I, Etcetera Read online

  But let’s say, or suppose, we’re not up to being healthy. Then there’s only one way left to get to the world. We could be glad of the world, if we were flying to it for refuge.

  Actually, this world isn’t just one world—now. As this city is actually layers of cities. Behind the many thicknesses of pain, try to connect with the single will for pleasure that moves even in the violence of streets and beds, of jails and opera houses.

  In the words of Rev. Ike, “You Can Be Happy Now.” By an extraordinary coincidence, there is one day when Doris, Doris II, and Doris III—who don’t know each other—may all be found under the same roof: in Rev. Ike’s United Church and Science of Living Institute, attending a 3 p.m. Sunday Healing and Blessing Meeting. As for their prospects of being happy: none of the three Dorises is convinced.

  Julia … anybody! Hey, how are you? Terrible, yes. But you laughed.

  Some of us will falter, but some of us will be brave. A middle-aged black woman in a brown coat carrying a brown suitcase leaves a bank and gets into a cab. “I’m going to the Port of Authority, please.” Doris II is taking the bus to Philadelphia. After seven years, she’s going to confront Roberta Jorrell and try to get her daughter back.

  Some of us will get more craven. Meanwhile, most of us will never know what’s happening.

  Let’s dig through the past. Let’s admire whatever, whenever we can. But people now have such grudging sympathy for the past.

  If I come out to dinner in my space suit, will you wear yours? We’ll look like Dale and Flash Gordon, maybe, but who cares. What everybody thinks now: one can form an alliance only with the future.

  The prospects are for more of the same. As always. But I refuse.

  Suppose, just suppose, leaden soul, you would try to lead an exemplary life. To be kind, honorable, helpful, just. On whose authority?

  And you’ll never know, that way, what you most long to know. Wisdom requires a life that is singular in another way, that’s perverse. To know more, you must conjure up all the lives there are, and then leave out whatever fails to please you. Wisdom is a ruthless business.

  But what about those I love? Although I don’t believe my friends can’t get on without me, surviving isn’t so easy; and I probably can’t survive without them.

  If we don’t help each other, forlorn demented bricklayers who’ve forgotten the location of the building we were putting up …

  “Taxi!” I hail a cab during the Wednesday afternoon rush hour and ask the driver to get to Julia’s address as fast as he can. Something in her voice on the phone lately … But she seems all right when I come in. She’d even been out the day before to take a batik (made last year) to be framed; it will be ready in a week. And when I ask to borrow a back issue of a feminist magazine that I spy, under a pile of old newspapers, on the floor, she mentions three times that I must return it soon. I promise to come by next Monday. Reassured by the evidence of those petty forms that Julia’s hold on life often takes, I’m ready to leave. But then she asks me to stay on, just a few minutes more, which means that it’s changing; she wants to talk sadness. On cue, like an old vaudevillian, I go into my routines of secular ethical charm. They seem to work. She promises to try.

  What I’m Doing

  I leave the city often. But I always come back.

  I made Lyle give me his story—his only copy, of course—knowing that, despite his promise, if I returned it to him, he’d burn it, as he’s burned everything he’s written since he was fifteen. I’ve given it to a magazine editor I know.

  I exhort, I interfere. I’m impatient. For God’s sake, it isn’t that hard to live. One of the pieces of advice I give is: Don’t suffer future pain.

  And whether or not the other person heeds my advice, at least I’ve learned something from what was said. I give fairly good advice to myself.

  That late Wednesday afternoon I told Julia how stupid it would be if she committed suicide. She agreed. I thought I was convincing. Two days later she left her apartment again and killed herself, showing me that she didn’t mind doing something stupid.

  I would. Even when I announce to friends that I’m going to do something stupid, I don’t really think it is.

  I want to save my soul, that timid wind.

  Some nights, I dream of dragging Julia back by her long hair, just as she’s about to jump into the river. Or I dream she’s already in the river: I am standing on my roof, facing New Jersey; I look down and see her floating by, and I leap from the roof, half falling, half swooping like a bird, and seize her by the hair and pull her out.

  Julia, darling Julia, you weren’t supposed to lean any farther into the well—daring anyone with good intentions to come closer, to save you, to be kind. You were at least supposed to die in a warm bed—mute; surrounded by the guilty, clumsy people who adored you, leaving them frustrated and resentful of you to the end.

