Collected Fictions (46 page)

IN REALITY

Some many years ago I brought out a story I called "The Psoriasis Diet." It shows up in the collection
What I Know So Far.
What I knew about psoriasis and diet was this—that the only scheme tying psoriasis to diet in a plausible relation was eating your heart out looking for a cure. For as long as I am able to remember, searching for a method to manage the psoriasis that assails me has occupied the major fraction of my experience. Time and again I have had to take my life into my hands in an effort to keep psoriasis from forcing me into a hospital bed. I mean by this that I had been seeking relief in therapies as risky as X-ray, Grenz ray,
ACTH
,
arsenic, aminopterin, and methotrexate. About six weeks before this book was slated to go to press—this would place us in the fifty-sixth year of my taking treatments for psoriasis—it was recommended I try something known as Skin-Cap, marketed in a cute little canister whose contents one sprays on oneself where lesions are. It worked—with stunning dispatch. I set to buying Skin-Cap by the ton, stockpiling canisters against the frantic imagining of a future when something altogether too good to have been true would be snatched away from me as capriciously—or is it as inexplicably that I should say?—as it had (pop!) popped into view. For one could purchase Skin-Cap without prescription. Indeed, this was the best of it, wasn't it?—that the canister declared its only active ingredient to be zinc pyrithione. Mere zinc the cure for psoriasis? Too wonderful, too wonderful!—very like discovering a thorough washing with a strong soap dissolves malignancies. I told my son Ethan. He has psoriasis. I told Updike. He has psoriasis. I tried to tell Nicholson Baker. He has psoriasis. I called all my friends to tell them all to all call all their friends where there might be among them those who have psoriasis. For six weeks Skin-Cap—which is formulated abroad and which is shipped into the United States and which is sold at pharmacies with no more restraint than would be imposed upon the sale of a roll of adhesive tape—was the acoustical event to stand me up against the world. Hold back the conditions with the right word? This was the right word!—the pair of them—and, apropos of my insistent horseplay, they're, hey, hyphenated, are they not? Then tonight—just after midnight, and two days shy of the day for the printing and the binding of this book—I am the one who gets a call. It is from George Andreou, friend and former colleague at Alfred A. Knopf. Andreou reports
CNN
reporting there is some rogue component in Skin-Cap that can kill you—run, Lish, drop everything, cry havoc, head for the hills! Why give this account here—at the close of a book of fictions? How on earth does any of this bear on the matter of fiction? Well, it's a story, is it not? And if it isn't, then what—as far as I could possibly be earnestly concerned—is? Oh, but you must not tell me art is the art of the insincere.

Who could sleep? I could not sleep. I turned on the television to see if I could catch the
CNN
item, and there it was, coming around again on the
2 A. M.
cycle: murder, murder, sound the alarm, People of Exudation, your miracle is no miracle! I telephoned my doctor. I telephoned all my doctors—to leave word with their services for an emergency callback first thing in the morning. Then I went back to watching
CNN
in convinced anticipation of a still later headline counseling all Skin-Cap users to forget it, the dawning of any perspective with the dawn, and instead for them to quick bite down on their cyanide pills and be saved from the gray flora of quaintnesses to come. I had the window wide open. The heat was ghastly. This was August in the city. A man is steaming in his juices, his chickenheart blast-frozen in the runoff onto a bedsheet soaked in oil of Lish. What next? Why this seeming afterthought I am seemingly striving to get seamed into this last word here at the last? Pay attention—there is a bug buzzing, wings beating, a great dry thrashing just west of the corner of an eye—and I whack at it in reflex—whack
eins
!—whack
zwei
!—both times on this super orbital thing we all of us human beings have, it not occurring to me, not even after the initial bit of bone-crushment inflicted—dolt, dolt!—your hand, it's got the remote gadget in it, you idiot!—and the second time you do it, the second time you whack, you had better be looking to be lying here bleeding with blood all over your face. Which is what I did—bleed—and which was what I was still doing importantly well into the dawn's, this one's, early light. Now
this
—yes, this twistiness, curtains from a cunning foreign spritzer toppled by a silly boo-boo on the head—you are indeed, I cannot flinch from conceding, most vexingly correct—for, yes, is it not
this
that story consorts with a yen for story to be? With a fraud made by accomplices, with a swindle enacted between friends.

