Gordon Lish - Collected Fictions

All right, why an eight?

Eights are wild. This is why an eight. It can always "be" an eight.

But do I have an eight?

No, I do not have an eight.

Moreover, if I had an eight, it would be smarter not to play the eight — no, no, no, not at this "stage" of the game.

I mean that when this "stage" of the game is the beginning "stage" of the game.

Ah, but what if I had three eights?

Or all four eights?

In other words, what if I had in my hand such a supply of eights that it might not do incorrigible harm to my long-term prospects for me to spend spendthriftly from my copia of eights?

But skip it.

I have no surplus of eights.

To be sure, what I reckon myself to have in my hand is not even one goddamn eight.

Ah — so what do I do?

Yes, yes, yes, what do I do?

Play a seven? Play a diamond? Yes, yes, yes, these are possible plays — a seven, a diamond — either of these is a possible play, is it not?

But one must have the one or have the other in one's hand, must one not?

I mean I must.

But I do not.

So now what, now what?

I'm sevenless and diamondless, not to mention eightless — so, as I said, now what?

All right, the answer is I pick.

I may — or must — pick.

I can "go pick," taking from the "deck" cards in hopes of my coming upon a playable card.

Meaning, taking cards from the aggregate of cards not dealt when the cards were, you know, dealt.

In other words, that's the "deck," the undealt cards.

The thirty-eight cards.

Because, at this "stage" of the game, the "deck" is constituted of the result achieved when fourteen is taken away from fifty-two, given that neither of us has thus far been made to "go pick" — is this not correct?

Yes, this is correct.

But now I, your opponent, must "go pick."

All right, I pick the jack of hearts.

No good.

I pick the deuce of clubs.

No good.

I pick the eight of spades.

Ah.

Ahhh.

An eight!

But do I use it? Do I "play" it?

No, no, no, eights are wild, or eights are "wild," but let their "wildness" be held in reserve.

I pick again.

This will be my fourth pick.

I ask you, I ask you, how many picks is one permitted when one must "go pick"?

The answer is five.

The rule is this — when a player "goes and picks," the pickable limit of cards is five.

I pick.

I have picked.

The four of diamonds!

Thank God.

All right, I play the four of diamonds. The other cards that I have picked, the jack, the deuce, the eight, these all get stored, placed, preserved — in my hand, or in my "hand." Whereas I play, have played, can play the diamond "on" your diamond.

Good.

Your turn to play.

You search your "hand."

You see in it — rulingly — a diamond.

Yes, yes, but what if the set screw is stuck?

All right, let us suppose the set screw, so-called, is stuck, is "frozen," as they say — what then?

Or, "then what"?

Look at it this way — you arrive at the cemetery.

Everyone trudges, everyone traipses, everyone trundles inside — where there is a frosted window at which, it is plain, one applies. Or, let us say, goes to, stands at, stares into, and lightly agitates the bell that is there for you to summon the cemeterian assumed to be inside.

Good.

"You are?" the fellow says.

One answers, "Lish, the child of, the brother of, the husband of — what difference?"

Ah, but suppose the set screw had come undone.

Or that you had played "the" seven of spades.

Or that I had not been the "dealer."

But it did not and you did not and I was .

TAKE EGG. Boil until hard-cooked. Crack shell. Hold under running water. Remove shell. Set shell aside. Peel away white. Set white aside. Use heel of spoon to mash yolk in midsize mixing bowl. Add one teaspoon heavy cream, one tablespoon granulated sugar, one teaspoon confectioners' sugar, three teaspoons almond extract, dash salt. Blend until blended consistency has been achieved. Set mixture aside. Take half cup shortening, two cups sifted flour, one teaspoon salt, four tablespoons ice water. Press with fork. Melt two sticks unsalted butter and fold in. Add two teaspoons vanilla extract. Shake in ground cinnamon and nutmeg to taste. Cover with dampened towel and set aside in warm, dry place. Core eight apples. Cream three bananas. Take one cup sour cream, half cup sweet cream, quarter cup molasses. Blend three tablespoons dark brown sugar with quarter cup unsalted butter. Add half teaspoon baking powder. Turn when bubbles appear. Set mixture aside. Heat bacon drippings, peanut oil, and corn oil in shallow frypan. Drain excess onto brown paper bag. Pour remainder into buttered casserole. Sprinkle with paprika. Pat dry. Remove from pan. Allow milk to "billow." Cut in four servings of finely chopped cabbage. Put seven egg yolks, two pints buttermilk into large mixing bowl. Beat until ingredients are thoroughly moistened. Resolve butter while gradually adding sugar. Add egg mixture to hot milk in saucepan. Set aside and take two tablespoons strained orange juice and eight-ounce jar apricot preserves. Cut pecans coarsely. Pour and spoon into prepared pan. Add half cup condensed milk, half cup evaporated milk, whole cup skim milk. Cook until substance has clarified. Let cool before refrigerating. Then bring gently to boil. Stir in apples and "shave" top with well-chilled knife. Beat vigorously until thick. Set this aside. Crush four vanilla beans with curd mallet. Divide with scissors into one-inch pieces. Transfer mixture to baking tin. Core more apples. Fold in eggs. Fold in pecans. Beat until stiff. Where's your cooked egg white? Don't forget your cooked egg white! Cut shortening into safflower oil. Remove cabbage from double boiler. Steam and then spread until surface is crumbly. Beat with whisk. Set aside. To begin sauce, take one quart okra, two pints tomatoes, two chopped onions, salt and pepper to taste. Take off skin and slice thin. Shake until greens are engulfed. Combine and keep beating. Prepare greased sheet. Allow contents to regroup. Dice and remove grated walnuts. Mixture is "ready" when peaks appear. Set aside and boil without stirring. Is it brittle? Discard and start again if brittle. What happened to vanilla beans? Crush more vanilla beans. Take creamed bananas. Pat dry. Remove from bowl. Lift gently. Combine. Fold back towel. You dampened it, didn't you? Didn't you dampen it? You didn't, you didn't, you didn't dampen it! You took this for a joke and didn't fucking dampen it, did you? See the brittleness? Weren't you warned? You were warned, weren't you?

