Donald Barthelme: The Dead Father

Of course not, said Thomas.

I’m doing this for you, essentially, the Dead Father said. For the general good, and thus, for you.

Thomas said nothing.

As so much else, said the Dead Father.

Thomas said nothing.

You never knew, said the Dead Father.

Thomas turned his head.

You told us, he said, repeatedly.

Oh well yes I may have mentioned the odd initiative now and again. But you never knew. In the fullest sense. Because you are not a father.

I am, Thomas said. You forget Elsie.

Doesn’t count, said the Dead Father. A son can never, in the fullest sense, become a father. Some amount of amateur effort is possible. A son may after honest endeavor produce what some people might call, technically, children. But he remains a son. In the fullest sense.

A moment’s quiet.

Have you heard from her? Elsie?

There was a postcard, Thomas said, three months ago. Picture of a puppy dog with large staring eyes. Love, she said.

Four months ago, Julie said.

Three and a half months ago. She said she was playing field hockey. She was a left inner, she said.

Hockey, said the Dead Father. Chasing that round hard thing down the field. Develops the thigh muscles. Beyond what is desirable, sometimes.

Thomas jerked upon the cable. The Dead Father fell down. Julie and Emma picked him up.

Great knotted bunches of thigh muscles like a plate of red empty lobster shells, the Dead Father said, I can picture it. Antiaesthetic. Sad to see in a twelve-year-old.

I wrote that she was not to pursue it to excess, Thomas said, over his shoulder.

Why do you abide with him? the Dead Father said to Julie. A boy. A neonate. A weakwick. Probably not even found the button yet.

He’s found it, she said.

Is it a large one? the Dead Father asked.

Large enough.

A tender red?

Tender enough.

Can I see it?

Oh I am tired of you! Julie cried.

She raised her arms with fists at the end into the air.

I am not tired of you, said the Dead Father.

That your tuff luck, she said. Not my tuff luck. Yours. Tuff titty.

Titty, said the Dead Father. A short suck?

You are incredible.

Thomas walked back to the Dead Father and rapped him sharply in the forehead.

The Dead Father said: This is damned unpleasant!

Then: If only I were myself again!

We are making progress, Thomas said.

When I douse myself in its great yellow electricity, the Dead Father said, then I will be revivified.

Best not to anticipate too much, said Thomas, it jiggles the possibilities.

Possibilities! Surely the Fleece is not a mere possibility?

It is an excellent possibility, Julie said quickly. A wonderful possibility.

Have you noticed the weather? asked Thomas.

All turned to look for the weather.

Good weather, Julie said. Great weather.

A very pleasant day, Emma noted.

Pleasant day, said the Dead Father.

Extremely pleasant, Thomas said.

It was on a day much like this, said the Dead Father, that I fathered the Pool Table of Ballambangjang.

The what?

It is rather an interesting tale, said the Dead Father, which I shall now tell. I had been fetched by the look of a certain maiden, a raven-haired maiden —

He looked at Julie, whose hand strayed to her dark dark hair.

A raven-haired maiden of great beauty. Her name was Tulla. I sent her many presents. Little machines, mostly, a machine for stamping her name on strips of plastic, a machine for extracting staples from documents, a machine for shortening her fingernails, a machine for removing wrinkles from fabric with the aid of steam. Well, she accepted the presents, no difficulty there, but me she spurned. Now as you might imagine I am not fond of being spurned. I am not used to it. In my domains it does not happen but as ill luck would have it she lived just over the county line. Spurned is not a thing I like to be. In fact I have a positive disinclination for it. So I turned myself into a haircut —

A haircutter? asked Julie.

A haircut, said the Dead Father. I turned myself into a haircut and positioned myself upon the head of a member of my retinue, quite a handsome young man, younger than I, younger than I and stupider, that goes without saying, still not without a certain rude charm, bald as a bladder of lard, though, and as a consequence somewhat diffident in the presence of ladies. Using the long flowing sideburns as one would use one’s knees in guiding a horse —

The horseman is still following us, Thomas noted. I wonder why.

— I sent him cantering off in the direction of the delectable Tulla, the Dead Father went on. So superior was the haircut, that is to say, me, joined together with his bumbly youngness, for which I do not blame him, that she succumbed immediately. Picture it. The first night. The touch nonesuch. At the crux I turned myself back into myself (vanishing the varlet) and we two she and I looked at each other and were content. We spent many nights together all roaratorious and filled with furious joy. I fathered upon her in those nights the poker chip, the cash register, the juice extractor, the kazoo, the rubber pretzel, the cuckoo clock, the key chain, the dime bank, the pantograph, the bubble pipe, the punching bag both light and heavy, the inkblot, the nose drop, the midget Bible, the slot-machine slug, and many other useful and humane cultural artifacts, as well as some thousands of children of the ordinary sort. I fathered as well upon her various institutions useful and humane such as the credit union, the dog pound, and parapsychology. I fathered as well various realms and territories all superior in terrain, climatology, laws and customs to this one. I overdid it but I was madly, madly in love, that is all I can say in my own defense. It was a very creative period but my darling, having mothered all this abundance uncomplainingly and without reproach, at last died of it. In my arms of course. Her last words were “enough is enough, Pappy.” I was inconsolable and, driven as if by a demon, descended into the underworld seeking to reclaim her.

I found her there, said the Dead Father, after many adventures too boring to recount. I found her there but she refused to return with me because she had already tasted the food-of-hell and grown fond of it, it’s addicting. She was watched over by eight thunders who hovered over her and brought her every eve ever more hellish delicacies, and watched over furthermore by the ugly-men-of-hell who attacked me with dreampuffs and lyreballs and sought to drive me off. But I removed my garments and threw them at the ugly-men-of-hell, garment by garment, and as each garment touched even ever-so-slightly an ugly-man-of-hell he shriveled into a gasp of steam. There was no way I could stay, there was nothing to stay for; she was theirs.

Then to purify myself, said the Dead Father, of the impurities which had seeped into me in the underworld I dived headfirst into the underground river Jelly, I washed my left eye therein and fathered the deity Poolus who governs the progress of the ricochet or what bounces off what and to what effect, and washed my right eye and fathered the deity Ripple who has the governing of the happening of side effects/unpredictable. Then I washed my nose and fathered the deity Gorno who keeps tombs warm inside and the deity Libet who does not know what to do and is thus an inspiration to us all. I was then beset by eight hundred myriads of sorrows and sorrowing away when a worm wriggled up to me as I sat hair-tearing and suggested a game of pool. A way, he said, to forget. We had, I said, no pool table. Well, he said, are you not the Dead Father? I then proceeded to father the Pool Table of Ballambangjang, fashioning the green cloth of it from the contents of an alfalfa field nearby and the legs of it from telephone poles nearby and the dark pockets of it from the mouths of the leftover ugly-men-of-hell whom I bade stand with their mouths open at the appropriate points —”