Donald Barthelme - The Dead Father

Edmund would be an example, Emma suggested. Though lovable.

I think not, said Thomas, he is an alkie, is all.

What is he doing now?

Thomas looked up the road.

Sucking on his flask, he said, I have flang three of them into the brush but he always produces another.

Conduct a shakedown, suggested the Dead Father. Stand by your bunks and open your footlockers.

Prefer not to, said Thomas.

Fifty-year-old boys, Julie said, that’s another thing.

Are you blaming me? asked the Dead Father.

They exist, said Julie, grinning in their business suits and knickers. And Keds.

What is the cause? asked the Dead Father.

Does he really want to hear the answer? asked Thomas. No. I don’t think so. If I were he, I would not want to hear the answer.

They are boys because they don’t want to be old farts, said Julie. The old fart is not cherished in this society.

Or old poop, said Thomas, that is another thing they don’t want to be.

This language is not very flattering, said the Dead Father. To a man of a certain age.

Stumbling from the stage is anathema to them, said Julie, they want to be nuzzling new women when they are ninety.

What is wrong with that? asked the Dead Father. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

The women object, she said. Violently.

Emma was peering down the road.

Edmund has fallen flat on his mush in the roadway, she said.

Thomas trotted to the place where the others were picking Edmund up. He returned holding a silver flask.

What’s in it? Julie asked.

Thomas tilted the flask.

Anisette, he said, or something sweet.

And furthermore, Julie said to the Dead Father, it is unseemly. Ugly. Nasty-looking, would be a way of putting it.

The Dead Father slipped his cable and stormed off down the road.

He is going to do it again, said Emma. Paint the floor red with blood.

No, said Thomas. He is not.

Thomas caught the Dead Father in two bounds.

Your sword, sir.

My sword?

Surrender your sword. Your maulsticker.

You were being castigatorious, said the Dead Father. Again.

The men watching. Julie and Emma watching.

The sword, said Thomas.

You are asking me to give up my sword?

I am.

Then I shall be swordless. Think what that means.

I have. Long and hard.

Must I?

You must.

The Dead Father unsheathed his sword and gazed at it.

Old Stream-of-Anguish! Companion of my finest hours!

He gazed at Thomas.

Thomas holding out his hand.

He surrendered the sword.

The Dead Father plodding along, at the end of his cable. His long golden robes. His long gray hair to the shoulder. His broad and noble brow.

Awfully calm, said Julie.

Placid as a mailman, Thomas agreed, he is trying to be good.

Harder for him than for thee or me, he’s not used to it.

I was never good, until I attained my majority, Thomas said. And even then —

I never bothered my pretty head about it, Julie said. Sometimes I did the right thing and sometimes I did the wrong thing. In difficult cases, I shut my eyes and leaped. A great deal of leaping.

And yet in those instances that have feelings attached —

I go against them, she said. My feelings. Method of the utmost trustworthiness, learned from the Carmelites.

I follow my feelings, Thomas said, when I can find them.

He’s been very quiet.

Not a peep out of him these many miles.

Has he perhaps twigged?

Look on the bright side, Thomas said, and decide that he has not. It’s essential.

A grimace from Julie.

The world’s slow stain. Who said that? Preserved from the contagion of, I think, the world’s slow stain.

I block on it if I ever knew, Thomas said.

Julie bit off a chew of bhang.

And the men, said Thomas. Some possibility of trouble there.

Nonsense. The men will be adequately recompensed by the reds and blues and silver streaks we have introduced into the gray tusche of their lives. Don’t worry about the men. They are only men after all — a tractor could have done the job as well.

The composition would have suffered, Thomas said. Think of it: Up there, the nineteen, the Old Incorrigibles, hauling upon the cable. The line of the cable itself, taut, angled, running from there to here. Finally, the object hauled: the Father, in his majesty. His grandeur. A tractor would have been très insipide.

Chewing of bhang (noncommittal).

Before attaining your majority, Thomas asked, what did you do?

Schemed, mostly. Scheming away night and day, toward the achievement of ends. I woke up angry one morning and stayed angry for years — that was my adolescence. Anger and scheming. How to get out. How to get Lucius. How to get Mark. How to get away from Fred. How to seize power. That sort of thing. And a great deal of care-of-the-body. It was young. It was beautiful. It deserved care.

Is beautiful, Thomas said. Is beautiful, beloved.

Thank you, she said. There were many men, I don’t deny it, it was moths to the flame. I tried to love them. Damned difficult. Kept a harpoon gun in my tall window. Tracked them as they moved down the street, in their ridiculous dignity. I never fired although I could have, it was operable. Having them in my sights was enough. My finger on the trigger, always about to go off but never quite. Tension of the most exquisite sort.

I thought it was an objet d’art, Thomas said.

Julie smiled.

Often, when I was young, last year, I walked out to the water. It spoke to me of myself. Images came to me, from the water. Pictures. Large green lawns. A great house with pillars, but the lawns so vast that the house can be seen only dimly, from where we are standing. I am wearing a long skirt to the ground, in the company of others. I am witty. They laugh. I am also wise. They ponder. Gestures of infinite grace. They appreciate. For the finale, I save a life. Leap into the water all clothed and grasping the drowner by the hair, or using the cross-chest carry, get the silly bastard to shore. Have to bash him once in the mush to end his wild panicked struggles. Drag him to the old weathered dock and there, he supine, I rampant, manage the resuscitation. Stand back, I say to the crowd, stand back. The dazed creature’s eyes open — no, they close again — no, they open again. Someone throws a blanket over my damp, glistening white, incredibly beautiful shoulders. I whip out my harmonica and give them two fast choruses of “Red Devil Rag.” Standing ovation. The triumph is complete.

You left out Albert Schweitzer, Thomas said.

Hard to patch him in, said Julie, but he is there.

At that moment the Dead Father approached Thomas, holding a small box.

A present, he said, for you.

Thank you, said Thomas, what is it?

Open it, said the Dead Father. Open the box.

Thomas opened the box and found a knife.

Thank you, he said, what is it for?

Use it, said the Dead Father. Cut something. Cut something off.

I spoke too soon, Thomas said, he is not reconciled.

I will never be reconciled, the Dead Father said, never. When I am offended, I award punishment. Punishment is a thing I’m good at. I have some rather fine ones. For anyone who dares trifle. On the first day the trifler is well wrapped, with strong cords and hung upside down from a flagpole at a height of twenty stories. On the second day the trifler is turned right side up and rehung from the same staff, so as to empty the blood from his head and prepare him for the third day. On the third day the trifler is unwrapped and waited upon by a licensed D.D.S. who extracts every other tooth from the top row and every other tooth from the bottom row, the extractions to be mismatching according to the blueprint supplied. On the fourth day the trifler is given hard things to eat. On the fifth day the trifler is comforted with soft fine garments and flagons and the attentions of lithesome women so as to make the shock of the sixth day the more severe. On the sixth day the trifler is confined alone in a small room with the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. On the seventh day the trifler is pricked with nettles. On the eighth the trifler is slid naked down a thousand-foot razor blade to the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. On the ninth day the trifler is sewn together by children. On the tenth day the trifler is confined alone in a small room with the works of Teilhard de Chardin and the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. On the eleventh day the trifler’s stitches are removed by children wearing catcher’s mitts on their right and left hands. On the twelfth day —