Padgett Powell - The Interrogative Mood

HOW MUCH TIME HAVE you spent in a deer stand? Are you attracted to sausage (and to the idea of sausage), or are you repulsed by it, or are you sausage neutral? Will you get on a bus in a foreign city in which you do not speak the language? Do you wear slippers? A robe? Doesn’t it seem as if fabric printed in a red-and-white checkerboard generally has squares larger than the squares in fabric printed in a blue-and-white checkerboard? Would you rather see Estelle Faulkner hit William Faulkner in the face with a croquet mallet as he reads Time magazine or the episode of Amos ’n’ Andy in which one of them bites down on a roofing nail in a doughnut? Did you see the Tarzan movie in which natives bend two trees into an X and lash their enemies thereto and release the trees, tearing the enemies in half? Do you know your scat? Do you bowl? On a desert island, which strikes me as oxymoronic but the phrase enjoys, I believe, considerable currency, or maybe I confuse it with deserted island, which itself raises a question — namely, has the island once been populated and is only now that you are on it otherwise unpopulated — let us say then on an island all by your own self with nothing to read except one kind of poetry, would you select metaphysical, lyric, language, gift-card, or cowboy poetry?

Would you like to go on a safari, walking or riding elephants with a full bush camp carried along by porters and — does it ever occur to you that the good things in life have all been done already and all that is left is crappy new things or theatrical reenactments of the good old things? What about just wearing a blatantly stupid but somehow comforting or comfortable poplin bush jacket with epaulets in the privacy of your own home? Can you provide any help as I try to recall who it was and where I witnessed a man, I believe a somewhat socially out-of-it single man, in a suburban house, who was digging in his backyard a well by driving PVC pipe into the ground by hand? Have you ever heard of putting Mercurochrome on bait fish, as in “Put some macurreecomb on ’im”? If you own a crowbar, do you sometimes like to just pick it up and get the heft of it, admire the heavy hex shaft and the claw and the wedge? What color is your crowbar?

Do you bank in Switzerland or know anyone who does? Do you know anyone with a really good figure? Have you ever drunk mineral oil? Have you ever had a passion for airplanes? Would you be likely to use the phrase “inherent risk” or would just “risk” do for you? How many people have you known called Bobby? Have you played tiddledywinks? Do you like dogs? Can you sing? Are you smart? Do you like terror? Is fire a good thing or a bad thing? What upsets you most in life? Will you use the expression “Has the cat got your tongue?”

Do you prefer a red bean or a black bean? Have you seen porphyry, and do you know what is meant by porphyrogenitu? Is there an area of expertise which you developed when young that is incomplete but of which the limited parts you command you still command very well? Can you say why there are no longer TV shows featuring the loyal heroics of dogs and horses? When you see an abandoned toilet, do you have any impulse to salvage it or right it or in any way restore to it some lost dignity? When pelicans fly in a V, what do you think are the keys and rules for the spacing, and why do you think they use the formation? Do you like to visit grave sites? If we heard the ice-cream man right now dinging down the street and we scrambled for some change, maybe even from within the sofa, and went out there breathlessly and caught him, what would you order? Is there a particular Big Book you have on your list to read but just never seem to do it? Is there a similar Important Place you mean to go to? Does it seem to you that acne is not so wide a problem now as it was when you were growing up?

Have you ever rolled coins? Have you eaten a magnolia blossom? About that which cannot be known, is it better to be prudently agnostic or to go ahead and take a blind position and hold it dear? If you were to be executed by beheading or hanging, which would you prefer? If you were to design a wrapper for chocolate, would your wrapper be in general busy or plain, and dark or light? Do you have a supply, or even a stray piece, of surgical tubing? Do you admire the athleticism of jockeys? If there is life after death, would you think one should prepare in any way or does it conversely mean that no preparations whatsoever are in order? What is denoted or connoted by “tinsel town”? If you were availed a high-tech gas balloon and provided a little instruction and told you had clearance to take off, would you take off? Do you study your feces? Can you call to mind the single most remarkable or outrageous thing you have ever witnessed one person say to another? Wouldn’t it have been more obvious, or natural, I suppose I must mean, that peppermint candy be green and white as opposed to red and white?

Do you know what an articulated joint is as distinct from an unarticulated joint? Have you ever had a meal at a soup kitchen or facility otherwise intended for the poor? What is the fastest you have ever traveled in an automobile? Who is your favorite western cowboy? When did you last see a pair of pinking shears, and did you enjoy the feel of their teeth on your hand? Have you ever played strip poker, and did anything good happen? If you were to be seriously looked at by the law as a suspect, and you were guilty, what level and what branch of law enforcement would you want doing the looking? Would your answer differ if you were innocent? Historically, what has been your flavor when you order a milk shake? Have you read the Russian biggies? Does any primitive people appeal to you more than others? What do you suppose is your upper limit, in terms of unbroken time aboard, on a sailing vessel? Are you enamored of Scottish bagpipes or do you find their sound unappealing? Do you know precisely what is meant by knurled wood? Of the children you may have known who were afraid of clowns, did they strike you then, or later, as well-adjusted children or disturbed? In your opinion, does the human brain receive a special benefit from chocolate? Can you number the kinds of private lessons, in all venues, you have taken in your life? If you were offered for free a genuine vintage carousel horse, with its steel pole, to be mounted prominently in your house, would you accept it? Do you know what green sputum as opposed to white sputum indicates? Do you dislike being late or not mind being late, and if you accept tardiness of yourself, do you accept it of others?

Do you know the location of Albemarle Sound? Is “Philosophy by Kant, Bag by Vuitton” funny? Have you ever registered a dog or other animal or otherwise dealt in animal registry? Are any of your teeth loose, or are perhaps all of them loose? Do you use the word befitting ? I keep trying to formulate a correct question involving a man molesting a candy striper beside his hospital bed, some notion of its being acceptable to molest a girl under these and only these conditions, his possible dying or at least reasonable heightened awareness of mortality and her freshness in the red seersucker dress — can you help me with this question, help me see where we want to go with it? Would you think me peculiar if I said that if we ran down the ice-cream man and one of us ordered a Fudgsicle and the other a banana Popsicle, it would be perfect, a perfect order, and the only alternative would be if one of us ordered also a Nutty Buddy to be shared?

If you were given a fully restored cherry vintage automobile and a paid-for apartment in a foreign city and could have one other thing to go with these gifts, what would it be? Did your mother teach you anything in particular, and did your father? Do you know what “palisades” means exactly? Could you trap animals for fur? Do you have any gold coins? Are your knives sharp or dull? Do you trust or mistrust people who make a big deal about health? Would you wear chaps and nothing else underneath to a risqué costume party like Carnival? Do you have a favorite candy bar? Do you do a good job when you wash windows or does something always seem to be left undone, perhaps putting you in that inside-outside debate? If you had a little booklet of Post-its printed up to say “Repair in order,” how many of these would you properly have to apply to things around your house or apartment or life in general? Can you stand Pat Boone? Are you daft? Are you going to Funkytown? Can you excuse me for that impertinence? That is to say, can you simply without prejudice not answer the ante-penultimate question?