Russell Banks - Outer Banks

So it was that my complaint about the food, though it had commenced as a social activity, soon had validated itself against the physical surround, and thus strengthened, had taken on an obsessive and energetic quality that was matched by the complaints of only the most disgruntled and epicurean among my fellow prisoners. I was not at this time aware of my having joined these fellows in their distraction, of course, but even if I had been, I do not think I would have resisted, for a process had been set in motion that would not be ended until I had been able to turn my attention back once more to the proper contemplation of the eternal dead, who never hunger after variety or epicurean delight. The reason for this persistence of mine in complaining about the food, I then believed, was my desire, pure and simple, for varied and delightful food, and often at night while I lay in my cot and listened to the coughing, wheezing, murmuring sounds of my fellow prisoners in the darkness, I would image to myself a breakfast of fresh chilled melon, followed by a platter of shad roe and poached eggs, with hot crusty cloverleaf rolls and a pot of pure mountain-grown coffee, or a lunch of delicately flavored conch soup, fresh broiled trout and chilled white wine, with a key lime pie for dessert, or an evening meal that began with cold split pea soup with mint, cabbage in white wine, wild rice with mushrooms, a deep green spinach salad with vinegar and oil and subtle herbs, and a crown roast of pork with sausage-apple stuffing, and a cold orange souffle as a dessert. My mouth would fill with water at these images as they paraded past, one exquisitely arranged meal after another, glistening and aromatic, but soon I would topple from this pinnacle of wavering, transparent and transitory delight and would fall into a contracting pit that began with dissatisfaction, passed through resentment, and ended with gloom.

Night followed night, and so too did my longings continue unabated, evoking each night a fresh cycle of foods that I could not have, leaving me, as a result, gnashing and groveling at the bottom of my pit in frustration and gloom. Sometimes I imaged to myself only light and delicate, pastel-hued meals, fresh fruits and vegetables and thinly sliced meats, and the next night would come a menu of heavy, succulent, roughly flavored foods, to be followed the next night by a variety of casseroles and sauces, and so on, with all the accompanying greens, appetizers, desserts, breads and pastries, with all the appropriate wines, and lingering after-dinner platters of cheeses and chilled fruit and clarifying liqueurs. My desire seemed to me endless, bottomless, infinite. But so too seemed my frustration, and thus there came those moments at the gray beginnings of dawn when, questioning the legitimacy of my desire, I dragged it out before me and tried to upbraid it for causing me such sleepless frustration and gloom, and I would find myself unexpectedly defending my desire, arguing that it was endless, bottomless, eternal, asserting that thus my attachment to it was but an expression of a growing freedom from time.

This was a cruel rationalization that was but a subtle means of sustaining my desire, of feeding it like some kind of parasite that had attached itself to the interior wall of my gut. But I did not understand this at the time, because I was weak and out of contact with the voices of the dead, for I had not my coffin at this time. My dreams were silent, and I had no voice but my own to advise me, and whatever construction I could put upon the scriptures that yet rang in my head, and while my own voice told me in consoling terms that my desire was a natural one for a man who had been cast away in prison, the scriptures, or so did I construe them, told me that the appetite that cannot be sated, the longing that knows no end, the desire that feeds only on itself, these are but a few of the many paths out of time. Anywhere, so long as it is out of this world! cries the prophet Walter (vi, 12). So I reminded myself, and thus, at the bottom of my pit of longing, would I raise up my head and listen, and soon a consoling peace would come over me, and I would sleep.

For several months did this circle turn in me, of complaint followed by longings which evoked glittering images followed in turn by gloom which I nightly escaped by rationalization and misconstrued scripture. It was in the early spring, when I had been imprisoned for almost a full year, which at that time seemed a great long while to me, that several unexpected events occurred. Most men and women who are not of our faith would not regard them as events, but that is of no importance here. For events are what they were, and what follows is how I understood them then. Though I will reveal shortly how I eventually came to understand them, through the guidance of the dead, for now, so that my trials and tribulation can be better grasped by the reader, let me withhold my later comprehension until I come to describe its fortunate arrival.

The first event was simply that I noticed one night while I lay in my cot and conjured images of loaded boards of steaming food, before I had come to the part in my nightly sequence when I began the quick slide into despair, I realized that the feast set before me was one I had already imagined, was a meal I had conjured several months earlier. This came upon me first as a surprise, for I had thought the menu could be infinitely varied, and then as a disappointment, for immediately the image of the meal seemed less succulent, less attractive, less necessary than before, and my mouth did not fill with water quite as before. I did not understand this diminishment of my desire, and somewhat fuddled, I tried again, and I sent the broiled trout back to the kitchen, as it were, as if the waiter had made a terrible mistake, and ordered again, this time a crispy roast pig stuffed with apples and sausage. But this meal too was familiar to me, for it too had I earlier brought forth from my imagination (for there did I then believe these images to emanate from). Again I returned the meal to the kitchen and called for another, barbecued swordfish, but this too, when it appeared steaming in its juices before me, I saw I had already ordered once, and thus it went sailing back to the chef, who by now must have been close to despair himself. On it went, one after another, until I began to grow shrill and wild, ordering rapidly and without care.

Suddenly, as if to quiet me for a moment while the poor harried chef struggled to assemble his masterpiece, there was set before me a glass and a dark bottle of twenty year old port wine. I poured a glassful, raised it and with my eyes praised the regal hue of the wine, sniffed it with pleasure, and let it into my mouth. This was the second event. For it was as if the wine had replaced the banquet of before, and instantly my earlier endless desire for delicious and various foods had been replaced by a new endless desire, this one for fine wines, hearty whiskeys, froth-topped ales and sharp tangy liqueurs and brandies that heat the chest. In my mind I drank off the bottle of port wine, and as soon as it was emptied, I tumbled as before into my pit of despondency, where I nursed myself with consoling rationalizations concerning the spiritual quality of my desire and with scripture appropriated and translated for my own greedy use.

The next night I requested a brilliant beaujolais, and then the following night a chablis from an obscure but old and honorable vineyard, and then, one night after another, one excellent old wine after another, until it occurred to me that a peaty ten year old whiskey from the north would be pleasant, and then a bottle of cognac, a coffee brandy from the tropics, a rice wine from the orient, a powerful honey liqueur, a pale and breath-taking rum, and on and on, long careful solitary nights at table as I raised glass after glass to the light, admired the color and texture, brought the glass to my lips, and while it still quivered there, suddenly plummeted into the pit of frustration, resentment, gloom, there to anesthetize my pain with specious argument and misapplied scripture.