Padgett Powell - The Interrogative Mood

When was the last time you saw an ostrich? In what kinds of weather do you most like to walk? Do you enjoy oiling things or is that best left to others? Do you know what comes after “Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man / bake me a cake as fast as you can”? Are you familiar with the sport of kite fighting? Do you think of there being a proper point in your debilitation as you age at which you should, if you can, kill yourself?

Do you have any experience with boils? When people are weeping and fretting about you, do you console or attempt to move away as politely as possible? Do you find Mary Martin in Peter Pan sexually stimulating? Have you ever had cockles? Does Ireland sound like your kind of place or like someone else’s kind of place? Have you ever been exposed to rigorous mathematical proofs, and if so, do you like them? Do you know the term for the kind of trowel, used in applying certain adhesives, that has teeth on its edge so that glue is laid down in fine rows instead of as a film? Does any confusion arise if you see or hear pinecone and cornpone together? Do you have any impulse to wish that everything you own could somehow without overmuch trauma be made to disappear? If you had to threaten someone with either “I’mone slap the taste out of your mouth” or “I’mone knock you into next week,” which colorful expression would you prefer? If someone threatened you with either of these utterances, would you rather reply “Well, pack your lunch” or “You and whose army?”

THESE SMALL BIRDS FLITTING about the top of the pine tree outside my window that I likened to fleas or lice on a large animal — may I say now more accurately that they look like gnats around the head and eyes of a tall creature? Did they get to the bottom of what has killed all the amphibians the world over? Do you think the heyday of hair spray was the 1960s, or has it lived on? Are Kotex still worn on belts? Were you ever familiar enough with gladiators that you preferred one style of combat over others — the net and trident, say, over the short sword? What sort of boat do you fancy best? Would you rather have to deal with a regulatory commission or a codes inspector? Do you have much patience for sanding wood? Have you come over time to think that you know more now than you did when young, know less now than when young, know now there is so much more to know than you knew there was to know when young that it is moot whether you think you knew more then than now or less, or do you now know that you never knew anything at all and never will and only the bluster of youth persuaded you that you did or would?

Do you keep a neat living place or a messy place? Is it better to work in a messy place and get a lot of work done or a neat place and get nothing done? Do you recall the last time you set something on fire that you were not supposed to set on fire? Do you trust or mistrust people who say “Candy is too sweet for me”? If you had to perform a field amputation to save someone’s life, could you? Do you like ivory? Do you remember those children’s beads that popped apart and were held together by means of stems and balls and sockets of the same material the beads were made of? Does honey come out of the front end or the back end of a bee?

Are you aware of a more likable kind of person than yourself that you would like to be like? What for you are the characteristics that make a person extremely likable? Have you ever been lain on by a heavy naked person in a boat as it raced by another boat full of heavy naked people? Is the world through with worrying about Communism? Have you known anyone to say “biscuit” in referring to a vagina? Do you subscribe to the position that there is good plastic and bad plastic? Would you rather be a bear who is compelled to eat a hundred dying salmon to make it through the winter or a salmon who has to make it past the bear to spawn and rot and die? Are small green rubber army men still sold? Would you say that civilization is protocol, a set of protocols large and smaller nesting inside each other like those Russian dolls? And that as long as the smaller protocols are followed — the trees in the forest as it were — no one much minds that the large protocol, the forest as it were, might be going to hell? Have you ever been not disappointed by a banana split? If a voice instructed you that the tub of salve levitating over the table before you was invisible cream and invited you to put some on and join the party, would you put the cream on? Would you prefer a child who says “I want one” or one who says “That’s bad” when told in answer to her question “What’s a slave?” that “It’s a person who has to do anything you want it to do”? Do you know the Lindy rhythm? Are you any good at horseshoes? How fast do the fastest birds fly?

In mustard, do you fancy the fancy or the ballpark? When part of a group, do you favor stepping to the rear or to the fore? Do you know enough about rifles to select one for purchase? Would you think it improbable that a man might be a professional trainer of military and police dogs and also a certified instructor of yoga? I mean to say, is that avocational yoking not unlike having a meal of hamburger and tofu? As you age, do you find you enjoy driving in cars less or more? Do you have the patience or the fortitude for house painting? Would you mind telling me in detail what your proficiency in the realm of sewing is?

Do you regard yourself a person who has money, a person who is going to have money, or a person who has no money and, barring an accident, is not going to have any money? Who is the best guitar player in the world, in your view? If it had to be the case that a raccoon, a skunk, a possum, or an otter was going to take up residence under your bed, which one would you prefer it be? Do you know what actuaries are? Would the phrase “clapping cancer” mean anything to you? Do you enjoy the ineptitude of local news broadcasters or are you annoyed by it? Do you enjoy the slick professionalism of national news broadcasters or are you annoyed by it? Do you know an anole from a gecko and a skink? Can you love, still? Did you ever love? Is there heartbreak in rain, or cheer? Are you tired?

DO YOU DO YARD sales? Are you happy with your teeth? Do you in general trust or mistrust earnestness? Do you attend parades? Do you gamble? Do you like pull candy? Have you any weapons on you at the moment? Would you buy a pearl choker? Are you important? Do you have any skin disabilities such as eczema or psoriasis? Can you envision saying seriously to someone, “You just holler for help, and I’ll come arunnin’”? Do you like to use terms like “triangulation” and “extrapolation” when not speaking mathematically? Are you bold, would you say? Can you count in languages other than your mother tongue? Would you like for your life to be more, or less, dangerous than it is? Have you ever experienced any sort of hernia? Is baseball all it’s cracked up to be? Do people stink, mostly? Is there life on other planets, or after death on this one, as it were? Do you like stalling for time? Can you lob a grenade accurately, would you think? Are there interstices in your character?

Is it hard for you to resist the demands of whiny people? Have you ever wound an armature for an electric motor? Do you know precisely what a chilblain is? Do you bite your tongue or grind your teeth at night? Have you ever witnessed any credible sign of ghosts? Do you read a newspaper to discover what is going on or for other reasons? If you were now thirteen again, what would you do that you did not do when you were thirteen the first time, and what would you not do that you did? Do you own Allen wrenches? Does it seem to you that the phenomenon of people secretly drinking on the job has virtually disappeared? Have you ever dropped something like a box of books out a third-story window and found its impact inordinately funny? Do you prefer loose pants, to the point of slovenliness, or tight pants, to the point of dapperness? Are you thrilled by new automotive concepts? Can you execute a one-handed cartwheel?