Collected Fictions

by Gordon Lish

  YOUR FATHER HUNG UP, Chap, with the delivery of that declaration. I didn't wait until the next day, though. I called him back right away—and this time I did get a piece of paper and a pencil—for no good reason, actually, but in moments of this kind one sometimes does things like this. I didn't say much. I didn't try to argue with him. I don't think I then knew what arguments to argue with—and I am not certain I know that even now. All I did know was that I had to try to stop him—not because there was in me a conviction that held him wrong—but only because there was a will in me to keep him from doing what he said. He did not answer right away, but when he did lift the receiver I immediately said, "Me again," and then I heard him say, "Mags, I've got a call and I need to talk in private. I'm sorry, but I need to," and then there was a moment's quiet and then my brother said, "Yes?" and I knew there was no arguing, nothing to do but state the livable range marked off by the mad logic of his assumptions.

  "I have one thing to say," I said, "and that's this. Let it rest for three months. They've guaranteed you three months, at least three months, so you can wait that long and then do it. Not saying you shouldn't do it—just saying you can wait the three lousy months. Not that I think you'll change your mind—or that I'm sitting here trying to get you to—but just that you're in this position where you can add three months to Chap's life with no danger to Rupert. The minimum they've given you is the minimum you can and therefore must give Chap."

  I was writing the numeral 3 again and again across the paper that I had pressed with the heel of my hand up against the wall. But the plaster, if that's what you call it, was making them all come out crooked, no matter how carefully I tried to control the pencil.

  Chap, your father said, "Yes," and then he hung up the phone. He hung up without one other word. But the word he had uttered left no doubt—it was said so I would know there was no doubt. My brother knew that I knew he would do it—that your father would give you all the life he could.

  That was the fourth of November.

  I began writing these sentences that night, last night—and as I write this sentence now, it is morning.

  I PROMISED A COURTESY, and this is it. I make this gesture to exist in the place of all the gestures I have not made. I am keeping every promise I have not kept. I am leading along to this courtesy everyone I have loved and ever misled.

  There is an American writer, a woman, the only American writer I read. She has not written many stories, so it is no great undertaking to read everything she has written, which she has let have a life in print, that is. I take it that her public, unlike mine, is very, very small. This, I believe, is because she is unwilling to mislead, as I have so very often done and then tried to undo by my silence and now am trying still harder so desperately to undo by this last speaking-up.

  It is a great undertaking to understand even one of her stories, such as the one she brought forth into the world about two years ago. It is a story that begins as a story that this writer has stolen from another writer—but only because he had earlier stolen it from her. It was her story, she says, and it has to do with magic and with miracles and with many, many things. I think it has to do with everything.

  Near to its infernal conclusion, the story happens on the writings of a very wise man, a man now in prison for knowing too much—about the weakness of man and about the terrible power of God, never more terrible than in the performing of His justice.

  Among these writings, as the story calls the wise man's diaries, there is a tale the criminal has recorded.

  Here is the tale.

  A father is in a concentration camp. He learns that the list for the next day's gassings includes the name of his son, a boy of, say, twelve. So the father bribes a German (a diamond ring, he promises) to take some other boy instead—for who will really know which boy is taken? But then the father is uncertain of the rightness of his design. So he goes for guidance to the rabbi in the camp. And the rabbi will not help him. The rabbi says, "Why come to me? You made your decision already." And the father says, "But they'll put another boy in my son's place." The rabbi hears this, and he says, "Instead of Isaac, Abraham put a ram. And that was for God. Whereas you put another child, and for what? To trick the devil."

  The father says, "What is the law on this?"

  The rabbi answers, "The law is don't kill."

  The next day the father does not deliver the promised bribe, and the Germans kill his son.

  The father wanted a miracle, and he decided God would not give it.

  But God did.

  God created a father who could abide by the facts.

