The Interrogative Mood (8 page)

Have you ever been bitten by a cat? Do you know the mechanism of a calliope? Have you ever purchased a rubber from a machine, and do you know when that term (“rubber”) disappeared, and if you could, would you replace the term “condom” with it? In swing dancing, there is two-step and three-step, but isn’t there also one-step? Have you ever drunk from pastel-colored aluminum tumblers? Would you say that you are pro peanut brittle, anti peanut brittle, or would you say “I do not have a dog in the peanut-brittle fight”?

Would you not like to live for a while in an abandoned silver mine? Have you ever lied to a child, and, if you have, do you find you regret it more or less than lying to an adult? When your webbing goes out on your lawn chairs, do you get webbing kits and restore them or throw them away? Do you use bleach much? Would
you say that in general Catholics seem to be intellectually superior to Protestants? Have you ever found live ammunition on the ground? Are girls in your opinion better looking in dresses or in pants? If asked to complete the sentence “Salvation lies in [blank],” how would you complete it? Have you ever heard of a bird bending a wire to use it as a tool? Do you know the current land-speed record? Do you know the word
transudate
? Have you ever been given help by an aunt or an uncle? Is it fairer to say that as a child you liked comic books or that you simply could not abide them? Do you know why people include “simply” in constructions such as in the previous question when very often the matter might not be simple at all but in fact complex? If you disliked comic books as a child, would you say the distaste was simple or complex? Do you suppose that a trained cormorant used in fishing must be acquired as a young bird, or will a captive adult, uncomfortable in captivity, nonetheless continue to get fish if thrown in the water on a rope? Do you like opera?

Do you know the names of shoe parts? Are there, would you say, particulars in generalities or generalities in particulars? Are you experienced in any types of eclipse—of the sun, of the moon, of your hopes,
of a fool? Are you suspicious of folk who would use the term “barter”? Do you like caramel? What is the most agreeable and least agreeable barnyard animal for you? Do you understand the concept of tensile strength? Does shirking your responsibility matter more or less to you as you age? If you have never shirked your responsibility, would you say you are now more likely to or less likely to than you have been to this point? What if you had an affair with a homeless person you then dropped because you discovered the homelessness, overlooking the preposterousness of your not having known the person homeless to begin with, and then your friends, of whom you don’t really have any but we’ll say you do for the sake of argument, all dropped you because you had shunned the homeless? Do you like what’s called Texas toast, and do you like calling it Texas toast? Have you ever thought you might be clinically mental to any degree? What is something blue? Are you fastidious about keeping the toilet clean? Do you know what an armbar is? Do you know anything about the Holocaust other than the enormity of it? Do you favor one kind of pear over another? Do you wear seat belts? Have you ever been to a VFW dance in a log cabin for couples only? Do you
have in general a good feeling about a welding shop or a bad feeling? Have you ever seen straight pubic hair? Are you running out of steam?

HOW MUCH TIME HAVE
you spent in a deer stand? Are you attracted to sausage (and to the
idea
of sausage), or are you repulsed by it, or are you sausage neutral? Will you get on a bus in a foreign city in which you do not speak the language? Do you wear slippers? A robe? Doesn’t it seem as if fabric printed in a red-and-white checkerboard generally has squares larger than the squares in fabric printed in a blue-and-white checkerboard? Would you rather see Estelle Faulkner hit William Faulkner in the face with a croquet mallet as he reads
Time
magazine or the episode of
Amos ’n’ Andy
in which one of them bites down on a roofing nail in a doughnut? Did you see the Tarzan movie in which natives bend two trees into an X and lash their enemies thereto and release the trees, tearing the enemies in half? Do you know your scat? Do you bowl? On a desert island, which strikes me as oxymoronic but the phrase enjoys, I believe, considerable currency, or maybe I confuse it with deserted island, which itself raises a
question—namely, has the island once been populated and is only now that you are on it otherwise unpopulated—let us say then on an island all by your own self with nothing to read except one kind of poetry, would you select metaphysical, lyric, language, gift-card, or cowboy poetry?

