What Burns

by Dale Peck

  Cathedral windows, Jesus light, summer beams: to Ellen they were anthropomorphic substitutes for a faith whose loss had, she always assumed, predated not just her generation but her parents’, symbolic connections to rituals and beliefs that were becoming progressively more secular and empty as time went on. Or so she’d thought until last Christmas, when her parents had announced, as if it were no more remarkable than the presence of ham on the table instead of turkey, that they were off to mass at St. Anthony’s, and did any of the children want to join them? The children, who had half a dozen masses between them, had demurred, and had spent the past ten months trying to figure out what had brought their parents back to the fold. Pop-cultural Paul suggested the fin-du-monde fantasies associated with the Mayan calendar and the year 2012, even though their father specialized in North American indigenous cultures. Philosophical Jackie went with impending mortality, even though both of their parents, as they themselves put it, had been born fifty, and refused to age a day since. In fact the question hadn’t really concerned Ellen until she’d confided to her mother at Easter that she and Nathan were having problems. Confided wasn’t quite the right word, since she’d had to raise the subject three or four times before her mother finally responded. Well, frankly dear, I’m not surprised, Mrs. Baldwin said without looking up from the dishes she washed and handed to Ellen to dry. Your father and I always thought you had no business marrying a Jew.

  VIII.

  He said: Fiction is an argument against good taste and practicality. He said: The best novelists are half-baked philosophers, obsessive-compulsive neurotics who see the shape of the universe in Whitman’s leaf of grass. Take the sentiment: “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.” It turns on its misuse, perhaps misunderstanding, of the word journeywork, which refers to mundane actions performed by apprentices and not to the journeying of stars—which is another error, since stars are fixed in place, and it’s only our perspective from an orbiting, rotating planet that causes them to seem to move. Melville thought whales were fish; Proust thought homosexual men were female souls trapped in men’s bodies. Faulkner believed goodness to be the unique provenance of post-menopausal mammies. It’s these irrational opinions, he said, these misuses of rhetoric and vocabulary, that give fiction its power. Fiction is an argument for its own necessity, he said. A story—this story—is nothing but a brick, a cinderblock, a stone in that great big wall writer and reader build together. Pick it up, he said, mount the scaffolding, climb all the way to the top and lay it in place. And while you’re up there, he said, take one last look around, because the scaffolding comes down now and this is your last glimpse of freedom. Or don’t, he said. He said: Don’t build the wall. Refuse to build the wall. He said: Call it a chair instead. He said: You can sit down instead. You can rest, he said. At long last, he said, you can rest.

  Summer Beam, pt. 2

  “During their courtship Stan laid it on thick, gilding his lilies with a can of Krylon, and if Shirl was put off by the smell she was also attracted to the color, and soon enough allowed herself to be plucked.”

  This was the sentence that had ended Ellen and Nathan’s marriage, even if it had taken six years of internal, invisible erosion before the exterior edifice finally collapsed in on itself. It wasn’t a particularly good sentence—it was, in fact, Ellen’s private parody of the famous line from Goodbye, Columbus, which she felt the post-Portnoy Roth (or at least Nathan Zuckerman) would’ve found a tad Pepleresque: “We whipped our strangeness and newness into a froth that resembled love, and we dared not play too long with it, talk too much of it, or it would flatten and fizzle away.” Ellen’s gloss appeared in an unfinished book she’d tried to write about the novelist Shirley Jackson’s marriage to the critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, in particular the dislocating experience of being a woman writer and urbane intellectual—married to a Jewish Communist, no less—in rural Vermont. In the hundred or so pages Ellen had managed to write she’d painted Jackson as a latter-day Virginia Woolf, a brilliant but neurotic female artist who hid behind her husband, but also manipulated him into playing second fiddle to her in the professional sphere; she supposed Joan Didion was a more recent example of the type. The parallels to her and Nathan were obvious enough, but so, she’d assumed, were the differences; which, looking back, is probably what gave her the freedom to cast the relationship in such a negative light. Her Stan wasn’t a particularly attractive man—Hyman had been no beauty either—and he relied on a combination of self-mockery and unctuous flattery to win Shirl’s hand, if not her heart. I mean, gilding, Krylon, lilies, plucked. Nathan flicked each word hard enough to leave the impression of his fingernail in the paper. It’s straining a little bit, don’t you think? For effect? It’s supposed to be funny, Ellen said. It’s Stan who’s straining, not the prose. Stan’s a little too close to Nathan Pepler if you ask me. Alvin, Nathan added a moment later. Alvin Pepler.

