Good People of Chicago, you and I
Belie our nature to categorize
By last names and colors of opacity:
Though I am see-through and you are tag-defined,
We all share the streets, the weather and time.
Good People, look beyond Division Street,
Past the iron gates and the cul-de-sacs:
We share main roads and fenceless avenues,
Undenied paths and ways to get home
Through this grand maze of lines: we need to share—
Good People, look beyond the lake effect
And local winds that vary by degrees:
We share the winter freeze that shuts us in
Till summer sends us out, year after year
To spraying hydrants, Michigan waves, escape—
And we share time, Good People, you and I,
And the roads stretch on and on with potholes
And snowbanks; and seasons run their cycle;
Time touches all, heals all, moves all, tolls for all,
And here we are, Chicago, until we die.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Friday, November 30, 1990
Dostoevsky Final
Dostoevsky Final (la)
The general aim of the Underground Man, if not simply to be aimless, was to try to break away from socially imposed rules and chains. Plot was just another restriction, like the system of twice two, it chained the author to something systematically straightforward. He would be locked on a limited course on which his story would depend too much on sequence and consequence, on multiplier and product.
The Underground Man wanted to defiantly break away from such straight thought patterns because they, like everything else he protested, stood as a threat to his freedom. In fact, in his grasp for freedom, he rebelled against all of the conventional parameters of a normally structured “novel.” Diction is squeezed between an explanatory page-one footnote and a parenthetical closing comment. Thought often becomes contradictory and is never really conclusive. Characters, beyond the anti-hero himself, do not appear for half the book. Conflict is primarily between the writer and the reader, even as the writer is continually unstable and the reader’s existence is denied outright. And the setting through part one is a constricting coffin of an apartment, a “funk-hole” of surreality.
Finally, the Underground Man had to reject plot, because it is the most formally limiting of literary structures. Whereas the other parameters are primarily passive and abstract, plot is necessarily active and concrete according to the laws of time and space. The Underground Man did not want to exist for such activity. “What do I care for the laws of nature and arithmetic?” he asked rhetorically. “As though such stone walls were really the same thing as peace of mind” (272).
In conclusion, there is no plot because that was not the purpose of there being a “story.” “An author writes something to please ‘everybody,’” considered the Underground Man (278). But ‘everybody’s’ pleasure is only another “golden dream” (279), and besides, he was simply “imagining an audience” anyway (296).
(2a)
The Underground Man perceives the prostitute Liza as being a creature and a victim of debauchery, which itself exists, according to his perception, in lovelessness, with a general lack of all feeling. (The quoted translation uses the phrase “at the culmination point” of love. Another text, translated by David Magarshack, says “consummation” (339), which seems to imply that the vice is less a result of true love’s previous existence as an aspect following its absence.) This perception differs from that of one of Liza’s more ordinary clients in that the Underground Man sees into this “general picture” and stays conscious of it, instead of merely being a “course and shameless” part of it.
To the ordinary man —the “plain man” or the “man of action” (269) —vice is just another stone wall before which he invariably yields. As the Underground Man had described, to such a man of action “a stone wall is not a challenge as it is, for instance, to us thinking men... and it is not an excuse for turning aside.... No, [the ordinary man] capitulates in all sincerity” (269). In other words, such a man yields to his debauched desire and lets himself be calmed by its effectual wall.
The Underground Man, a thinking man, sees debauchery here as “inane... revolting... coarse... shameless;” in another translation, “hideous... gross... absurd” (339). In his mind he seems to turn away, repulsed —and yet he, too, is a living part of it. The spider of vice even makes him feel “creepy” (339), as if he were the spider himself. Indeed, he has spent two hours “capitulating” with this as yet nameless prostitute, and still he continues to ‘lie next to her and look into her eyes. But he is not calmed by her in any way. The ordinary man is not revolted and pretends that there is a kind of consummated love in the prostitute’s bedroom; he becomes sincerely soothed by this lie. But the Underground Man is cursed by a continually sensitive conscience; he is painfully aware of this reality of absent love; and if he has paused at this wall, it has not been for “cheap happiness,” but rather “exalted suffering” (376).
(3b)
There are two classes of suicide in Crime And Punishment: the selfish suicide and the symbolic suicide of becoming selfless. The selfish type, suicides in the usual sense, are all actual or attempted ends of one’s vitality. The selfless suicides are actual or attempted renouncements of the spiritual self; these may be considered merely symbolic, but they are no less significant.
The most obvious selfish suicide is Svidrigaylov’s. His is the dark, calculated suicide, filled with typical rituals: a string of ambiguous hints, a wrapping up of affairs, a last night’s reflection, a note, an official witness, and enigmatic final words. But as full and complete as this suicide was, it is the less demonstrative suicides that are often more thought provoking. Raskolnikov earlier witnessed an attempted suicide, as Afrosinyo —“she’s done it again” (189) —jumped off the Vosnessensky Bridge, only days after trying to hang herself. “Well that’s one way out,” thought Raskolnikov, “...but is it a way out?.... What an awful end! And —is it the end?” (189). She didn’t succeed at this latest attempt, and there was the sense that she would try again later. Obviously little planning had gone into her efforts she had been drunk besides.
There is another death, also with drink and little planning, that did succeed, as Marmeladov gets trampled under the feet and wheels of a horse carriage. “Happen he done it on purpose,” the driver testified, “but he might have done it because he was drunk” (195). Marmeladov, a waste who showed no responsibility to his suffering family, realized his faults and worthlessness, and yet he took no action. To his credit, he asked for no pity. “I ought to be crucified, not pitied,” he told Raskolnikov (40). And he had an expressed hope for his salvation; but nonetheless he was shameless, and he drank, degenerated, and eventually fell under the horses’ hooves, as if by an agreement between destiny and will.
Sonya’s is the most obvious of the selfless suicides: she had renounced ‘1.10 ) her self before the novel begins by becoming a prostitute for the sake of her family’s welfare. Ironically, Raskolnikov saw three selfishly suicidal ends ahead for Sonya: “She can throw herself into the Yekaterinsky Canal, end up in a lunatic asylum, or... give herself up entirely to her life of immorality” (338). Sonya would continue with a certain virtue, though, much to Raskolnikov’s and her sublings’ ultimate benefits.
Raskolnikov’s sister Dunya nearly committed suicide by sacrificing herself for her family’s sake. Her attempts, however, would not have been of the same import as Sonya’s success. Had she been totally selfless, she might have married Luzhin without question, or she might have conceded to Svidrigaylov’s final blackmail attempt. These would have been tragically futile “suicides,” and it is to her credit that she saw through them in time; nevertheless, she put herself on the line in both cases, and perhaps deserves more credit for this.
Finally, the third example of selfless suicide is the effort of Raskolnikov. It might be said that he attempted a sort of suicide after he killed the two women, by going through deep spiritual suffering; but this in its passiveness would be similar to the selfishness of Marmeladov, who loved to have his hair pulled. Raskolnikov’s spiritual selflessness came later, after his selfish suffering. It began when he first confessed his crimes to Sonya: “he felt like a man who was about to jump off a high church tower” (424). And by “kiss[ing] the filthy earth with joy and rapture” (537), he came a step further. Finally, with Sonya’s encouragement, he confessed to the police. His old self “died” at this point, and he was ready to begin a new life. Thus in this kind of suicide the self is both the thing sacrificed and, in its renewed form, the beneficiary.
(4a)
“Go at once...stand at the crossroads, bow down, [and] kiss the earth,” instructed Sonya (433). It was a command heavy with implications, and at first Raskolnikov refused to comply. What was she asking?
First, to stand at the crossroads. This implied that he was to stand at the center of Haymarket Square, the busiest part of the busiest city in Russia. There he would be where the whole world could see him, making himself completely vulnerable to whatever reaction his confession would bring. They might laugh, they might scorn and jeer, they might attack him there, or even stone him; they might just pick him up and take him away, never to return again. But he would have no way of knowing their reaction until he carried out the instruction. At the crossroads he would be at St. Petersburg’s point of orientation, where there would be street signs and mileage and direction signs; and this would also be his own orientation point. There, based on all the resulting changes in perspective, he would be able to sort things out.
And he would be able to determine his future, for it is at the crossroads that one decides direction. As much as one tries to plan such decisions ahead of time, it is only at the crossroads that the choices are actually made and the steps actually taken for the journey’s continuation. After Sonya spoke these words she offered Raskolnikov a cyprus cross to hang around his neck. “We’ll suffer together, so let us also bear our cross together,” she said (435). Here then was another implication of “crossroads.” Confessing and asking the world for forgiveness is a praiseworthy religious act and a testimony of faith, and yet it is not an easy step to take. The cross to bear along this road is heavy and entails a deep humiliation; it conjures no magic remedy before the symbolic crucifixion, no preview of the resurrection. Yet, Sonya inferred, it was a necessary step for the sinner to take.
Thus Raskolnikov was to stand at the crossroads: he was to bear his cross of repentance, stand in front of all people, recognize where he stood, and determine his future.
And he was to kiss the earth: “...the earth which you have defiled,” Sonya said in full (433), implying that at the crossroads he would be making his apology directly to the world. By murdering, he had not only wronged his particular victims, who now lay under the soil, he had also sinned against all humankind across the globe.
Furthermore, kissing the earth was a demonstration of the deepest humility. He was to bow down and prostrate to the world as low as he possibly could, showing with face to the ground that he deferred to everyone.
By touching the soil this way he would also atune himself with “Holy Mother Earth,” from whence he came, upon which he walked, and whither he was going. Thus, in one action he would recognize his origin, his existence and his mortality, acknowledging his defilement with respect to all three.
But finally, kissing the earth is more than a humble, atoning apology. It is experiencing a purgatory cleansing by bringing sensuality to its fullest: the taste, the smell, the feel of city dirt next to one’s nose and on one’s lips would stir the soul. And indeed, when Raskolnikov put Sonya’s directions into practice, his sensuality was so dramatic that one observer remarked that he was drunk. “He simply plunged... into this new and overwhelming sensation... tears gushed from his eyes... and [he] kissed the earth with joy and rapture” (537).
