Gordon Lish - Collected Fictions

I said, "There's someone across the street. He's trying to jimmy open cars. Just please keep behaving as if you do not see him."

My daughter said, "Where? I don't see him."

I PUT MY DAUGHTER to bed and the hospital charges on my desk, and then I let my head down on the pillow and listened.

There was nothing to hear.

Before I surrendered myself to sleep, there was only this in my mind — the boy in the treatment room across the corridor from my daughter's, how I had wanted to cry out each time the boy had cried out as a stitch was sutured into his hand.

"Take it out! Take it out!"

This is what the boy was shrieking as the surgeon labored to close the wound.

I thought about the feeling in me when I had heard that awful wailing. The boy wanted the needle out. I suppose the needle hurt worse than the wound the needle would repair. Then I considered the statement for emergency services, translating the amount first into theater tickets, then into shirts ironed and returned to you on hangers instead of inside those awful bags.

Jaydeezie darling,

dear cutie fellow,

my wonderful son Jerome,

YOU WILL DO ME A FAVOR and answer me this question, please God it should not be for you too much trouble for you to do it. So you will take all of two seconds and you will tell me, Jerome, since when did you hear of a civilized person which gets rid of a perfectly good unlisted and then goes and gets on top of it another one? Also, darling, assuming you could see your way clear to fit it into your busy schedule, you will inform me as to the whys and wherefores of how come the same aforementioned individual couldn't exhibit the simple courtesy to first communicate to his own father the particulars with regard to the necessary digits. So this is asking too much, Jerrychik? I mean, first and foremost your father wants your assurance he is not causing you too big of a perturbance. Listen, you will be a sport and you will take all of two seconds and you will list for me the reasons for this behavior. Because to tell you the truth, pussycat, in my personal opinion, I think your father is entitled to hear an explanation.

I am waiting, darling. God willing, you will go into private conference with your heart of hearts and think the whole thing over and advise me as to your decision. So you could do this for me, cutie fellow? Because I your father am meanwhile sitting here on pins and needles expecting. Make yourself a promise that in a voice which is calmness itself you will pick up the telephone for the sole and exclusive purpose of advising I your father whether you decided in your mind if this is the behavior of a civilized person.

Meanwhile, who could help himself but to think along the lines of a certain possible conjecture? So plunge a dagger into my breast for giving serious consideration to the following theory, but are we dealing here with a situation where the party of the first part says to himself, "The phone rings and I pick it up, it could be the party of the second part trying to communicate with me, but could he do it if I get another new unlisted?"

So go ahead and plunge a dagger, Jerome, because what your father just told you is more or less along the lines of your father's personal thinking. And may I inform you, darling, that the father who is doing this thinking is also the same father who all of two seconds ago only wanted in his heart of hearts to say hello to you and wish his cutie fellow Happy High Holidays?

Sonny boy, I will tell you something. You got my permission to stab me in a vital organ for passing comment, but I want for you to hear with your own two ears my appraisal of the foregoing situation. Because the answer is it's not nice. Jerome, when I see behavior like this, I have to say to myself it is not nice. And thank God I still got the strength in my body for me to say it. But don't look at me, Jerome — because your father did not make the rules, sweetie, even if the rule is it is definitely not.

And so long as we are discussing the philosophy in this particular department, Jerome, I will tell you something else. Objectively speaking, in my personal opinion your whole area code should be ashamed of itself to have an operator that's got the unmitigated gall to say to a senior citizen get lost. Because in so many words, darling, this is just what the snip up there in 603 said. For shame, Jerome, for shame! And to a person of your father's years and age.

Are you listening to me, darling? To your own flesh and blood a total stranger says get lost! So tell me, boychik, this is what they teach them in your area code? Or did this person get some coaching from a mutual party of our acquaintance who at this juncture I your father will go ahead and leave unnamed? In so many words, take a walk? I want you to tell me, Jerome, what kind of a creature says take a walk to the father of the child? Because I hope I do not have to remind you that the father who heard these words said to him is also the same father who would lay down his life for his cutie boy, please God I should only be alive and well to do it when you got nothing better planned and you decide in your mind it is time for you to ask.

Look, Jerrychik, if God makes a miracle and you find the strength to call me, who knows, maybe you could afford to take an extra two seconds to give me the figures on what it costs you in so many dollars and cents to get an operator to talk like this to a person of my advanced years and age, never mind if I told her it was an emergency and also that the party in question is also my very own child. Listen, would the woman divulge the first digit? You are down to her on your hands and knees to her, but is this a normal area code with a single shred of human decency?

Boychik, I am sitting here and I am thinking certain thoughts to myself. So are you interested in the nature of your father's current thinking? Because the answer is if a certain person wants to be a hermit, well and good — then let him go live where they don't have even an area code to begin with. But barring this contingency, I say that so long as you continue to maintain your permanent residence in 603, I think that I your father have a perfect right to be informed as to the rest of the particulars after these three digits!

Tell me, cutie person, did you ever stop to consider all of the ramifications of the situation we are dealing with here? So stop to think and tell me what if, for instance, it was a question of in sickness or in health? I want you to think about this, Jerome. I want you to consider it very carefully. They come in here and they shoot your father in the head. So like any normal person, I rush to the telephone to call you up and tell you the news. But what is the upshot in the situation we are considering? What is in this case the net result? Believe me, your father did not have to pick up and go to college to describe to you what you get when you look at the net result. Because the answer is it's some snip up there in 603 which says to me when I am bleeding to death in so many words get lost!

Okay, so don't excite yourself, Jerrychik.

I promise you, all is forgiven, all is forgotten. And besides, it was only for the sake of argument I said it could be a question of in sickness or in health. So far they didn't come in here yet and shoot me yet. All right, you never know, but so far they didn't. Meanwhile, thank God it was only a question of hello and good-bye, my sonny boy should live and be well. I give you my written guarantee, Jerome, this is all your father had scheduled for the agenda, Happy High Holidays and hello and good-bye. In two seconds flat, the whole deal would have been over and done with, and you know what? You would have lived to tell the tale!