Authors: Donald Barthelme
THERE was no place for our anger and frustration to go, then, so we went out and hit
a dog. It was a big dog, so it was all right. It was fair. The gargantuan iron dog
nineteen feet high commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the invention of
meat . . . “Have a care,” Kevin said. It was a brisk day, more brisk than some of
the others we’ve had. The girls were wrapping their heads in cloths again, bright-colored
cotton going around the top and the back part and tied at the bottom of the back part,
where the sweet neck begins. A few derelicts and bums were lying around in front of
the house, staining the sidewalk pretty well. Bill looked tired. I gave his face some
additional looks. Then some other people came up and said they were actors. “What
sort of actors?” “Do you mean good or bad?” “I didn’t mean that but what is the answer?”
“Bad, I’m afraid,” the chief actor said, and we turned away. That wasn’t what we’d
wanted to hear. Everything was complex and netlike. The stain was still there filtering
through the water supply and the pipes and carried in suitcases too. The old waiter’s
brown suit had ponyskin lapels. That was depressing. Hogo has announced that Paul
is standing in the middle of his, Hogo’s,
Lebensraum
. That has an ominous sound. I don’t like the sound of that at all. We had a few more
Laughing Marys and radishes. Hogo was sharpening his kris. The whirling grindstone
ground the steel.
There was a noise, you know it perhaps. Hogo tested the kris against his thumb. A
red drop of blood. The kris was functioning correctly. After Hogo finished sharpening
his kris he began sharpening his bolo. Then he sharpened his parang and his machete
and his dirk. “I like to keep everything sharp.”
THE President looked out of his window again. It was another night like that night
we described previously and he was looking out of the same window. The Dow-Jones index
was still falling. The folk were still in tatters. The President turned his mind for
a millisecond to us, here. “Great balls of river mud,” the President said. “Is
nothing
going to go right?” I don’t blame him for feeling that way. Everything is falling
apart. A lot of things are happening. “I love her, Jane,” Hogo said. “Whoever she
is, she is mine, and I am hers, virtually if not actually, forever. I feel I have
to tell you this, because after all I do owe you something for having been the butt
of my unpleasantness for so long. For these years.” “The poet must be reassured and
threatened,” Henry said. “In the same way, Bill must be brought to justice for his
bungling. This latest bit is the last straw absolutely. I see the trial as a kind
of analysis really, more a therapeutic than a judicial procedure. We must discover
the reason, for what he did. When he threw those two six-packs of Miller High Life
through the windscreen of that blue Volkswagen—” Paul inspected Snow White’s window
from his underground installation. “A lucky hit! the idea of installing this underground
installation not far from the house. Now I can keep her under constant surveillance,
through this system
of mirrors and trained dogs. One of my trained dogs is even now investigating that
overly handsome delivery boy from the meat market, who lingered far too long at the
door. I should have a complete report by first light. My God but I had to spend a
lot of money on their training. An estimated two thousand dollars per dog. Well, one
assumes that it is money well spent. If I undertook this project with undertrained
dogs, there is a good chance that everything would go glimmering. Now at least I can
rely on the dog aspect of things.” Snow White was in the kitchen, scoring the meat.
“Oh why does fate give us alternatives to annoy and frustrate ourselves with? Why
for instance do I have the option of going out of the house, through the window, and
sleeping with Paul in his pit? Luckily that alternative is not a very attractive one.
Paul’s princeliness has somehow fallen away, and the naked Paul, without his aura,
is just another complacent bourgeois. And I thought I saw, over his shoulder, a dark
and vilely compelling figure not known to me, as I looked out of my window, in the
mirror. Who is that? Compared to that unknown figure, the figure of Paul is about
as attractive as a mustard plaster. I would never go to his pit, now. Still, as a
possible move, it clutters up the board, obscuring perhaps a more exciting one.”
“NOW I have been left sucking the mop again,” Jane blurted out in the rare-poison
room of her mother’s magnificent duplex apartment on a tree-lined street in a desirable
location. “I have been left sucking the mop in a big way. Hogo de Bergerac no longer
holds me in the highest esteem. His highest esteem has shifted to another, and now
he holds her in it, and I am alone with my malice at last. Face to face with it. For
the first time in my history, I have no lover to temper my malice with healing balsam-scented
older love. Now there is nothing but malice.” Jane regarded the floor-to-ceiling Early
American spice racks with their neatly labeled jars of various sorts of bane including
dayshade, scumlock, hyoscine, azote, hurtwort and milkleg. “Now I must witch someone,
for that is my role, and to flee one’s role, as Gimbal tells us, is in the final analysis
bootless. But the question is, what form shall my malice take, on this occasion? This
braw February day? Something in the area of interpersonal relations would be interesting.
