Donald Barthelme - The Dead Father

Vulgarity everywhere.

The wink is a classic device for establishing.

That’s true.

I thanked the large black woman and withdrew.

Holding on tight.

That’s right. Holding on tight.

Years not unmarked by hideous strains.

I remember.

Wild and free and.

Pray to St. Jude. And Ganesha.

I really didn’t mean that really.

Were you raised in the faith?

I was raised partly in and partly out of the faith.

How did that feel?

Foul.

It felt foul?

Yes foul. Foul foul foul.

Being raised in the faith felt foul?

That’s what I said you hard of hearing or something?

I think foreplay is the most interesting part.

Yes foreplay is the most interesting part.

Some people like consummation.

I’ve heard that. But in my opinion foreplay is the most interesting part. It’s more interesting.

Haven’t thought much about it really I studied English.

Some people like to get it the hell over with.

Yes I’ve heard that.

Most of it is interesting if you are interested in it.

I’ve heard that. You must have studied anatomy.

In extenso.

Alexander, Sam, and Edmund. Requesting permission to speak.

Of course, said Thomas. What is it?

Well sir, said Alexander, some of the boys have been thinking.

Yes? What is it they have been thinking?

Well sir, said Alexander, the men have a melancholy.

Oh my, said Thomas. Which?

Well sir, I would say it is the pip. Less a sulk than a sourness.

What are the symptoms?

Headache, vertigo, singing in the ears, much waking, fixed eyes, red eyes, high color, hard belly, short and sharp belchings, dry brains, and pain in the left side. Not each man has every symptom. Most have two. Some have three. One has four.

Me, Edmund said.

Did I not double the rum ration? Thomas asked.

You did, sir, you did, and we are grateful. Yet —

Well what is the issue?

Well sir, I was coming to that. The issue, Alexander said, is ethical.

Oh my. Local or general?

Well sir, we feel maybe we ought not to be doin’ what we are doin’. We feel it’s a scotomizing, you might say.

A what?

A darkening of the truth.

What truth and how darkened?

Well sir, Alexander said, look at it this way. It is this: The grand Father’s bein’ all hauly-mauly by the likes of us over bump and bumbust and all raggletailed and his poor bumleg all hurty and his grand aura all tarnagled and June bein’ a bad month for new enterprises and a bad month for old enterprises accordin’ to the starcharts and like that, we that is to say us the men have a faint intustition that maybe the best is not to come in terms of the grand Father the moon-hanger the eye-in-the-sky the old meister the bey window the bit chammer the gaekwarder the incaling the khando kid the neatzam the shotgun of kyotowing the principal stadtholder the voivode the top wali, this Being, I say, being a Being of the highest anthropocentrictrac interest, as well as the one who keeps the corn popping from the fine green fields and the like and the like, is maybe being abruised and lese-majestied by us poor galoots over many meters of hard cheese days in and out but even a galoot has a brain to wonder with and what we wonder is to what end? for what purpose? are we right? are we wrong? are we culpable? to what degree? will there be a trial after? official inquiry? court of condemnation? white paper? have you told him? if you have told him what have you told him? how much of the blame if there is blame is ours? ten percent? twenty percent? in excess of that figure? and searching our hearts as we do each morning and evening and also at midday after lunch and after the dishes have been washed, we wonder whither? what for? can the conscience be coggled? are we doing the right thing? and with all the love and respect we have for you Thomas-the-Tall-Standing and for your wisdom which we do not deny for a moment and for your heart — To put it in the short form, we are dubious.

An occasion. Thomas rising.

Your questions are good ones, he said. Your concern is well founded. I can I think best respond by relating an anecdote. You are familiar I take it with the time Martin Luther attempted to sway Franz Joseph Haydn to his cause. He called Haydn on the telephone and said, “Joe, you’re the best. I want you to do a piece for us.” And Haydn just said, “No way, Marty. No way.”

You have got the centuries all wrong and the telephone should not be in there and anyway I do not get the point, said Edmund.

You see! Thomas exclaimed. There it is! Things are not simple. Error is always possible, even with the best intentions in the world. People make mistakes. Things are not done right. Right things are not done. There are cases which are not clear. You must be able to tolerate the anxiety. To do otherwise is to jump ship, ethics-wise.

I hate anxiety, Edmund said. He produced a flask and tilted it.

Have some? he asked Thomas.

What is it?

Paint thinner with a little grenadine.

I’ll pass thanks, Thomas said.

You have not resolved our dilemma, said Alexander. If you could give us a statement of purpose, no matter how farfetched or improbable… Something we could take back to the boys.

We are helping him through a difficult period, Thomas said, that would be a way of putting it.

Then he was struck, as if by a thought.

It is, you might say, a rehearsal.

The Dead Father talking to Emma. Pink hazes of the early morning. Vegetation failures visible, blasted sumac, iris, phlox. Dim low hills beyond. The Dead Father in his golden robes. Emma in her green fatigue pants, green fatigue shirt.

Looking very beautiful this morning, the Dead Father said.

Oh am I, said Emma.

You are a very handsome woman, the Dead Father said.

No no, said Emma, just ordinary. Just an ordinary woman. Another among thousands.

Not at all, not at all. Now I have seen in my time many a one.

Yes, Emma said, I believe it.

Some stunning beauties. Some extraordinary ladies. I can distinguish I think between what is ordinary and what is not. You are sui generis one might say.

Hardly that, Emma said. Just another sand dollar on the beach.

No no no, said the Dead Father, really quite remarkable. The bosom, for example.

Yes, said Emma, there are some who’ve found it adequate.

Adequate! What a word. Why I’ve not seen its like in twenty years.

Yes, said Emma, there are some who’ve found it passable.

I would compare it to that of the Aphrodite of Gyrene if you would take off your shirt so I could see it better.

No, said Emma, I do not think that would be right. You will have to content yourself with the rough approximation of the exterior. The shirt trick is Julie’s.

I remember a bosom, the Dead Father said. Might be a better bosom than your own. Might be a worse bosom than your own. Although they are all beautiful, bosoms, all beautiful, each in its own way, foolish to talk of “better” and “worse,” it’s apples and oranges, really.

What bosom is that that you remember?

The lady was a lawyer. Appeared before me in a matter. I was presiding. Case had to do with a homosexual admiral who’d been caught buggering a black gang. A whole black gang. Down there in the engine room ‘midst the steam and grease. Some suggestion of coercion. Some suggestion of abuse of rank. And so on and so on. She was representing the admiral, in her robes. I noticed the robes. There is something very sensual about robes. I was transfixed, couldn’t keep my eyes off her. There is a certain line, bosom under robe, I can’t describe it. Makes one light-headed. She argued very capably, probably the most thoroughly researched brief I’ve ever read. The government’s case on the other hand very sloppily prepared. I found for her. Strictly on the merits. Merits piled on merits. Afterward, a brandy together in my chambers. She said I wasn’t as bad as I’d been painted. I said, Oh yes I was. We had a week together on the island of Ahura. The Bee and the Thistle, as I recall. Incomparable. Taught me a lot of law, she did, and I thought I knew it all. Claudia. Married a sky diver, as I recall. One of those people who fall out of airplanes and drop for thousands and thousands of feet waiting for the umbrella to open. Finally it didn’t. A Wednesday, as I recall. I gave her a judgeship and she has twice been cited by the Bar Association for excellence beyond the believable. That was Claudia.