Gordon Lish - Collected Fictions

THE WOMAN GIVES ME on the knee like a tap with her fingers and then she picks herself up and with another groan again she goes and checks on the things she put for her daughter in the machine, whereupon then the woman turns herself around to me and says to me, she says, "Your boy, tell me, are you telling me you got just the one son?"

But why should she wait for an answer?

I promise you, people know there is something which, whenever you look at a father's face, you don't need to ask another question.

"Sure, sure," she says, sticks in two more quarters in her dryer, then comes back to where she was in the first place and plunks herself down in the row of chained-down chairs with another new groan like the last one I forgot the meaning of already.

She says, "Pardon me, but do I still have your undivided attention? Because I know you got your own mind on your own kid and your own troubles, but you didn't hear yet what happened, which is the child goes down there, and it could not be more perfect — the weather, the service, the accommodations — everything is absolutely first-class, so all she has to do is jump into a bathing suit and start being the happiest girl in the whole wide world. But does she go sit around the pool like the other youngsters do so that maybe there might happen to arise a little excitement from whichever direction? The answer is no — the answer is the girl did not even begin to give herself credit. Instead, she drags herself all of the way out to the beach with the wind and with the sand, which is utterly unnecessary, and with a book which nobody ever heard of and with not even a little bag with her with at least a lipstick in it, not to mention she knocks herself out finding herself a place for her to sit herself which is as far away from everybody in humanity as is humanly possible and, lo and behold, this is how the girl spends the five days, the six days, whatever you actually get when they give you one week's free vacation, and not once, when all is said and done, not once does the girl have a single solitary conversation with a single solitary human being of any gender. She reads a book, and this is the entire nature of her entertainment, period, with the lone sole exception of this friend she makes, this little animal which comes running along the beach to her and which comes up to her, like she thinks like a little Mexican hairless or whatnot, like this tiny little dog like the bandleader, if you remember him, used to hide in his pockets, like a Chihuahua is what they call it, like two Chihuahuas in his pockets. So the whole first day, would the thing go away? Forget it, what it loves in this world is all of a sudden my unmarried daughter. It could not get enough of my own personal daughter — huggy-huggy, kissy-kissy, two permanent lovebirds from the first minute they laid eyes on each other. So naturally the next day the girl can't wait to get back out to the beach again, God forbid her friend should miss her for two minutes, and this time she's got with her what? Because the answer is a handbag. Do you hear this, a handbag! But for lipstick and mascara and eye shadow? Don't make me laugh. Because the answer is it is not for something serious but instead for the child to sneak her brand-new one-and-only in through the lobby and up in the elevator and for the rest of the whole vacation feed it scraps from the table and watch it sleep between two clean sheets in the bed with her like a person, please God it should not all night long have its little head on its own personal pillow. And why not? In all of the girl's whole life, aside from her mother, who ever paid her two seconds of attention before? But on the other hand, outside of her mother, tell me who ever got the chance! Even the girl's own father, may the man rest in peace, he had to hire an army every time he wanted the child to hold still so he could talk to her or get even in the light of day even a good look at her.

"SO NEXT COMES THE TERRIBLE CRISIS.

"Are you listening?

"Because time's up and now you have to gather yourself together and pack your luggage and face the facts that you threw away your one big chance and say so long to paradise. But could the girl even begin to tear herself away from the first real friend she ever in all her born days ever had? This thing, could the child just say to it this is it and this is it, now good-bye and good luck?

"Don't hold your breath.

"Weeks later, when she could first open up her mouth to even first begin to speak again, the child actually said to me, ‘Mother, I am telling you I would have eaten poison before I could have left it behind. Do you here me? Poison! '

"Poison, some joke.

"Believe me, when you hear what's coming, you will say to yourself the same as me, ha ha, poison, this is a good one, this is some good joke, poison.

"So don't ask me why, but this is how determined the girl is, because even with all of the reasons nobody in a million years could get away with it, the answer is she did. All the way back to New York, right past all of the big shots with all of their badges and everything, and then right out of the airport past the customs and the rest of it, and then right back here into this same building right here where, God love him, I know, I know, your child has got his own problems too, your own lifelong heartache has got his problems too, what with all of his gorgeous costumes and with his window dressing and who also rents a nice dwelling in the building — from Acapulco to New York, here comes my Deedee, my Deedee, with her beloved!

"But as soon as it gets here, would it eat? Could she get it to do anything but drink water? Maybe the airplane ride gave it an upset stomach, who knows? — meanwhile all it wants is water and to lay around and vomit, and it wouldn't even touch a single morsel or have the strength to play with her or even let her kiss it. So by now the girl is thoroughly beside herself with panic — she is so frantic the child cannot even see straight — so what does she do but pick the thing up and wrap it up in a towel because it is cold out and God forbid her adorable darling should catch a chill and get any worse off than it already is — and like a maniac she runs out into the street with it — like a crazy woman she runs to go find the dog-and-cat doctor which is up the block from here after you pass the big Shopwell in the middle of the block.

"God bless him, the man can see with his own two eyes the girl is positively hysterical — so he quick puts everything to one side and takes her right in, says to her, ‘Sit, wait,' he'll be right back with his diagnosis, first he's got to get out his instruments, first he's got to examine, the child meanwhile shrieking, ‘Don't hurt him, please don't hurt him!'"

The woman looks at me and she says to me, "So did you hear me with both ears — instruments, examine — don't hurt him, please don't hurt him, please?"

She gives her chest a grab like there is gas inside of it, and she says to me, "Go check your machine — there's time yet — because with problems like ours, who are we kidding, where do we think we are running?"

YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW a storyteller like this one? I promise you, I myself in this department was not exactly born yesterday, these people with their teasings, with their winks, with their punch lines. But by the same token, who wanted to offend such a person? Because, for one thing, you never know when you might require the company, and meanwhile let us not forget who else of my acquaintanceship also makes his residence in the very building and could always use a friendly neighbor's mother with an open-minded opinion. So this I can give you every assurance of, I myself did not intend to go burn up any bridges behind me.

This is why I got up and felt inside of the dryer — even though I did not even have to actually touch anything to see that they all had for them a little way still to go yet. And then, like a perfect gentleman, I come back and I sit down and I signify to the woman I am all ears and at her beck and call whenever she is ready to please continue. But strictly between you and me, so far as punch lines go, in all of history they still never invented a second one.