Whose interpersonal relations shall I poison, with the tasteful savagery of my abundant
imagination and talent for concoction? I think I will go around to Snow White’s house,
where she cohabits with the seven men in a mocksome travesty of approved behavior,
and see what is stirring there. If something is stirring, perhaps I can arrange a
sleep for it—in the corner of a churchyard, for example.”
“BILL will you begin. By telling the court in your own words how you first conceived
and then supported this chimera, the illusion of your potential greatness. By means
of which you have managed to assume the leadership and retain it, despite tons of
evidence of total incompetence, the most recent instance being your hurlment of two
six-packs of Miller High Life, in a brown-paper bag, through the windscreen of a blue
Volkswagen operated by I. Fondue and H. Maeght. Two utter and absolute strangers,
so far as we know.” “Strangers to you perhaps. But not to me.” “Well strangers is
not the immediate question. Will you respond to the immediate question. How did you
first conceive and then sustain—” “The conception I have explained more or less. I
wanted to make, of my life, a powerful statement etc. etc. How this wrinkle was first
planted in my sensorium I know not. But I can tell you how it is sustained.” “How.”
“I tell myself things.” “What.” “Bill you are the greatest. Bill you did that very
nicely. Bill there is something about you. Bill you have style. Bill you are
macho
.” “But despite this blizzard of self-gratulation—” “A fear remained.” “A fear of?”
“The black horse.” “Who is this black horse.” “I have not yet met it. It was described
to me.” “By?” “Fondue and Maeght.” “Those two who were at the controls of the Volkswagen
when you hurled the brown-paper bag.” “That is correct.” “You cherished then for these
two, Fondue and Maeght, a hate.” “More of a miff, your worship.” “Of what standing,
in the time dimension, is this miff?” “Matter of let’s see sixteen years I would say.”
“The miff had its genesis in mentionment to you by them of the great black horse.”
“That is correct.” “How old were you exactly. At that time.” “Twelve years.” “Something
said to you about a horse sixteen years ago triggered, then, the hurlment.” “That
is correct.” “Let us make sure we understand the circumstances of the hurlment. Can
you disbosom yourself very briefly of the event as seen from your point of view.”
“It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.” “What is your authority.” “The cathouse
clock.” “Proceed.” “I was on my way from the coin-operated laundry to the Door Store.”
“With what in view.” “I had in mind the purchasement of a slab of massif oak, 48″
by 60″, and a set of carved Byzantine legs, for the construction of a cocktail table,
to support cocktails.” “Could you describe the relation of the High Life to the project,
construction of cocktail table.” “I had in mind engorgement of the High Life whilst
sanding, screwing, gluing and so forth.” “And what had you in mind further. The court
is interested in the array or disarray of your mind.” “I had in mind
the making of a burgoo, for my supper. Snow White as you know being reluctant in these
days to—” “As we know. There was, then, in the brown-paper bag, material—” “There
was in the brown-paper bag, along with the High Life, a flatfish.” “The flatfish perished
in the hurlment we take it.” “The flatfish had perished some time previously. Murthered
on the altar of commerce, according to the best information available.” “Proceed.”
“I then apprehended, at the corner of Eleventh and Meat, the blue Volkswagen containing
Fondue and Maeght.” “You descried them through the windscreen.” “That is correct.”
“The windscreen was in motion?” “The entire vehicle.” “Making what speed.” “It was
effecting a stop.” “You were crossing in front of it.” “That is correct.” “What then.”
“I recognized at the controls, Fondue and Maeght.” “This after the slipping away of
sixteen years.” “The impression was indelible.” “What then.” “I lifted my eyes.” “To
heaven?” “To the cathouse clock. It registered hard upon four.” “What then.” “The
hurlment.” “You hurled said bag through said windscreen.” “Yes.” “And?” “The windscreen
shattered. Ha ha.” “Did the court hear you aright. Did you say ha ha.” “Ha ha.” “Outburst
will be dealt with. You have been warned. Let us continue. The windscreen glass was
then imploded upon the passengers.” “Ha ha.” “Cutaneous
injurement resulted in facial areas a b c and d.” “That is correct. Ha ha.” “Fondue
sustained a woundment in the vicinity of the inner canthus.” “That is correct.” “Could
you locate that for the court.” “The junction of the upper and lower lids, on the
inside.” “ ‘Inside’ meaning, we assume, the most noseward part.” “Exactly.” “A hair
from which, the ball itself would have been compromised.” “Fatally.” “You then danced
a jig on—” “
Objection!
” “And what might the objection be?” “Our client, your honesties, did not
dance a jig
. A certain shufflement of the feet might have been observed, product of a perfectly
plausible nervous tension, such as all are subject to on special occasions, weddings,
births, deaths, etc. But nothing that, in all charity, might be described as
a gigue
, with its connotations of gaiety, carefreeness—” “He was observed dancing a jig by
Shield 333, midst the broken glass and blood.” “Could we have Shield 333.” “
Shield 333 to the stand!
