Lynne Tillman - American Genius - A Comedy

There was always a pink mark on the back of one leg, a birthmark that my father called a cherry, which seemed to please him, either the word "cherry" or the fact that I had one or something else which was unimportant or which has gone with him to his ocean grave off the coast of Maine where his shards were tossed over the side of a sleek, white yacht, by his wife, his daughter, his wife's sister, his only living friend, who was also on his way out, as my mother noted, but not his prodigal son, as my father had regularly referred to him, nearly with pleasure, as if citing the Bible condoned his son's absence or made it palatable, because it was traditional and historical. He told me the cherry birthmark would be a way to identify me always, though it puzzled me why I would need to be identified, and I imagined terrible fates for myself, when it would become necessary to flip my limp body over and find the cherry, so as to he able to record, with certainty, that I was who I was. But in the years since, I often forget I have a cherry on the very top and back of my upper thigh and usually can't remember which leg it is on, but I do know that it could be used to distinguish me from others in time of war, or if I suddenly fell down in the street, unconscious, and did not know anymore who I was. I have never told a doctor about it, or friends, and it may be scarcely noticeable, since, as I've grown, it must have grown smaller, comparatively, and it might even have completely disappeared, which would he sad, as if much more had also vanished, and that's true, it has, so I don't want to look for the cherry, since with its diminution or demise, my father, along with everything else from the past, is deader.

The cherry isn't part of my medical records, since our family doctor, whose visits when I had sore throats were never welcome, but who was a good man, with a face I vaguely recall, especially because of his black, bristly moustache, and whose ministrations I remember better, since once he tricked me with the pain-free rubber needle and could have noted my reaction in his file on me, along with my sore throats, childhood inoculations, allergic response to mosquito bites, sensitive skin, must he dead for a long time. His files must be lost or were discarded after his death, and unless I pointedly remark, Please note the cherry birthmark on the back of my upper thigh, and record that in my file, no one will know about it, it wouldn't identify me. My mother wouldn't remember it, she is not who she was, though she knows her name, often is lucid, and realizes, sadly, that she is incapacitated, but as her memory falters, she knows less of herself and others. One day when she was exceptionally present, she asked rhetorically: If I can't remember, who am I? It's not an uncommon idea, but a poignant observation, the kind I hadn't ever heard her make, she was, throughout my childhood, usually blunt and even brutal in her expressions. Some years before her illness or condition presented itself undeniably, before she and I knew her brain was under pressure from an abundance of trapped fluid, we walked past a store in front of which a man, the apparent owner, stood, when my mother uncharacteristically commented, "I think I know that man. He looks helpless. He's waiting for customers." But even then, as I took note of her unique, jarring comment, I didn't understand it might have indicated or been a harbinger of her own incipient helplessness.

It was my father who first made me conscious of the cherry on the back of my upper thigh. My father paid attention to color, because he had an eye and was in the textile business, and, once, when the Polish woman was gently rubbing my face, in preparation for the steaming my skin needed, the probing of my oil-clogged pores, when she squeezed out any impurities she found, I told her about my father's business. I don't imagine she was truly interested, but I felt that her interest, if it was interest, maybe involvement, in skin, was akin to my father's in fabrics. He had looked, I explained to her, through a special magnifying instrument to measure the warp and weft of every fabric he designed and had manufactured, he weighed individual, single threads with another simple machine, and early on I knew that even a thread, which appeared to be unimportant and without substance, had weight.

In a fabric warehouse, rolls of fabric, which are worlds in a world, beg to be touched. Satin, moire, voile, faille. Jacquard, cotton, silk, brocade. Opaque, transparent, or semi-transparent lengths of cloth. Possibilities array themselves in colors, patterns, warps and wefts, weights and textures, while description doesn't account for what my fingers realize, which is uncategorizable. With a flourish, the polished salesman pulls out a bolt I have indicated, carries it on his shoulder or in his arms, like a body, and then pulling and stretching the fabric across a long wooden table, which usually has scissors and threads over it, it's always messy in a fabric ware house, the salesperson spreads a length of material across it, so that its details may be seen and appreciated, and any mistake in the weave might be caught, and then he, rarely she, grabs a tape measure and cuts the material. It is an event, the gestures and cutting of the material, a high, almost noble, moment in the warehouse, when, I have noticed, other salespeople will stop what they are doing to watch, attentively, a fellow salesman unfurl the bolt, wield the stubby scissors and cut the cloth. The salesman also always pulls out a little more material, making a display of this, too, in a ritual or tradition that all of them follow and which is habitually mentioned to a client, or else you would feel cheated, everyone wants and expects a little hit more than the yards paid for. I could easily stay with these mute bolts of cloth for hours and hours, but I never do, because I'm busy, rushing, so I stay as long as I permit myself, gently fingering the cloth, careful not to stain or otherwise damage the material, and occasionally buying some yards for friends who sew; I don't, but my mother did, and often I merely want to have in my possession the redolent fabric, which appeals to a cosmopolitan primitive.