  I should’ve just called him Nathan, Ellen thought to herself—this was around one, in the middle of her third (and decidedly unmindful) sun salutation. Nate and El. But that’s where the comparison broke down. Nathan was the genius in their relationship, or at least the one who put his work out there and received accolades for it, whereas Ellen was lucky to publish one or two stories a year, and all too often in IGNIS, in the back third of the book, which Nathan had once referred to as the “Friends and Family” section. There was no “Lottery” in her oeuvre, no “Charles” for that matter. No children. No “business on earth,” as Hawthorne had written on the birth of his daughter. But at least there was coffee: she’d driven to Phippsburg after her shower, bought real coffee and milk, pasta in boxes and sauce in jars, on impulse a couple of six packs of beer. She’d thought about calling her mother but had been saved by a weak signal on her cell (she wasn’t looking forward to a triumphant reiteration of “the Jew line,” as she and Jackie had dubbed it, but she was even more put off by the idea of having it come over a staticky connection—of having to ask her mother to repeat it). Upon her return to the house she’d made coffee, lunch; eaten and washed dishes; uncovered the furniture and folded up the dustcovers. She’d bought nail polish remover as well, polish, cuticle scissors, emery board, and spent forty-five minutes giving herself a manicure (taking off her wedding ring when she reached that finger, then putting it back on again, then taking it off and putting it on the windowsill where with any luck a magpie might come along and steal it). She puzzled through three or four beautifully abstruse Stevens lyrics while her nails dried but kept seeing her own situation in the words. When she got to that line she cast aside the sea-swollen pages, exchanged the sweatshirt for a swimsuit top, and attempted a little yoga on the deck. The top was Jackie’s. Like the decaf, it was a relic of her last pregnancy, when her sister’s breasts had swollen by two full cup sizes, and when Ellen bent over her own breasts flopped out of the hollow navy-blue triangles and she laughed unreservedly for the first time that morning. She retied the top more tightly around her neck and stepped stiffly through the poses, wondering why on earth they were called sun salutations, when if you actually looked at the sun while doing them you were blinded and lost your balance and fell over—and if you looked down, you saw a yellow cat food dish, equally distracting. The hardest part, though, was the pranayama, which seemed to bring lungfuls of whatever smelled so fetid deep into her body.

  She was holding a half-hearted warrior pose when she heard the fat boy’s voice—what was his name again, Michael? or was Michael the boy with the surfboard?—pierce the sound of the waves. Fucking say that again and I’ll fucking kill your faggot ass dead. She took a moment to tighten the sagging swimsuit top before going to the railing and looking out at the beach. The three lean boys, she saw, had peeled open the tops of their wetsuits in the afternoon heat, and the one with the surfboard—Ellen was pretty sure he was the one called Michael—had shifted his board atop his head as though it were a gigantic wimple. The sleeves of the lean boys’ we
tsuits dragged in the sand and their heads were slick domes now. Only the fat boy still wore his wetsuit zippered up to his neck, still lugged his cooler, though now it bounced emptily off his plump behind. The cooler reminded Ellen of the beer in the fridge. She asked herself if she’d bought it with the boys in mind—certainly she preferred wine to beer, and there was sure to be several bottles in the pantry under the stairs—but even as she pondered the implications of this idea the boy with the surfboard on his head turned onto the path that led to the Baldwins’ house. The board turned with him in a ninety-degree arc like a helicopter blade warming up, and its fin nearly smacked the boy behind him. Goddammit, Michael, the second boy said as he too turned onto the Baldwins’ property. Watch the fuck out.

