Joseph McElroy - Ancient History - A Paraphrase

Al said, “These aren’t typical,” but the girl said, “I should hope not,” in an accent possibly New York City, certainly not New England. I turned into the silent night of Loop Lane and lost the now dangerous driver I’d ditched. Two high cobra streetlamps lighted us past two hundred yards of two-story houses, college staff mostly. The girl was explaining that the boy had wanted to be involved in the traffic jam, so they’d wanted to be, like, inside a car for a start, then later take their equipment into the street with the police and the kids. They knew a paper that would pay for the pictures at least. Al said this was nothing, it was Friday, a few crass casualties who’d never had to work for their education were trying to show they’d got the message of the week’s Distinguished Lecturer who’d distinguished himself by telling us nothing we didn’t know already. “I’m sorry,” the boy said (with a humble precision like Bob’s when he merely defined for Doc the excellence of Poly), “but he happens to be a great man”—“and,” said Al, “telling it as if the less clear the more profound” (and here for a forty-four-foot second at as a matter of fact our detour’s apex I felt the chance for all four of us to bust out of our loop into an ambuscade of recognition: and in the boy’s words now but not in his spirit the boy seemed to express this too, repeating Al’s “the less clear the more profound” yet then subtracting from the possibility by the words “But that’s right”: and the girl clamped a hand on my shoulder and breathed, “That’s it” and brought her hair near my neck again as I drove through the black-and-yellow STOP and turned out of Loop Lane onto Pond Road that would circle under the new memorial high school over an old, all but invisible bridge to meet a road that on the left was a lower extension of Main Street and on the right led out of town but not before it passed the Babcocks’. I’d do you a map if it would help, Dom, you probably didn’t noticed the layout as you were driven Thursday from an ATO cocktail party to a faculty buffet, a fresh batch of New-England-style Topaz Neons mixed for you and screwed into a canteen just back from the DMZ. Your life seems farther away the more public. I didn’t cause your suicide. If I didn’t cause your suicide, can I have known you anywhere near as well as I know this country friend Al? Seated in the right front where according to the Southeast California Institute of Psychology especially spoiled people like to sit, he is probably contemplating violence.

Al didn’t turn around to talk to the boy and girl. He said they couldn’t even summarize what you, Dom, had said because they hadn’t had the decency to follow it, much less the brains — not even the strength . And the boy said melodically True, true, they weren’t strong but were trying for real strength not just (like) some old computer code society sleep-teaches for who knows whose material advantage, but’s about a much help as a steel cheeseburger — and what’s really necessary’s to tran scend .

Al said they could transcend this car in about half a minute, but the girl said over him, “That’s it , that’s it, what we hoped we could do at the traffic jam!”—“this car in half a minute” (Al persisted) “’cause you’re turning left and we aren’t.” “Because,” the boy said, “like we’re occupying part of your space , and only through your kind of like one-dimensional one-way space can we transcend your values , but we emptied our minds of scorn long ago.” Without any transition he said, “You teach here.”

Al distinguished himself from me. The girl said, “First-generation college?” and “I thought so,” before Al could say yes or no, and she added, “Do you love learning, I mean the learning situation? or is it a tobacco pouch and a long, irrelevant vacation?”

“My father worked for the state highway commission,” Al said.

“What’s your field?” the boy asked and Al, just as quietly and finally as he’d said “state highway commission,” said, “Seventeenth and eighteenth century,” and the girl said, “Wonderful.” We reached the main road that led (left) back to Main Street and the demonstration and (right) to “Baba” Babcock’s and out of town.

“Out,” said Al, and I discovered a little road straight ahead and up a hill.

“No,” said the boy, “we’ll go with you and give you a hand.”

Having completed my full stop I experienced a vectoral tremor. Al said, “The old man’s probably not even home now.”

I said, “It hasn’t been that long.”

With my right hand I swung the wheel down but Al stopped my hand with his, “Baba’s probably out spurring Egypt’s flank.”

“What?” said the girl. My right-turn signal was winking softly in the bushes across this secondary road and just to the right of the unexpected little one rising almost dead ahead.

“No,” said Al. “Go straight through to the landing, I’m sick of being department handyman. Egypt was U.S. Grant’s horse. No question about it. It’s a fact. Aincha read ya own history, dahlin’?” It was unimaginable that Al knew why I’d come. “And that automated pacifist back in my living room pumping his hair on my antique beams and laying hardwood on my friendly fire.”

Without looking, I could guess what our backseat passengers looked like. I straddled the yellow line up the hill and Al mentioned a name or two buried in the cemetery at the top. He asked our passengers if they had anything to drink, and the boy sounded amused when he asked if Al was kidding.

A small, humanly specific beat came with the wind that shivered the tree leaves. Al said it was The Anthropopha-Guys from Boston. The girl said What was he talking about, it was a folk rock group called the Cannibals. Al said the Ed Department had scheduled the concert for last night but by mistake in the hall where, Dom, you’d already been scheduled by History but after filling the field house and later that night drumming up an illegal impromptu on the memorial lacrosse field, the Cannibals had stuck around for the weekend and said they’d stay mobile so long as they weren’t bugged by the cops, but if they were, then they’d just settle. Al said he had nothing against blacks but it was tough for people who lived on the landing road and had to get up in the morning.

And we now turned into the landing road. I drove down slowly toward a bonfire and silhouettes scattered out around a small mass of onlookers. Then, arms akimbo, at the roadside edge of his driveway a man flashed into my lights a blank look. The police car near the fire had left its red roof light revolving in time to the measure the Cannibals were evenly rocking out, as we turned into the unpaved parking area. Now I made out some outboards on moorings.

The Cannibals were self-powered; at least, I never saw any lead to an outside jack, if the town had even installed one there on the landing. The Cannibals were up on the hood and roof of their Camper, all but the drummer, whose traps were on the ground. Against the pines and birches on the far bank the pale masts of two early sailboats seemed stuck.

Al said, “Or we have other attractions if you’re really from out of town.”

“No,” the girl said, “we’re interested in you.”

“Well, I’m not in you,” Al said.

“Look,” I said, “my bag’s still in the trunk and I’d like a drink — what if we leave our friends here and go home to Annette.”

We had stopped, but the girl and boy made no move. The music wasn’t so loud as you might expect. Maybe between us and it, the wind current veered and took it up the river. The girl said, “How come you’re visiting him this weekend?”