Would you like to go on a safari, walking or riding elephants with a full bush camp carried along by porters and—does it ever occur to you that the good things in life have all been done already and all that is left is crappy new things or theatrical reenactments of the good old things? What about just wearing a blatantly stupid but somehow comforting or comfortable poplin bush jacket with epaulets in the privacy of your own home? Can you provide any help as I try to recall who it was and where I witnessed a man, I believe a somewhat socially out-of-it single man, in a suburban house, who was digging in his backyard a well by driving PVC pipe into the ground by hand? Have you ever heard of putting Mercurochrome on bait fish, as in “Put some macurreecomb on ’im”? If you own a crowbar, do you sometimes like to just pick it up and get the heft of it, admire the heavy hex shaft and the claw and the wedge? What color is your crowbar?

Do you bank in Switzerland or know anyone who does? Do you know anyone with a really good figure? Have you ever drunk mineral oil? Have you ever had a passion for airplanes? Would you be likely to use the phrase “inherent risk” or would just “risk” do for you? How many people have you known called Bobby? Have you played tiddledywinks? Do you like dogs? Can you sing? Are you smart? Do you like terror? Is fire a good thing or a bad thing? What upsets you most in life? Will you use the expression “Has the cat got your tongue?”

Do you prefer a red bean or a black bean? Have you seen porphyry, and do you know what is meant by porphyrogenitu? Is there an area of expertise which you developed when young that is incomplete but of which the limited parts you command you still command very well? Can you say why there are no longer TV shows featuring the loyal heroics of dogs and horses? When you see an abandoned toilet, do you have any impulse to salvage it or right it or in any way restore to it some lost dignity? When pelicans fly in a V, what do you think are the keys and rules for the spacing, and why do you think they use the formation? Do you like to visit grave sites? If we heard the ice-
cream man right now dinging down the street and we scrambled for some change, maybe even from within the sofa, and went out there breathlessly and caught him, what would you order? Is there a particular Big Book you have on your list to read but just never seem to do it? Is there a similar Important Place you mean to go to? Does it seem to you that acne is not so wide a problem now as it was when you were growing up?

Have you ever rolled coins? Have you eaten a magnolia blossom? About that which cannot be known, is it better to be prudently agnostic or to go ahead and take a blind position and hold it dear? If you were to be executed by beheading or hanging, which would you prefer? If you were to design a wrapper for chocolate, would your wrapper be in general busy or plain, and dark or light? Do you have a supply, or even a stray piece, of surgical tubing? Do you admire the athleticism of jockeys? If there is life after death, would you think one should prepare in any way or does it conversely mean that no preparations whatsoever are in order? What is denoted or connoted by “tinsel town”? If you were availed a high-tech gas balloon and provided a little instruction and told you had clearance to take off, would you take off? Do you study your feces? Can
you call to mind the single most remarkable or outrageous thing you have ever witnessed one person say to another? Wouldn’t it have been more obvious, or natural, I suppose I must mean, that peppermint candy be green and white as opposed to red and white?

Do you know what an articulated joint is as distinct from an unarticulated joint? Have you ever had a meal at a soup kitchen or facility otherwise intended for the poor? What is the fastest you have ever traveled in an automobile? Who is your favorite western cowboy? When did you last see a pair of pinking shears, and did you enjoy the feel of their teeth on your hand? Have you ever played strip poker, and did anything good happen? If you were to be seriously looked at by the law as a suspect, and you were guilty, what level and what branch of law enforcement would you want doing the looking? Would your answer differ if you were innocent? Historically, what has been your flavor when you order a milk shake? Have you read the Russian biggies? Does any primitive people appeal to you more than others? What do you suppose is your upper limit, in terms of unbroken time aboard, on a sailing vessel? Are you enamored of Scottish bagpipes or do you find their sound unappealing? Do you know
precisely what is meant by knurled wood? Of the children you may have known who were afraid of clowns, did they strike you then, or later, as well-adjusted children or disturbed? In your opinion, does the human brain receive a special benefit from chocolate? Can you number the kinds of private lessons, in all venues, you have taken in your life? If you were offered for free a genuine vintage carousel horse, with its steel pole, to be mounted prominently in your house, would you accept it? Do you know what green sputum as opposed to white sputum indicates? Do you dislike being late or not mind being late, and if you accept tardiness of yourself, do you accept it of others?

