Gordon Lish - Collected Fictions

Oh, what a child!

The child smiled genuinely, genuinely, wonderfully, wonderfully, and the man, feeling himself summoned as all the day long he had not once been, smiled with all his heart right back.

Genuinely, genuinely, except, one supposes, not so wonderfully, wonderfully, the man smiling back at himself.

But all right, then!

Then here he was, then, wasn't he!

Wasn't this, then, he, him, the boy who was the man?

The man tried sliding his feet along the floor in order that he might get himself safely home to bed — and there to narratives his nature would hasten to confect for him once the sedative had delivered him all to sleep.

To dreams.

Well, in one there was the woman.

She shrieked at him and shrieked, "Yes, yes, but which way, which? Can't you tell me which?"

In another there was the woman.

But it was not the woman who kept screaming in it at him, "Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo, thief! — the uses you make of everything and of all the different things!"

Then there was the dream without people.

It was made all of words.

The thing to do in it was to contrive irritating alliterations — yet there was no agency in it doing it.

No woman, no man.

Deficit notwithstanding — no, despite the deficit! — the work was done indeed.

Forget your fucking.

Forget your fancy foods and your ham and eggs and your bacon and eggs and your, you know, your eggs with sausages with on the side your home fries on the side and it's when the eggs are fried and they're fried in the style of frying which is referred to as your eggs fried eggs over easy and they're dished up to you, the eggs are dished up to you with this whole extra treat of extra bacon on the plate and on a plate next to the plate there's these slices of toast buttered with butter on the plate and there's also on the side a milk shake on the side or, okay, let's not say there's a milk shake on the side but just a glass of just milk on the side and the milk's made up of the creamy part of the milk which got itself poured off from the neck of the bottle before anybody could get to the neck of the bottle before it was you who you got to the neck of the bottle and got it all poured off-the creamy part — all for yourself. So go ahead and forget all that.

So are you listening?

Because I am telling you what the best thing in my life has been to me. You want to know what the best thing in my life has been to me? Because I am telling you, because I am going to tell you what the best thing in my life has been to me.

But before I go ahead and tell you, guess what.

Because no, because what it has not been to me is, no, it has not been fucking to me and it has not been drugs to me and it has not been going to the movies or been eating franks or been eating franks with sauerkraut on them or with the mustard they used to give you for you to put on the plate next to the franks or for you to put between the franks and beans back when I was a kid.

Nor been having kids.

Nor been playing with the kids I had.

Nor with the kids which anybody had.

Plus neither shortstop nor pitcher.

It's not been playing the positions of either of them when I played the positions of either of shortstop or of pitcher and was always eating my eggs and franks as described.

Or when you got good wood on the ball.

It's not been when you got good wood on the ball.

Nor been looking like you were coming close to getting any kind of wood on the ball when it was your mother and your father who were there for them to see you looking like it. No, not been when your mother and father were there when it would have looked to anybody like you were getting all set for you to get some good wood on the ball — or get any kind of quality of anything on anything and then of them seeing you look like you were doing it, or were going to do it, or did it, just did.

Because I said, because I am saying forget all that, forget all of these things like things like that. Such as please go ahead and forget things like me reading things or like me sitting in the chair I used to squunch all around in for me to sit in the chair and read things in it the best way anybody could sit in that chair and read things in it or sit in any other chair for me to sit and read anything in it.

Or things like me fucking in a chair.

Forget things like me fucking in a chair.

Like me sitting fucking Helen in the chair which, you know, which, okay, which Helen had.

Like sitting fucking Helen in the chair with us the both of us sitting facing the mirror facing the chair that Helen, which Helen had.

Or even fucking Helen's sister like this.

With Helen facing Helen's sister and me and with me fucking Helen's sister like this.

Well, with the mirror facing all of us sitting and fucking and looking and facing the mirror like this.

And it was everything to me, everything.

But even if it was everything to me, was it the best thing of all of the everythings in my life to me?

Because it wasn't, it wasn't.

Or weren't you paying attention when I said none of these things were any of them anywhere close to their being the best thing in my life to me?

Because the best thing in my life to me — are you crazy, don't be crazy! — because the best thing in my life to me wasn't any kind of a thing like any of these kinds of a thing to me. Which goes, which also goes for the day which was the first day of all of the brand-new spring days for me.

I mean the one when it was okay for you to first go out with your short pants on.

Not to mention short sleeves.

And in the air there was this smell in the air which you could smell in the air which was like the smell of smelling the sun in the air — or which, when you smelled it, it was like smelling the beginning of everything smellable in the air.

Oh, it was nice, so nice — the beginning of smelling even the beginning of everybody leaving the air all to me.

Am I not saying it was nice?

But the best?

My God, the best in my life to me?

Because the best in my life to me, it wasn't even coming with anyone, was it?

Or getting off with anyone.

Or getting gone for good with any of the women.

Not even with Helen in the mirror with Helen's sister in the mirror and with all of the women watching.

It was lint.

I'm sorry, but it was lint.

I'm telling you the answer is lint, it was lint, lint!

You hear me?

Listen to me if you want to hear me — lint, it was lint — the best thing in my life to me, the most wonderful thing to me in my life to me, it was lint, it was getting the lint, it was getting down on my hands and knees with this hanger I went and got and getting down on my hands and knees with it and getting it opened up so it was all bent open and as unbent as you could get it to come out like it was this one long thing like a long thing and then sticking it down in under the dryer and sticking it all of the way back down in under the dryer and scooting it all of the way around and then scooting it all of the way back out to me again to me with all of these gobs of this thick gobby stuff stuck on it in like these big globs of this built-up lint on it.

So I tell you the thing.

But do you listen to the thing?

Because this was the thing which I am telling you which was the one best thing in my life to me.

Getting lint.

Getting all of that wadded-up lint.

Which came out in such globby gobs of it when I got down on my hands and knees with the idea of now is the time for me to go see what I can get out from down under way back in the back of under where it's underneath the dryer again.

Unless you think, unless everybody thinks hey, buddy, isn't the best is yet what has yet to come for you?