(5b)
Ivan’s “Grand Inquisitor” poem and Father Zossima’s last words are polar statements, yet they bring up similar issues. Separately, they discuss the concepts of freedom and happiness and the values of miracle, mystery, and authority. The two speakers even begin to agree on some points, although their differences on these issues are numerous, to say the least. But the general difference that separates Ivan’s Inquisitor and Father Zossima more than points on any of the individual concepts is the difference of the speakers’ perspectives. The Inquisitor lectures pedantically as from a podium, but only one person is meant to hear him; Father Zossima bears witness to only a few people around his deathbed, but it is a testimony for the world. As the Inquisitor speaks, he sees the universe with the conditions of “them” and “us”; Father Zossima does not separate as such, but says, here is what I have seen, how it has been for me, and how it can be for you.
This difference in perspective is evident in all the individual issues. Freedom, the Inquisitor says, brings “unrest, confusion, and unhappiness” (301), and so “[we] have vanquished freedom... in order to make [them] happy” (294). “...They will submit themselves to us gladly and cheerfully” (304). Father Zossima, too, sees negative aspects in the world’s idea of freedom: it brings “slavery and self destruction... separation and isolation” (369). His response, however, is not to perpetuate the us/them separation and enslavement, but to acknowledge the alternative, truer freedom of a Christian. Zossima does not quote the apostle Paul, but the allusion is implied: “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all” (1 Cor. 9:19). There is no us and them in Zossima’s kind of servitude, because it is universal.
Meanwhile, the Inquisitor is concerned with conquering people and holding them captive for the sake of their happiness. “We shall reach onr goal and be Caesars... [for] the universal happiness of man,” he says (302). “We shall give them quiet, humble happiness, the happiness of weak creatures” (303).
Father Zossima also talks about happiness in terms of humility and the universe, but again he does so with a different perspective. He speaks of being “consumed by a universal love, as though in a sort of ecstacy” (376). He also addresses global conquest: “...by humble love... you may be able to conquer the world” (376). Thus, he reverses the role of the happily humble, making them captors, not captives, with the force of love.
The Inquisitor’s forces are threefold: “miracle, mystery and authority” (299), the three things denied us when Christ resisted the devil’s temptations and established our dreaded freedom. But the church resumes control of these forces, providing the bread of satisfaction, possessing people’s consciences, and wielding dominion to make the world “happy;” thus, man knows “whom to worship, to whom to entrust his conscience and how... to unite all” (302). To Father Zossima, although love remains “the strongest [force] of all” (376), he, too, values the forces of miracle, mystery, authority; unlike the Inquisitor, though, he appreciates this triune on the same plane as the recipients, and furthermore, he sees their combined force as inclusive of God’s plans. In fact, he finds miracle, mystery, and authority not only in God’s world and in God’s people, but also in the Word of God itself: “What a miracle and what strength is given with [the Holy Bible] to man!... And how many solved and revealed mysteries!” (343). And he sees this power in “sorrow... [passing] gradually into quiet, tender joy” (343); in “Divine Justice, tender reconciling and all forgiving,” and in the central promise of a future life. And it is all a difference of perspective.
( 6a )
One of the interesting qualities of The Brothers Karamazov is its unique version of the omniscient point of view. Dostoyevsky narrates his final novel with an all-knowing force, yet he personifies the force with first-person commentary, in the form of the singular “I” speaking for the collective “us.” The singular is never identified; he is primarily a part of the collective, the citizenry of the district and village in which Fyodor Karamazov lived “exactly thirteen years ago” (3). Nevertheless, this collaborative style of an “eyewitness” account is underlaid with an absolute omniscience such as no compilation of witnesses would be able to relate. The singular narrator asserts himself as an actual eyewitness only once, for the novel’s trial scene, of which he describes “only what struck me personally and what stuck in my mind” (772). Outside of the courtroom, though, when he speaks as a narrator at all, he speaks secondarily: “I do not know the details, I have only heard...” (10), or in the plural: “as we heard afterwards...” (145), or with a qualified passive voice: “it was said (and it is quite true)...” (193). Occasionally he asserts an opinion, usually brief, although at one point, in book two, chapter seven, it goes on for several pages: “...that’s my opinion!” (397). These editorial comments slide into the plural voice, too, as at the end of the novel’s first chapter: “In the majority of cases, people... are much more naïve and artless than we generally assume. As, indeed, we are ourselves” (6).
Now and then, it seems quite feasible that the story is merely a collaboration of accounts. The elder’s words, for instance, are largely “according to Alexey” (336); and hints here and there allude to the possible anonymous observer, as when Ivan and Smerdyakov have their “clever man” talk: “Anyone looking at Ivan’s face at that moment would have known...” (322).
Still, the omniscience is often blatant. Following the “clever man” chat, the narrator continues to observe Ivan “We will not describe the trend of his thoughts... and even if we attempted... we should have found it very difficult, because they were not really thoughts, but something very vague...” (323). After which follows an account of these same vague thoughts, up to the moment he falls asleep on a train far away from the singular “I” and the collective “we.”
Similarly, Alyosha’s and Dmitri’s minds are delved into, exposing many private thoughts that “flash through” (399). Most of the time, there isn’t even any pretense of an eyewitness. The story is simply told with full description and complete conversational account, and every detail that is needed is presented, without explanation of how the facts were procured. In fact, despite all the examples I have given of Dostoyevsky’s first person technique, he has written the great majority of this novel in the third person, with no eyewitnesses to speak of.
References
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, The Brothers Karamazov, Trans. David Magarshack. New York: Penguin, 1982.
—. Crime and Punishment. Trans. David Magarshack. New York: Penguin, 1951.
—. Notes from the Underground. Trans. David Magarshack. Great Short Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Ed. Ronald Hingley. New York: Harper, 1968. Russian141: 11/30/90, Prof. Rubchak:
The general aim of the Underground Man, if not simply to be aimless, was to try to break away from socially imposed rules and chains. Plot was just another restriction, like the system of twice two, it chained the author to something systematically straightforward. He would be locked on a limited course on which his story would depend too much on sequence and consequence, on multiplier and product.
The Underground Man wanted to defiantly break away from such straight thought patterns because they, like everything else he protested, stood as a threat to his freedom. In fact, in his grasp for freedom, he rebelled against all of the conventional parameters of a normally structured “novel.” Diction is squeezed between an explanatory page-one footnote and a parenthetical closing comment. Thought often becomes contradictory and is never really conclusive. Characters, beyond the anti-hero himself, do not appear for half the book. Conflict is primarily between the writer and the reader, even as the writer is continually unstable and the reader’s existence is denied outright. And the setting through part one is a constricting coffin of an apartment, a “funk-hole” of surreality.
Finally, the Underground Man had to reject plot, because it is the most formally limiting of literary structures. Whereas the other parameters are primarily passive and abstract, plot is necessarily active and concrete according to the laws of time and space. The Underground Man did not want to exist for such activity. “What do I care for the laws of nature and arithmetic?” he asked rhetorically. “As though such stone walls were really the same thing as peace of mind” (272).
In conclusion, there is no plot because that was not the purpose of there being a “story.” “An author writes something to please ‘everybody,’” considered the Underground Man (278). But ‘everybody’s’ pleasure is only another “golden dream” (279), and besides, he was simply “imagining an audience” anyway (296).
(2a)
The Underground Man perceives the prostitute Liza as being a creature and a victim of debauchery, which itself exists, according to his perception, in lovelessness, with a general lack of all feeling. (The quoted translation uses the phrase “at the culmination point” of love. Another text, translated by David Magarshack, says “consummation” (339), which seems to imply that the vice is less a result of true love’s previous existence as an aspect following its absence.) This perception differs from that of one of Liza’s more ordinary clients in that the Underground Man sees into this “general picture” and stays conscious of it, instead of merely being a “course and shameless” part of it.
To the ordinary man —the “plain man” or the “man of action” (269) —vice is just another stone wall before which he invariably yields. As the Underground Man had described, to such a man of action “a stone wall is not a challenge as it is, for instance, to us thinking men... and it is not an excuse for turning aside.... No, [the ordinary man] capitulates in all sincerity” (269). In other words, such a man yields to his debauched desire and lets himself be calmed by its effectual wall.
The Underground Man, a thinking man, sees debauchery here as “inane... revolting... coarse... shameless;” in another translation, “hideous... gross... absurd” (339). In his mind he seems to turn away, repulsed —and yet he, too, is a living part of it. The spider of vice even makes him feel “creepy” (339), as if he were the spider himself. Indeed, he has spent two hours “capitulating” with this as yet nameless prostitute, and still he continues to ‘lie next to her and look into her eyes. But he is not calmed by her in any way. The ordinary man is not revolted and pretends that there is a kind of consummated love in the prostitute’s bedroom; he becomes sincerely soothed by this lie. But the Underground Man is cursed by a continually sensitive conscience; he is painfully aware of this reality of absent love; and if he has paused at this wall, it has not been for “cheap happiness,” but rather “exalted suffering” (376).
(3b)
There are two classes of suicide in Crime And Punishment: the selfish suicide and the symbolic suicide of becoming selfless. The selfish type, suicides in the usual sense, are all actual or attempted ends of one’s vitality. The selfless suicides are actual or attempted renouncements of the spiritual self; these may be considered merely symbolic, but they are no less significant.
The most obvious selfish suicide is Svidrigaylov’s. His is the dark, calculated suicide, filled with typical rituals: a string of ambiguous hints, a wrapping up of affairs, a last night’s reflection, a note, an official witness, and enigmatic final words. But as full and complete as this suicide was, it is the less demonstrative suicides that are often more thought provoking. Raskolnikov earlier witnessed an attempted suicide, as Afrosinyo —“she’s done it again” (189) —jumped off the Vosnessensky Bridge, only days after trying to hang herself. “Well that’s one way out,” thought Raskolnikov, “...but is it a way out?.... What an awful end! And —is it the end?” (189). She didn’t succeed at this latest attempt, and there was the sense that she would try again later. Obviously little planning had gone into her efforts she had been drunk besides.