  OH, CHAP, silent son, and all the beloveds I have promised, dear brother in heaven and dear brother still on earth, this is the one mir—I mean, m-i-r-a-c-l-e—there is. And you, Rupert, melodious child of our dreaming, for your birthday I give you this gift. It is the lesson I have placed before you—for when you are five and must be strong enough for the five fine candles aflame on your cake.

  Breathe.

  Now blow them all out.

  Now good luck and long life!

  WEIGHT

  THE FOUR THINGS are a key, two benches, and a bicycle wrapped in festive paper but not where the handgrips and the foot-pedals are.

  The key opens someone else's door.

  The park bench looks out on a river.

  The other bench is down where the subway runs.

  The bicycle's a chimpanzee's.

  The key is a duplicate.

  The park bench stands in sunlight.

  Four citizens are seated on the bench down here.

  The one free place is next to me. The chimpanzee will speak for himself. But I say it's custom-made, the bicycle, balanced to the gram. See where the paper's split? That's chromium underneath.

  The key is cut from cheap metal, a feathery replica of the brass original—lent, copied, seventy-five cents. It has no weight worth notice. Sometimes he does not know it's in his pocket. But it's there sometimes—once a week.

  Of course, it's filthy down there, but it's also filthy up here. And the floor the chimpanzee rides on, this is filthy too—peanut shells, popcorn, gummy substances flattened out to ovals, a law of physics, the law of shapes.

  "I started on the bicycle when I was half the size you see. It's adjustable, wing nuts for all the crucial parts. I did not have the hat at first. But after one circle without a slipup, I did. After four, the jacket. After eight, the trousers. When I could keep it up and keep it up, the shoes were what I got for it. They're sturdy. They're black. See the buckles for getting them on and off?"

  Now for people.

  There's the man in such a hurry, hand in pocket, wrist-watch raised to read the time. There's the couple in the park, the slowest pace of all, the bench they're oh so slowly making for. There's the woman down here marching back and forth. She reaches her mark, shouts "Leather from Morocco!" turns about, marches again, shouts "Leather from Morocco!" marching back and forth.

  You don't want to see her. I try not to. They try not to, the others on this bench. We are just passengers, persons waiting to be passengers. Oh, we really cannot wait to be. Will your train come before she does?

  The old woman has the old man by the arm, to hold him up and steer. See her steer him to where they are going—to the bench in sunlight, to sit, to see the river—and the going is immense.

  The man runs now, runs the last little bit, then puts his shoulders into it as he hustles up the five flights of stairs. He takes his hand out. He takes the key out.

  The marching woman shouts, "Handbags! Beaded handbags!" But there is nothing in her hands.

  Oh, God, don't let her jump, not while I'm still here. Oh, God, don't let her think to sit, not while I am still here, not while my mind is still here.

  Sit.

  Is there anything else that this man wants?

  It's been too long from the bed to the bench—and he is not yet there yet. "Up, my darling," she must have said. "Such a lovely sunny day calling such
a lovely boy."

  Oh, yes, this is how she, this woman, would talk.

  "Up, sweet love," she must have said. "Come, my beloved, another look."

  It must have taken hours to get him dressed. See how nothing matches? Oh, how it must have hurt to have the clothes come be put on him—for him to be in something, touching anything, living one more turn of the clock!

  He has his clothes off. He tunes the radio. Goes away, comes back, retunes. He looks at the clock, looks again, puts his hand in a trouser pocket, takes out his wristwatch. He's learned—always take your watch off.

  "I learned without the paper on. The paper's just for show. What isn't? Is there anything not for show? They put you on, you go. Listen, I can go and go. But I don't have to. An even dozen is all the turns I ever have to do. The bolero and knickers, they're satin, they're turquoise. See the pink piping? I had to wait and wait for the shoes. But I could have mastered the pedals with them. Cut off my feet, I still could have. The hat? It's red. Red's traditional. Black, turquoise, pink, red—some ensemble, Jesus."

