Collected Fictions (40 page)

NIGHT OF THE HARNESS, DAY OF THE TRUSS

STORY I AM GOING TO TELL YOU
is going to—had better, had better!—form itself out of the business of my telling you what I am telling you, which is forming itself—which is to say the act of telling is—out of the act of not going to bed, which is probably really a react, not an act—but go fight City Hall, wrong word, word made of noun not, you know, in form of noun!

Anyway, I don't want to go to bed.

Nobody is waiting for me in my bed.

There used to be somebody waiting for me in it—and sometimes somebody waiting for me in other beds not rivaling but resembling this bed—and maybe those beds, maybe I didn't want to go to bed in those beds, either—anybody or not waiting for me in any of them or not.

Well, waiting—was anybody ever in any of them ever really waiting for me in even one of them?

Or did I ever keep anybody in any of them waiting for me in even one of them?

These are pretty tough questions.

It stands to reason these are pretty tough questions.

Swear to God, would give it try after try at restating them and at studying on them some more on them—but beats me how else to say either one of them—besides which, it's anyway already, all of this, already getting way over my head.

My bed's my bed.

I am not against it. I harbor no grudge against my bed. I like it better than any other living space which I can think of. I would not trade you your bed for my bed even if your bed had you in it and even if you swore up and down to me it was always going to have, no questions asked, you waiting for me in it.

On the other hand, it's okay with me if you want to come wait for me in mine.

All you have to do is please send your name and address to the publisher of this book.

Oh, and another thing.

Look, so long as you are probably going to be in touch with Oakes and Robinson, could you also do this when you are?

Could you also tell them to let me know if you were anywhere around Miami Retreat in 1954, I think it was.

1954.

But I'm not positive.

The date, I mean, I'm not positive.

But don't say nobody never gave you a figure for you to work with.

So if you were anywhere around there then—Miami Retreat in the year of 1954—make sure you tell the publisher to let me know if you were.

Because I need people who know anything about me from back when it was then.

So you remember when it was then?

It was the year of 1954.

Look at it this way—haven't I been sitting here in good faith?

I have been sitting here in good faith.

Trying to do what?

Have I been trying to do something for you or do something for myself?

Who have I been trying to set you up with a little entertainment in their life?

Trying to supply you with a little needed entertainment in your life!

Thinking of you first, and then, only then, of myself.

So I couldn't do it.

But so okay, so tough shit.

But I tried, didn't I?

So how about now you go do something for me for once in your life!

Let the publisher know if you know anything about me from where I told you and when.

Because there is always the chance you know more about me than I know about myself.

There's got to be somebody who must!

As anyway concerns there and then.

Because maybe then I was even worse off then than I am if you look at me now.

But maybe I wasn't.

So pay attention.

This is serious.

This is between you and me.

Fuck the publisher.

Don't worry about the publisher.

I'll worry about the publisher.

Leave it to me to deal with the publisher.

You just worry about getting me the information.

About me in 1954 in Miami Retreat.

Also, I need to know what you think about you waiting for me in a bed.

You think it's easy for me to ask?

How many people would come right out and ask?

You any idea of what it must mean for me to ask?

I mean, it must mean I am just as worse off now as than at that time I was or at least as bad.

Listen, I just had this thought.

You know what a near-death experience is?

It's life.

No shit.

So what's this worth, a smart thing like this?

It's pretty good, a smart thing like this.

So there's more where it came from,
es vero?

Do us both a favor and write the people publishing this book. Tell them you are waiting for Gordon Lish to come lie down with you in your bed. Or for him to let you come lie down with him for him in his. Then guess who won't have to depend anymore on him sitting himself down in this chair anymore to keep himself feeling rescued from himself.

But all in bad faith.

P. S
. I'm adding this on as a
P. S
.

The same goes for White Plains.

Think in terms of the year of 1954 and of the year of 1955 as far as also the place in White Plains. Which for your information was what I was all set to call this book, but then they started acting like they were going to sue me for it and then the next thing was it was the whole United States.

Anyway, don't forget my bed.

WARBIRD

REASON CALLING THIS WARBIRD IS
because somebody on the phone with me today thought I was saying warbird when I was saying something else. But reason am writing anything to be called anything is because there's this debt I think I am developing to this fellow Jon Cone, who has a magazine he calls
World Letter
. How I got myself into this thing with this Jon Cone and with this
World Letter
of his is not going to be possible for me to catch you up on because all I can seem to get the drift of is of me once trying to put one over on him and then of him figuring out that what I was once trying to do vis-à-vis him was exactly what I was actually trying to do vis-à-vis him and then of his—you know, of this Jon Cone's—writing me a letter to me about it and of him saying to me so—like, hey, you fucking bullshit artist, come on, man, okay?

So the thing I did today was pick up the phone today to call Jon Cone to try and pull some more wool over Jon Cone's eyes, figuring if I don't call but instead of calling write a letter to Jon Cone and give Jon Cone something from me in writing to him, then he might get this kind of a lawful like armlock on me and later on like come back at me with it and crush me with it in the law courts like I'm some type of schnook or some thing.

So I called.

No letter.

Didn't write.

Didn't get it down there in the old black-and-white.