The span between breakfast and lunch is inconstant, unnervingly patternless, random. Theoretically, mathematically, randomness is impossible to produce, though on the ground there are traffic patterns, which come close to it, they are unpredictable because of error and accidents, but in most other things, especially numbers, there arrives a discernible pattern or logic. Generally, there is always less time between breakfast and lunch than between lunch and dinner. No one will go hungry, every resident knows that food will be supplied here, that lunch will ultimately arrive at our various doorsteps or we can visit the kitchen, but we don't know precisely when lunch might be ready, because each day something occurs that may change the schedule of the male kitchen helper, rumored to be a college dropout or recently expelled, who usually brings it to each of us on bicycle. When that happens, as it does each day, almost without fail, so he is part of my day and habit, I have to decide whether to say hello to him, which might alter my and his late morning rhythms. He pretends that he doesn't see us residents, so he won't startle or annoy anyone, but I always see him, unless I'm tending the fire or in the bathroom, where I worry that the curtain won't block me from view, and he might see me seated in an awkward, all too human pose. I tell myself it doesn't matter if he does, but I also know that this view could become the one he'll remember best, especially if it's silly or sad, and he could report my behavior to the cook or assistant cook, financial officer, to the janitor or groundskeeper, or, if it's especially peculiar, he might inform the director of the community, who could be called upon to speak with me privately and even caution me or put me on probation, which has happened but not yet to me. The staff talks about us the way we residents talk about them. The boy is handsome, especially on his bicycle, his long, strong legs, similar to other legs I've known, move automatically, and they distract me, since I particularly like long, strong legs, and recall those of a Dutchman, who, on a certain summer's night, wore white satin trousers. We took pills that turned us to rubber, I awoke surrounded by others having sex or making love on the floor, wanted to go home, he followed and kept coming round, I lost interest, bored even with his legs, which in retrospect aren't boring, and I wonder if they are as strong as they were then, if he cares for his body and exercises daily. It's easy to be distracted, especially if you relish the past, dislike it, or wonder at its other, unchosen possibilities and also if you collect things, including mementoes, and deduce or speculate about the multitude of outcomes. Since I have good hand/eye coordination and reflexes, a slow pulse, and can run fast, I could've become a long distance runner, but I didn't, which I regret abstractly, I played tennis but didn't relax my studies at the age of ten to practice eight hours a day, to train for the circuit, though training my body and thinking only of a backhand, forehand, when to approach the net and other techniques, might be the life I should have led rather than the one I do, and it still appeals to me. I am often sedentary, except I work standing up or squatting, and go for energetic walks and solitary night swims. I played chess, rode a dirt hike, liked multiplying and adding sums, memorized encyclopedia and dictionary listings, to keep my brain agile, was adept at setting my friends' hair in curlers and tweezing their eyebrows, and I also enjoyed squeezing the pimples on the back of one boyfriend; I liked to draw, jump rope, dance, perform acrobatics, but heights made me dizzy, so jumping over horses in gym didn't make sense as an activity. Instead I preferred to walk backward, do somersaults, act like a horse or dog or cat, even a vegetable, in dance class, read philosophy, American history, especially, and stories, and could diagnose medical problems, which, like my mother, I often accomplish with an accuracy some call intuition, though I don't believe in intuition. But unlike her, I faint at the sight of blood gushing from a gash, so I couldn't have been a doctor, and lose interest in reading some medical research material, though I'm attracted to the study of skin and genetics, especially as a model for the humanities and social sciences, since some aspect of your fate is carried in code from another's body to yours, though the body's not a stable foundation, as it reflects human ideas about it. It is, in a sense, both transparent and opaque, since, with study, like my dermatologist, you could read its signals, though a brain scan, an MRI, may be read differently by neurologists, whose knowledge is imperfect, or the object of their knowledge remains defiant, the sum greater than its parts, the parts in need of and subject to interpretation. Genetics proposes that people aren't merely the sum of their parts, which somehow reassures me, we're bits and pieces, and parts of bodies no longer have to be the bodies' own parts, heads might be grafted, and there could one day be full-body transplants. Human beings lie in shreds of DNA in laboratories, studies for the future, designs for betterperforming bodies, like car models in Californian and Japanese labs.