  I looked. Or one of them looked. It only took one look and here she comes!

  Oh, Jesus!

  Should I check my watch and get up? Perhaps I must hasten to an engagement farther along up the platform. But I am just sitting here, and now here she is!

  Her beauty is impossible—oh, the back of her as she turns him by such considerate degrees.

  "Sit, my love," she says.

  He says, "You, dear—you sit first."

  But I cannot really hear them speak.

  When she sits, she is not crazy anymore. She sits primly, ruined ankles primly crossed. She breathes a small sigh and falls silent, just another citizen, speechless like us all.

  He flexes the fingers on this hand, then on that hand, then all the toes. He looks at the clock, at the door, at the clock, at his clothes. There they are, all laid out for him to put back on—his turquoise knickers, the fitted jacket, the shoes.

  But why bother with it all? Just the trousers, then—then open the door and go run take a look.

  "Buckle this side, buckle that side—even a horse could do it if he had a thumb. But the children shriek their approval. Yes, they like the buckling of the shoes better than the bicycling. Yes, yes, the leather hurts. But what doesn't?"

  No, she is not waiting for a train. This is where she is when she sits. Yes, it is because she has kept him waiting longer than she has ever kept him waiting, longer than any of them ever did. Oh, it is because she has never kept him waiting that he runs down to take a look. Is the buzzer broken? Does she stand there, five flights down, calling him and calling him and he is way up here? She stands there, nodding, pleading, saying, "Please, my beloved, sit now—please, just sit." Look at his fingers flexing. Oh, God, he hurts! Oh, God, she's going to get up—and do what? Jump? Just march? Five flights half-undressed? Is there nothing he won't do? "I can do anything if you make me." But no one is waiting, no one is calling, no one is saying, "My beloved, my darling, my sweet." She's marching, she's shouting. "Why must they be children? How can children know what it takes to do this? How can children ever know what it costs to keep your balance? They think everything does—houses stuck on mountain peaks of crayon going up." "Leather from Morocco!" Just march, don't jump! Back up the stairs, begging God, the slowest pace of all. "No, sweet love, first you—sit, please, sit," and so she does. She sits and says, "Now you, my love," and guides him down. He stands there at the door. Nothing in this side, nothing in that side, nothing anywhere at all. "There are no pockets in my trousers. If there were, I would load them down. Put rocks in, put everything in, just to show them what I could carry and still go on." He turns and turns, these mute rotations—shirt, shoes, ghastly jerkin all locked up inside.

  I never had that duplicate.

  Or a bicycle that fit my size.

  Or the courage to stay seated when here comes havoc and I haven't got a rhyme.

  I have a wife.

  I have the ungainly weight of my love for her.

  I am the beast who can circle without letup.

  In theory.

  So far.

  FLEUR

  HONEST TO GOD, it's something, how a thing comes back, how nothing is ever lost. Look at this—the Strand, the Columbia, the Laurel, the Lido, the Gem. And that's just from the night before last, from when I was sitting on the toilet, urinating.

  The Central. I almost forgot the Central.

  These are the theaters where I went to the movies back in the days when you went every Saturday. That's what? Thirty-five years ago?

  Also, I saw the large carton of Kotex leaning, or leaned, up against the side of the bathtub.

  News to me they had a yellow rose on there, long-stemmed and photographed to make it look misty. So what's the story, they do this how? Gauze over the lens? Vaseline? Real fog actually fogging it?

  So how come I turned on the light? Or did I?

  I don't know. If I did, then maybe I did it on account of the kitchen.

  LISTEN, I say the thing with evil is it's a time thing—whereas where you get your basic appeal with lust and violence is because they're not. You see a person stick a person with a knife or with a hard-on, it's the quick effect which gives you your theater. Let's not kid ourselves, impulse enacted with all good speed, that's what the eye likes. What the eye wants is something it can catch all at once. But evil, there you're talking about a different story altogether—because with evil, the mind's got to get into it, and the mind doesn't work that way. The eye does.

