by Gordon Lish
So.
Good.
All souls accounted for.
Plentifully enough.
Even, ah, plentitudinously.
Runaway and otherwise.
In under, in less than, in fewer than—not unbitterly, either—thirty cruel minutes.
THE FOREIGNER AS APPRENTICE
YOU DO NOT BELIEVE ME.
Why don't you believe me?
Whose vengeance is it that keeps cursing me for my making an ever more extravagant investment in what's to be made over to me from my more and more telling all? No, I am neither liked nor believed—or did I just lay down a plank of past-participializing wrong-way-wise from left to right? No matter, Gordo's busted—left behind by wife and child, naught left for him to do for himself but rattle around in search of gash and/or gash and romance. And so it was that I was able to form a yeasty introduction to a woman who made plain that she was Susan.
Or had said Susanne.
No matter—the matter was settled with dispatch—the practiced considerations ensuing at all modest speed—a brief tea at a tearoom excessively dainty enough, a not unmodulated vehemence of ardors passing from one to the other by telephone—and, with charming promptitude, the whole of it, concluded—to wit, that Susan or Susanne would come with herself to my place to a small supper that I would serve to her, and, if all appeared to go acceptably, not remove herself therefrom until an hour usefully deep into the morning.
And so it was that I was, on a certain afternoon, making my way along the avenue to first fetch and then carry home with me a kind of stylish bread in support of my arrangements to encourage this outcome. Well, I was weeping as I went. I do often do this—weep some—chiefly—no, entirely—when I am out-of-doors and mainly in motion, as of course one is when one walks. I mean to say to you I seemed to myself to be weeping—but whether this effect was resulting from a feeling that was unbeknownst to me seizing me or from eye tissue punished by the terrible vapors of our streets, how am I to be the one to know?
Tears occur in me.
Are an occurrence in me.
Were then occurring in me as I went making my way along the avenue for the bread—and would doubtless occur in me, be a homeward reoccurrence in me, would presently be recurring in me as I would go coursing back up the avenue for home and for the woman Susan—or would it be for Susanne?
But I was tearless when taking the loaf that I wanted from the basket where all the loaves, in invitation, were presented all of the way up on end.
Tearless, too, when preparing myself to turn to give money to the young thing at the cash register.
Tearless, three, when I heard "Mr. Lish is it?"
I said to no face that I could see: "Sorry?"
But then face there was indeed, and from it there issued a revision: "You're Mr. Lish, are you not?"
I had had to move the bread from one hand to the other to use my customarily favored hand to be ready with the money—and so the bread seemed to me, given the locus of the hand that held it and the less grace that hand was able to do this work with—to be rudely prodding the space that was now assembling itself between my accuser and myself.
"Please"—it was the voice again—"it's been years. But you must, you must, you must be Mr. Lish."
It was a woman.
Uninteresting eyes, sadly too interesting eyeglasses, spectacles established pugnaciously forward on a nose never meant to sustain even a small sneeze.
I wiped at my eyes.
I had the money in the hand that did it.
It did no good.
I used my knuckles to wipe at the cloudier eye harder. "I'm very sorry," I said. "You seem to know me," I said. "It's the snow," I said. "I'm just on an errand," I said. "This bread," I said, now giddily conscious of my bearing the ficelle as if about to poke with it at her chest. "I'm here for bread," I said.
"Yes," she said. "Snow is so disconcerting, isn't it?" she said. "It's lovely when it first falls—but now look at it—just slush and dirt and wretchedness, such dismal wretchedness," she said.
"Yes," I said. "One's shoes," I said. "They get to look so awful," I said.
"Wear boots," she said. "I wear boots," she said.
"Of course," I said, and got the bread out from between us even though I did not want to take food into the hand that held the money.
"Let me just pay for this," I said.
"Oh, but you don't remember me," the woman said.
"I'm sorry," I said. "Sometimes the snow," I said.
"I'm Harris Drewell's mother," the woman said.
"Yes," I said. "You are Harris Drewell's mother," I said.
"Harris Drewell," the woman said, and I could see that what she had in her arms were several loaves of a different style of bread. "A classmate of your boy's at school."
"Well, of course," I said, and the thought rushed through me that she had taken for herself a kind of bread that might better have got me my aim with Susan.
Or with Susanne.
"Mr. Lish," the woman said, "I just want to say for Mr. Drewell and for myself that we are all of us in our family so very sorry for your unhappiness. And for Harris, too, you understand—Harris would offer his sympathies too, you understand."
"Oh, well," I said, "this snow, you know. Can you countenance it? Can you ever?" I said, and struggled to swing myself around a little so as to, by so doing, give evidence to all concerned that the person at the cash register could not, for one more instant, be kept waiting for her to have payment.
"He's gone with the Foreign Service, you know. It's just an internship, of course. He's just an intern, of course. But we're all of us, of course, very proud of him."
"As am I," I said, and gave to the clerk the money and got back from her the coins that were coming to me and then made—my vision awash with confusion, confusion, avalanche, wallow—for the door.
"Oh, they'll be back, Mr. Lish—have no fear of it, have none!" I heard the woman call to me, but thought, once I had gotten myself back onto the sidewalk and again onto my course, thought no, no, I had imagined it, I must have just imagined it, that what she had instead said was, "Wear boots, you imp, for pity's sake, don't make me tell you again—boots!"
It was a block or so onward that I could recall my sometimes seeing this person when I had escorted my child to school and had stood about with the fathers and mothers and more often nannies and chauffeurs in such a hopeful accruing.
"My God, Harris Drewell's mother!" I called out to myself as I went.
For hadn't I once begged the gods for them to please give to me this Harris Drewell's mother for me please to just once fuck?