  I’m not thinking of what the lordly polluted Hudson did to your body before you were found.

  Julia, plastic face in the waxy casket, how could you be as old as you were? You’re still the twenty-three-year-old who started an absurdly pedantic conversation with me on the steps of Widener Library—so thin; so prettily affected; so electric; so absent; so much younger than I, who was four years younger than you; so tired already; so exasperating; so moving. I want to hit you.

  How I groaned under the burden of our friendship. But your death is heavier.

  Why you went under while others, equally absent from their lives, survive is a mystery to me.

  Say we are all asleep. Do we want to wake up?

  Is it fair if I wake up and you, most of you, don’t? Fair! you sneer. What’s fair got to do with it? It’s every soul for itself. But I didn’t want to wake up without you.

  You’re the tears in things, I’m not. You weep for me, I’ll weep for you. Help me, I don’t want to weep for myself. I’m not giving up.

  Sisyphus, I. I cling to my rock, you don’t have to chain me. Stand back! I roll it up—up, up. And … down we go. I knew that would happen. See, I’m on my feet again. See, I’m starting to roll it up again. Don’t try to talk me out of it. Nothing, nothing could tear me away from this rock.

  American Spirits

  The story begins in a crowded place, something like a Greyhound bus station, only more refined. The main character is an intrepid young woman of irreproachable white Protestant ancestry and even, regular construction. Her only visible fault was mirrored in her name, Miss Flatface.

  Buffeted by mechanical stares, Miss Flatface decided to enter upon a career of venery. The spirits of Ben Franklin and Tom Paine whispered hoarsely in her ears, beckoning and forbidding.

  Miss Flatface lifted up her skirts. A gasp was heard from one and all. “No sex, no sex,” the crowd chanted. “Who could inspire desire with that face?”

  “Try me,” she murmured bravely, backing against a white tile wall. They continued to taunt her, without moving.

  Then Mr. Obscenity bounded into the room, wearing white knickers, a plaid shirt, and a monocle. “The trouble with you fellows,” he said, leering at Miss Flatface, then ripping open her nylon blouse without bothering to undo the buttons, “is that you’ve got principles. Too aesthetic by far, that’s what’s wrong with you.” He gave Miss Flatface a shove for emphasis; she stared, surprised, her eyelids fluttering. “Mild as any sucking dove,” he added, seizing her left breast and aiming it at the enrapt spectators.

  “Hey, I’m her husband, you know,” said a sturdy young fellow—Jim was his name—who separated himself from the crowd. “Miss Flatface is only her maiden name. Back home she’s plain Mrs. Jim Johnson, proud wife and mother of three, Den Mother, Vice President of the PTA at the Green Grove School—that’s where our kids go—and Recording Secretary of the local League of Women Voters. She has 9 and 3⁄4 books of King Korn trading stamps and a 1962 Oldsmobile. Her mother—that’s my mother-in-law—would be mad as hell if I let you get away with this.” He paused. “If I let you get away
with this, Mr. Obscenity, sir.”

  “That’s better,” said Mr. Obscenity.

  “Jim,” Miss Flatface called out crossly. “It’s no use, Jim. I’ve changed. I’m not coming home.”

  Something like a chariot, drawn by a team of roan horses, pulled up before the frosted-glass doors. Mr. Obscenity vaulted into his seat and, with a gesture that admitted of no refusal, summoned Miss Flatface to hers. Above the clatter of hoofs, as they sped away, moans and giggles could be heard.

  * * *

  Back home, Miss Flatface—formerly Mrs. Johnson—had been renowned for having the cleanest garbage on the block. But in the place to which Mr. Obscenity had spirited her, nothing seemed amenable to the laws of sanitation as she had known them. Overripe peaches were languidly let fall, half eaten, onto the whitewashed wood floors. Sheets of sky-blue legal-size paper were scrawled with drawings of the male and female genitals, crumpled, then hurled into a corner of the room. Winestains flourished on the damask tablecloths, which were never changed. A faded lipstick-smeared magazine photo of Marlon Brando was pinned to the inside of the closet door; the windowsills remained undusted; there was barely time for Miss Flatface to brush her teeth once a day; and the condition of the bed—particularly that of the pillow, bristling with tiny feathers—was not to be believed.