Take egg.

No, forget it — don't take egg.

Go get eight pounds stewing meat.

Hack away gristle.

Hack away suet.

Rip out bone.

DEAR, DEAREST PEARL,

Just a note to say how sorry I am I cannot be with you to visit with you before you turn two days old. The trouble is I'm sort of snowed in up here in a northerly city and they're saying there won't be any way out of it for me for a while. It makes me feel just awful to have to be kept away from you like this. Your mother and dad called on up here last night to pass along to me the news about you being in the world with us and all. I'm glad. I'm so glad. It's just terrible the way the weather way up here is keeping me away from you. I never saw such weather — snow, snow, snow! — and the wind blowing it past my window with such meanness. How is it wind can get like this, so wild and nasty and mean? I'm not only way up here in this northerly city, I'm way up high in this hotel. Maybe the wind wouldn't be so bad if my room were on a lower floor — or maybe it just wouldn't seem to me to be so bad — everything, the wind, the cold. I mean, maybe the wind would seem to blow the snow by slower or something. I don't know. I'm just miserable about the whole thing, me stuck here like this up here like this, and you down there getting ready to be a day older without me there to sit in there with you on the passing of the time. It's probably warm where you are — indoors, inside, all that sort of thing of being okay. I'm indoors too, I'm inside too, but it feels pretty terrible to me in this room. God, Pearl, it's so white outside. I never saw it so white outside. But you know what? When I get up close to the window, I can see there is a skating rink down outside there out across a kind of park out there just opposite from the hotel I'm in here over on this side of this hotel. Can you believe it, people skating when it's weather like this? There's a lot of them out there, it looks to me like, going around and going around. It looks easy the way they're doing it, but I bet you it isn't — what with so much wind and so much cold and so much snow and so on. Imagine it, your feet freezing in your skates and the wind getting you right in the face every time you make your turns. But none of them, those skaters, there is not a blessed one of them who is not showing off anything but the greatest of ease to me from way up here in this hotel. Of course, I'm way up. It's such a high floor I'm way up on. Oh, Pearl, dear Pearl, this hotel couldn't be a bigger one if it tried. What made them ever want to make such a big hotel way up here so crazy, crazy north? But I suppose nobody way up here can really tell what it's really like way down there in the rink. Maybe it's not so bad. Maybe I am just making it sound bad because I do not know what else for me to say. I guess they're probably having fun, all of them, the skaters in the world. They're going around. I can hardly see them the way you can hardly see people from here. But they are skating, don't you fret. It's the white. It's the snow flying and whiting everything out — or whiting it way down anyhow — making everything seem so faraway-seeming. It is like a dream. Did you know my mother's dead? Did you know my father's dead? Did you know my sister's dead? Pearl, dear Pearl, dearest Pearl, I know you are not even two days old yet and I know it is probably not the best thing for me to be sitting here saying to you anything about dead people yet, but I just wanted for you to hear it first from me — my mother's dead, my father's dead, my sister's dead — and lots of other people, they are all of them dead too. There are so many dead other people. They died of different things. And I had the idea I should tell you. If I get another idea I think you should hear me tell you, I think I will do it, okay? But this is it for the time being. Plus saying hello to you and saying welcome to you and saying I love you to you. Just this one other thing, Pearl, dearest Pearl. I really like the name your mother and dad gave you. I mean, it's got a lot in it for a name, I think. It goes, I think it goes with all these things I'm seeing in the world today — and thinking of today and missing so bad, so bad, so bad today. Pearl, Pearl — I am just saying your name. I hope you're warm. I hope everybody's warm. If you ever go skating, be careful — oh, please. Get something bright and put it on. How about a red scarf or something like that? Or it could be a red cap. Then maybe people won't bang into you maybe — and then maybe everybody will be certain to be able to see you and to keep seeing you and to never stop seeing you — even from a long way off. Oh, and another thing, Pearl — keep going, Pearl — don't stop going, Pearl, don't ever stop going, Pearl — because otherwise what will happen is they will come and they will come and they will bump you from behind as if you had not ever been — or are or were — there.