  But Michael didn’t answer. He was, instead, looking at her, and after a long pause Ellen heard a wolf whistle float across the grass. Michael, the boy whose name she thought was Michael said, shut your fucking cake hole before I feed you this board. Fuck you, Michael, the fat boy said. I’ll whistle at the bitch if I want to. The boy with the surfboard—were they both named Michael?—whipped around so fast it seemed the spinning surfboard was going to lift him off the ground. He said something, what, Ellen didn’t hear, and the fat boy said, Fuck you again, but so quietly she barely heard him. Then the boy with the surfboard turned again and led the others up the path to the deck. He made eye contact with Ellen, smiling at her brightly, and even at that distance, with his features obscured by the surfboard’s shadow, Ellen could see how good-looking he was. He knew it too, his smile all cocked up on the left side as if to say, hey, I can’t help that I’m so fucking cute.

  The other two shirtless boys would only glance at her covertly, while the fat boy kept his eyes on the path in front of his trudging feet. They walked all the way up to the deck and climbed the stairs before saying anything, and then the boy holding the surfboard on his head took a hand off it to wave and say, What’s up? His smile had leveled out a little, become a little less cocksure, and Ellen’s mind flashed on the six-packs of beer and the whole Summer of ’42 potential of the scene—the kid was really, really cute—before she offered him a wry smile and said, Not much.

  I’m Michael, the boy with the surfboard said. My compadres here are Todd, Sony, and the fat one is called Michael too.

  Fuck you, Michael, the fat boy said.

  Michael too, Ellen repeated. As in Michael also, or Michael Number Two?

  Confusion clouded the eyes of the boy with the surfboard, and then he smiled it away. As the lady prefers. Todd and Sony usually call him Fat Michael, to distinguish him from me. The curved tip of his nodding surfboard dipped down like a bird pecking at seed.

  Fuck you, Michael, the fat boy said again, his cheeks red with exertion but his voice flat, unimpassioned. Fuck you too, Todd, he said when one of the other boys snickered.

  Thin Michael turned now, and the other three boys scattered before his revolving board. The teacher in her asserted itself.

  Why don’t you put that thing down before you take out someone’s eye?

  Does that mean you’re inviting us to stay? Thin Michael said, smiling as he took the board off his head. He looked around the deck, then walked toward the railing. Ellen thought he was going to lean it against a post but instead he lifted it over the top rail and drove it into the grass.

  Hey, not the—but she was cut off by the board’s sharp tail slicing through sand and root.

  Without the board on his head Ellen could see Thin Michael’s face more clearly, tanned even complexion and shoulder-length blond hair, dry strands of which were beginning to come unstuck from the back of his neck in pale gold curls. He had a long straight nose, sharp enough to open a letter on, and his eyes were very, very blue. What was Flaubert’s metaphor for Madame Bovary’s eyes? China blue, or the color of a certain flower? Or was it that Emma’s eyes kept changing color? The boy’s were stable enough, brilliant but without depth or texture, like pieces of polished, unveined turquoise.

  She realized she was staring and felt the blood rush to her cheeks. To cover, she stuck her arm out awkwardly and walked toward Thin Michael, practically shouting her name as if she were deep into the second hour of some interminable faculty party. Thin Michael didn’t say anything, but his fingers were hot and damp around hers, his grip light but definite. For a moment Ellen thought he was going to bow and kiss the back of her hand.

  Another snicker from one of the boys. Ellen felt Thin Michael’s fingers squeeze hers, then relax. The pleasure is all mine, he said in the self-mocking yet somehow genuine voice of his generation. He was still looking at her and smiling broadly when he added, Todd, if you make that vulgar noise one more time I’m going to knock your fucking teeth so far down your throat you’ll be picking them out of your shit for the next two weeks.

  Fat Michael laughed so hard he choked, and Ellen took the opportunity to withdraw her hand, also hot now, and damp, from Thin Michael’s. She caught a glimpse of her freshly painted nails. Todd’s face, she saw then, had gone as red as her nail polish, but his Fuck you, Michael, seemed directed at the fat one and not the one who still stood in front of her, smiling his cocksure smile and staring at her with those goddamn gorgeous blue eyes.

