancho Villa mustache. He’d worked hard to get rid of the attitudes Newland had saddled him with, but he couldn’t seem to overcome his courtliness in favor of a quick screw. Newland insisted that the sex act Matter. (Pleasure didn’t matter.) In Newland it mattered because everyone eventually knew about it. The town offered no entertainment except sex, no birth control except the Ten Commandments. They used sex as a carrot over a donkey, to get people into marriage, babies, jobs in the factories. Witness Jed.

  But this wasn’t Newland. He’d watched the other guys in FORWARD for pointers. The glances, gestures, remarks that indicated they wanted a screw, but not babies, mortgage payments, and dinner parties. He had to get laid soon. It was getting ridiculous. It was interfering with his political work. FORWARD members had a responsibility to take care of their personal needs as efficiently as possible, to free up their energies and concentration for what was really important—the building of a just society.

  Maybe Maria would be open to helping him out, now that she and Justin were on the rocks. He’d admired her right from the start, especially her sharp intelligence. Emily was bright, but in Newland she’d devoted herself to concealing it. Over the months he studied Maria closely, the way she drew so deeply on her cigarettes, the way she swung her head to get her hair out of her eyes. Ever since his documentary, she seemed interested in him too, jokingly calling him “our resident redneck.” She was a couple of years older, a junior in college, but seemed to respect him, often made comments about his “guts” and “backbone” for being able to extract himself from Newland. Possibly, he reflected, she could be persuaded to take an interest in other portions of his anatomy as well. He liked the notion of an experienced older woman who’d initiate him sexually, like the South Sea islanders. Of course Raymond, Maria, the actual individuals made little difference. The point was to take care of one’s petty personal needs in a fashion that would be most beneficial to the group as a whole, and enable one to funnel one’s personal energies back into the collective.

  “Without vision there can be no strategy,” Justin was saying. “And without strategy, actions are meaningless flounderings.”

  “We’re not getting anywhere on this statement,” Maria interrupted.

  “Christ, we’re going to be here all night,” Morris grumbled.

  “I need this thing for tomorrow morning,” Bud reminded them.

  “Well, tell me how we can write a position paper when we don’t agree on what we’re doing?” Justin demanded.

  “Obviously a couple of our theoreticians have to give in,” said Maria.

  “We could vote,” Raymond suggested.

  “Vote?” Morris sneered. “What do you think this is? A student council election? There’s an ideologically correct position. It’s just a question of allowing the consensus to emerge.”

  Raymond felt humiliated. He thought he understood about Democratic Centralism. Clearly he understood nothing. He’d made a fool of himself. When would he learn to keep his stupid hillbilly mouth shut? Emily smiled at him with sympathy. Fuck her sympathy! She knew even less than he did. Where did she get off, giving him that Southern Belle smile?

  “How about if Morris and Bud have an arm-wrestling tournament?” Maria suggested.

  “Get off us, Maria,” Morris growled.

  Maria, Emily, Ralph, and Raymond sat and listened to the debate as though watching a tennis match, with Justin as a linesman who corrected quotes and statistics.

  “… democratic participation in the decision-making process and …” insisted Morris.

  “No revolution is ‘spontaneous,’” replied Bud. “They’re staged, manufactured by the few people with vision and courage.”

  “Debray says, ‘It is always the movement which precedes the organization and the political strategy which follows, or which takes shape at the same time as the involvement in the action.’”

  “… catalyzing energy among the most deprived …”

  “… encouraging potential local leadership to adopt participatory methods …”

  Raymond was impressed. He and the others, about all they could do was get out mailings and clean the loft. Here among Morris, Justin, and Bud was where the real action was. God, if only he’d read and understood enough to be able to quote Lenin and Marx like that. He vowed to study harder.

  “Debray says,” Morris concluded with a smug nod, “’There is no separation between masses and intellectuals, movement and party, those who theorize and those who act, between “leaders” and followers.”’”

  Justin looked at his watch. “I’m sorry, guys, but I’ve got an appointment in fifteen minutes.”

  “Who is she?” asked Morris.

  Justin smiled. “That’s none of your business, is it?” Maria twitched. Justin caught her eye, then turned his profile to her.

  “How about this statement? I need it in the morning,” Bud reminded them.

  “Well, I hate to pull rank,” said Justin, “but …”

  “Like hell you do,” murmured Maria.

  “… I have been at this longest. FORWARD was my conception.”

  “Yes, and you just happen to be paying the rent,” muttered Maria.

  “I’ve listened to what everyone has to say. And I have to insist on this one point: FORWARD has no hierarchy and no inflexible ideology. You dig?”

  Raymond listened with awe as Justin summed up the two hours of discussion in a handful of eloquent sentences: “… liberating ourselves from the assumptions of a racist society, formulating new identities based on a fresh analysis, changing that society’s network of organization and control so as to include the dispossessed …”

  He paused. “Are you getting this down, Maria?”

  There was a long silence while Maria studied her fingernails. Finally she looked at Justin. “Why don’t you just take your Brotherhood of Man and shove it, Justin?”

  Justin, laughing, turned to Morris. “She’s cute when she’s angry, isn’t she? So who is going to write this down?”

  “I will,” offered Emily.

  “Stay out of this, Emily,” snarled Maria. “Write it down yourself, you fucker. What was all this big talk about ‘training each other in our specialties so that we could become interchangeable and practice an equality lacking in society at large’? I haven’t seen you exhibit any interest in learning how to run the mimeo, Justin, or go for Chinese takeout.”

  “Let’s face it: because of my ruling class privilege, I have skills and training it would take years to develop in someone else. We should think of the group more as an organism, each individual being an essential limb.”

  “So you’re the prick, Justin. And what am I? The asshole
?”

  Raymond stood before the mirror in his bathroom and practiced: “Uh … hey, baby, how bout you and me …

  “Maria, it’s come to my attention that, uh …

  “Maria, I was just wondering if you’d like to …”

  The strong silent approach: Alone in the loft he’d turn to her, put his hand on her thigh …

  He’d shaved his beard, leaving the mustache. It definitely made him look less cuddly.

  He should court her. Candy, flowers, singing telegrams. He’d ask her to dinner. He knew he was being childish. Certainly Justin never suffered from timidity like this. He marched to the phone, picked it up, and held it to his ear, as the dial tone switched to an angry whine, and then to nothing. She’d laugh at him, turn him down with a pat on the head. She might even mention it to the others.

  He slammed down the phone, threw himself on his bed and masturbated. As he lay with his hand full of semen, he took satisfaction in the knowledge that he had no Kleenex to clean up with. He’d made an effort to reduce his life to the essentials. After a lifetime surrounded by his mother’s gewgaws—samplers, plastic teepees, family trees, mugs from Ruby Falls and Rock City and Gatlinburg—it was a relief to live in one small room with nothing in it except a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and a mattress salvaged from the incinerator room. He chose to live as Negroes in the South were forced to live, so that he would never become softened by creature comforts into settling for the status quo. His one indulgence was a trench coat like Justin’s, which he hung with care on a hanger on the back of his door.

  Wind off the Hudson was gusting around his windows and fighting its way into his room. He felt grim satisfaction as goose bumps crept up his arms.