Donald Barthelme: The Dead Father

The Dead Father’s head. The main thing is, his eyes are open. Staring up into the sky. The eyes a two-valued blue, the blues of the Gitanes cigarette pack. The head never moves. Decades of staring. The brow is noble, good Christ, what else? Broad and noble. And serene, of course, he’s dead, what else if not serene? From the tip of his finely shaped delicately nostriled nose to the ground, fall of five and one half meters, figure obtained by triangulation. The hair is gray but a young gray. Full, almost to the shoulder, it is possible to admire the hair for a long time, many do, on a Sunday or other holiday or in those sandwich hours neatly placed between fattish slices of work. Jawline compares favorably to a rock formation. Imposing, rugged, all that. The great jaw contains thirty-two teeth, twenty-eight of the whiteness of standard bathroom fixtures and four stained, the latter a consequence of addiction to tobacco, according to legend, this beige quartet to be found in the center of the lower jaw. He is not perfect, thank God for that. The full red lips drawn back in a slight rictus, slight but not unpleasant rictus, disclosing a bit of mackerel salad lodged between two of the stained four. We think it’s mackerel salad. It appears to be mackerel salad. In the sagas, it is mackerel salad.

Dead, but still with us, still with us, but dead.

No one can remember when he was not here in our city positioned like a sleeper in troubled sleep, the whole great expanse of him running from the Avenue Pommard to the Boulevard Grist. Overall length, 3,200 cubits. Half buried in the ground, half not. At work ceaselessly night and day through all the hours for the good of all. He controls the hussars. Controls the rise, fall, and flutter of the market. Controls what Thomas is thinking, what Thomas has always thought, what Thomas will ever think, with exceptions. The left leg, entirely mechanical, said to be the administrative center of his operations, working ceaselessly night and day through all the hours for the good of all. In the left leg, in sudden tucks or niches, we find things we need. Facilities for confession, small booths with sliding doors, people are noticeably freer in confessing to the Dead Father than to any priest, of course! he’s dead. The confessions are taped, scrambled, recomposed, dramatized, and then appear in the city’s theaters, a new feature-length film every Friday. One can recognize moments of one’s own, sometimes. The right foot rests at the Avenue Pommard and is naked except for titanium steel band around ankle, this linked by titanium steel chains to dead men (dead man n. 1. a log, concrete block, etc., buried in the ground as an anchor) to the number of eight sunk in the green of the Gardens. There is nothing unusual about the foot except that it is seven meters high. The right knee is not very interesting and no one has ever tried to dynamite it, tribute to the good sense of the citizens. From the knee to the hip joint (Belfast Avenue) everything is most ordinary. We encounter for example the rectus femoris, the saphenous nerve, the iliotibial tract, the femoral artery, the vastus medialis, the vastus lateralis, the vastus intermedius, the gracilis, the adductor magnus, the adductor longus, the intermediate femoral cutaneous nerve and other simple premechanical devices of this nature. All working night and day for the good of all. Tiny arrows are found in the right leg, sometimes. Tiny arrows are never found in the left (artificial) leg at any time, tribute to the good sense of the citizens. We want the Dead Father to be dead. We sit with tears in our eyes wanting the Dead Father to be dead — meanwhile doing amazing things with our hands.

Eleven o’clock in the morning. The sun doing its work in the sky.

The men are tiring, said Julie. Perhaps you should give them a break.

Thomas made the “break” signal waving his arm in a downward motion.

The men fell out by the roadside. The cable relaxed in the road.

This grand expedition, the Dead Father said, this waltz across an unknown parquet, this little band of brothers…

You are not a brother, Julie reminded him. Do not get waltzed away.

That they should so love me, the Dead Father said, as to haul and haul and haul and haul, through the long days and nights and less than optimal weather conditions…

Julie looked away.

My children, the Dead Father said. Mine. Mine. Mine.

Thomas lay down with his head in Julie’s lap.

Many sad things have befallen me, he said, and many sad things are yet to befall me, but the saddest thing of all is that fellow Edmund. The fat one.

The drunk, Julie said.

Yes.

How did you come by him?

I was standing in the square, on a beer keg as I remember, signing people up, and heard this swallowing noise under my feet. Edmund. Swallowing the tap.

You knew, then. Before you signed him up.

He begged. He was abject.

A son of mine, nevertheless, said the Dead Father.

It would be the making of him, he said. Our march. I did not agree. But it is hard to deny someone the thing he thinks will be the making of him. I signed him up.

He has handsome hair, Julie said. That I’ve noticed.

He was happy to throw away the cap-and-bells, said Thomas. As we all were, he added, looking pointedly at the Dead Father.

Thomas pulled an orange fool’s cap tipped with silver bells from his knapsack.

To think that I have worn this abomination, or its mate, since I was sixteen.

Sixteen to sixty-five, so says the law, said the Dead Father.

This does not make you loved.

Loved! Not a matter of love. A matter of Organization.

All the little heads so gay, said Julie. Makes one look a perfect fool, the cap. Brown-and-beige, maroon-and-gray, red-and-green, all bells chilattering. What a picture. I thought, What perfect fools.

As was intended, said the Dead Father.

And had I been caught out-of-doors without it, my ears cut off, said Thomas. What a notion. What an imagination.

A certain artistry, said the Dead Father. In my ukases.

Let us lunch, said Julie. Although it’s early.

The roadside. The tablecloth. Ringle of dinnerbell. Toasted prawns. They disposed themselves around the cloth in this fashion:

Quite good.

Not so bad.

Is there mustard?

In the pot.

Something in it.

What?

Look there.

Pick it out with your finger.

Nasty little bugger.

Pass the prawns.

And for dessert?

Fig Newtons.

They sat contentedly around the cloth, munching. Ahead of them, the lunch fires of the men. The cable slack in the roadway.

Soon we will be there, said the Dead Father.

Fourteen days or fifteen days, I reckon, Thomas said. If we are headed right.

Is there any doubt?

There is always doubt.

When we are there, and when I wrap myself in its warm yellowness, then I will be young again, said the Dead Father. I shall once more be wiry.

Wiry! Julie exclaimed. She stuffed a part of the tablecloth into her mouth.