There is another death, also with drink and little planning, that did succeed, as Marmeladov gets trampled under the feet and wheels of a horse carriage. “Happen he done it on purpose,” the driver testified, “but he might have done it because he was drunk” (195). Marmeladov, a waste who showed no responsibility to his suffering family, realized his faults and worthlessness, and yet he took no action. To his credit, he asked for no pity. “I ought to be crucified, not pitied,” he told Raskolnikov (40). And he had an expressed hope for his salvation; but nonetheless he was shameless, and he drank, degenerated, and eventually fell under the horses’ hooves, as if by an agreement between destiny and will.
Sonya’s is the most obvious of the selfless suicides: she had renounced ‘1.10 ) her self before the novel begins by becoming a prostitute for the sake of her family’s welfare. Ironically, Raskolnikov saw three selfishly suicidal ends ahead for Sonya: “She can throw herself into the Yekaterinsky Canal, end up in a lunatic asylum, or... give herself up entirely to her life of immorality” (338). Sonya would continue with a certain virtue, though, much to Raskolnikov’s and her sublings’ ultimate benefits.
Raskolnikov’s sister Dunya nearly committed suicide by sacrificing herself for her family’s sake. Her attempts, however, would not have been of the same import as Sonya’s success. Had she been totally selfless, she might have married Luzhin without question, or she might have conceded to Svidrigaylov’s final blackmail attempt. These would have been tragically futile “suicides,” and it is to her credit that she saw through them in time; nevertheless, she put herself on the line in both cases, and perhaps deserves more credit for this.
Finally, the third example of selfless suicide is the effort of Raskolnikov. It might be said that he attempted a sort of suicide after he killed the two women, by going through deep spiritual suffering; but this in its passiveness would be similar to the selfishness of Marmeladov, who loved to have his hair pulled. Raskolnikov’s spiritual selflessness came later, after his selfish suffering. It began when he first confessed his crimes to Sonya: “he felt like a man who was about to jump off a high church tower” (424). And by “kiss[ing] the filthy earth with joy and rapture” (537), he came a step further. Finally, with Sonya’s encouragement, he confessed to the police. His old self “died” at this point, and he was ready to begin a new life. Thus in this kind of suicide the self is both the thing sacrificed and, in its renewed form, the beneficiary.
(4a)
“Go at once...stand at the crossroads, bow down, [and] kiss the earth,” instructed Sonya (433). It was a command heavy with implications, and at first Raskolnikov refused to comply. What was she asking?
First, to stand at the crossroads. This implied that he was to stand at the center of Haymarket Square, the busiest part of the busiest city in Russia. There he would be where the whole world could see him, making himself completely vulnerable to whatever reaction his confession would bring. They might laugh, they might scorn and jeer, they might attack him there, or even stone him; they might just pick him up and take him away, never to return again. But he would have no way of knowing their reaction until he carried out the instruction. At the crossroads he would be at St. Petersburg’s point of orientation, where there would be street signs and mileage and direction signs; and this would also be his own orientation point. There, based on all the resulting changes in perspective, he would be able to sort things out.
And he would be able to determine his future, for it is at the crossroads that one decides direction. As much as one tries to plan such decisions ahead of time, it is only at the crossroads that the choices are actually made and the steps actually taken for the journey’s continuation. After Sonya spoke these words she offered Raskolnikov a cyprus cross to hang around his neck. “We’ll suffer together, so let us also bear our cross together,” she said (435). Here then was another implication of “crossroads.” Confessing and asking the world for forgiveness is a praiseworthy religious act and a testimony of faith, and yet it is not an easy step to take. The cross to bear along this road is heavy and entails a deep humiliation; it conjures no magic remedy before the symbolic crucifixion, no preview of the resurrection. Yet, Sonya inferred, it was a necessary step for the sinner to take.
Thus Raskolnikov was to stand at the crossroads: he was to bear his cross of repentance, stand in front of all people, recognize where he stood, and determine his future.
And he was to kiss the earth: “...the earth which you have defiled,” Sonya said in full (433), implying that at the crossroads he would be making his apology directly to the world. By murdering, he had not only wronged his particular victims, who now lay under the soil, he had also sinned against all humankind across the globe.
Furthermore, kissing the earth was a demonstration of the deepest humility. He was to bow down and prostrate to the world as low as he possibly could, showing with face to the ground that he deferred to everyone.
By touching the soil this way he would also atune himself with “Holy Mother Earth,” from whence he came, upon which he walked, and whither he was going. Thus, in one action he would recognize his origin, his existence and his mortality, acknowledging his defilement with respect to all three.
But finally, kissing the earth is more than a humble, atoning apology. It is experiencing a purgatory cleansing by bringing sensuality to its fullest: the taste, the smell, the feel of city dirt next to one’s nose and on one’s lips would stir the soul. And indeed, when Raskolnikov put Sonya’s directions into practice, his sensuality was so dramatic that one observer remarked that he was drunk. “He simply plunged... into this new and overwhelming sensation... tears gushed from his eyes... and [he] kissed the earth with joy and rapture” (537).
(5b)
Ivan’s “Grand Inquisitor” poem and Father Zossima’s last words are polar statements, yet they bring up similar issues. Separately, they discuss the concepts of freedom and happiness and the values of miracle, mystery, and authority. The two speakers even begin to agree on some points, although their differences on these issues are numerous, to say the least. But the general difference that separates Ivan’s Inquisitor and Father Zossima more than points on any of the individual concepts is the difference of the speakers’ perspectives. The Inquisitor lectures pedantically as from a podium, but only one person is meant to hear him; Father Zossima bears witness to only a few people around his deathbed, but it is a testimony for the world. As the Inquisitor speaks, he sees the universe with the conditions of “them” and “us”; Father Zossima does not separate as such, but says, here is what I have seen, how it has been for me, and how it can be for you.
This difference in perspective is evident in all the individual issues. Freedom, the Inquisitor says, brings “unrest, confusion, and unhappiness” (301), and so “[we] have vanquished freedom... in order to make [them] happy” (294). “...They will submit themselves to us gladly and cheerfully” (304). Father Zossima, too, sees negative aspects in the world’s idea of freedom: it brings “slavery and self destruction... separation and isolation” (369). His response, however, is not to perpetuate the us/them separation and enslavement, but to acknowledge the alternative, truer freedom of a Christian. Zossima does not quote the apostle Paul, but the allusion is implied: “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all” (1 Cor. 9:19). There is no us and them in Zossima’s kind of servitude, because it is universal.
Meanwhile, the Inquisitor is concerned with conquering people and holding them captive for the sake of their happiness. “We shall reach onr goal and be Caesars... [for] the universal happiness of man,” he says (302). “We shall give them quiet, humble happiness, the happiness of weak creatures” (303).
Father Zossima also talks about happiness in terms of humility and the universe, but again he does so with a different perspective. He speaks of being “consumed by a universal love, as though in a sort of ecstacy” (376). He also addresses global conquest: “...by humble love... you may be able to conquer the world” (376). Thus, he reverses the role of the happily humble, making them captors, not captives, with the force of love.
The Inquisitor’s forces are threefold: “miracle, mystery and authority” (299), the three things denied us when Christ resisted the devil’s temptations and established our dreaded freedom. But the church resumes control of these forces, providing the bread of satisfaction, possessing people’s consciences, and wielding dominion to make the world “happy;” thus, man knows “whom to worship, to whom to entrust his conscience and how... to unite all” (302). To Father Zossima, although love remains “the strongest [force] of all” (376), he, too, values the forces of miracle, mystery, authority; unlike the Inquisitor, though, he appreciates this triune on the same plane as the recipients, and furthermore, he sees their combined force as inclusive of God’s plans. In fact, he finds miracle, mystery, and authority not only in God’s world and in God’s people, but also in the Word of God itself: “What a miracle and what strength is given with [the Holy Bible] to man!... And how many solved and revealed mysteries!” (343). And he sees this power in “sorrow... [passing] gradually into quiet, tender joy” (343); in “Divine Justice, tender reconciling and all forgiving,” and in the central promise of a future life. And it is all a difference of perspective.
( 6a )
One of the interesting qualities of The Brothers Karamazov is its unique version of the omniscient point of view. Dostoyevsky narrates his final novel with an all-knowing force, yet he personifies the force with first-person commentary, in the form of the singular “I” speaking for the collective “us.” The singular is never identified; he is primarily a part of the collective, the citizenry of the district and village in which Fyodor Karamazov lived “exactly thirteen years ago” (3). Nevertheless, this collaborative style of an “eyewitness” account is underlaid with an absolute omniscience such as no compilation of witnesses would be able to relate. The singular narrator asserts himself as an actual eyewitness only once, for the novel’s trial scene, of which he describes “only what struck me personally and what stuck in my mind” (772). Outside of the courtroom, though, when he speaks as a narrator at all, he speaks secondarily: “I do not know the details, I have only heard...” (10), or in the plural: “as we heard afterwards...” (145), or with a qualified passive voice: “it was said (and it is quite true)...” (193). Occasionally he asserts an opinion, usually brief, although at one point, in book two, chapter seven, it goes on for several pages: “...that’s my opinion!” (397). These editorial comments slide into the plural voice, too, as at the end of the novel’s first chapter: “In the majority of cases, people... are much more naïve and artless than we generally assume. As, indeed, we are ourselves” (6).
Now and then, it seems quite feasible that the story is merely a collaboration of accounts. The elder’s words, for instance, are largely “according to Alexey” (336); and hints here and there allude to the possible anonymous observer, as when Ivan and Smerdyakov have their “clever man” talk: “Anyone looking at Ivan’s face at that moment would have known...” (322).
Still, the omniscience is often blatant. Following the “clever man” chat, the narrator continues to observe Ivan “We will not describe the trend of his thoughts... and even if we attempted... we should have found it very difficult, because they were not really thoughts, but something very vague...” (323). After which follows an account of these same vague thoughts, up to the moment he falls asleep on a train far away from the singular “I” and the collective “we.”
