Jonathan Lethem - Men and Cartoons

Those people mean nothing to me , Doran wished to cry. They barely did at the time. And now, what was it, ten years later? It was Vivian Relf who mattered, couldn't she see?

“Do you remember the airport?” he asked.

“Ah, the airport ,” said Polymus, with a connoisseur's sarcasm. “Now we're getting somewhere. Tell us about the airport.”

The table chuckled nervously, all in deference to their host.

“I haven't the faintest idea what he's talking about, my love.”

“It's nothing,” said Doran. “I saw you, ah, at an airport once.” He suddenly wished to diminish it, in present company. He saw now that something precious was being taken from him in full view, a treasure he'd found in his possession only at the instant it was squandered. I wrote a poem to you once, Vivian Relf , he said silently, behind a sip of excellent Rioja. Doran knew it was finer, much more interesting, than the wine he'd brought, the Cabernet Franc they'd sipped with their appetizers.

He might have known Vivian Relf better than anyone he actually knew, Doran thought now. Or anyway, he'd wanted to. It ought to mean the same thing. His soul creaked in irrelevant despair.

“This is boring,” pronounced Vander Polymus.

The dinner party rose up and swallowed them, as it was meant to.

MY HOUSE IS PROTECTED FROM THE STREET by a wooden fence six feet high, so solidly built that it's practically a wall. You can't look through it. The fence gate swings open smoothly, an inch from the paved walkway, without sticking or wobbling. Returning home a few days ago, I stepped up and pushed the gate open, as I always do, without breaking my stride. This day the gate bumped hard against something on the other side.

Annoyed, I pushed harder, and stepped through the space I'd wedged open. Lying on the walkway, rubbing his head, was a bum. I'd whacked him on the top of his skull with the gate. After a confused moment I grasped the situation: he'd ducked in from the street, then stretched out to warm in the sun in the first place he found. I live next door to a supermarket. He was probably napping after a meal of salvage from the dumpster in the alley. I knew that bums sometimes slept the night in the alley, though they always kept out of sight.

He wasn't knocked out. He made a sort of rasping, moaning sound and rolled onto his side.

Then we had the strangest conversation.

“You okay?” I said, defensively gruff.

“Yeah,” he said. He was bald on top, so I could see that there wasn't a gash.

“That's a hell of a place to be,” I said, justifying myself.

He said something I couldn't quite make out. It sounded like, “Every place has its price.”

“What?”

“That's the price of this place.” Or something. I was already walking away, toward my door. I'd seen that he was both unharmed and harmless.

“Well, take care of yourself,” I said.

“Don't worry about me,” he said.

Then I went inside, and for the briefest moment, tried to think about what had happened. I just hit a man in the head with a big piece of wood , I told myself. A part of me insisted that it was a notable event, something disturbing, something extreme. I'd certainly never done anything like it before.

But that part of me lost out. My attention just slid away. I literally couldn't keep my mind on it.

I mention this because of the light it sheds on what happened with Matthew.

WHEN MATTHEW and I were in high school we had a running joke that I think epitomized our sense of humor. Our school featured special programs for musically talented students. For that reason, or for no reason at all, there was a bust of Toscanini in the middle of the main hall of the building. It was a dingy bronze, slightly larger than life-size. Toscanini gazed out with a stolid, heroic air, his thick oxidized hair flowing back in the sculptor's imaginary breeze. He could have been a general, or a football coach, but a plaque on the pillar informed us that it was in fact Toscanini. It was typical of Matthew and me that we even noticed the sculpture. I doubt if any of the other students could have confirmed its existence if we'd mentioned it to them. We never did.

The joke was exclusively between us and some unseen janitor or security guard. Every week or so for a whole term, on our way out of the building after our last class, Matthew and I would hurriedly tape a pair of eyeglass frames, crudely fashioned from torn notebook paper and scotch tape, across Toscanini's glaring eyes. The glasses were never there when we returned in the morning. They were probably torn away within minutes, but that didn't matter to us. The sight of the paper glasses on the bronze was funny, but only initially was it the point of the joke.

The real point was saying it, again and again. “Toscanini's glasses.” As though those glasses were a landmark, the one certainty in an uncertain universe. Whatever subject was at hand, the glasses were the comparison we'd reach for first. “What didn't you understand? It was as clear as Toscanini's glasses.” Or “Cool, man, like Toscanini's glasses.” Or “No more urgent than, say, Toscanini's glasses.” If one of us forgot what he was going to say, the other would gently suggest, “Something about Toscanini's glasses?”

It was a joke about futility, and at the same time a joke about will, and subjectivity. If we filibustered the glasses into existence between us did it matter that the paper-and-tape glasses didn't persist? Worlds seemed to hang in the balance of that unspoken question, and in a way they did. Our worlds. The glasses stood for our own paper-thin new sensibilities, thrust against the bronze of the adult world. Were we viable? Did we have to convince others, or was it enough just to convince ourselves?

The question was made immediate by our careers as students. Did it matter that you were smarter than your English teacher if she could fail you for cutting class to smoke pot in the park? Matthew and I gave her that chance, and she took it. When college-application time rolled around, the costs were suddenly apparent. You couldn't get into an Ivy League school on the strength of private jokes.

Actually, I did. For the essay section of my Yale application I drew a ten-page comic, of the soul-searching, R. Crumb variety. It took me three weeks, and it was by far the most sustained effort I'd made in the four years of high school, or in my life to that point. I remember Matthew calling me at home during those weeks, wanting to know what was wrong. I couldn't explain.

The comic led to an unusual interview with a Yale scout. The first question he asked was what my favorite single book was. I said Travels in Arabia Deserta , which I'd never read. He looked taken aback. “That's my favorite book,” he said. “I didn't realize anyone your age was reading it.” “Yeah, well,” I said. “I'm an autodidact.” I hoped that would account for my grades. I don't know if it did, but I had the scout eating out of my hand after the lucky coincidence. Fortunately he didn't ask me what I liked about Arabia Deserta .

Matthew got into Reed. I helped him get the application out, in one desperate night before the deadline. Reed is one of those colleges where they don't give grades, where you can major in things like harmonica or earth sculpture. It's in the Pacific Northwest, far from New York, which probably would have been good for him. But he didn't go. He convinced his parents that he needed a year abroad before he could decide what to do. Sending him to college would have cost about the same, so they went for it. He and his marijuana fumes were out of the house either way.

Matthew was talking about becoming a Zen monk a lot at that time, and he even carried around an Alan Watts book called The Wisdom of Insecurity for a while. I'm sure he thought our pranks were a form of native Zen. An example: We took an 8-by-11 sheet of clear Mylar to the Xerox shop and asked for a copy. The clerk indulged us. The result was a photograph of the inside of the machine, of course, but Matthew insisted on calling it “a copy of nothing.” Just like one hand clapping, see? He cared nothing about Buddhism, needless to say. If there had been such a thing as a Dada monk he would have wanted to become that. But Zen it was, so he went to Asia.