  From her window Miss Flatface could see the ocean, and a carrousel and a roller coaster called The Hurricane, and small figures—grouped in twos and in families—sauntering along the boardwalk. It was summer-time, and several greasy fans about the room roiled the air without vanquishing the heat. Miss Flatface longed to bathe in the ocean, though she would not have dreamed of washing off the pungent body smells that Mr. Obscenity relished. Her craving for cotton candy was more easily satisfied. Practically no sooner had she voiced a wish for some than there it lay, wrapped in newspaper, at her door. But when she was only half through, merrily pulling off wads of the pink fuzz with her unnecessary teeth, Mr. Obscenity leaped on the bed and took her. Amid the twanging of bedsprings the cardboard cone swathed with the sticky mess fell unnoticed to the floor.

  Sometimes people dropped in for dinner. While Mr. Obscenity presided at one end of the oak trestle table, various swarthy figures bandied talk of Communism, free love, race mixing. Some of the women wore long gold earrings. Some of the men had pointed shoes. Miss Flatface had a notion of foreigners from movies. What she hadn’t known about was their dreadful table manners, such as the way they tore off chunks of bread with their fingers. And the rich garlicky stews and foamy custards did not always agree with her. After dinner there was usually a good deal of solemn belching. Miss Flatface happily joined in.

  Though sometimes unnerved, as much by the pulpy confusion of foods as by the tenor and momentum of the conversation, Miss Flatface had by now a good deal of confidence in Mr. Obscenity. He, whatever the state of his guests, was always immaculate and neatly buttoned. Her confidence was further increased by the mimeographed pages in the clipboard that Mr. Obscenity often carried and frequently consulted, even at the dinner table. This augurs well, thought Miss Flatface. There is some system here.

  Hearty and ready for fun at the drop of a hat—that was how Miss Flatface tried to think of the guests. When lewd plaster statuettes were passed around the table, her neighbor might nudge her in the groin to express enthusiasm. Occasionally a pair of guests would sink beneath the table, which would shudder for a while until the flushed and disheveled couple reemerged.

  Observing that Mr. Obscenity seemed to wish to show her off to his friends, Miss Flatface resolved to be as friendly as possible. One day, she hoped, there would be nothing that he might ask of her that she could not do.

  “Nice little woman you got there,” observed one of his black chums, a man everyone called Honest Abe. He flicked his cigar ash into a gold-plated diaphragm that served as an ashtray, and tilted back in his chair.

  “Take her,” said Mr. Obscenity with a genial wave of his hand. Then he jotted something on the clipboard.

  “Well I dunno,” said Honest Abe. He rubbed the fringe beard that decorated his chin, musing.

  Miss Flatface wondered. Was this big black Honest Abe afraid of slim Mr. Obscenity? Or did he find her undesirable?

  “Ain’t much of a face…”

  That settled it! Tears got ready behind Miss Flatface’s eyes.

  “And white women ain’t good for my blood. That’s what the Prophet says.”

  “Abe!” said Mr. Obscenity, menacingly.

  “Yes, Mr. Obscenity. I mean yeah, boss. I mean yes, sir.”

  Honest Abe hoisted his great bulk wearily from the table, dropping his napkin, scattering breadcrumbs from his lap to the floor. “Well, little woman, let’s see what you and me can do. Can’t do you no more harm than it does me.” He chuckled.

  Miss Flatface rose eagerly. She felt the faint tingling in her stomach. The spirits of James Fenimore Cooper and Betsy Ross whispered in her ears, beckoning and forbidding. “It’s my duty, isn’t it?” she asked Mr. Obscenity, wishing to quell the last flecks of doubt that soiled her perfect resolution. “The national will, I mean. The national purpose. And the national presence.”

  “You must do what you have to do,” said Mr. Obscenity coldly. “This, after all, is the American dilemma.” He made a notation on his clipboard and turned back to his guests.

  Honest Abe carefully removed his maroon velvet jacket and hung it on the back of his chair, then unstrapped the transistor radio that nestled in his armpit.

  So that’s where the music was coming from, thought Miss Flatface.