  Ellen dried her hands on Paul’s sweatpants. So, um, you guys look hot, she said, and ignored Todd’s muffled snicker. Can I offer you a drink or something? Water, soda, I think there might be some beer in the fridge?

  There was a hollow thump as Fat Michael’s cooler fell to the floor of the deck.

  Hot damn. Beer.

  Thin Michael smiled apologetically. Forgive the uncouth manners of my friends and Fat Michael, he said, but their experience of real women is limited to their mothers’ titties, cousins’ panties, and certain floozies of, shall we say, the two-dimensional persuasion. Please, allow me to graciously—no, gratefully—accept your offer of cold brewskis on their behalf.

  Despite herself, Ellen guffawed.

  Okay, slugger, turn it down. My husband just left me and I need a little distraction, but if I wanted a dose of the effects of polyvalent cultural hybridization on the speech patterns of contemporary youth I’d attend a literary conference or turn on MTV. I bought Corona, she added as she headed into the house. You boys want limes?

  Yes, please, Thin Michael said, his meekness as self-indulgent as everything else about him. There was another snicker, and Ellen heard the sound of fist on flesh.

  Ow, she heard someone, presumably Todd, say. Fuck you, Michael.

  I’m sorry to hear about your marital difficulties, Thin Michael called as she cut the lime into wedges. Does this mean your husband isn’t accompanying you on your present holiday?

  Ellen almost sliced the tip of her thumb off. She looked across the living room to the deck. Thin Michael wasn’t looking at her, but was bent over and examining the cat food dish. She gathered the necks of the five beers in her red-tipped fingers and headed back outside.

  Um, no, she said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. My husband did not accompany me on my present holiday.

  The boys had leaned their boogie boards against the railing and arranged themselves in the deck chairs Ellen had carried up from the basement when she got back from the grocery store. As she bent over to set the beers on the low table she had a distinct sense of her breasts swinging a little too freely in Jackie’s swimsuit top, and she pretended not to notice four pairs of teenaged eyes staring at them.

  Thin Michael’s smile was thin, inscrutable. A woman should have her family with her at moments like this, he said, pulling at his beer.

  My parents close the house on Labor Day, Ellen said, more curtly then she’d intended. They’re retired. They bought a camper and’re making a tour of the sites of alleged North American miracles. So, she continued, louder, when Thin Michael opened his mouth, are you boys in college or something?

  Sony slammed his beer down on the table. Fuck college
. College is so last century.

  Ellen started, not at the sound but at the term, which was one of Nathan’s favorites, e.g., “As the last century hastened to its close, a new generation of post-colonial writers enormously expanded the vocabulary, rhythms, and indeed the very frontiers of the English novel.” Ellen had once asked Nathan why he never talked about this century, and he’d answered so quickly that she knew he’d prepared his response ahead of time: This century hasn’t started yet. The oughties were just the 2-0-C’s unfinished business. Later, scrolling through the comments on one of his pieces in IGNIS, she found the same answer posted in reply to a reader who’d referred to his analysis as “dated” (with the exception of “2-0-C,” which Nathan had lifted from his critic).

  Fucking global recession, man, Todd said now. Fucking Iraq. Fucking Barry’s practically invited the fucking Muslims to blow this shit up.

  Barry? Ellen wondered, wracking her brain for a possible referent. Manilow? Diller? Dave Barry? J.M. Barrie? Did these boys fancy themselves Lost in some Peter Pannish way? But then she realized they were referring to the president by his childhood nickname. She supposed they’d read The Audacity of Hope in a class, but coming from Todd it sounded like the kind of detail an assassin would memorize while studying his target.

  Fucking 9/11 part deux, Sony said, grabbing his bottle and knocking it into Todd’s hard enough to make Ellen wince. Memento mori, boys. We are all about to fucking die.

  Another flash: Ellen had been on the phone with her father that morning, who told her before it happened that the towers were going to fall. The modern skyscraper is basically a post-and-beam affair, he’d said almost with interest. A hollow shell, all exoskeleton. It’s the same theory as the beach house, with the individual floors acting as the summer beam. Take away enough of them and the structure is bound to implode.