Gordon Lish - Collected Fictions

Because we are what?

Arnie and me, my buddy Arnie and me, or maybe my cousin Arnie and me, we are probably at this stage in our histories at the age of fourteen to fourteen and a half stage of years in our histories, which is how come you did not have any selection but for you to take the chance of swiping one of these Kaps of your father's for you the both of you to go try and use it on somebody inasmuch as do I have to tell you you could not in those times back all of those ages ago just go dancing into every drugstore you wanted to and just go waltz right up to them and just say to them in those times to them may I please, if you please, have a jimmy for me to do it with somebody please?

You couldn't.

Because this was taking place — Fat Shirley and me and Arnie — at the time period in our history when are you kidding? — you couldn't. Whereas I know I am not required to tell you nowadays the situation, it could not be more, you know, with respect to people being enlightened and having, in this regard, undergone enlightenment, could it possibly be more different for people — in the sense of youngsters shvantzing and so on?

Or for me as a private issue privately?

No kidding, no kidding — because there has suddenly come about for me like this private enlightenment for me — the fact of what it was — Kaps, the Kaps — which they were there for. In other words, the fact that that is what it was which the Kaps were there in the drawer for — that what it was, that what it was, that it was not for Fat Shirley nor for Cousin Arnie nor for me to come stand there and stand there and do it or not do it but for him to come when he wanted to come stick them on when he wanted — orange on the knob of it! — you hear me, orange, orange! — then turn around for him to stick one after another of them — but once not any of them — up inside my mother.

Homage to Katherine Mansfield

I'M NOT APOLOGIZING. You can sit there and snort in disgust all you want, I am not apologizing. You think I don't realize the rep I get from telling jokes and from trying to get away with the claim the jokes are stories? Look, it's not going to kill me, what people say about me — or, hah, think. I am unimpressed. I am, as a result of unimpression, unapologetic. I like telling jokes. I like getting the jokes into print under the impression the jokes are stories. I probably even like getting myself complained about for it. Besides which, I just finished reading the biggest novel I ever read and it had more jokes in it than I ever had anywhere in any of anything I ever wrote and what do you want to bet me the writer of the novel isn't doing any apologizing either? Why apologize? The joke-haters hate you anyway. Okay, enough preambling. I preamble one more instant, it's going to start sounding as if I am saying I am sorry for something, whereas the only thing I am saying I am sorry for is for not being a big enough writer for me to be more impressed with myself. Here's a joke. Joke is Schmulevitz. Doc says to Schmulevitz say your prayers, Schmulevitz, close the books, you're lucky if you live until morning. Schmulevitz says until morning? Doc says at the outside. Doc says until bedtime you can definitely count on, until morning is definitely only at the outside. Doc says unless you get some mother's milk — then maybe until morning's a sure thing for you. So on the way home to tell Mrs. Schmulevitz it's only until bedtime as far as a guarantee, Schmulevitz sees a woman with in her lap an infant which is doing guess what. So Schmulevitz starts starting over to her, but forget it, he can't do it, it's too crazy, it's too humiliating, it's too embarrassing, so he's going home again, he's turned around going home again when he hears the woman say mister? Schmulevitz turns back around and says to her me? The woman says to Schmulevitz oh, I don't know, you look like such a nice old gentleman, was there something you wanted? Schmulevitz says to her listen, as a matter of fact I'll tell you. So Schmulevitz tells her and the woman says hold the baby and get up here and it's okay with me, fine, maybe two minutes, maybe three minutes, what you need you'll get, what you get you'll take, so if you have to have you'll have. So one thing leads to another and, lo and behold, his time is all up and the woman burps Schmulevitz and puts him back down on the pavement and takes back the baby from him and says to Schmulevitz is there anything else? And Schmulevitz says to her anything else? And the woman says to Schmulevitz yes, anything else? And Schmulevitz says to the woman no, no, I just wanted to say to you you never in a million years would a woman like you ever know what you have done for a person like me, this Schmulevitz I am, never, never, because such a favor, because such a terrific favor, a blessing, for your information, an unbelievable blessing, for your information, because life, because like life itself, because like life itself was what you just did for me, yet who would believe me, such a woman like you! That's nice, says the woman. Happy to help you out, says the woman — but so, says the woman, so are you positive there is nothing else? Whereupon Schmulevitz says to the woman no, no, there is nothing, there is not anything — unless you wouldn't maybe possibly happen to have like maybe a cookie with you, would you?

Now tell me, go ahead and tell me, since when does anybody have to apologize for a thing like that? Plus which, if you say it's not a story I'm telling you, then if that's what you say, then isn't it you're saying it's a thing which in real life happened that I am telling you? So in this event, so then maybe it's you who should be the person who's saying you're sorry — shooting your mouth off making trouble for the truth.

Or what about when Schmulevitz gets home and says to Mrs. Schmulevitz, sweetheart, sweetheart, let's you and me go make a night of it, let's you and me, the two of us, go get on our Richard Tucker and go out downtown on the town and paint the town red tonight. So Schmulevitz says to Mrs. Schmulevitz like crazy people, like lunatics, we'll eat, we'll drink, we'll dance until we drop and maybe not until dawn would we even begin to get home because listen, listen, I went and heard the doctor say to me just two minutes ago, the man says to me Mr. Schmulevitz, he says to me, I can write you a guarantee you got maybe until suppertime but more than this it's iffier and iffier and probably by sunup tomorrow it's bye-bye. Whereupon Mrs. Schmulevitz says to Schmulevitz, she says to him yeah, sure, it's fine for you, get cockeyed, go knock yourself out, go run around all night like a nut, but may I please with your permission beg to remind you just exactly who it is who is going to have to shlepp herself up out of bed in the morning?

Enough.

That's enough for you.

You don't deserve my brilliant stories.

It's killing me, a broken heart, and you, you mobster, you are the last person who is getting himself exonerated just because you hate Jews or just because you hate jokes or anyway because you hate seriousness, seriousness, gravitas.

Here, you want gravitas?

I'll give you gravitas!

The big novel I just read, the manuscript?

Fourteen hundred fourteen pages long! Can you believe it, fourteen hundred pages long? Yet even with this lucky number, yet even with the lucky number, the joke-meister, the joke-meister, from laughter, from laughter, from genius , for Christ's sake — first he lived and then he died.

YOU KNOW LIKE A READER? Make believe you're like this reader. And you, you know, you're, you're as a consequence, you're turning these pages. Like you've been turning and turning like all of these pages when they all of a sudden go suddenly go all blank on you. You know what I mean? Like suddenly you come to a page that all of a sudden goes suddenly all blank on you. Except it's like there is no actual all-blank page anywhere there in front of you, is there? — seeing as how there is always going to be like a little something everywhere, even if it is only like a clavus that is, or a nevus or a noma or the trace of where a nevus or a noma was.