Similarly, Alyosha’s and Dmitri’s minds are delved into, exposing many private thoughts that “flash through” (399). Most of the time, there isn’t even any pretense of an eyewitness. The story is simply told with full description and complete conversational account, and every detail that is needed is presented, without explanation of how the facts were procured. In fact, despite all the examples I have given of Dostoyevsky’s first person technique, he has written the great majority of this novel in the third person, with no eyewitnesses to speak of.
References
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, The Brothers Karamazov, Trans. David Magarshack. New York: Penguin, 1982.
—. Crime and Punishment. Trans. David Magarshack. New York: Penguin, 1951.
—. Notes from the Underground. Trans. David Magarshack. Great Short Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Ed. Ronald Hingley. New York: Harper, 1968. Russian141: 11/30/90, Prof. Rubchak:
Thursday, November 15, 1990
They (bearing roses)
In the beginning they (happy lovers) decided they (in love) would never fight. Even romance knows the tinge of reality, though, and soon they (beautiful partnership) revised their love-based rule: they (the perfective pair) would still not allow fighting, but they (in each other’s arms) would be permitted to disagree —in prim fashion, of course: it was decided they (beyond the puppy stages) would be mature about their —dreams —differences and would discuss things rationally, always moving eagerly toward the beautiful ends of kissing, caressing, making up and making it better than before.
They were in love. And they (a serious couple) eventually decided to be married. The date was set for seven months in advance.
And they (reality-based) continued to disagree, here and there, but there was always a make-up, and they (pioneers of their own realm) continued to climb. The way grew steeper, though: “here and there” became “here, here and here and there and there.” They (trying their hardest) decided to re-revise the rules.
“We’re fighting,” he said.
“Yes, we are, aren’t we?” she agreed.
“But it doesn’t mean we’re in trouble, does it?”
“No,” she said, “but we’d better be careful.”
And they (a team) devised a clever set of brand new rules —of which they (man and woman, woman and man) would each try to claim exclusive credit —nevertheless, the rules seemed to be practicable and rational; they (the affianced pair) agreed that this would be a great foundation for their marriage.
The rules were as such: Whenever one or the other of them would disagree about something, they (together) would go into the kitchen; they (she and he) would clear the kitchen table and sit down facing each other with the table —across its shortest dimension —between them. They (the two sides) would keep all four hands on the table where they (the hands) could be seen by all four eyes. This table would be bare, except for one initial addition, the centerpiece of their list of rules, and a literal centerpiece, too: an arrangement of roses, over which they (the one-to-one) would have to carry out all their marital discussions and disagreements and fights. The table was of a size that neither party was far from the other and both of their faces were practically forced to endure the flowers’ scents.
“We will not change this rule,” she exclaimed.
“No, we must not,” he agreed, and together they (the happy lovers) smiled.
And eventually they (living dreamers) were married. The honeymoon came and went, and they (steadfast partners) remained in love. Over the years dimensions were revised and definitions changed, but basically they (adherers to a promise) stuck surprisingly close to their rules of the kitchen table. And long after the honeymoon, they (the desperate diplomats) were buying each other roses two ro three times every week.
He sometimes thought that he couldn’t stand the smell any longer, and she sometimes wondered if it made any sense to pay good money for something that died after a few days, but the roses were continually replenished, and they (the hopeless lovers) remained in love.
Rose: the loveless petals always fall
away like pages of a good book cheaply bound:
no matter how great the story,
the crumbling glue of time ever puts the good book down
one spent page after another, until
nothing remains but the bud—
no matter what the story has to say
the crumbling glue of time ever puts the good book down
one spent page after another, until
nothing remains but a pile of petals
and the memory of a story. One day
we will know the plot of each good book by heart.
They were in love. And they (a serious couple) eventually decided to be married. The date was set for seven months in advance.
And they (reality-based) continued to disagree, here and there, but there was always a make-up, and they (pioneers of their own realm) continued to climb. The way grew steeper, though: “here and there” became “here, here and here and there and there.” They (trying their hardest) decided to re-revise the rules.
“We’re fighting,” he said.
“Yes, we are, aren’t we?” she agreed.
“But it doesn’t mean we’re in trouble, does it?”
“No,” she said, “but we’d better be careful.”
And they (a team) devised a clever set of brand new rules —of which they (man and woman, woman and man) would each try to claim exclusive credit —nevertheless, the rules seemed to be practicable and rational; they (the affianced pair) agreed that this would be a great foundation for their marriage.
The rules were as such: Whenever one or the other of them would disagree about something, they (together) would go into the kitchen; they (she and he) would clear the kitchen table and sit down facing each other with the table —across its shortest dimension —between them. They (the two sides) would keep all four hands on the table where they (the hands) could be seen by all four eyes. This table would be bare, except for one initial addition, the centerpiece of their list of rules, and a literal centerpiece, too: an arrangement of roses, over which they (the one-to-one) would have to carry out all their marital discussions and disagreements and fights. The table was of a size that neither party was far from the other and both of their faces were practically forced to endure the flowers’ scents.
“We will not change this rule,” she exclaimed.
“No, we must not,” he agreed, and together they (the happy lovers) smiled.
And eventually they (living dreamers) were married. The honeymoon came and went, and they (steadfast partners) remained in love. Over the years dimensions were revised and definitions changed, but basically they (adherers to a promise) stuck surprisingly close to their rules of the kitchen table. And long after the honeymoon, they (the desperate diplomats) were buying each other roses two ro three times every week.
He sometimes thought that he couldn’t stand the smell any longer, and she sometimes wondered if it made any sense to pay good money for something that died after a few days, but the roses were continually replenished, and they (the hopeless lovers) remained in love.
away like pages of a good book cheaply bound:
no matter how great the story,
the crumbling glue of time ever puts the good book down
one spent page after another, until
nothing remains but the bud—
no matter what the story has to say
the crumbling glue of time ever puts the good book down
one spent page after another, until
nothing remains but a pile of petals
and the memory of a story. One day
we will know the plot of each good book by heart.
Thursday, September 27, 1990
Voices In My Head
September 22
Another hotel dream: This time, I went into the hotel while Carrie stayed out in the car.
For some reason, it was in my head this evening that the way to get a hotel room was to find an empty one, claim it and then check in with the front desk. So I walked resolutely down the main hall that cut through the hotel front to back, not even considering any of the rooms being passed as possible vacancies until I got to the hotel’s far side, to a perimeter hallway, really a motel now —where I saw one door that seemed to mystically tell me that it would open to an empty room. I opened it and walked in.
There had been a person walking behind me down the hall —walking nonchalantly, just another patron I thought —until he walked in the room behind me. He didn’t say anything, but he looked like he was forming the start of a protest on his lips. “Hey! What are you...?” or something like that. But I didn’t give him time for this and didn’t even turn to him and instead walked through the room to where there was another door into an adjacent room.
I opened that door and found a couple on the bed, making self-absorbed love. I closed the door, turned around and walked out of the outer room, lowering my eyes from the man who was, I now realized, this room’s proper occupant. I had made a mistake. And it all came back to me —remembering conventionality and realizing where I had strayed. I walked quickly back to the front desk to start all over.
Carrie was there in the lobby. There was no point in describing where I had been, but she had a wondering look on her face. I went up to her, hugged her affectionately and decided that the best thing to do would be to propose. So I stepped back a formal distance from her. I wanted to do everything just right; I wasn’t on my knees, but I still assumed the air of a man beseechingly proposing to an honorable woman several levels above him.
Someone brought out a textbook —a hymnal —that had proper procedures on how to propose. It started out straightforwardly: Not ”Carrie, will you marry me,” but something as direct but with a few more flowery words —“How grateful would I live if you should be my wedded wife,” or something like that. And then there were a dozen other things to say, all very ceremoniously intended and laid out on the page. Each statement came in threes: I had to make a decision on which option to read out of each trio. The first one was often something in Latin; the second and third differed in their degree of religious or secular tone. The effect of all this was that my perfect proposal lost much of its glamor, and I largely stumbled along.
But I got through it. And she said yes.
And immediately we were in separate hotel rooms. I was in mine with six or seven friends / relatives, and Carrie was in hers. My room had two beds, and I laid down
on the bed nearest to the wall. I reached over for the bedside phone and started dialing a number, but someone grabbed the phone, said that’s not right. I don’t know who it was, but he was correct: I had dialed my home number, and though I hadn’t said anything, he knew who I was trying to reach. “You’re both in the hotel, so you don’t have to dial so many numbers,” he explained. This, he said, is how he had known I hadn’t dialed right. And he took the phone and dialed for me and we reached Carrie’s room.
Her brother George answered. Somehow, briefly, I could see the whole room, and I was there, and it was the moment Carrie and I were breaking the news: We’re getting married! No reaction. There was Mr. P and Mrs. P and several others all leaning over something at the kitchen counter, going about their business.
But then I was on the phone again, apart from Carrie, and speaking to George. He was concerned —not unhappy, but concerned. “I don’t think you guys should rush it so much. I mean, the seventeenth of this month?” It was a date obviously arrived at in that room only; it was the first I had heard about it.
George was also concerned about our financial standing and our schooling. I assured him that we would be okay. I talked at length, strolling around with a portable phone. I was doing most, if not all, of the talking now.
I talked and walked, and suddenly I found myself walking outside and down a nearby street. Eventually the reception faded. “George? George?” I didn’t have the phone’s antenna all the way out —this was the erly days of mobile phones —but even after extending it I could only hear static....
I woke up and fell asleep several times after this, and I tried to finish the dream. It seems that I did get several episodes added, but they were all hazy, and are now completely forgotten, but each had the same positive tone on the same theme —we are getting married, and Carrie’s family wants it all to go smoothly, and somehow I have the feeling that it will.
September 26
Quick dream (I should give this more time): Dan and I are in my car, Dan is driving. We are stopped and backed up by several cars at the corner of Prospect and Touhy; we are south of the intersection.
I take the opportunity to jump out of the car to quickly run an errand in one of the Prospect shops. I have some film to turn in and some old record albums I want to sell. There is a one-stop shop that can take care of both of my needs.
I turn in the film quickly, but they have to assess the record albums one at a time, and there are about fifteen of them. I wonder if it will take too long, but I decide Dan will have the sense to pull the car over to the side if the light turns green.
