Lydia Davis - Samuel Johnson Is Indignant

You may decide that the plants have priority, in the end, because they are alive. Then you may decide, since you must find a way of organizing your priorities, that all the living things in the house will have priority, starting with the youngest and smallest human being. That should be clear enough. But then, though you know exactly how to care for the mouse, the cat, and the plants, you are not sure how to give priority to the baby, the older boy, yourself, and your husband. It is certainly true that the larger and older the living thing is, the harder it is to know how to care for it.

I tried so hard, the clothes I wore, new look I had, I thought. Competent, I thought, casual. New raincoat. Brown. Things seemed all right at first, promising, in the waiting room. Top secretary offered me the comfortable chair, a cup of tea — top secretary or second secretary. Declined the tea — how could I swallow it, how could I even hold the cup? Opened my little book. Thought once I got in there he might even ask me what I was reading — Wait, he might say, is that Addison? Kept my head down, eyes on the page. Listened to the secretaries, thought I was learning the inside dope. Feeling smart. Thought I was all buttoned up. Yes, and now here we were alone for the first time, at last, and I thought we might have a special rapport, he might become a friend, at least. I thought he might say to himself: Here is this woman, this attractive woman, I’ve talked to her before, never at length, unfortunately, now she’s here across my desk from me in an attractive raincoat with some jewelry on. I thought he might say: She’s quiet but I know from what I’ve heard and from the way she sits there so composed, holding that small book bound in green leather — could it be Addison? — that she’s intelligent, though obviously shy, it will be interesting to talk to her…Here he is, the boss, and there are no distractions, there’s no one coming into the room, no one offering something from a tray, no one walking past, no one drinking next to him, no one asking him a sudden question that left me out, rudely, no one standing in a circle with him, here we are alone, my face floating over that piled desk. But he! — he rails against the whole project, he uses bad language, though it isn’t my fault, it really isn’t my fault, what he doesn’t like, the change of title, and in fact he’s wrong about that, things have to change, even titles have to change. How he jumps on me, how he strafes me, how he slangs me. I’m rocked. Of course — anyone can make an appointment to see the President, that’s the easy part. I try again, surface and take another breath, say something, he stops railing and listens, he says something back, asks me a decent question, but I can’t remember that name, I just can’t remember it, me with my shaky voice, now what can I say, don’t have a single million-dollar word, say something dumb, now he’s doing his best, he’s trying to remember his manners. But after all that yelling he says he isn’t the one who can help me, no, even though they said I should go talk to him myself, they both said that. And they know him, I thought I could trust them, just plant the idea in his head at least, they said. I guess maybe they sold me a pup. What a blunder. And I wore all this jewelry, every piece I had that was decent. He never noticed, I’m sure. No, he just said to himself: Not my concern, sorry. Wait, I thought, give me time, another five minutes. But it’s no use, now he stands up and sticks his hand across the desk at an angle and flat as a piece of cardboard, he’s offering to shake, it’s his signal, I’m supposed to leave. Well, lost opportunity, Mr. President! Old bean! We’re not all so clever, you know — not on the spot like that. Beanpole! Some day you’ll make me an offer, I’ll say I can’t help you. Such a mistake, even to go in there. So wrong. Some other frequency. Can’t do anything right. Not worth shucks. Strange hat, brown coat, drooping hem, bare neck, yellow skin, wrong jewelry, too much jewelry. So many mistakes. Electric hair. So many mistakes. Too much, too little, wrong time, wrong place, can’t do it right. Do it anyway. Spoil it. Do it again. Spoil it again. A slime, a weed. I wanted respect. Did he even see me? Did he even see my head poking up above those piles? He was seeing another appointment! This was my appointment! Maybe the raincoat gave a bad impression. Maybe I was wrong to wear brown. Maybe he thought: Uh-oh, there’s something depressing out there in the waiting room. Brown woman with a proposal, sitting in a chair with her book. And then I wasn’t prepared. Didn’t know the name. I nodded. Anyone can nod. I didn’t know what was coming! I was so dumb. I’m aching. What shame — ready to kill. Wish I’d had my mother with me. She would have said something. A gasbag. He would have said she was a gabby old woman, an ulcer — What’s she doing in here? Who let her in? Get her out of here! In her pastel suit. But there she’d be. She’d account for him. She’d give it to him — right in the clock! He’d say: Get the old bag off my dark wood paneling! That’s my mother! What a barney, hoo-ha! She’d give him a mouse, all right! He’d say: Get the old bag in her pink suit away from in front of my dark wood paneling! Get him, mother! Sic him! Old Iowa bag. Come in here with her replaced hip, her replaced knee, one leg shorter than the other, built-up shoe. Determined. She’d lam him in his little Mary, quick and smart, she’d have the edge on him. What’s this? he would have said. Kick this old lady out of here! In her spring suit. He might have used bad language about her too: Kick this old fart out of here! Maybe I should have taken my whole family in there with me. Brother watching, father watching, sister getting up to help. But Mother’s the one who would floor him. Mother would thrash him, she’d baste his jacket. She’s high-rent. She would have said, Be nice to her! He wasn’t nice to me. That’s my daughter! He wasn’t nice. She would have given him a piece of her fist. See this? — shaking it right in his pan. Names for him. She doesn’t come as a water-carrier for anyone. Annihilate him, Mother! Crush him! No more — Bam! — President of this place. New President, please! Better one, please. Oh boy! Sock! You’ll see, Mr. President! Summer-complaint! Dog’s breakfast!

We are sitting here together, my digestion and I. I am reading a book and it is working away at the lunch I ate a little while ago.

“There isn’t really much to tell,” she said, but she would tell it if I liked. We were sitting in a midtown luncheonette. “I’ve only had one blind date in my life. And I didn’t really have it. I can think of more interesting situations that are like a blind date — say when someone gives you a book as a present, when they fix you up with that book. I was once given a book of essays about reading, writing, book collecting. I felt it was a perfect match. I started reading it right away, in the back seat of the car. I stopped listening to the conversation in the front. I like to read about how other people read and collect books, even how they shelve their books. But by the time I was done with the book, I had taken a strong dislike to the author’s personality. I won’t have another date with her !” She laughed. Here we were interrupted by the waiter, and then a series of incidents followed that kept us from resuming our conversation that day.

The next time the subject came up, we were sitting in two Adirondack chairs looking out over a lake in, in fact, the Adirondacks. We were content to sit in silence at first. We were tired. We had been to the Adirondack Museum that day and seen many things of interest, including old guide boats and good examples of the original Adirondack chair. Now we watched the water and the edge of the woods, each thinking, I was sure, about James Fenimore Cooper. After some parties of canoers had gone by, older people in canvas boating hats, their quiet voices carrying far over the water to us, we went on talking. These were precious days of holiday together, and we were finishing many unfinished conversations.