  Be honest with yourself-—isn't this why Aristotle didn't give a fig about any of this, and was twice required to say as much? Not that I am asking you to see it as how I am bringing in Aristotle to back any of this up. Hey, with proof like the proof that follows?

  GO BACK TO BEFORE when I was sitting on the toilet and saw the box of Kotex and the rose. Go back, say, let's say, fifteen minutes from that. To me asleep. To me out like a light. Which for me is an interesting exception, the case being that I am no great sleeper. I mean, even if you hear me snoring, I am probably not sleeping.

  Here's the second interesting exception about the night before last—which is that I am not a nose-breather when I'm supposed to be sleeping, which the reason for is this.

  You smell things, right? (In your bed, what's to taste?)

  If it's not your wife, then it's the pillowcase—or, no less turbulently, yourself. But let's say that whatever it is, it gets in the way—when the whole thing of it for sleeping is for you to struggle to think a certain thought and work your way down into it—like a beetle falling asleep inside of what the beetle is feeding on—even though I personally never really fall asleep.

  Not that I think a serious thought, like the thought I gave you about evil. What you want instead is something playful, even crazy. It's the truth—the crazier the thing you think about, the more it's like a mallet knocking you out.

  So as to the night before last, I remember exactly—I'm thinking they should invent a cigarette with a negative gas in it—you smoke it and it sucks all of that crap in you out of you. Naturally, I must have been mouth-breathing to keep from smelling things. So go explain this little packet of molecules that for an absolute fact it's my nose, not my mouth, which detects.

  It's like a spear of perfect olfaction going up in there—coffee burning, kitchen burning, get up and go take a look!

  Here's the smell. You know the smell of what coffee smells like when it's boiled away and the residue's been turning crisp and the stove's next? But even in my semi-sleep I know it's me that makes the coffee in my house. Are you kidding? Let her make it? Besides, now that I am smelling things, I smell her right where she belongs.

  You can see how there is another interesting thing here, which is this package of intrepid vapor. Consider, all day long it's been poking around the house, a look here, a look there, but come three, four in the morning, hi, hi, it's like a dagger's been directed deep into this one nostril and there's
this solitary drop of disaster on it—Jesus Christ, fire!

  Think of it—the Brownian motion. God, I love this shit.

  Stop to consider. Molecules that could have maybe been airborne days ago. Maybe weeks, months, what? Centuries, whole epochs even—coffee left on too long by Adam, right?

  So it's this which gets me up and gets me investigating. The scare, I mean. Go put out a fire out and all that. Go save our lives or at least the life of the kitchen.

  HERE'S THE STORY. I just stood there in the darkness, looking. The next fellow would have snapped on the light for him to make certain. But me, I understood—I know science, I know philosophy—Aristotle isn't the only one. Turn on the light, what? There goes mystery, there goes art—stove empty of event, porcelain vacant, not anything disruptive of anything.

  I got milk and cookies. Eyes closed, mind open, I got milk and cookies and propped myself against the counter, nibbling and sipping—a box with a mouth, a thing that wants things inside it, its lid wide open, check?

  Aristotle, are you listening?

  I needed a crazy thought. I needed crazy. I needed the little bit of sleeping I ever get.

  So what came, what comes, is this—is me and Izzy and Eddie and Mel. It's from the days of me and them—of Izzy and Eddie and Mel, an age in there, a whore Izzy said we could all get if we got her a bottle and had enough money. So I don't know—getting the bottle was even harder than getting the money was. But I got the bottle, and I did the talking when we got there. Her, the whore, she said we were nice enough boys, and I said seeing as how she said that, could she see her way clear to shave it to six per jump. She said okay, six per, round it off at twenty-five, but just blowjobs, a woman maybe fifty, forty, small and soft this fritzy hair the color of gum.