David Wallace - Broom of the System

RICK: And then why, in this context, does Lenore grasp Lang’s member as she signs? Is the member supposed to be the symbol of membrane-penetration?

JAY: The symbol, Rick? The symbol?

RICK: More than the symbol?

JAY: I am being knocked backward by the force of breakthrough-smell.

RICK: Sit back up, you ass. This is my life you’re fucking with.

JAY: What an interesting choice of verb.

RICK’ So when I’d come to you with these clearly profoundly sexual dreams and you’d say that they were just hygiene-dreams, you weren‘t, under your analysis, really disagreeing with me, were you? The hygiene-fixated is the sexually fixated.

Dr. Jay pauses,

RICK: Don’t just smile at me, damn you. And the hygiene-identity membrane is you’re implying the what? What is it?

JAY: What might the membrane be, here, Rick? Let’s think together. What membrane might Lenore have needed to have permeated in order to feel real, connected? Valid? Transcending in and for her reality the mere reference and emotional attention of the Other, of you? What membrane does the thinking student and friend of the center of your existence conclude that Lenore needed to have penetrated for her?

RICK: What do you mean needed to have penetrated? What does that mean? What has she told you?

JAY: Was Lenore a virgin when she became part of your intrinsically inefficacious network, Rick?

RICK: My God.

JAY: No symbol is merely a symbol, Rick. A symbol is valid and appropriate because its reference is real. You should know that, being a man of letters yourself.

RICK: Lang has had her.

JAY: Would that make you uncomfortable in this context?

RICK: Oh my ears! God!

JAY: Would you like to try some gum?

RICK: I’ll kill him. I’ll kill her.

JAY: That’s right, Rick. Perform the ultimate soiling. Blacken, erase, discipline and negate the valid network that of necessity finds its validity-reference outside your own system.

RICK: My life is over. It’s all over.

JAY: Please see that I have here said nothing to you about Lenore Beadsman’s private affairs. That is not my place. Whatever interactions she might choose to engage in with a virile blond bestower of validity, close to her own age and socio-economic background, are no matter for my tale-telling relationship with you. Let your dreams speak, Rick. That’s what they’re for.

RICK: How do you know his age? That he’s blond and virile, with a socio-economic background?

JAY: I’m simply going to have to put this gas mask on. Also please note that our time is nearly up.

RICK: Wear whatever you want. But I’m not leaving until I’m good and ready.

JAY: (muffled) What a task lies before us, my old friend. What a horrible, wonderful opportunity for the exercise of strength. The vital question: Are we mature? Do we love truly? Do we love an as yet two-dimensional membrane enough to afford that membrane entry into validity, reality, three-dimensionality, to afford it an escape from the very flattening context exclusively within which the original love can be exercised and pseudo-reciprocated? Do we, recognizing our inability to enter and fertilize and permeate and validate a membrane, an Other, let that Other out, back outside, to a clean, odor-free place where she can find fullness, fulfillment, realness?

RICK: I suddenly take it all back. This is utter tripe. I reject everything you’ve said. Your supposed to be helping me, you shit. Your function here is to help me. All this Blentnerian crapola boils down to the fact that you want me to sit idly by and watch the object of my adoration and the complete reference and telos of every action of my whole life go off and get balled until she bleeds by some horny, silky-smooth, lecherous yuppie, one who just happens to have a large organ where I do not.

JAY: But precisely my point has just been borne out, Rick. Listen to what you just said. The object of your so-and-so. The reference of your so-and-so. An object and reference are intrinsically and eternally Other, Rick. See? And so she must remain for you. The question: have we the wherewithal to allow that Other to be a Self?

RICK: Shall I simply eat her? That’s what Norman Bombardini apparently proposes to do. Shall I consume her? Then the Other will certainly become Self.

Dr. Jay pauses.

RICK: Lang wears a type of shoe toward which Lenore feels a rabid hatred.

JAY: Lenore Beadsman’s foot- and shoe-fixations occur and exist within a disordered hygiene-network thoroughly infected with membrane ambiguity. Surely you can see that.

RICK: This is shit. I cannot believe I’m listening to this.

Dr. Jay pauses.

RICK: Where is this Olaf Blentner? I’ll talk to him directly. Spit in his eye. How’ll he like those apples?

JAY: Olaf Blentner is no more. Professor Blentner has returned to the soil.

RICK: How appropriately ironic. Hopefully interred in a cow pasture, laced with bullshit. Dust to dust.

JAY: Anger is absolutely appropriate and natural, here, Rick. Shall I get out the Nerf clubs, and we’ll go a few rounds? I’m here to help as best I can, within the limits imposed by the reality of the situation we find ourselves in.

RICK: Shut up. Where are these so-called Heidelberg Hygiene Lectures? Let me read them. I’ll write and publish a review of them so scathing your eyes will bleed.

JAY: I’m afraid they’re on loan to another client and friend.

RICK: Not Lenore.

JAY: Rick, I’m afraid our time looks to be truly up. I have other longtime clients and friends waiting. Shall I start your chair?

RICK: You bastard.

JAY: Come see me again just as soon as possible. Tell Mrs. Schorr you’re to be given the very next available appointment.

RICK: Jay, convince Lenore that I am what she needs. Help me bring her into me. Then nothing will matter. I’ll pay absolutely anything. JAY: You insult my integrity. You also cast doubt on the very emotion you profess to believe motivates all your actions. I’ll dismiss this as coming from the understandable emotional strain of the moment. RICK: Oh, God.

JAY: Goodbye, Rick. Think over what we’ve seen together today. Call me anytime. I am truly here for you. Here goes the chair. Goodbye.

Rick Vigorous pauses.

JAY: Goodbye.

RICK: (unintelligible).

DOOR: Click.

JAY: ( unmuffled ) Wow.

/f/

9 September. 9 September.

Lenore Beadsman is fucking Andrew Sealander (“Wang-Dang”) Lang. It is. In a matter of moments this boy, with a grin, perhaps a brief nail-polishing brush of his hand against his shirt, has taken something I can never have. My object and reference sits outside, punctured and validated by the extension of another. And

9 September

Idea for Fieldbinder Collection

Fieldbinder ruminates in presence of pathetic and sadistic psychologist Dr.J___ on the comparative merits of the word “fuck. ”

“We beg your pardon?” said Dr. J___, curling his harelip in incre dulity.

Fieldbinder smiled coolly. “The word ‘fuck,’ Dr. J__. Has it never occurred to you that the word, far from being harsh or ugly, is in truth a strangely lovely word? An appropriate word? I’ll not say onomatopoetic, \ but rather lovely and appropriate. Perhaps even musical. ”

Dr. J__ wriggled his hideous body in his chair. Fieldbinder smiled coolly, continuing, “The word chosen to designate the act — the supreme act of a distinctively human life, the act in reference to the pleasure and meaning of which I naturally understand myself, being as you once remarked an almost exclusively sexual enn‘ty — the word chosen to designate the act must also be extremely important, no?”