But got the wrong number, it looks like.

Got a person who answered like this.

"Hello?"

And I said is Jon Cone there.

And the person said, "What?"

And I said Mr. Cone, is there a Mr. Cone there.

And the person said, "Who are you looking for?"

And I said I am looking for the editor of the magazine called
World Letter
, okay? I said is this the magazine called that? I said because this is the telephone number which I am right this minute reading off of Mr. Cone's stationery to me.

And the person said, "I'm sorry, but there is nothing like any of that here."

And I said I just want to make sure you're telling me there is no
World Letter
and no Jon Cone there. So I said can I be positive that this is what you are saying to me—nothing like
World Letter
there, nothing neither like a Jon Cone there?

And the person on the phone said, "What kind of a shitbird are you?" The person on the phone said, "So is this what is calling me on the telephone, some kind of a shitbird on the telephone?"

That was the conversation to the extent that I am going to trouble myself to try and sit here and, you know, and begin to make any effort to establish it for you as a structure for you.

But, right, right, nobody said warbird, that's the facts of it, no warbird was actually said anywhere.

Just said all of that warbird stuff about warbird because I thought, you know, you might, as a title, go for it. So then you can see how after it was set up for us as the title of this, how then, how the next thing you know, how then it led to some other things about warbird right there in the first sentence of this right after there was warbird in the title of it.

Man, look at it, will you just look at it?—it's a downward spiral, this is, isn't it?

All this downward spiral of it.

You try to make it up to people, you get set to make it up to people, and then the next thing you know, there is this terrible spiral downward with them on account of the fact that you are always starting to spiral downward with people, and then once you start the downward spiral with them, it is all going to keep on going downward like this—namely, in like a definite downward spiral downward.

If only things weren't always so downward like this!

If only things were not rigged to always keep going spiraling so downward like this!

Everything wrongward and downish.

This Jon Cone and me, how come we could not have, the two of us, how come we could not have sailed right off of here up out from here at the outset from here to anywhere terrific?

Maybe soared right on up out from here—and then up some more upward from here, and then some more upward after that—and then, after that, ever upward from that—sailing—soaring—ever upward.

Terrifically.

Or upwardly.

And not like the way it really always is.

Which is like a letter you take a chance and go post to them like a warbird to them instead of feather back and get fluttered from the motherfucking world.

THREE JEWS ON THE WAY HOME FROM A CLASS

WE TOOK A TAXI.

Then call it a cab.

Fine, we took a taxicab. Don't tell me they weren't as Jewish as I am as Jewish, the two of them, the pair of them, in the back seat with me in the taxicab with me. We would have taken a subway, except who wanted to get killed? They kill Jews on subways. This has been the practice here for ever so long. It must be plain, then, that the others had never been on a subway, for if they had been, then how could they have got into a taxicab with me the night of my class Wednesday last? How indeed could have done they? Look, I think I have a concussion. My head, I believe it to have been concussed—at 84th Street and Park—where the taxicab I and my students were riding in collided with the planet Mars. Or with, lesserly, the moon. Or more probably upon the fenestration of a legion of marching Christians, it felt like. We were smashed. Firetrucks show up. Ambulances show up. The sidewalks are thronged (is this permissable, thronged?)—were athrong with cheering horses. Hordes, one imagines oneself to have said. Hey, if I have a head injury, if any of this evinces (evinces?) the vince of a head injury, then don't cry for me, Babylon! Nor Bayonne. They took us away on boards. Aboard boards. In the emergency room, the hue and cry was as follows: "These are Jews!" But a doctor cameth and applied salves. I was healed. My students were healed. He said, "You be the people of interpretation, yes?" There was acknowledgment. This was curative. He said, "Cab crashes phalanx of unclean, correctomento?" Acknowledgement—but in the nodding off of it of, hear something clink. Within. Take the fellow by the buttonhole, expressing to him alarm, saying, "My, you know, my head." "Ah," the man says, brightening, "you be bashed in it in, no?" "But my brain," I opine, "my brain, what of its concourse now?" There is smiling. My students, the nurses, the firemen, the administrators—Ma and Pa—they smileth and smilen. "We were three Jews on the way home from a class!" I allow, stressing the titular aspects of the matter. The telephone rings. The telephone is ringing. Everybody answers. "Hello," it states. "Duffy's Tavern," it states. "Duffy's not here," it states. "John Oakes speaking." "John!" I say. "Oh, God—thank God, thank Jesus, it's John!" I say. I say, "John, Jesus pal, there's been an efficiency, okay? We hit something. The tenses are changing. We were promising uptown and we hit something and now all the tenses are changing. Can you, you know, in your heart, can you possibly maybe make anything out of this for me as a person?" It states, "Like one fellow to another? Like one victim to another? Like one aspect to another? You mean like as in humanitarianly-wise?" But I had to hang up. Everybody was dying. It was like it had all of it—the pay-off—been postponed or something, but now—look out!—the gist was up. Except for me, of course. Except for me and for the one true, the one verdanto, church, of course.

Now it was just the twain of us.

"Guardimente!" I snarleth.

"Go ahead!" I chasteneth.

"Make your move!" I, with ligament, chirg.