The shopkeeper looks at the albums. They are worth 5¢ ...15¢ ...10¢ ...etc., depending on the newness, popularity, size —all the obvious factors. The total comes to $1.75. It’s too small an amount, really, but I am ready to concede, wanting to collect the money and get out of the shop quickly. But then the shopkeeper convinces me that I ought to hold off on selling them until they increase in value. As a consolation he gives me a punch card which, when filled, will allow me to redeem a given number of records at a higher price.
I leave the shop ...and outside I find my car sitting sideways, perpendicular to Prospect Avenue with its nose in the middle of the right hand lane and its rear almost right up against the parked cars on the side of the street. Traffic is slowed down even more now, as cars have to drive around mine now. Dan is asleep in the passenger seat. I go over to the driver’s side —and it is crushed, beyond just a scrape, bashed in all along the side. I am able to open the door and I determine the car will be driveable, but Dan still doesn’t wake up.
I shout, in a panic. Dan wakes up groggily and continues to be only half awake for the rest of the dream... The cops come... We look the car over... I calm down a little... and Dan goes back to sleep.
September 27
Another dream: Jill Emmons, my neighbor and occasional bus-mate, is with me, and she is hitting on me. I am weak —I put my arm around her once, twice —but I consider Carrie, and nothing more happens: there isn’t the time, but I think I will be able to resist. We are watching a movie: Richard III. There is a scene where they pitch pennies (not really) and one character nonchalantly mentions the date on the coin: 1956. We get a chuckle from the subtle humor.
Another hotel dream: This time, I went into the hotel while Carrie stayed out in the car.
For some reason, it was in my head this evening that the way to get a hotel room was to find an empty one, claim it and then check in with the front desk. So I walked resolutely down the main hall that cut through the hotel front to back, not even considering any of the rooms being passed as possible vacancies until I got to the hotel’s far side, to a perimeter hallway, really a motel now —where I saw one door that seemed to mystically tell me that it would open to an empty room. I opened it and walked in.
There had been a person walking behind me down the hall —walking nonchalantly, just another patron I thought —until he walked in the room behind me. He didn’t say anything, but he looked like he was forming the start of a protest on his lips. “Hey! What are you...?” or something like that. But I didn’t give him time for this and didn’t even turn to him and instead walked through the room to where there was another door into an adjacent room.
I opened that door and found a couple on the bed, making self-absorbed love. I closed the door, turned around and walked out of the outer room, lowering my eyes from the man who was, I now realized, this room’s proper occupant. I had made a mistake. And it all came back to me —remembering conventionality and realizing where I had strayed. I walked quickly back to the front desk to start all over.
Carrie was there in the lobby. There was no point in describing where I had been, but she had a wondering look on her face. I went up to her, hugged her affectionately and decided that the best thing to do would be to propose. So I stepped back a formal distance from her. I wanted to do everything just right; I wasn’t on my knees, but I still assumed the air of a man beseechingly proposing to an honorable woman several levels above him.
Someone brought out a textbook —a hymnal —that had proper procedures on how to propose. It started out straightforwardly: Not ”Carrie, will you marry me,” but something as direct but with a few more flowery words —“How grateful would I live if you should be my wedded wife,” or something like that. And then there were a dozen other things to say, all very ceremoniously intended and laid out on the page. Each statement came in threes: I had to make a decision on which option to read out of each trio. The first one was often something in Latin; the second and third differed in their degree of religious or secular tone. The effect of all this was that my perfect proposal lost much of its glamor, and I largely stumbled along.
But I got through it. And she said yes.
And immediately we were in separate hotel rooms. I was in mine with six or seven friends / relatives, and Carrie was in hers. My room had two beds, and I laid down
on the bed nearest to the wall. I reached over for the bedside phone and started dialing a number, but someone grabbed the phone, said that’s not right. I don’t know who it was, but he was correct: I had dialed my home number, and though I hadn’t said anything, he knew who I was trying to reach. “You’re both in the hotel, so you don’t have to dial so many numbers,” he explained. This, he said, is how he had known I hadn’t dialed right. And he took the phone and dialed for me and we reached Carrie’s room.
Her brother George answered. Somehow, briefly, I could see the whole room, and I was there, and it was the moment Carrie and I were breaking the news: We’re getting married! No reaction. There was Mr. P and Mrs. P and several others all leaning over something at the kitchen counter, going about their business.
But then I was on the phone again, apart from Carrie, and speaking to George. He was concerned —not unhappy, but concerned. “I don’t think you guys should rush it so much. I mean, the seventeenth of this month?” It was a date obviously arrived at in that room only; it was the first I had heard about it.
George was also concerned about our financial standing and our schooling. I assured him that we would be okay. I talked at length, strolling around with a portable phone. I was doing most, if not all, of the talking now.
I talked and walked, and suddenly I found myself walking outside and down a nearby street. Eventually the reception faded. “George? George?” I didn’t have the phone’s antenna all the way out —this was the erly days of mobile phones —but even after extending it I could only hear static....
I woke up and fell asleep several times after this, and I tried to finish the dream. It seems that I did get several episodes added, but they were all hazy, and are now completely forgotten, but each had the same positive tone on the same theme —we are getting married, and Carrie’s family wants it all to go smoothly, and somehow I have the feeling that it will.
September 26
Quick dream (I should give this more time): Dan and I are in my car, Dan is driving. We are stopped and backed up by several cars at the corner of Prospect and Touhy; we are south of the intersection.
I take the opportunity to jump out of the car to quickly run an errand in one of the Prospect shops. I have some film to turn in and some old record albums I want to sell. There is a one-stop shop that can take care of both of my needs.
I turn in the film quickly, but they have to assess the record albums one at a time, and there are about fifteen of them. I wonder if it will take too long, but I decide Dan will have the sense to pull the car over to the side if the light turns green.
The shopkeeper looks at the albums. They are worth 5¢ ...15¢ ...10¢ ...etc., depending on the newness, popularity, size —all the obvious factors. The total comes to $1.75. It’s too small an amount, really, but I am ready to concede, wanting to collect the money and get out of the shop quickly. But then the shopkeeper convinces me that I ought to hold off on selling them until they increase in value. As a consolation he gives me a punch card which, when filled, will allow me to redeem a given number of records at a higher price.
I leave the shop ...and outside I find my car sitting sideways, perpendicular to Prospect Avenue with its nose in the middle of the right hand lane and its rear almost right up against the parked cars on the side of the street. Traffic is slowed down even more now, as cars have to drive around mine now. Dan is asleep in the passenger seat. I go over to the driver’s side —and it is crushed, beyond just a scrape, bashed in all along the side. I am able to open the door and I determine the car will be driveable, but Dan still doesn’t wake up.
I shout, in a panic. Dan wakes up groggily and continues to be only half awake for the rest of the dream... The cops come... We look the car over... I calm down a little... and Dan goes back to sleep.
September 27
Another dream: Jill Emmons, my neighbor and occasional bus-mate, is with me, and she is hitting on me. I am weak —I put my arm around her once, twice —but I consider Carrie, and nothing more happens: there isn’t the time, but I think I will be able to resist. We are watching a movie: Richard III. There is a scene where they pitch pennies (not really) and one character nonchalantly mentions the date on the coin: 1956. We get a chuckle from the subtle humor.
Wednesday, August 1, 1990
One Summer
I
Sol didn’t cry, all through the night, but he was very quiet. And the next day, Sunday, when his friends got together and talked about it, he still didn’t say much, even when they found out that Roxanne was actually dead.
Everyone reacted differently. Curtis wanted most to get the details straight. Chad felt bad for Adam: “I wonder what’s going to happen to him,” he said. Lenny cried, a whole lot, and he wasn’t ashamed. And Al was a complete contrast: it was spooky how he just stared blankly into space and at the ground with a cold face. But they were all quiet to some degree.
There wasn’t much else to say. One of their friends was dead, shot in the head by another friend, Adam. Except for Sol, they had all witnessed it. An ambulance rushed her to the hospital, but she took six hours to die, and the fact that she was dead was the news the morning brought.
Around noon they all decided to go out to Adam’s house to see how he was doing. They took Chad’s car. Chad put the key in the ignition and suddenly Black Sabbath blared where it had left off; he reached forward and ejected the tape. “Not today,” he said quietly, smiling. He started the car and they drove back to the scene of their party the night before.
Sol had left early, before the third keg was cracked, but he had known the basic details of the shooting almost as soon as it had happened. He hadn’t been home fifteen minutes when his father, the town pastor, got a midnight call, and when he came home he told Sol, who had stayed up waiting, what had happened.
For the benefit of Sol, before they went up the steps to Adam’s doorway they all stopped together and pointed to the place on the front lawn where Roxanne’s head had fallen. The blood was dried to the color of dirt on the grass. A couple of rains, maybe even the dew, would make it go away.
Inside, Adam sat on the couch in his living room, his eyes red from crying. Two of his cousins were there with him. One of them got up to answer the door, and he immediately ushered everyone into the kitchen and offered them beer. He said the police had come and gone and would be back later; apparently they had been convinced that Adam wasn’t going to go anywhere.
They all went into the next room and sat with Adam. They each made a few lame attempts at encouragement, then Chad got up and turned on the television. A football game was on, and they watched it for a while without talking. When it was halftime, Chad got up again and turned the television off.
“I guess we should go,” he said, but they didn’t stand up right away.
“Thanks for coming out here, guys,” Adam said finally, and they each went over to him and one at a time put a hand on his shoulder.
“We’ll stick with you on this,” they all said, and Sol said it too, but at the same time it hurt for each of them to say this, because they knew that their next stop was to go visit Roxanne’s boyfriend, Bobby, who had been out of town the night before.
The same odd silence was at Bobby’s house, even though Bobby’s position was hardly the same as Adam’s. He offered them all sodas and they watched the rest of the football game, and they all got up to leave after that, saying few words. Sol decided that he would come out here later, alone.
II
“You guys killed her,” she said.
“What are you talking about,” Sol said quietly.
“You had the party, you knew he was playing with guns.”