” “Come along, fellow, come along. Do you swear to tell the truth, or some of it,
or most of it, so long as we both may live?” “I do.” “Now then, Shield 333, you are
Shield 333?” “I are.” “It was you who was officiating at the corner of Eleventh and
Meat, on the night of January sixteenth?” “It were.” “And your mission?” “Prevention
of enmanglement of school-children by galloping
pantechnicons.” “And the weather?” “There was you might say a mizzle. I was wearing
me plastic cap cover.” “Did you observe that man over there, known as ‘Bill,’ dancing
a jig midst the blood and glass, after the hurlment?” “Well now, I’m nae sae gud on
th’ dances, yer amplitude. I’m not sure it were a jig. Coulda been a jag. Coulda been
what do they call it, th’ lap. Hae coulda been lappin’. I’m nae dancer meself. Hem
from the Tenth Precinct. Th’ Tenth don’t dance.” “Thank you, Shield 333, for this
inconclusive evidence of the worst sort. You may step down. Now, ‘Bill,’ to return
to your entanglement of former times with Fondue and Maeght, in what relation to you
did they stand, in those times.” “They stood to me in the relation, scoutmasters.”
“They were your scoutmasters. Entrusted with your schoolment in certain dimensions
of lore.” “Yes. The duty of the scoutmasters was to reveal the scoutmysteries.” “And
what was the nature of the latter?” “The scoutmysteries included such things as the
mystique of rope, the mistake of one animal for another, and the miseries of the open
air.” “Yes. Now, was this matter of the great black horse included under the rubric,
scoutmysteries.” “No. It was in the nature of a threat, a punishment. I had infracted
a rule.” “What rule?” “A rule of thumb having to do with pots. You were supposed to
scour
the pots with mud, to clean them. I used Ajax.” “That was a scoutmystery, how to scour
a pot with mud?” “Indeed.” “The infraction was then, resistance to scoutmysteries?”
“Stated in the most general terms, that would be it.” “And what was the response of
Fondue and Maeght.” “They told me that there was a great black horse, and that it
had in mind, eating me.” “They did?” “It would come by night, they said. I lay awake
waiting.” “Did it present itself? The horse?” “No. But I awaited it. I await it still.”
“One more question: is it true that you allowed the fires under the vats to go out,
on the night of January sixteenth, while pursuing this private vendetta?” “It is true.”
“Vatricide. That crime of crimes. Well it doesn’t look good for you, Bill. It doesn’t
look
at all
good for you.”
SNOW WHITE THINKS: THE HOUSE . . . WALLS . . . WHEN HE DOESN’T . . . I’M NOT . . .
IN THE DARK . . . SHOULDERS . . . AFRAID . . . THE WATER WAS COLD . . . WANT TO KNOW . . .
EFFORTLESSLY . . .
SNOW WHITE THINKS: WHY AM I . . . GLASS . . . HUNCHED AGAINST THE WELL . . . INTELLIGENCE . . .
TO RETURN . . . A WALL . . . INTELLIGENCE . . . ON THE . . . TO RETURN . . . HE’S
COLD . . . MIRROR . . .
“YOU have to learn to spell everything right,” Paul told Emily. “That is the first
thing I found intolerable, in other countries. Who can spell
Jeg føler mig daarligt tilpas?
And all it means is
I feel bad
, and I already know that. That I feel bad. If it had meant, for example,
The jug is folded under the darling tulips
. . .” “I understand,” Emily said, but she didn’t, because she was an animal. Not
human. Her problems are not our problems. Forget her. “I try to be reasonable,” Paul
said, “civil with the telephone company, brusque with the bank. That is what they
have earned, that bank, brusqueness, and they can send me all the zinnia seeds in
the world and I won’t change my opinion. But now that I am a part of the Abbey of
Thélème, under the thumb of our fat abbot, I do what I will. That jolly rogue and
thin pedant is drunk again, and does not know that I am here, at the catseller’s war,
earning a penny as a correspondent for
Cat World
. Too bad Snow White is not here with me. It would be good for her, and good for me,
and we could crawl behind that pile of used arquebus wads over there and tell each
other what we are really like. I already know what I am really like, but I don’t know
what she is really like. She is probably really like no other girl I have ever known—unlike
Joan, unlike Letitia, unlike Mary, unlike Amelia. Unlike those old girls, with whom
I
spent parts of my youth, the parts that I left with all those priests, in all those
dark boxes, with little curtains and sliding doors, before I threw in with the Thélèmites,
and began to do what I would. In all sincerity, I am not sure that I am better now
than I was then, in those old days. At least then I did not know what I was doing.
Now, I know.”