  Their union took place in a bathtub whose hard white enamel surface had been draped with gaily-colored bath towels, blue and purple and brown and yellow, like the tent of a sheik. Over the faucets someone had considerately, perhaps even reverently, laid the Stars and Stripes. They do smell different, Miss Flatface had the presence of mind to observe. But it’s a nice strong smell. I wonder why I was so afraid of them when I went into that candy store late one night to buy a pack of Luckies, or in the movie-theater balcony (I was just a kid then) when that big one sat down beside me. Seeing them in the news-reels rioting and throwing bricks in their own dingy streets, it makes you afraid. There seem to be so many of them. But one at a time they’re not so frightening once you get really close. They deserve all the rights they can get, she concluded.

  * * *

  As day followed night, which was followed by day, all spent in riotous pleasures, Miss Flatface sometimes wondered if she still deserved her name. But Mr. Obscenity proved a stern taskmaster. He would not allow her near a mirror. He refused to answer any questions about her appearance, her talents, or her destiny.

  Never once did she think of her mother, the widow of a railroad engineer and now living in St. Louis, not even to the extent of wishing to send her a postcard. Occasionally, very occasionally, she thought of Jim and the three children. Had he sold the Oldsmobile, she wondered; he wouldn’t need two cars. But there was no turning back.

  “You have some power,” she said to Mr. Obscenity one day. “But why are people afraid of you?” The spirits of Henry Adams and Stephen Crane whispered hoarsely in her ears, beckoning and forbidding. Surely it wasn’t forbidden to ask questions? Not in a free country.

  “I mean, how did you get Jim to let me go so easy?”

  Mr. Obscenity, plunged deep in Miss Flatface, did not reply. He merely placed a pillow over her animated visage.

  She flung off the pillow. “And Honest Abe?” she said, looking up into his calm faraway eyes. “Why was he afraid of you?” Still no answer. “He’s bigger—I mean taller—than you.”

  Mr. Obscenity continued to leaf, as it were, through her body. A gale, premonitory of something, had just come up. Somewhere a shutter was banging against a wall.

  Miss Flatface’s attention began to wander. She watched a fly sipping at a puddle of cold coffee on the nighttable. Next, the label on Mr. Obscenity’s new tan jodhpurs, bunched on the floor, caught her eye
. Then she wondered if Mr. Obscenity had any trouble getting listed in the telephone book.

  “Pay attention,” he barked, withdrawing from Miss Flatface, turning on his side and lightly dusting her torso with sugar.

  “I am.”

  “Don’t contradict me. You aren’t.”

  “Well, what if I do think of other things? Who says I have to think about it all the time? Doesn’t thinking spoil it anyway?”

  “Look,” he said, “this isn’t a eurhythmic exercise.”

  “Well, I don’t know what that means,” she said self-righteously, “but I know it isn’t supposed to be hard labor either.”

  “Don’t play innocent with me! I don’t have all these people parked here for nothing.”

  Above the buzzing of flies about her breasts, Miss Flatface tuned in on a chorus of raspy breathing. In the hallway just beyond the open door, four Air Force lieutenants appeared to be playing bridge.

  “I didn’t see them,” she protested.

  Mr. Obscenity grunted.

  “Honest I didn’t.”

  “I bet you were a fussy eater when you were a kid,” muttered Mr. Obscenity.

  “No, really—”

  Mr. Obscenity replaced the pillow. Miss Flatface resigned herself to pleasure. She would ask her questions another time.

  * * *

  “How do you like this life?” Mr. Obscenity deigned to inquire one afternoon in a muffled voice while nuzzling between Miss Flatface’s legs.

  “Gosh,” she exclaimed, “I never imagined life could be like this!”

  “Want to continue to live like this?” he asked.

  “Sure!” Since childhood, Miss Flatface had always said “Sure!” when she wasn’t. “Who’d want to live different? I can hardly imagine it,” she went on, with a tremor of anxiety at this untimely chain of consecutive words.

  “Ah my dear,” sighed Mr. Obscenity, sitting upright amid the damp, rumpled sheets and patting Miss Flatface on the thigh. “I’m afraid you’ve had it. One must never think that no other life than this is possible. All other lives are imaginable, possible, even probable.”