She was my father’s age, and a friend of his. She had silver-blond hair and a pleasantly trim figure; her skin was smooth and unwrinkled and her smile and the warm humor that accompanied it gave her the appearance of youth. But on this day she did not smile and wasn’t warm, and suddenly and permanently to me she was as old and cold as a cackling, bony-nosed witch. For the first time I noticed the wart on her neck, and it would stand out every time after that. I noticed the way her dishwater gray hair was never combed. Her humor, I began to realize, was full of secret sarcasm and based largely on hate.
It was two days after my friend Adam accidentally killed my friend Roxanne. Al was messing around with a shotgun at a party. He had forgotten to check the chamber, and when he playfully grabbed Roxanne and put the gun to her temple, when he jokingly pulled the trigger, ready to say “bang” in verbal mime, the noise was suddenly real and there was real, red blood, and she really collapsed to the ground in a slow motion you never see in the movies. We were all there to see it, and for a long time it was a very traumatic memory.
III
She rode on a beautiful horse, rode up the hill and across my lawn. Roxanne! She smiled bold and shy, beaming the bold-shy age of thirteen years. Roxanne, 1979: there was a Top 40 hit that year, but she was a different tune. Beyond the pure, but in the days before mature, she was not so grown up as a red light song, and none of us were as old as we pretended.
We used to laugh at her: she had what Matt used to call a “cute duck butt,” and what Jim called a “ski-jump nose.” We drank beer in the dark —she never drank, but she stayed out late with us; she teased us all, and she smoked Salem cigarettes and she swore.
And one day she rode that beautiful horse up the hill of my lawn and smiled, and said, “Hey, Sol, want to go for a ride?” I looked up at her on her big beautiful horse and smiled back, and Sugar took the opportunity to munch on my lawn.
“Ro-o-0-OX! Anne! —that was another tune, by the Police, and Sting sounded like a reggae rooster on the radio. We crowed that song all summer, thinking we liked it before we knew what it was about, knowing only that we too knew a girl named Roxanne. Then we learned, learned to understand every word, and for a while that summer we sang it louder, and then in the fall we didn’t sing it anymore.
She rode Sugar up to me —bold and shy —and asked if I wanted to ride with her. And I smiled, not ready to answer, giving Sugar time to chew the grass. Nights later, in the fall, I’d try to write a better song for her: “Roxanne, sweet thirteen, before she knew the world was mean...” “Those days are over,” I might have added. Nights later, we would turn the radio off.
She smiled bold and shy. Sure, I said. Great, she said, jump on. We rode down the street and into a field, Roxanne and Sugar and I —we broke from a trot to a gallop, and I, sitting in back, clung on to Roxanne, held her near me, felt her
warm and sweaty against me and felt safe in the saddle. We were still closer to pure than mature, and I still remember Sugar munching quietly on the grass. But then we were both well aware of where we were, on this beautiful horse galloping swiftly across the field.
Another tune began playing on the radio, and we turned the volume higher.
One night we all went to a party at Adam’s. His parents weren’t home. We drank beer in the dark, but Roxy still wouldn’t drink. “Ro-o-0-OX! Anne,” squawked Adam. She never did like that song. Adam took out a gun and started playing with it, as if it were a Saturday afternoon and he was shooting at beer cans on fence posts. Wait, said Matt, let me set them up again.
Sugar munched quietly on the grass —a big horse, with a big saddle. Come on, said Roxanne, there’s room for both of us. And I jumped on, fitting snugly into the saddle behind her, and we trotted off my lawn and down the hill, down a country road and across a field.
She lit up a cigarette, while Adam started playing with his shotgun, shooting it into the air. Come on, said Adam, Come on, bitch, or I’ll kill you. He laughed. We drank more beer. She never did like that song. And Adam started fooling around with his shotgun, holding it up to her throat. Wait, said Matt, let me check the chamber.
We used to laugh at her, and she teased us all, and she swore. And she rode on a beautiful horse, up the hill and across the lawn, and she asked if I wanted to go for a ride.
I held her near me. She was warm and sweaty, and I clung to her.
And we turned the radio off.
Adam started playing with his shotgun, pulling the trigger, and the shot went into her head. Wait, said Matt, it was supposed to be empty. Someone called the police, and we turned the radio off.
We had been singing another tune, beyond the pure, before the mature. And Sugar broke to a gallop from a trot.
Sol didn’t cry, all through the night, but he was very quiet. And the next day, Sunday, when his friends got together and talked about it, he still didn’t say much, even when they found out that Roxanne was actually dead.
Everyone reacted differently. Curtis wanted most to get the details straight. Chad felt bad for Adam: “I wonder what’s going to happen to him,” he said. Lenny cried, a whole lot, and he wasn’t ashamed. And Al was a complete contrast: it was spooky how he just stared blankly into space and at the ground with a cold face. But they were all quiet to some degree.
There wasn’t much else to say. One of their friends was dead, shot in the head by another friend, Adam. Except for Sol, they had all witnessed it. An ambulance rushed her to the hospital, but she took six hours to die, and the fact that she was dead was the news the morning brought.
Around noon they all decided to go out to Adam’s house to see how he was doing. They took Chad’s car. Chad put the key in the ignition and suddenly Black Sabbath blared where it had left off; he reached forward and ejected the tape. “Not today,” he said quietly, smiling. He started the car and they drove back to the scene of their party the night before.
Sol had left early, before the third keg was cracked, but he had known the basic details of the shooting almost as soon as it had happened. He hadn’t been home fifteen minutes when his father, the town pastor, got a midnight call, and when he came home he told Sol, who had stayed up waiting, what had happened.
For the benefit of Sol, before they went up the steps to Adam’s doorway they all stopped together and pointed to the place on the front lawn where Roxanne’s head had fallen. The blood was dried to the color of dirt on the grass. A couple of rains, maybe even the dew, would make it go away.
Inside, Adam sat on the couch in his living room, his eyes red from crying. Two of his cousins were there with him. One of them got up to answer the door, and he immediately ushered everyone into the kitchen and offered them beer. He said the police had come and gone and would be back later; apparently they had been convinced that Adam wasn’t going to go anywhere.
They all went into the next room and sat with Adam. They each made a few lame attempts at encouragement, then Chad got up and turned on the television. A football game was on, and they watched it for a while without talking. When it was halftime, Chad got up again and turned the television off.
“I guess we should go,” he said, but they didn’t stand up right away.
“Thanks for coming out here, guys,” Adam said finally, and they each went over to him and one at a time put a hand on his shoulder.
“We’ll stick with you on this,” they all said, and Sol said it too, but at the same time it hurt for each of them to say this, because they knew that their next stop was to go visit Roxanne’s boyfriend, Bobby, who had been out of town the night before.
The same odd silence was at Bobby’s house, even though Bobby’s position was hardly the same as Adam’s. He offered them all sodas and they watched the rest of the football game, and they all got up to leave after that, saying few words. Sol decided that he would come out here later, alone.
II
“You guys killed her,” she said.
“What are you talking about,” Sol said quietly.
“You had the party, you knew he was playing with guns.”
She was my father’s age, and a friend of his. She had silver-blond hair and a pleasantly trim figure; her skin was smooth and unwrinkled and her smile and the warm humor that accompanied it gave her the appearance of youth. But on this day she did not smile and wasn’t warm, and suddenly and permanently to me she was as old and cold as a cackling, bony-nosed witch. For the first time I noticed the wart on her neck, and it would stand out every time after that. I noticed the way her dishwater gray hair was never combed. Her humor, I began to realize, was full of secret sarcasm and based largely on hate.
It was two days after my friend Adam accidentally killed my friend Roxanne. Al was messing around with a shotgun at a party. He had forgotten to check the chamber, and when he playfully grabbed Roxanne and put the gun to her temple, when he jokingly pulled the trigger, ready to say “bang” in verbal mime, the noise was suddenly real and there was real, red blood, and she really collapsed to the ground in a slow motion you never see in the movies. We were all there to see it, and for a long time it was a very traumatic memory.
III
She rode on a beautiful horse, rode up the hill and across my lawn. Roxanne! She smiled bold and shy, beaming the bold-shy age of thirteen years. Roxanne, 1979: there was a Top 40 hit that year, but she was a different tune. Beyond the pure, but in the days before mature, she was not so grown up as a red light song, and none of us were as old as we pretended.
We used to laugh at her: she had what Matt used to call a “cute duck butt,” and what Jim called a “ski-jump nose.” We drank beer in the dark —she never drank, but she stayed out late with us; she teased us all, and she smoked Salem cigarettes and she swore.
And one day she rode that beautiful horse up the hill of my lawn and smiled, and said, “Hey, Sol, want to go for a ride?” I looked up at her on her big beautiful horse and smiled back, and Sugar took the opportunity to munch on my lawn.
“Ro-o-0-OX! Anne! —that was another tune, by the Police, and Sting sounded like a reggae rooster on the radio. We crowed that song all summer, thinking we liked it before we knew what it was about, knowing only that we too knew a girl named Roxanne. Then we learned, learned to understand every word, and for a while that summer we sang it louder, and then in the fall we didn’t sing it anymore.
She rode Sugar up to me —bold and shy —and asked if I wanted to ride with her. And I smiled, not ready to answer, giving Sugar time to chew the grass. Nights later, in the fall, I’d try to write a better song for her: “Roxanne, sweet thirteen, before she knew the world was mean...” “Those days are over,” I might have added. Nights later, we would turn the radio off.
She smiled bold and shy. Sure, I said. Great, she said, jump on. We rode down the street and into a field, Roxanne and Sugar and I —we broke from a trot to a gallop, and I, sitting in back, clung on to Roxanne, held her near me, felt her
warm and sweaty against me and felt safe in the saddle. We were still closer to pure than mature, and I still remember Sugar munching quietly on the grass. But then we were both well aware of where we were, on this beautiful horse galloping swiftly across the field.
Another tune began playing on the radio, and we turned the volume higher.