FACTS OF STEEL

NOTHING WOULD PLEASE ME
more than for me as an artist to be free to sit here and tell you the truth. But they won't let me do it. May I tell you something? They will not let me do it. The whole kit and caboodle of them are all in cahoots. I'm telling you, it sickens me, it just sickens me, the way things are. You cry out against it from the pit of despair, but ask yourself, does it do you any good? This is why I have no choice but to resort to ruse after ruse. God knows I get no pleasure from it. The last thing I as an artist desire is for me to have to sit here and keep developing this worldwide rep I have as a rusefier extraordinaire. But am I the one who has the say? I am not the one who has the say. You heard of the road of life? Because this is exactly what this is, it is the fucking road of life. Oh, how could I have been such a fool, thinking to myself Gordon darling you are an artist darling you are in the driver's seat darling there will cometh your day in the sun. But who are they giving any day in the sun? They are not giving anybody any day in the sun. So you see how come the facts of steel? Ergo, the facts of steel. Can I tell you something? Let me tell you something. Whatever your occupational pursuit, take pains you throw the devils off. Because it's either that or you're under their thumb. You have heard of the proverbial thumb? Because it's either they get you under it or they bind you hand and foot. But save your tears. Nobody cares. Believe me, they can't wait to stand there and spit in your face. The whole mob of them, once they get their hooks into you, your goose is cooked. I'm sorry, but they're worse than Greeks. Will they let you live? They will not let you live. Will they let you speak? They will not let you speak. And guess who the loser is. Do I have to tell you who the loser is? Because the answer is Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public. Hey, you're just lucky they don't make you make it zinc. So what chance do I as an artist have but to dance to their tune? You know what it is? I'm telling you what it is. It is a national disgrace. But I Gordon did not start it. It was either Andrew Carnegie who did or the other cocksucker, Henry James.

GROUND

YOU EVER PLAY THE GAME
which when you were little of you take your fingers and you walk the feet of them all around? Not all around anywhere, not walk the feet of them all around just anywhere, but walking them just on the rug your hand was on or on the bed your hand was on or on something you could be on if you put your hand down like fingers are feet like that on it—like even like on a table?

So you ever play it, this game?

He was a little man.

If you were me, then he was a little man.

But even if you were a little girl, then maybe he was still a little man.

And strong.

Strong and could do anything.

Mine could fly if I got a piece of tissue paper or if I tore off a piece of something else like that like some type of paper like that and got it caught or got it stuck up in between the tops of them—my fingers, my fingers!—kept it caught in there and stuck in there up there where the head was—like these ones here, like the tops of these ones two ones here—can't you see where these ones two ones here, how they come together as fingers where there's this crease in them, you could call it, or call it, you know, like this crouch or crotch or whatever they say?

It was the head.

The crease was the head—and the rest was the arms and the legs—and the tips of the fingers, like call them the fingertips, they were the feet—and wait a minute, wait a minute—the piece of the tissue paper or the piece of any other kind of paper, it was the cape the little man had coming out of the back of his head, it was the cape which the little man had on him for him to have on him like a flying cape for the little man to stand there on his feet and have it flung out back behind him from out in the back of his head for when the little man wanted to go ahead and jump up and fly anywhere up over something so long as there was room in the air up over whatever it was, which was where the air was.

But I outgrew the flying idea.

I'm sitting here telling you I went ahead and decided in my mind for me to go ahead and outgrow the whole idea of the little man flying anywhere as being like too much magic as an idea.

I got old enough—probably seven, probably eight—where it was an age I was in in which I did not like it anymore as far as the whole idea of me letting the little man fly up into the air over anything, or even just the idea of just me letting the little man take off up into the air for only like a little bit from like the rug, let us say, or like from maybe, in a pinch, from like just the back of my other hand.

Flying, if you went ahead and had the flying in the game, then face facts, face facts, since when was it with anything in the game like flying like that in it still even in any sense of the word still a game?

I don't think, or didn't think, it was anything.

Flying—please.

Come on, don't make me laugh, flying, ha ha.

Because it was only a game when it was the way it first was when you first started to play it, the little man walking all around everywhere in more or less in the same place.

Or skipping if he wanted.

Or running if he wanted.

Or just like standing there and not moving if standing there and not moving was what the little man felt like doing for the time being.

Or even falling down on your knuckles and making believe it was his knees.

It had to be a game.

It had to be in a place.

He could jump, the little man could jump, it was still okay as a game if, okay, if the little man jumped, but the whole idea of it was the little man had to end up coming back down onto whichever it was your hand was on—like some rug and so on, or like some bed and so on, like even on just like this one particular place they had in your house so long as it was clear to you right from the start in your mind like this one particular place the little man is starting out from is the little man's place for the time being of the game.

But letting the little man fly, no, Jesus Christ, no, wasn't flying for fucking babies?

I got rid of it.

I threw it away.

Did it probably around the age, I bet, of six probably or of seven, it could have been, or maybe even as late as maybe the age of eight.

The tissue, I mean. The little man's cape.

Or it could have just been not just tissue in the sense of tissue paper but tissue in the sense of something which was paper like tissue paper.

But the place we had, my family, the place we had, it always had tissue paper put away in it somewhere away in it back in those old, you know, back in those old or call them olden days.

This place I live in now, there is no tissue paper around in it anywhere, except for toilet paper.