Do you know the location of Albemarle Sound? Is “Philosophy by Kant, Bag by Vuitton” funny? Have you ever registered a dog or other animal or otherwise dealt in animal registry? Are any of your teeth loose, or are perhaps all of them loose? Do you use the word
befitting
? I keep trying to formulate a correct question involving a man molesting a candy striper beside his hospital bed, some notion of its being acceptable to molest a girl under these and only these conditions, his possible dying or at least reasonable heightened awareness of mortality and her freshness in the red
seersucker dress—can you help me with this question, help me see where we want to go with it? Would you think me peculiar if I said that if we ran down the ice-cream man and one of us ordered a Fudgsicle and the other a banana Popsicle, it would be perfect, a perfect order, and the only alternative would be if one of us ordered also a Nutty Buddy to be shared?

If you were given a fully restored cherry vintage automobile and a paid-for apartment in a foreign city and could have one other thing to go with these gifts, what would it be? Did your mother teach you anything in particular, and did your father? Do you know what “palisades” means exactly? Could you trap animals for fur? Do you have any gold coins? Are your knives sharp or dull? Do you trust or mistrust people who make a big deal about health? Would you wear chaps and nothing else underneath to a risqué costume party like Carnival? Do you have a favorite candy bar? Do you do a good job when you wash windows or does something always seem to be left undone, perhaps putting you in that inside-outside debate? If you had a little booklet of Post-its printed up to say “Repair in order,” how many of these would you properly have to apply to things around your house or apartment or life in general?
Can you stand Pat Boone? Are you daft? Are you going to Funkytown? Can you excuse me for that impertinence? That is to say, can you simply without prejudice not answer the ante-penultimate question?

WOULD YOU LIKE TO
live a life that allows for frequent use of acronym, as in “Let’s proceed according to SOP?” Would you rather have a swimming pool or a small private gymnasium? Do you have any experience that suggests there was a higher water table when you were a child than there is now? Do you recall that once chinchilla farming was advertised in the back of a lot of magazines, with perhaps the same frequency and in the position that the Chia Pet was advertised later? Would you agree with me if I said that the shotgun, when configured for sport and not for bank robbing, etc., is a friendlier weapon than a rifle or a pistol? Has the importance of “being a gentleman,” if not also what is meant by being a gentleman, and why one should be one, and who can or should be one, changed over time? Have you heard the expression “Pats on the back in high school become kicks in the ass in life”?

The terrible twining calipers lifted the boy’s
brain from its pan—does this frighten you, amuse you, or leave you indifferent? Is it a sound observation that a bird soars in direct relation to its proclivity to eat carrion, and flies in direct relation to its proclivity to hunt live prey? If you were in a besieged medieval castle or garrison or town, can you imagine something worse than the enemy’s lobbing over your walls a putrid cow that exploded on impact and got on you? I guess a load of flaming canisters that burned you or a thousand plague-carrying live rats lofted over and bursting from their confines might in the end exceed a cow in terms of projected damage, but doesn’t that putrid cow somehow still take the cake? Are you very appreciative of Yeats? Are you more fond of maple syrup or honey? Do you go to church? Do you believe?

Do you enjoy taking narcotics? Have you ever had a biopsy performed on a sensitive area, such as the tongue? Does it bother you, or thrill you, to spend holidays intended for conviviality alone? How late in life do you think it is reasonable to anticipate the excitement of meeting a new lover? Would you like to live for a good period of time in India? What would you think an Uzi machine gun might cost? If you had to sleep overnight confined with a polar bear or an anaconda,
which would you pick? If you could be reeducated from the ground up by world-class teachers in either literature or mathematics, which field would you take? Do you like shoes or are they just necessary baggage? Do you know anything about cement?