Gordon Lish - Collected Fictions

To heck with the douche bag!

Consider the calamity banished.

Not one more peep concerning the ill-faring bearing of anything, let alone of the menagerie of language in the illeum.

Great gracious sakes, can they be known, the lengths — the lengths! — gone to get us hopped up onto our fingertips and run all the way the whole uncrossable length from the can to the room that's got — hooray! — the game, our game! — the sock rug in it?

As witness Master Littleness now straining to be the most daring of all in the fringe.

To quote, unquote turn.

Two-fingerly in it.

Beholding behind himself the illimitable wood.

The abyss of it with the blemish in it.

A.k.a. the floor.

O the derring-do of it!

As he does and derrs on it.

Skips and skips on it — referenceless.

Brrr.

And another thing — back there with the bullas it should have been "there're."

Yes.

No shit.

Brrr.

DON'T YOU DARE SIT THERE and act like you did not hear me asking you what was it which was going on out there, because I am telling you something was going on out there, there was something which was definitely was going on out there, you cannot tell me there was not something which was not definitely not going on out there out in front of 458 Broome, the two of them, what the hell were they doing, the two of them out in front of 458 Broome, these two fellows which are standing out there on the sidewalk out there in this funny standing-around way which they had of standing around in front of 458 Broome, which means out in front of this door which has like 458 stenciled on it in these various different numerals on it, the one of them, the first one of them coming up to it and looking to me like he was pushing the door buzzer in front of it at 458 while I myself am sitting across the street on the comfy bench they have out there for their customers to sit on outside of the Broome Street store across the street called Henry's Fine Foods Emporium, although not to jump to any conclusions about me and Henry's Fine Foods Emporium, please, because no, no, I am not a customer of Henry's Fine Foods Emporium in any strict sense of the word which you could like go ahead as a person and write a check on it and go take it to the bank with you, no, although yes, I had gone into it, yes, I had gone into Henry's Fine Foods Emporium, yes, I had hitherto or thitherto to my coming to sit myself down on the bench they have outside of it for their customers to come sit themselves on it, yes, I had hitherto or thitherto to that, yes, had, yes, gone inside of Henry's Fine Foods Emporium, I freely and openly do acknowledge the fact that, yes, I had hitherto or thitherto to that, that I had been inside of Henry's Fine Foods Emporium, yes, had gone inside of Henry's Fine Foods Emporium for me to check out the situation as to the fancy olives they have in there in these like polyurethane buckets or like these little like ceramic vats which they have in there displayed in there in this fancy-foods section they have in there for like, you know, for like olives, but okay, forget it, forget it, because, you know, it turned out like there is this Henry's Fine Foods Emporium like, you know, like this store personnel guy which is, let's just say, hovering around it in there in this kind of call it like a kind of custodial way in there probably like checking it out himself in there for like his own personal on-the-house handful of sample olives, or olive samples — so fine, so I just as cool as a cucumber just wheel myself around and do a like an about-face and figure okay, fine, I will go back outside for the time being and will like cool my jets for a while while this Henry's Fine Foods Emporium personnel guy has like cleared the fuck off from there and left me like, you know, like a wide enough berth for me at them in there — the olives, the olives — so, you know, so I can go back inside again and go try for some sample olives of my own again, which is how come I happen to be sitting on the bench in front of Henry's Fine Foods Emporium and therefore spot these two fellows outside of 458 Broome, and am, okay, and am asking you, and I am asking you nicely, please, I am asking you perfectly politely and nicely, please — would you please tell me what the fuck it was which was going on out there outside in front of 458 Broome?

Or do I have to bore us both to tears with like, you know, with like, Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, with like, you know, with like describing it?

God, I hate you and hate them and hate writing.

It's only olives I love.

Olives!

When they come at once and for no cost at all.

ARE YOU A LAWYER? Do you have a degree in the law? Are you a doctor of the law or of the laws? Do you have a doctor-of-the-laws degree? Or a degree in ministering to people in the public? Or in good citizenship or in doing good works or in looking after old ladies in wheelchairs in the street? Because I just told Mrs. Holiday Burn, B-U-R-N, I would go get her somebody to. I just gave my promise to this old lady in a wheelchair who says to me her name is Mrs. Holiday Burn, B-U-R-N, that she can depend on me to come home and get on the phone and go get her somebody to hurry and come keep her from getting herself evicted. Mrs. Holiday Burn, B-U-R-N, says she is getting evicted. She says she has only until this Tuesday at the outside for her to keep herself from being put out in the street as an American patriot evicted. But just so you also know before Mrs. Holiday Burn, B-U-R-N, says any of all of this to me, she says to me mister, mister, mister, come give me some goddamn money. All this other conversation with regard to eviction, it only develops as something which gets itself involved in the situation when I express to this person my policy as far as this, which is say no money to nobody nohow regardless period.

What happened was this.

If you want to hear what happened, it was this.

I was going out of the door out of my building heading for the corner for the mailbox to put some mail down into the mailbox when, boom, where's the marines, because what I notice is this very noticeable young lady I notice walking at me coming at me from the opposite direction going to the mailbox.

Okay, so she is carrying a book.

Which is like this five-alarm firehouse all-points bulletin going wonk wonk wonk wonk down inside of me on account of the fact that I myself am always going around carrying a book with me for the reason that I am always doing everything which I can do for me to entice to myself the attention of the kind of a young lady who would go ahead and give it to a fellow she sees going around carrying around with himself on his person a book with him.

So this young lady, it's, you know, it's like this is a five-alarm firehouse all-points bulletin going off like wonk wonk wonk wonk down inside of me on account of the fact that, first of all, she herself has this book she is carrying around with herself, and second of all, the hair, which, okay, is this pile of light-looking hair piled up on her up on top of her head, plus the final thing, which is this walk she has which is of, I would say, like of, you know, of an irregular-type nature.

So can you take these each of these things which I just took for you and put them all together and go ahead and guess who is all in clover?

No kidding, I am like the Easter parade.

Because this is all it takes at my age for you to decide to make up your mind you are all set to go spend the rest of your life with such-and-such an individual, please God she should just turn out in her own right to be an intelligent and educated person.