Gordon Lish - Collected Fictions

My sister gets back on and says, "No one is saying this is easy for you. Do you think it is easy for me? But things do not get done without plans being made, and things have to get done within no time at all, do you hear?" My sister says, "I have to make certain calls. People have to be called. I am trying to call people and get things taken care of without causing Mother any undue excitement or any additional upset." My sister says, "Consider your mother's health. The woman is not young. The woman is totally devoid of any reserves of energy to draw from should, God forbid, worst come to worst. So don't make worst come to worst. Try to appreciate the fact that the woman is at her wit's end. The woman has not one more shred of energy left over for anymore of your crap. So do I make myself clear? Or do I have to spell this out for you what I am saying to you when I say eighty-eight? Do I have to tell you what your mother has already been through today and she only just an hour ago woke up? So are we going to get your answer or are we going to have to scream ourselves hoarse? Because all your mother wants to know is if she and I are supposed to expect you to come down here or if we are not. So are we or aren't we? Or is it your instruction to us that we are to go ahead and plan your own father's memorial service without his beloved son being in prominent attendance? Is that what your instructions are?"

My mother says, "You don't have to do me any favors. You do not have to do anybody any favors. Do as you please. If you want to come, come — if you don't want to come, don't come — the world will go on very nicely with or without you. Your father does not require your presence if it is too big of a bother for you to come to the man when he really needs for you to be here in attendance here when he's dead."

My sister gets back on and says, "Is he listening to us? Is Mr. Stuck-up listening to us?"

My mother says, "It is not a necessity. There is no necessity. If you can't make it, you can't make it. Not everybody in the world can always be expected to just drop everything and run. I promise you, it is no disrespect if you couldn't make it. No one would accuse you of nothing. Your father would not accuse you of nothing. Your father would be the first person to tell you to do what you have to do if it is a question of prior business making a prior claim on you which couldn't be avoided at any cost. If it's business, don't give it a second thought. So which is it, business or not business? Because if it is business, then it's all well and good. Believe me, your father would be the first one to go along with the fact that not everybody has a situation where they can afford just at the drop of a hat to take time off from their business, come rain or come shine."

My sister says, "If it's the money, then maybe Mother can get you something out of savings and reimburse you when you get down here for whatever you had to lay out for it out of your own pocket. So talk to Mother, tell her what your situation is, tell her what you have in mind, make a clean breast of it with her and get it out on the table with her and I am sure a solution can be found and it will all work out. But if all it is is the ticket down and the ticket back, you could see who maybe has a special on right now for night flights if you left sometime tonight. So why don't you maybe call up around town and get the best price and then call us right back?"

My mother gets back on and says, "The man only wanted the best for his family." My mother says, "The man's every waking thought was for no one but his family." My mother says, "The man could never do enough for his family." My mother says, "The man never wanted one thing for anyone but his family." My mother says, "His family's happiness, this alone is what gave the man life." My mother says, "Wait a minute — not his family's happiness, but your happiness — yours, you, the professor, the poet, his darling, the cherished one, the son."

My sister says, "This has gone on long enough. I am not asking again. Yes or no? Either answer the question or forget about it, because I am hanging up."

My mother says, "It is no crime if you cannot come. No one is going to say that there should be a finger pointed at you if you cannot come. You come or you do not come, you only have to think it through and suit yourself."

My sister gets back on and says, "Don't kid yourself, it is a crime, it is a sin, it makes me sick to be his sister."

My mother gets back on and says, "I am just trying to think what would make the most sense for all parties and plus also for all persons concerned."

My sister gets back on and says, "Drop dead. He should do everybody a favor and drop dead. Did you hear what I just said to you? He makes me sick."

My mother gets back on and says, "Be nice. Children, do you hear me? Don't fight."

My sister says, "I am giving you one more chance." My sister says, "Do you want another chance?" My sister says, "As God is my witness, this is your last chance."

My mother says, "He's listening, he's listening." My mother says, "Don't worry, he's listening." My mother says, "Talk turkey to him, tell him what the situation is."

My sister says, "Your mother wants to hear your voice. Try to act like a human being. Is it possible for you to act like a human being? Let the woman hear your voice."

My mother says, "Talk to me, darling. I am listening, darling. Let me hear my darling talk."

My sister says, "Let him go ahead and drop dead. Stop begging him. Stop babying him. Stop pampering him. You know what would serve him right? If he hung up the phone and dropped dead, this would serve him right!"

My mother says to me, "Your father loved you like life itself." My mother says to me, "You know what your mother is saying to you when she says to you that your father loved you like life itself?"

My mother says to me, "Speak to me, sweetheart."

My mother says to me, "Talk to me, sweetheart."

My mother says to me, "Tell your mother what it is which is in her sonny boy's heart of hearts."

WHAT IS IN MY HEART of hearts?

There are not people in my heart of hearts.

There are just sentences in my heart of hearts.

So what was I to say to them?

Not to the locutions of discourse.

But to my mother and my sister.

Because I really honestly do not think there was any way for me to say to them why it was I was not answering what they said.

I mean, hey, let's not be ridiculous.

Because you can't just turn around and say to people — good God, not to your own most beloved loved — that you are too frantic to talk, that you are too frantic to think, that you are too frantic to pay anyone any attention, lest you fail to have made room in your heart for every word as word.

THIS IS A STORY ABOUT A MAN who was done in by a story, and by that, by done in, it is meant killed, done away with, finished, done for — all that. It is a very straightforward affair from its start to its end, the only question being this — is it, was it, made up? Oh, but no, no, no — the question is not whether this story is made up, but whether that one was, that one being the one our victim was dispatched by, for it was — and here is the nastiest spicule in the whole sorry business — a story he himself was the one who had told every chance he got.

And had he not?

But tell it he did, and over and over.

As we ourselves shall now have to do, to offer — wouldn't you know it? — the effect of effecting something, lest elsewise look inert for having not done so.

Behold.

This is the story the dead fellow was, true or false, both the origin of and the context for.

HE SAID JELLY APPLES were coming around and that he hurried to his father to get the money for one and that no sooner did he have the jelly apple and did bite of it then, lo, he set to choking his last upon it, but along came his brother who happened to notice and who got him by the belt and who hiked him up by the belt and who turned him over by the belt and who held him upside-down and who shook him good and proper, such shakings that what had got itself stuck down inside of him came right back up and fell back out of him, such that, by heaven, there our father was, restored to himself and right as any rain and thus a creature who was loving forever everlastingly of his brother.