Donald Barthelme - The Dead Father

C:

Hey son come here a minute. I want you and me to have a little talk. You’re turnin’ pale. How come you always turn pale when we have a little talk? You delicate? Pore delicate little flower? Naw you ain’t, you’re a man, son, or will be someday the good Lord willin’. But you got to do right. That’s what I want to talk to you about. Now put down that comic book and come on over here and sit by me. Sit right there. Make yourself comfortable. Now, you comfortable? Good. Son, I want to talk to you about your personal habits. Your personal habits. We ain’t never talked about your personal habits and now it’s time. I been watchin’ you, kid. Your personal habits are admirable. Yes they are. They are flat admirable. I like the way you pick up your room. You run a clean room, son, I got to hand it to you. And I like the way you clean your teeth. You brush right, in the right direction, and you brush a lot. You’re goin’ to have good gums, kid, good healthy gums. We ain’t gonna have to lay out no money to get your teeth fixed, your mother and I, and that’s a blessing and we thank you. And you keep yourself clean, kid, clothes neat, hands clean, face clean, knees clean, that’s the way to hop, way to hop. There’s just one little thing, son, one little thing that puzzles me. I been studyin’ ‘bout it and I flat don’t understand it. How come you spend so much time washin’ your hands, kid? I been watchin’ you. You spend an hour after breakfast washin’ your hands. Then you go wash ‘em again ‘bout ten-thirty, ten-forty, ‘nother fifteen minutes washin’ your hands. Then just before lunch, maybe a half hour, washin’ your hands. Then after lunch, sometimes an hour, sometimes less, it varies. I been noticin’. Then in the middle of the afternoon back in there washin’ your hands. Then before supper and after supper and before you go to bed and sometimes you get up in the middle of the night and go on in there and wash your hands. Now I’d think you were in there playin’ with your little prick, your little prick, ‘cept you a shade young for playin’ with your little prick and besides you leave the door open, most kids close the door when they go in there to play with their little pricks but you leave it open. So I see you in there and I see what you’re doin’, you’re washin’ your hands. And I been keepin’ track of it and son, you spend ‘bout three quarters of your wakin’ hours washin your hands. And I think there’s somethin’ a little bit strange about that, son. It ain’t natural. So what I want to know is, how come you spend so much time washin’ your hands, son? Can you tell me? Huh? Can you give me a rational explanation? Well, can you? Huh? You got anything to say on this subject? Well, what’s the matter? You’re just sittin’ there. Well come on, son, what you got to say for yourself? What’s the explanation? Now it won’t do you no good to start cryin’, son, that don’t help anything. Okay kid stop crying. I said stop it! I’m goin’ to whack you, kid, you don’t stop cryin’. Now cut that out. This minute. Now cut it out. Goddamn baby. Come on now kid, get ahold of yourself. Now go wash your face and come on back in here. I want to talk to you some more. Wash your face, but don’t do that other. Now go on in there and get back in here right quick. I want to talk to you ‘bout bumpin’ your head. You’re still bumpin’ your head, son, against the wall, ‘fore you go to sleep. I don’t like it. You’re too old to do that. It disturbs me. I can hear you in there, when you go to bed, bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump. It’s disturbing. It’s monotonous. It’s a very disturbing sound. I don’t like it. I don’t like listenin’ to it. I want you to stop it. I want you to get ahold of yourself. I don’t like to hear that noise when I’m sittin’ in here tryin’ to read the paper or whatever I’m doin’, I don’t like to hear it and it bothers your mother. It gets her all upset and I don’t like your mother to be all upset, just on accounta you. Bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump, what are you, kid, some kind of animal? I cain’t figure you out, kid. I just flat cain’t understand it, bump bump bump bump bump bump bump. Dudden’t hurtcha? Dudden’t hurtcha head? Well, never mind about that right now. Go on in there and wash your face, and then come on back in here and we’ll talk some more. And don’t do none of that other, just wash your face. You got three minutes.

Fathers are like blocks of marble, giant cubes, highly polished, with veins and seams, placed squarely in your path. They block your path. They cannot be climbed over, neither can they be slithered past. They are the “past,” and very likely the slither, if the slither is thought of as that accommodating maneuver you make to escape notice, or get by unscathed. If you attempt to go around one, you will find that another (winking at the first) has mysteriously appeared athwart the trail. Or maybe it is the same one, moving with the speed of paternity. Look closely at color and texture. Is this giant square block of marble similar in color and texture to a slice of rare roast beef? Your very father’s complexion! Do not try to draw too many conclusions from this; the obvious ones are sufficient and correct. Some fathers like to dress up in black robes and go out and give away the sacraments, adding to their black robes the chasuble, stole, and alb, in reverse order. Of these “fathers” I shall not speak, except to commend them for their lack of ambition and sacrifice, especially the sacrifice of the “franking privilege,” or the privilege of naming the first male child after yourself: Franklin Edward A’albiel, Jr. Of all possible fathers, the fanged father is the least desirable. If you can get your lariat around one of his fangs, and quickly wrap the other end of it several times around your saddle horn, and if your horse is a trained roping horse and knows what to do, how to plant his front feet and then back up with small nervous steps, keeping the lariat taut, then you have a chance. Do not try to rope both fangs at the same time; concentrate on the right. Do the thing fang by fang, and then you will be safe, or more nearly so. I have seen some old, yellowed, six-inch fangs that were drawn in this way, and once, in a whaling museum in a seaport town, a twelve-inch fang, mistakenly labeled as the tusk of a walrus. But I recognized it at once, it was a father fang, which has its own peculiarly shaped, six-pointed root. I am pleased never to have met that father…

If your father’s name is Hiram or Saul, flee into the woods. For these names are the names of kings, and your father Hiram, or your father Saul, will not be a king, but will retain, in hidden places in his body, the memory of kingship. And there is no one more blackhearted and surly than an ex-king, or a person who harbors, in the dark channels of his body, the memory of kingship. Fathers so named consider their homes to be Camelots, and their kith and kin courtiers, to be elevated or depressed in rank according to the lightest whinges of their own mental weather. And one can never know for sure if one is “up” or “down,” at a particular moment; one is a feather, floating, one has no place to stand. Of the rage of the king-father I will speak later, but understand that fathers named Hiram, Saul, Charles, Francis, or George rage (when they rage) exactly in the manner of their golden and noble namesakes. Flee into the woods, at such times, or earlier, before the mighty scimitar or yataghan leaps from its scabbard. The proper attitude toward such fathers is that of the toad, lickspittle, smell-feast, carpet knight, pickthank, or tuft-hunter. When you cannot escape to the trees, genuflect, and stay down there, on one knee with bowed head and clasped hands, until dawn. By this time he will probably have drunk himself into a sleep, and you may creep away and seek your bed (if it has not been taken away from you) or, if you are hungry, approach the table and see what has been left there, unless the ever-efficient cook has covered everything with clear plastic and put it away. In that case, you may suck your thumb.