One night we all went to a party at Adam’s. His parents weren’t home. We drank beer in the dark, but Roxy still wouldn’t drink. “Ro-o-0-OX! Anne,” squawked Adam. She never did like that song. Adam took out a gun and started playing with it, as if it were a Saturday afternoon and he was shooting at beer cans on fence posts. Wait, said Matt, let me set them up again.
Sugar munched quietly on the grass —a big horse, with a big saddle. Come on, said Roxanne, there’s room for both of us. And I jumped on, fitting snugly into the saddle behind her, and we trotted off my lawn and down the hill, down a country road and across a field.
She lit up a cigarette, while Adam started playing with his shotgun, shooting it into the air. Come on, said Adam, Come on, bitch, or I’ll kill you. He laughed. We drank more beer. She never did like that song. And Adam started fooling around with his shotgun, holding it up to her throat. Wait, said Matt, let me check the chamber.
We used to laugh at her, and she teased us all, and she swore. And she rode on a beautiful horse, up the hill and across the lawn, and she asked if I wanted to go for a ride.
I held her near me. She was warm and sweaty, and I clung to her.
And we turned the radio off.
Adam started playing with his shotgun, pulling the trigger, and the shot went into her head. Wait, said Matt, it was supposed to be empty. Someone called the police, and we turned the radio off.
We had been singing another tune, beyond the pure, before the mature. And Sugar broke to a gallop from a trot.
Monday, July 23, 1990
Triston
The Hymn He Gurgled In His Throat:
Tristi fummo
with to: refer, leave to another’s judgment
obsolete: offer, render, give; yield with courtesy:
“he defers to the opinion of...”
“To you, O great one, I defer all things—
My life, my livelihood, my daily living
And all that is given to me, I bring
To your altar in humble oblation.”
sacrifice, worldly obligation
“This is the hymn they gurgle in their throats
but cannot sing in words that truly sound.”
Dante’s fifth circle in Upper Hell
in the River Styx
“tristi” or “sluggish”
“acedia” or “sloth”
one of the seven capital sins
Go to the ant, thou sluggard —Proverbs 6:6
Tristi fummo
with to: refer, leave to another’s judgment
obsolete: offer, render, give; yield with courtesy:
“he defers to the opinion of...”
“To you, O great one, I defer all things—
My life, my livelihood, my daily living
And all that is given to me, I bring
To your altar in humble oblation.”
sacrifice, worldly obligation
“This is the hymn they gurgle in their throats
but cannot sing in words that truly sound.”
Dante’s fifth circle in Upper Hell
in the River Styx
“tristi” or “sluggish”
“acedia” or “sloth”
one of the seven capital sins
Go to the ant, thou sluggard —Proverbs 6:6
Adams: sloth, sleep and littleness —> rage like a lion
Chaucer: May will have no sluggard
Churchill: No room for the sluggard
The voice of the sluggard: you have waked me too soon.
Triton lived at the bottom of the see...
Triston lived by himself in a two story house tucked away in a cave at the edge of a valley. He rarely went out —only when he found his kitchen shelves bare of food— and he rarely invited visitors, although he had several neighbors who knew him and invited themselves for a visit now and then. Triston did not object to his neighbors’ visits and even enjoyed their company, but mostly Triston kept to himself and to the confines of his house.
His house, from the outside, was not remarkable; beyond its unkempt surroundings and its peeling paint, it was much like any other two story house in the valley. But the inside of Triston’s house —and his neighbors after a visit would always mention this among themselves— was quite peculiarly decorated. Certainly, all of the items one might expect a bachelor homebody to have were part of the decor: a television, records, half-started repair projects, stacks of dishes; but surrounding the clutter, on all the walls, were long rows of shelves. They stretched from one side of the house to the other, on every wall and always at least five or six levels high. In the whole house, Triston had left no more than three feet of wallspace shelveless.
A few of the shelves had items neatly stacked and organized on them: clothes, boxes, books; more shelves were less tidily piled upon without any sense of organization; but most of the shelves, certainly more than three quarters of these shelves so dominantly displayed in Triston’s house, were empty. The strangeness of this emptiness was especially marked, of course, by the completeness of the decor —everywhere one looked were shelves and most of them were bare— but even odder, on the floor of Triston’s house, everywhere, were stacks of boxes and piles of things, every imaginable knick-knack thing, that could have filled those shelves and given Triston and his occasional visitors room to stand and move about. Instead, Triston would crawl and leap and wiggle his way around the rooms and over his unshelved stacks, always telling his visitors with a most apologetic tone, “I’ve been meaning to get to this stuff.” And he was going to do it, too, he told them, as soon as he could find the time.
It was for this spectacle, one might assume, that Triston’s neighbors visited him at all. He did not have an outgoing personality or a magnetic charisma and he never reciprocated with visits of his own. But he was pleasant whenever called Triston upon, and however busy he said he was he seemed to enjoy taking the time for a friendly conversation with his visitors.
There was always something to talk about: all one had to do was pick out something curious from among the stacks and ask, “Triston, what is this thing?” or “What inspired you to save a thing like this?” And Triston would cheerily answer about a someday plan he had or a reminiscence he intended to properly memorialize, or there was a simple appeal to the object itself that he could not resist. “I don’t know what it is,” he might say, “but I liked it and I just wanted to keep it. It’ll do good on that shelf over there, don’t you think?” And Triston would hop over some stacks and put the thing on the shelf over there.
All the while, in fact, as Triston and his company visited, he busied himself with putting things on shelves. If one must assume reasons for Triston’s neighbors to visit him, this seemed more likely: their occasional visits always accomplished activity in Triston’s house. But once they left they would notice through the window that the purposeful flurry would abruptly stop. Triston would pick up a book he had been reading or go to the television, oblivious once more to the piles around him.
This led Triston’s neighbors to believe they were being good neighbors, helping someone get things done. They agreed amongst themselves to rotate the duty of helping Triston straighten his house up. It did not require much of them, other than time; just their visits would be helpful by merely prompting Triston to work. They were genuinely good neighbors, though, and they would chip in, which Triston was more than happy to allow.
(unfinished...and revisited 20 years later)
I’ve got boxes over there
that aren’t even opened.
I filled them up and sealed them
ten or twenty years ago,
or maybe more. I can’t remember.
They don’t have any labels
and they don’t seem to be stacked
in any order. All I know
is that they had some value
or I never would have saved them.
And each box holds a part of me,
a little bit of history,
and as the years pile up
I’m not inclined to let them go.
I’ve got shelves along my walls
but most of them are empty
and waiting to be used.
I put them up the other day
with the impetuous intention
of organizing things
to get rid of the clutter
that surrounds me. Anyway
I’ll have some room to walk now,
as soon as I get started,
except this next step seems to be
the hardest step to take for me:
to pick my life up off the floor
and put it on display.
Chaucer: May will have no sluggard
Churchill: No room for the sluggard
The voice of the sluggard: you have waked me too soon.
Triton lived at the bottom of the see...
⇋
Triston lived by himself in a two story house tucked away in a cave at the edge of a valley. He rarely went out —only when he found his kitchen shelves bare of food— and he rarely invited visitors, although he had several neighbors who knew him and invited themselves for a visit now and then. Triston did not object to his neighbors’ visits and even enjoyed their company, but mostly Triston kept to himself and to the confines of his house.
His house, from the outside, was not remarkable; beyond its unkempt surroundings and its peeling paint, it was much like any other two story house in the valley. But the inside of Triston’s house —and his neighbors after a visit would always mention this among themselves— was quite peculiarly decorated. Certainly, all of the items one might expect a bachelor homebody to have were part of the decor: a television, records, half-started repair projects, stacks of dishes; but surrounding the clutter, on all the walls, were long rows of shelves. They stretched from one side of the house to the other, on every wall and always at least five or six levels high. In the whole house, Triston had left no more than three feet of wallspace shelveless.
A few of the shelves had items neatly stacked and organized on them: clothes, boxes, books; more shelves were less tidily piled upon without any sense of organization; but most of the shelves, certainly more than three quarters of these shelves so dominantly displayed in Triston’s house, were empty. The strangeness of this emptiness was especially marked, of course, by the completeness of the decor —everywhere one looked were shelves and most of them were bare— but even odder, on the floor of Triston’s house, everywhere, were stacks of boxes and piles of things, every imaginable knick-knack thing, that could have filled those shelves and given Triston and his occasional visitors room to stand and move about. Instead, Triston would crawl and leap and wiggle his way around the rooms and over his unshelved stacks, always telling his visitors with a most apologetic tone, “I’ve been meaning to get to this stuff.” And he was going to do it, too, he told them, as soon as he could find the time.
It was for this spectacle, one might assume, that Triston’s neighbors visited him at all. He did not have an outgoing personality or a magnetic charisma and he never reciprocated with visits of his own. But he was pleasant whenever called Triston upon, and however busy he said he was he seemed to enjoy taking the time for a friendly conversation with his visitors.
There was always something to talk about: all one had to do was pick out something curious from among the stacks and ask, “Triston, what is this thing?” or “What inspired you to save a thing like this?” And Triston would cheerily answer about a someday plan he had or a reminiscence he intended to properly memorialize, or there was a simple appeal to the object itself that he could not resist. “I don’t know what it is,” he might say, “but I liked it and I just wanted to keep it. It’ll do good on that shelf over there, don’t you think?” And Triston would hop over some stacks and put the thing on the shelf over there.
All the while, in fact, as Triston and his company visited, he busied himself with putting things on shelves. If one must assume reasons for Triston’s neighbors to visit him, this seemed more likely: their occasional visits always accomplished activity in Triston’s house. But once they left they would notice through the window that the purposeful flurry would abruptly stop. Triston would pick up a book he had been reading or go to the television, oblivious once more to the piles around him.
This led Triston’s neighbors to believe they were being good neighbors, helping someone get things done. They agreed amongst themselves to rotate the duty of helping Triston straighten his house up. It did not require much of them, other than time; just their visits would be helpful by merely prompting Triston to work. They were genuinely good neighbors, though, and they would chip in, which Triston was more than happy to allow.
(unfinished...and revisited 20 years later)
⇋
I’ve got boxes over there
that aren’t even opened.
I filled them up and sealed them
ten or twenty years ago,
or maybe more. I can’t remember.