I am telling.
This is the truth that I am telling.
Just as I am telling that I was making my mind up not for me to get out my shoe polish and clean off my shoes, that I was making up my mind, had, had, just as I was turning off the avenue to go the rest of the distance around the corner and home, made up my mind not ever again for me to ever clean off my shoes again—not for this Susan—not for this Susanne—not for anyone of any fame—but instead to get her fair share of the bread into her and of everything else spread out for her into her—potage, silage, rump!—as fast as it all could be decently got into her.
And then to get rid of her.
And then rid of everybody—of every other else.
So there's the proof for you.
Even the names, by Christ—the very names!—come out looking—come out crying—false, false, false.
PRAISE JABES!–AND MYRON COHEN
HOW ABOUT A JOKE? I really tell a really great joke. And I really tell a really great one as great as it can be told. Or is it greatly? Anyway, this is the only thing I think I can do in public anymore—tell people a joke. You I am going to tell a joke to—because look how much in the public you are. Now, now, you may think otherwise, you may have other ideas otherwise, but what's the diff to me, everybody's ideas?
It's a pool.
There's a pool.
There's, you know, there's Mrs. Feigenbaum, there is the widow Feigenbaum, and she sees this person sitting there, and so she says to him, Mrs. Feigenbaum says to him, "So look at you, sitting there all by yourself in the sun like this, so pale, so pale, a man so pale. So tell me," Mrs. Feigenbaum says, "so what is your name, pray tell?"
"Schmulevitz," says the man.
"That's nice, that's nice," says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "But so listen," says Mrs. Feigenbaum, "so how come a nice gentleman such as yourself comes out here to the pool so pale? So you must have a wonderful business, never to get one single instant for you to go outside in the sun for yourself to sit outside in the sun."
"Nah," says Schmulevitz, "it wasn't a business, it's not a business—it's a jail, it's instead I just got out of jail."
"Jail?" says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "You just got out of jail?" says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "So it's probably," Mrs. Feigenbaum says, "it's probably you were making a lot of money and so why give it all to the government? So who says it is such a terrible crime, getting a little too cute with the taxes and so forth?"
"Nah," says Schmulevitz. "It was murder," says Schmulevitz. "I killed somebody," says Schmulevitz.
"So you say you killed somebody?" says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "Well, sure," says Mrs. Feigenbaum, "you were probably on your way home from your office with all the cash in your pocket and there's these robbers which come along to get your cash from you, so what could a human being do, what could anybody do, didn't you have to take the bull by the horns?"
"Nah," says Schmulevitz, "it wasn't any robbers, it was my wife. I killed my wife."
"No kidding," says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "Your wife," says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "You say you killed your wife?" says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "But, look, the hussy was probably driving you crazy and making a sick man of you, constantly never putting a meal on the table in front of you, constantly always with the get me this, with the get me that, with always running you ragged all over the place with the constant eating out every night and with the constant dancing all of the time right up until dawn every night."
"Nah," says Schmulevitz, "she never asked for nothing. Meals, meals, this person in the kitchen was like an angel. What a wonderful creature," says Schmulevitz. "This was the world's most wonderful creature," says Schmulevitz. "Nobody ever had a better beloved creature," says Schmulevitz. "So like who could tell you like what gets into me, one minute this honey of a sweetie pie is saying to me darling, darling, what a terrific husband you are, the next minute I am giving this woman such a smack with an axe."
"Oh," says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "Oh, so I see," says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "So listen," says Mrs. Feigenbaum, "so like doesn't this mean you are probably like, you know, like a single fella, right?"
Okay, great or not?
So face it, so maybe not so great.
But pretty good, but pretty darned good—or, anyhow, pretty goddamned good enough for the likes of you, pal—which is like somebody who cannot even be one hundred percent honest about who is a regular laugh riot and who definitely is not.
GHOST STORY
MY IDEA IS THAT I will maybe not lie a lot or anyhow not too much of a lot if I can maybe keep myself from saying one more word than needs must be said, not including the matter of my not having to sometimes say sometimes definite, sometimes indefinite articles, particles one needs must not be all that bothered about, but hear you, hear you, for I, widower, say, "Bother the unbother! Begger it! Bugger it!" Which is really pretty darn interesting when you really stop to really think about it—the orthography of the three of them, the syllabification of the three of them, not to mention which course among them it went when they came—mild to harsh, harsh to mild—or was it came they when it went? In either case, wife used to—from time to time—wife used to reach to earth, used to reach to it and then give evidence of her having snatched therefrom something up from it, used to thereafter seem to study seeming site of same in hand, used to then turn hand over and thence clench and unclench as if cleaning from it what had perhaps once been a presence therein within it.
"Well, sir—what's that?" wouldst say I.
"Crinoid," wouldst sayest she.
Or I keep thinking old stancher, old stodger, was it, what was it the woman was saying to you—was it spelt crynoid must she needs have said?
But never not until now had ever thought was it never aught or other but a word at all.
THE LITTLE VALISE
FIRST OF ALL, I am sorry this story takes place in a subway because I know I have told some stories I have said took place in a subway, but I am sorry, I am sorry, because the subway is where this story really does take place and I do not think it is the kind of story where you would want to fool around with the place where it took place just because it happened to have been the same place where you told people some other stories did. That is: take or took place.
Second of all, I am sorry it has to be such a quick story but this is another thing—the fact that the story was, in real life, quick, plus the fact that I just do not think, I honestly do not—okay, here we go again, here is my thinking again—that it would be the right thing for me to do if I were to fool around with how long a story it actually was just because of people and of what they expect from you as far as how long and so forth.