Gordon Lish - Collected Fictions

But here's the capper, topper, pay-off.

Which is that where they made their residence, the Stevenses, when they first got together as marrieds and first set up housekeeping here in the city here, and which was where Mr. Weinman, the landlord/sculptor I was telling you about, got Elsie Stevens — O Elsie, Elsie, Elsie! — to sit for him for the coin thing I was just telling you about, that where that was, that where (according to a Holly Stevens footnote in the compilation of letters I was, wasn't I, just telling you about) all those goings-on were going on was three doors from the selfsame address where I, Gordon — O Gordon, Gordon, Gordon, shame! — pulled off the most lucrative of my — burgle, burgle — larcenies.

So will you look?

Will you just look at how far somebody will go for him to look as if he is not just any old nameless belatedness but — look, look! — an identifiably indictable one?

NUMBER ONE, I NEVER REALLY READ IT. So just so you know I never really did. I had a copy of it, yes — a cousin I hated gave me a copy of it, yes — but, no, this doesn't mean I really read it, does it? Because, no, I didn't. Granted, I went looking through it looking for the dirty parts in it because this cousin I hated who gave it to me said to me there's dirty parts in it. But I didn't have the patience. I wanted to find them, but I didn't have the patience. I just turned the pages looking for cunt and for tits and for so on. There were plenty of books where you could find cunt and find tits and had so on. There was one I had that was called Twelve Nights in a Moorish Harem that had cunt and that had tits in it and had so on. There were in it even things in it I can remember even all of these ages and ages after it, such as this person nailing this other person while the whole time the second one is up on her heels and is up her toes up on a cushion and so on. I beat off on that one lots of times. Whereas I beat off on his book maybe at the most, if that, only twice. It was the yes stuff in the back. It was all of this yes I said stuff way back in the back. It was all right, this yes I said yes I said stuff way back in the back. I hand it to the man for that. You've got to hand it to the man for that. For that and for the other thing after that — where the man says Trieste, Zurich, Paris, 1914–1921. That's all right. That I loved. I really absolutely really loved that. I had never heard of any places like that. Boys didn't hear so much about places like those kinds of places back when I was a boy. I'm serious. Not even about Paris. People were different. People weren't so, call it like, so international like. Well, I guess it depended on who your people were, didn't it? Mine weren't the kind. So I wasn't the kind. My cousin who gave it to me, the cousin I probably didn't hate so much as just didn't like so much, he must have been more the kind I'm talking about — hearing of Paris, having heard of Paris, a pretty international specimen, him. But the other two outfits, forget it, you would have had to have been way more international than was anybody in any way related to me could have been for you to have heard of either of those. Jesus — Trieste, Zurich. Even just pronounce them, just the business of pronouncing. So it sort of really made this really sort of hideous, you'd call it, cruel impression on me, this thing the man wrote at the end of the book even after all of the yes I said I said yes that is at the end of it before that. I mean this other thing — at the really end of it — this Trieste, Zurich, Paris, 1914–1921 I've been sitting here carrying on so much about. So that I twice sat there after just beating off just looking at that — my heart thumping all around with itself with what it must be for a fellow to come along and say to people a thing like that — say where he was matters because that's where he was, say so now here's the book I brought back from it, so like it or lump it. That's something — how you just sit down and say to them look, you people, look. So this is how come Scranton, Schenectady, Bayonne, 5:51 p.m-5:59 p.m. shows up at the back of one of the books that are my books. Plus then, just to beat the pants off him, just to show the Micks this is one Yid that can go them one better than one of the Micks could — so this is how come I go ahead and stick on another one after that one — namely, Akron, Akron, no time flat. Hey, two of them for his one of them! Better still, just to go them all even one better better still, this here right here is your official goddamn final notice those ones are hereby amended to read Nowhere, Nothing, not even writ. So, okay, so how's that? Which, for your information, I just decided just writing here with my foot up. Which, for your further information, I just this instant decided sitting writing with my foot up on a stool with a pillow up under it. Man oh man, how I would just love to see some Mick come try writing anything sitting with a foot up on a stool with anything up under it. Did he ever? No, he never! There is not one Mick anywhere who could do it. You could go look high and low for the Mick who could do it and not find even a gymnast who could. And don't try to hand me any crap about his eyes. I don't want to hear from you any crap about his eyes. He is not the first one with eyes. There have been plenty of them with eyes. Whereas a foot is a foot. Plus which, it is from guess what. It is from this tremendous walk I took. I walked all around the block. Which is how come this foot. Plus talk about you going them all of them one better — did I see one thing to come home and sit down and write one thing about? I did not even have a stinking lousy what you could call like a true-to-life experience. The whole walk, no, all the whole walk all I was ever thinking about was, you know, was cushion versus pillow. Please, you can't be any fucking James Joyce and answer any word versus any word like that one. It's you're either a Gordon Lish or skip it. On top of which, don't you dare try to sit there and tell me the day ever dawned when no could not take yes by a country mile — as witness who's got the hard-on now?

Not a thing about scumbags in general but about the scumbags in particular of my father, which I come across sneaking around inside of his sock drawer looking for money or something or looking for some kind of terrific unexpectable discovery or something and which are in this orange-colored box which is as orange-colored-looking of an orange as you will ever, I do not personally care who you are, as you will ever in all of your life see, and which are not, please notice, not called Trojans and are not called Rameses and are not called anything like that — like Sheiks, for instance, like Sheiks — but which are called merely just bluntly called Kaps, which are just called this like peppy little name of Kaps, which it turns out it is because when I take one for Arnie and for me to use the two of us on Fat Shirley, which it turns out when I take a deep breath for myself and then go ahead and take one of these scumbags called Kaps for me and for Arnie for us to use the two of us the next time we can get Fat Shirley talked into maybe doing it with us, which it turns out that what I find out is that what they do is they just go over only the, you know, like only over the knuckle of it, which means in my case that for me to keep it from coming off of me when I am actually with Fat Shirley going to town with it and so on, which means in my case yanking it all of the way down on my business as far as it will keep going, which in truth, in truth, which is right down to the root of it in truth.

So this is the story — Arnie and me each getting to do it once to Fat Shirley twice apiece both with the same scumbag, us meanwhile getting it washed out in the ocean in between these two different uses both apiece for each of us — because, hey, this is — didn't I tell you? — this is, you know, doing it on the beach. Which is terrible, terrible — the wind never quitting for a single lousy stinking rotten instant — and the sand.