They don’t have any labels
and they don’t seem to be stacked
in any order. All I know
is that they had some value
or I never would have saved them.
And each box holds a part of me,
a little bit of history,
and as the years pile up
I’m not inclined to let them go.
I’ve got shelves along my walls
but most of them are empty
and waiting to be used.
I put them up the other day
with the impetuous intention
of organizing things
to get rid of the clutter
that surrounds me. Anyway
I’ll have some room to walk now,
as soon as I get started,
except this next step seems to be
the hardest step to take for me:
to pick my life up off the floor
and put it on display.
Wednesday, July 11, 1990
Final Scene
Mr. Cistern had his business grin on, the one that made everyone shudder when caught in its arid bearing. He swept the room with it like a spotlight, casting stagefright upon wouldn’t-be actors and testing to see who had remembered their lines. It could not be escaped. Everyone in the wings, before and after the turgid sweep, struggled to retain their continence.
At the same time everyone knew that it was all a ridiculous show. He pretended to be making rounds, being Mr. Friendly With The Troops, while we the grunts pretended in return (as if we had a choice) to be bred with some kind of patriotic respect for Cistern and Sons, our employer-exploiter, the proud producer of Garden Brand Chemicals. But I the disenchanted exploitee had grown tired of pretending. I was thinking of deserting, running away from the circus, and I had provocatively expressed as much, although perhaps with a little more pungency, just yesterday morning on a stall wall in the company can.
He coursed in a zig-zag amble, following a secret itinerary, first here, then there, then back over this way. “Hello, Marcie,” he said on one side of the shop. “Good to see you made it in today.” “Yes, sir.” Amble, amble. “Hi, Bob. Let’s get those numbers up.” “Yes, sir.” Smile, smile, smile and over to the other side of the room. “Janet, well, it looks like things are piling up for you.” “Yes, sir.” “Maybe we ought to get you another In-basket.” Smile and chuckle.
Everyone smiled back, too, like the Cheese was their uncle. Yet everyone could see, had to see, the cold aim of his big fat furtive glances. Beneath Uncle’s temperate banter and bandy loomed just one frigid purpose. He had emerged from his plush-pit with just one place to go, just one thing to say, and he was, between each zig and zag, directing himself my way.
The stroll and the gab were greased up with a warmth as synthetic as if it had come out of a tube. Not even the worst brown-nosed kissups were fooled. I had thought once that maybe these creatures lived too far out past the fringes of reality, until one day a notorious b.n.k. advised me that I “really should play along.” Yet he had confirmed it: in absolutely everyone’s peonic mind it was all a miserable game. And today even this b.n.k., lapping it all up while the spotlight shone, could be seen wearing a shriveled puke look after the C. had passed him; today it seemed particularly putrid, everywhere you looked.
I waited for him. I didn’t even try to look busy. Only when he eventually made it to the edge of my desk did I look down at my work, and then it was with full attention, as if no one else existed. And it was exclusion, not dedication, only a guise of head-hanging shame to hide the subtle snub. He pretended, too, not to notice.
“Hello, Jenson.” He spoke with frostiness. I looked up out of my own chilled atmosphere, thinking one of us might have shrunk the stupid smile. But it still glared icily, and the lips were even further stretched and taut. “Jenson,” they said again. “Good morning.”
“Mr. Cistern,” I acknowledged, sounding in fact much like an “Mmmmph.”
“Darin, you know, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.” His voice dipped just higher than a scratched whisper, with the intimacy of a swamp lizard and the integrity of a snake. I shivered as one cold-blooded paw (or the snake itself) dropped onto my shoulder.
“Sir?” Be polite now, I thought. Just a little more.
“Tell you what, Darin, let’s set up an appointment, you and me, okay?” He spoke with blatant condescension. “Strictly for conversational purposes,” he said.
“What about, sir?”
“I’ll just put you down for about four-thirty, how does that sound?” The grin was noisome.
“What’s it about?” I asked.
“We’ll meet in my office, of course, but I suppose you know that much, don’t you?” He laughed.
“Sir?” No rudeness, not yet.
At the same time everyone knew that it was all a ridiculous show. He pretended to be making rounds, being Mr. Friendly With The Troops, while we the grunts pretended in return (as if we had a choice) to be bred with some kind of patriotic respect for Cistern and Sons, our employer-exploiter, the proud producer of Garden Brand Chemicals. But I the disenchanted exploitee had grown tired of pretending. I was thinking of deserting, running away from the circus, and I had provocatively expressed as much, although perhaps with a little more pungency, just yesterday morning on a stall wall in the company can.
He coursed in a zig-zag amble, following a secret itinerary, first here, then there, then back over this way. “Hello, Marcie,” he said on one side of the shop. “Good to see you made it in today.” “Yes, sir.” Amble, amble. “Hi, Bob. Let’s get those numbers up.” “Yes, sir.” Smile, smile, smile and over to the other side of the room. “Janet, well, it looks like things are piling up for you.” “Yes, sir.” “Maybe we ought to get you another In-basket.” Smile and chuckle.
Everyone smiled back, too, like the Cheese was their uncle. Yet everyone could see, had to see, the cold aim of his big fat furtive glances. Beneath Uncle’s temperate banter and bandy loomed just one frigid purpose. He had emerged from his plush-pit with just one place to go, just one thing to say, and he was, between each zig and zag, directing himself my way.
The stroll and the gab were greased up with a warmth as synthetic as if it had come out of a tube. Not even the worst brown-nosed kissups were fooled. I had thought once that maybe these creatures lived too far out past the fringes of reality, until one day a notorious b.n.k. advised me that I “really should play along.” Yet he had confirmed it: in absolutely everyone’s peonic mind it was all a miserable game. And today even this b.n.k., lapping it all up while the spotlight shone, could be seen wearing a shriveled puke look after the C. had passed him; today it seemed particularly putrid, everywhere you looked.
I waited for him. I didn’t even try to look busy. Only when he eventually made it to the edge of my desk did I look down at my work, and then it was with full attention, as if no one else existed. And it was exclusion, not dedication, only a guise of head-hanging shame to hide the subtle snub. He pretended, too, not to notice.
“Hello, Jenson.” He spoke with frostiness. I looked up out of my own chilled atmosphere, thinking one of us might have shrunk the stupid smile. But it still glared icily, and the lips were even further stretched and taut. “Jenson,” they said again. “Good morning.”
“Mr. Cistern,” I acknowledged, sounding in fact much like an “Mmmmph.”
“Darin, you know, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.” His voice dipped just higher than a scratched whisper, with the intimacy of a swamp lizard and the integrity of a snake. I shivered as one cold-blooded paw (or the snake itself) dropped onto my shoulder.
“Sir?” Be polite now, I thought. Just a little more.
“Tell you what, Darin, let’s set up an appointment, you and me, okay?” He spoke with blatant condescension. “Strictly for conversational purposes,” he said.
“What about, sir?”
“I’ll just put you down for about four-thirty, how does that sound?” The grin was noisome.
“What’s it about?” I asked.
“We’ll meet in my office, of course, but I suppose you know that much, don’t you?” He laughed.
“Sir?” No rudeness, not yet.
“Put your nose back into it, Jenson.” His voice had boosted up again. Once more everyone could choke on the bossish humor. Then he patted me on the back, which made me feel just a little closer to wanting to hit him. Self-control, I told myself. Therapy, look away, turn a cheek, don’t watch the queen of shovelfuls mosey back into the pit. I gripped my chair handles and stared anywhere away and apart from his ambling departure. My mouth tasted acridly mad. My eyes stared emptily into the room, away and apart, and only happened to land on the face of Janet Praxis, chuckling in mime exaggeration. Fuck you, J. She stuck out her tongue (such a child) and smiled as stupid as the Cheese, except that it was real and she was a girl and there was something remotely attractive about it. Oh, go to hell, Praxis, we’re just pretending, too.
Cistern was nearly back to the door of his office, almost escaped and victorious, to apex my misery. Janet, compounding the misery, started laughing audibly, just loud enough at first, but with a threatening poco crescendo. I wondered if I was ever going to do it, or if it was going to be suddenly too late. I wondered how long I would be entranced by the last several steps of the queen on one side and the ascending giggle on the other, trapping me and rendering me unable to stand up and prove something, anything, once and forever, making me into a fool and the biggest Employee of them all, the grand pretender. I wondered, I almost whimpered, cried when suddenly my voice found itself and it wasn’t a whine.
“Mr. Cistern!” Just loud enough.
He stopped midway between his final to and fro. He erased the stupid grin without any detectable motion, and he had a little trouble finding a voice himself.
“Jenson?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m through playing.”
“Excuse me?”
“I quit, sir.”
Cistern was nearly back to the door of his office, almost escaped and victorious, to apex my misery. Janet, compounding the misery, started laughing audibly, just loud enough at first, but with a threatening poco crescendo. I wondered if I was ever going to do it, or if it was going to be suddenly too late. I wondered how long I would be entranced by the last several steps of the queen on one side and the ascending giggle on the other, trapping me and rendering me unable to stand up and prove something, anything, once and forever, making me into a fool and the biggest Employee of them all, the grand pretender. I wondered, I almost whimpered, cried when suddenly my voice found itself and it wasn’t a whine.
“Mr. Cistern!” Just loud enough.
He stopped midway between his final to and fro. He erased the stupid grin without any detectable motion, and he had a little trouble finding a voice himself.
“Jenson?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m through playing.”
“Excuse me?”
“I quit, sir.”
“Jenson, perhaps we might discuss this privately.”
“No sir.” There was nothing to talk about. “I’m through.“
And I couldn’t add anything after that. I looked over at Janet Praxis, and saw her disappointment. Not enough bravado, I suppose. But that was it. I scooped a few things out of my desk drawers and grabbed my coat and quietly walked out the door.
“No sir.” There was nothing to talk about. “I’m through.“
And I couldn’t add anything after that. I looked over at Janet Praxis, and saw her disappointment. Not enough bravado, I suppose. But that was it. I scooped a few things out of my desk drawers and grabbed my coat and quietly walked out the door.
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