Gordon Lish - Collected Fictions

"So you say you killed somebody?" says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "Well, sure," says Mrs. Feigenbaum, "you were probably on your way home from your office with all the cash in your pocket and there's these robbers which come along to get your cash from you, so what could a human being do, what could anybody do, didn't you have to take the bull by the horns?"

"Nah," says Schmulevitz, "it wasn't any robbers, it was my wife. I killed my wife."

"No kidding," says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "Your wife," says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "You say you killed your wife?" says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "But, look, the hussy was probably driving you crazy and making a sick man of you, constantly never putting a meal on the table in front of you, constantly always with the get me this, with the get me that, with always running you ragged all over the place with the constant eating out every night and with the constant dancing all of the time right up until dawn every night."

"Nah," says Schmulevitz, "she never asked for nothing. Meals, meals, this person in the kitchen was like an angel. What a wonderful creature," says Schmulevitz. "This was the world's most wonderful creature," says Schmulevitz. "Nobody ever had a better beloved creature," says Schmulevitz. "So like who could tell you like what gets into me, one minute this honey of a sweetie pie is saying to me darling, darling, what a terrific husband you are, the next minute I am giving this woman such a smack with an axe."

"Oh," says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "Oh, so I see," says Mrs. Feigenbaum. "So listen," says Mrs. Feigenbaum, "so like doesn't this mean you are probably like, you know, like a single fella, right?"

Okay, great or not?

So face it, so maybe not so great.

But pretty good, but pretty darned good — or, anyhow, pretty goddamned good enough for the likes of you, pal — which is like somebody who cannot even be one hundred percent honest about who is a regular laugh riot and who definitely is not.

MY IDEA IS THAT I will maybe not lie a lot or anyhow not too much of a lot if I can maybe keep myself from saying one more word than needs must be said, not including the matter of my not having to sometimes say sometimes definite, sometimes indefinite articles, particles one needs must not be all that bothered about, but hear you, hear you, for I, widower, say, "Bother the unbother! Begger it! Bugger it!" Which is really pretty darn interesting when you really stop to really think about it — the orthography of the three of them, the syllabification of the three of them, not to mention which course among them it went when they came — mild to harsh, harsh to mild — or was it came they when it went? In either case, wife used to — from time to time — wife used to reach to earth, used to reach to it and then give evidence of her having snatched therefrom something up from it, used to thereafter seem to study seeming site of same in hand, used to then turn hand over and thence clench and unclench as if cleaning from it what had perhaps once been a presence therein within it.

"Well, sir — what's that?" wouldst say I.

"Crinoid," wouldst sayest she.

Or I keep thinking old stancher, old stodger, was it, what was it the woman was saying to you — was it spelt crynoid must she needs have said?

But never not until now had ever thought was it never aught or other but a word at all.

FIRST OF ALL, I am sorry this story takes place in a subway because I know I have told some stories I have said took place in a subway, but I am sorry, I am sorry, because the subway is where this story really does take place and I do not think it is the kind of story where you would want to fool around with the place where it took place just because it happened to have been the same place where you told people some other stories did. That is: take or took place.

Second of all, I am sorry it has to be such a quick story but this is another thing — the fact that the story was, in real life, quick, plus the fact that I just do not think, I honestly do not — okay, here we go again, here is my thinking again — that it would be the right thing for me to do if I were to fool around with how long a story it actually was just because of people and of what they expect from you as far as how long and so forth.

Third of all, let's get going, okay? — because it's late and I am knocked out and there is no reason for us to go overboard with this and I'd really like to get to bed.

I GET ON the subway at the place where I usually get on, which is Ninety-sixth. I only mention the number to you — come on, what good are numbers in stories, right? — only because this way you can see how stuck I am with how long the story has to be — since it goes from Ninety-sixth Street to Fifty-first Street, which is the distance I have to go to go from my place — the place where I live, this is — to the place where I work.

Isn't distance the same thing as time or something?

Anyway, what isn't?

When you really get right down to it — to time — is there anything which isn't?

Which is the point about the nun.

You take one look at her — I couldn't miss doing it because, first of all, the nun is sitting almost right straight across from me and because, second of all, the nun has the most beautiful face which I have ever seen — you take one look at her and you cannot stop looking at her.

The nun.

But she will not look back at me.

She will not look at anybody that I can see.

The thing I notice after I notice how beautiful the face of the nun is is that the nun will not look at anybody that I can see.

What I can see is that the nun is looking more or less in front of the tips of her shoes, which are black, of course, and which are clamped down flat on the floor right straight out in front of her, of course.

Then at Eighty-sixth Street there is a woman which gets on and which starts carrying on like a beggar.

Begging.

I don't have to tell you.

It is a public occurrence.

Asking everybody for everything you can ask for.

The thing of it is that she gets herself, the beggar does, set up right straight in front of the nun.

But the nun never looks up to see.

The nun is instead looking at the place, which I have told you is the place which is more or less the place in front of her shoes.

The nun's.

This means where the beggar lady is standing is, call it, one place away.

THE NUN IS NOT looking at anything but at what she is looking at — except, please, please, am I in any position to tell you if the nun is actually seeing anything of what the nun is looking at?

I am not in any position like that.

Anyway, I figure the nun, if she gets off before I get off, I will see her probably at least maybe touch the arm of the woman begging or see her touch the wrist of the woman begging — maybe whisper to the woman a blessing, if this is what nuns do, whisper blessings to women begging, or whisper to the whole wide world, "Come with me and I will see you are fed and bathed and given comfort and so forth and so on — bed, blanket, clean sheets to sleep inside of and all your woes undone."

But she didn't.

The nun got off at Fifty-ninth Street and never put her hand out to lay it upon anyone, least of all upon the lady in want.

Did I tell you she had a little valise with frer and that off with it she went, the nun?

Me, I go the rest of the way to Fifty-first and then get off at Fifty-first. It is my usual routine per usual — Ninety-sixth Street to Fifty-first Street, day in and day — Jesus, Jesus — out.

Anyway, here's the story.

That I would have followed the nun anywhere if I thought she would have let me — especially after the look I see she has on her that I saw on her when the nun went past me and then went out of the subway with her little valise.