Lynne Tillman - American Genius - A Comedy

Now I can burn nothing more, have lost the heart to do it, and the fire is dying. I shut the lights, gather my things, put on my coat, grab the keys, close the door behind me, test the lock, walk energetically past the field outside the window, and hope to notice it better, so I open my eyes wide, but the light is weak, and I don't see anything differently from before. It could be that I haven't noticed a changed effect, so I scour the land fitfully, failing again to witness new beauty or defect, and soon reach the quaint building where I sleep, opening the door gingerly so as not to make a commotion, since I don't want to announce my arrival to the others-the disconsolate young women, the tall balding man, if he's about, a dour man and fretful woman, who may or may not be sharing a bed, neither has ever sat at my table or I at theirs, by design or chanceone of their beds squeaks and cries in the night when I walk to the toilet. This hotel is too full, I think. I tiptoe across creaking floorboards to my room, whose bed is pristine since I didn't lie in it yet and ruffle its smooth facade. The bathroom is empty, my towels hang untouched, and I turn on the hot water, rinse the tub, though no ring's around it, no trace of other bodies that have lain in it, I can become repulsed imagining strangers lying there, especially the demanding man, but I quickly shake my head and open the faucets, watch the water stream into the porcelain tub, and, after cleaning it cursorily, turn the water off, let the bath drain, and begin again, now liberally pouring in scented bath oils, whose dubious promise I gratefully accept. Then I walk briskly, not landing heavily on the balls of my feet, to get my portable radio. My father insisted I step lightly at all times, veer to and guide myself along an imaginary straight line, and, even today when I walk, I visualize a line on a road or dividing a room, the invisible pretense of which frequently unbalances me, since by concentrating on what isn't there, I almost forget how to walk. Actors' bodies are their instruments, they learn how to walk, J and JJ say, and to hold their bodies, for to embody their characters, they must have carriage and control. They frequently discuss their craft and have cited techniques for standing and walking, and some might scoff and sometimes do at the table, especially in the morning, if the actors are holding court, which they occasionally do, with spirit. I never scoff, because I often forget how to walk and wish I'd been taught properly, so that my back would never hurt. Still, there are many ways to walk, the variety astonishes if you analyze individuals navigating their way along a street, arms swing high or don't, heads jut forward or shake, short strides are taken or loping ones, some move with fluidity while others awkwardly assert one foot after another, and there are those who take strong positions on approaches and techniques, as well as for teaching, walking, and standing. My father was a firm believer in standing up straight. Many believe standing and walking are activities, hardwired like language into the brain, that wouldn't require training, but since some walk better, speak better, some know the grammar of bodies and sentences better than others, and many walk and stand poorly, though genetically transmitted, these inherent and humanly possible activities are at least educable. It's a pity to see stooped adolescents, whose parents don't know how to model them as birds do their little ones, to teach them by example how to fly and find food, yet even some baby birds fall to the ground and then they are finished, but I know a man who saves fallen baby birds. He is not here now, but he was for a while, and observing him tend birds and feed them worms was particularly heartwarming, though I can scold myself for caring more about their feeding than I do humans other than myself, but then I don't understand the complaints of birds and can't decipher their whining from their singing, so they aren't annoying. Birdman was nourishing three fallen baby sparrows, with tiny white worms whose fate didn't matter to me, that he bought in a pet store, caring for their mother, too, feeding three stray cats and two dogs, while managing, by cell phone and fax, a tourist company with his diabetic partner. I wondered what possessed him, how his mercy had developed, if he were ruthless in some aspects of his life, very cruel in love or business. We talked intimately one night for a very long time, and I've heard Birdman may return soon, and, if so, I'll feed worms to birds with him, in order to find out.

Usually the natural world doesn't attract me, but I have urged myself to pay it attention. There is a meadow beyond my bedroom, the one I recently walked past, where deer occasionally gather, especially in the early morning, and other animals, chipmunks, mice too small to see at a distance, or tiny creatures who can't be seen even close, and there are grasses, weeds, trees, bushes, boulders, stones, and pebbles, and these I can also see from my window, creating an overall impression, usually indistinguishable in my mind from other landscapes, and often I try to recall those, especially if the ocean figures in the scene, but my impression of the ocean doesn't vary much, though the image of the Mediterranean is bluer, calmer, than the Atlantic, which is greener, choppier, than the Penobscot Bay, which is imperturbable and pellucid, but these descriptions lack sufficient detail and prove what a beggar my memory is. I also easily forget what I have just seen in the distance out of my window, a constant view for months, even on this morning, since it's not imprinted the way exacting events, histories, faces, and stories often are, and the landscape around me, encircling me, the so-called outside world which I hope to understand but often can't recall, is mostly a vague picture, as general as most terms denoting it. I look at a tree and exhort myself to remember a specific leaf whose odd shape and burnished colors appear unique, because I'll never see that leaf again, I tell myself, but then I forget it, remembering just the admonition not to forget it.

I place the radio on a white shelf close to the bathtub and find a suitable station. I will rest in the tub as long as possible, but I can rarely lie in hot, oily, even salutary water more than ten minutes, because I quickly become restless when nothing happens, and nothing happens in a bathtub, though something might crash to the floor, or I might be jarred by a scream outside the bathroom which would excite my curiosity, but inside the small, white room, it's quiet. I worry that I can't relax, as my skin is vexatiously hot and my forehead burns. The voices on the radio are melodious, mellifluous chants, but also they drone on, irritants, their human interest stories inevitable and inevitably self-serving, since human beings invented their humanity. Some speak piously, some humbly, famous ones blather about their movie, book, music, and the voices communicate one message or another, occasionally slipping into rants, and I am rendered mute by the demand to be heard. Everyone wants to be heard, most don't want to listen. Under the oily bathwater my body lightens and floats, defies gravity, and is only a shadowy impression of its form. I scoop up handfuls of bathwater the way I did when I was a child, while my dog sat by the side of the pink porcelain tub, ever watchful. My fingers open wide, the water cascades down my body the way it always has, and I lie there as long as I can, minutes pass, I don't know how many, but then I can't stand it and leap from the bathwater as if scalded, grab my towel, click off the radio, let the water run down the drain, wrap the towel around me, wash the tub, because the bath oil, which rose to the top of the hot water like fat, has left a ring of scum around the sides of the white porcelain tub, epidermis, and maybe some dermis, with its enriching collagen that dissipates daily, and, scrubbing the porcelain, I feel annoyed by the tasks, things I mustn't neglect, which are expected of me here and elsewhere, and which clutter my mind when I mean to free it, since the weight of the world is a burden. I am here to shuck it off, almost required to do it, otherwise I won't feel well, do better, achieve a goal, and I must accomplish what I'm meant to do in life, there must be something. I carry everything back to my room, with a sigh of regret, because it was pleasant but also an ordeal, a lot of bother for fifteen minutes. Still, I'm cleaner, even if my skin is slightly greasy, but in some way I'm refreshed, my flesh is pinker, hot to the touch. I'm not soothed in my mind, though my body has been hammered by heat, not the sun's, which can be deadly, though I prefer my pores to be opened by steam, steam baths and saunas are preferable to ordinary baths, especially after swimming in the ocean.