But neither is there any little boy or little girl in it who's constantly asking you for anything.

Those were the days!

God, I miss those old or olden days.

There was this one place which when you, where when you really set your mind to it, it made the best place for me to play the game of the little man with or without his cape of tissue paper on him.

Do you call it a throw?

I think they call it a throw.

It was on the floor all of the time in our parlor all of the time—which had these stones in all of these different colors—but so was the throw, wasn't it?

All colors?

In different-colored colors?

In all of these various different-colored colors?

I don't know.

It was made out of old socks or something—or out of old, you know, old stockings.

Maybe it was old rags it was made out of.

I could play for hours.

I could get him down there on this throw rug which they had in there in the parlor and keep him going in there with me for hours, the little man.

Walking mostly.

Mostly walking mostly.

But skipping when he had this skipping feeling in him rising in him in this mind in him that, you know, that he wanted, as the little man, to skip. Or go skipping.

Or jump, for instance.

Maybe run maybe if he wanted.

You know.

It was up to him, the little man.

It was all of it always all of it up only to him.

Did I tell you the fringe was the thing?

It had this fringe—the throw on the floor in the parlor, it had like this fringe on it sticking out from it in the sense of like a fringe on it, which was definitely, as far as me, the thing.

The little man getting to the edge of the throw and then making up his mind as far as the fringe.

Him getting there to the edge of it and like making up his mind what to do, what to do—what do I do, what do I do?—do I step off and get myself down into it in the fringe where there are all of these like, my God, like cords cut off?—where there are down there like these big dirty cut off cords cut off?—like in Jesus fucking Christ, the fringe!

Scatter—there's the word for us, my God, that's the word for it!—scatter, isn't it scatter as in a scatter rug?

It wasn't a throw they said it was—it was a scatter which they said it was.

You know, the rug.

A scatter rug.

Fringed.

Like made of tied-together knots of things—like of socks and things—a stocking where there wasn't anymore socks to go with it anymore—and all around the edge all around it, this cut-off dirty-looking stuff.

Fringe.

But oh, the colors of it, the colors of it, oh!—and the same went for, and the same was always going for the stones where when I went there to the parlor there was the floor for me to get down on and as a boy be happy forever and play.

Oh, play.

All the time never being able for me to wait to get home and then for me to go over there to it in the parlor for it and get him down on it and start us letting him see what the story was going to turn out to be once we got him going as far as the game.

Namely, where he'd go.

Or if he would.

How far he was going to go for him to get where he had to be.

And what he'd do if he did.

Sometimes the little man had all of these millions and millions of various different plans he was always thinking about—take a trip here, take a trip there—skip all of the way on the way, jump every other step, or like just keep running like mad.

But you know what?

Mostly the little man just did what he did without him having even any conceivable idea.

But then—whoops!

Uh-oh.

He'd like, you know, he'd like get to the edge.

The older I got, the more and more the little man just went ahead and did that—took a trip and took himself all of the way over to someplace where he was standing right the fuck on it—not the edge of any throw, of course, but the edge, let's call it, of the scatter, I mean!—and then the next thing, it had to be what?—step down into it or don't do anything or go back and make another safer plan or a plan that was safe.

Hey, I tell you it was forever?

The floor all over the parlor, if you were the little man, it looked to you like, hey, that out there, isn't it, if you really look at it, forever out there?

From where you were to all of the way forever?

From all of the stones from under the fringe out to the end of the place where we lived to the whole other rest of everything.

Once you went ahead and took the first step.

Like if you were the little man.

Sun porch, sun porch!

Did I say parlor?

I'm sorry.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

The Lishes' place did not have any parlor.

It had a sun porch over on one side of it—that's what we had, that's what the place we had had!—oh so forever sunny in the sun porch so long as you were never in it without the little man.

Hey, so long as you were never in it without these two ones of your two fingers right up to this crease between them right here.

The place had a sun porch on it and the floor of the sun porch had all of these different-colored field stones on it and the name of the kind of the rug on it, it was named, I'm telling you, a scatter rug, everybody everywhere was always calling it the scatter rug on the floor of the sun porch in the sun porch of where we lived and believe you me when I tell you there were these tied socks and things it was made of, there were like these stockings knotted among the things this thing was actually knotted of, washrags, washrags, pajama legs, nighties, all of it all torn up and all probably all knotted up or probably all tied up but with like these cords of this cut-off crap of it all around all the whole edge of it, and filthy? I'm telling you, it was so filthy and so sickening, but didn't I, Gordon, didn't I get down there and make him be there—him?

These fingers here.

Standing capeless on incomparable feet.

Oh, play, indomitable child, play!

Till they call and call please.

But who hears please?

Nobody hears please—nor needs to.

Hear instead elsewhere, hear instead anywhere—hear instead turn, my beloved, turn!

But the little man never once did.