Stanley Elkin - Boswell

“Of course,” I said. I cleared away some of the food from the table d’afrique: a small zebra fillet (I was surprised to see that the stripes were carried through into the meat itself — Of course, I thought, light meat and dark meat) and a platter of lion livers. Climbing onto the table, I clapped my hands a final time.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I called. Nate looked embarrassed. “For History,” I whispered hoarsely. I spotted Margaret across the room with Harold Flesh. “Where the hell have you been?” I yelled, but I was careful not to yell in exactly her direction so that no one else could hear me. I didn’t wait for her answer.

“Mr. President, Queen, Warlords, Chairmen of Boards, Leaders, Owners, Guests and Friends — Ladies and Gentlemen. May I have your attention for a moment?” Gradually people began to look up at me. With their eyes on me I noticed that I felt a little warm; excited as I was I made a mental note of this. (I had never before been aware of the sheer physical heat generated by attention.) I waited until they finished coughing. “All right,” I said, “now look. Two hundred is too unwieldy a number to work with if we’re going to get anything out of this. Now I’ll be perfectly frank with you. I don’t personally give a good goddamn if the rest of you get anything out of it at all. That’s your lookout. But I’m here for a good time. Let me hear it if you feel that way about it too.” They applauded brightly. They were a surprisingly tractable group to work with, I thought. It would probably be harder when I got everybody together. Already I was thinking tentatively of a suitable site, the Sahara perhaps, or a huge platform built out over the Atlantic. “All right then,” I said sharply, “let’s get organized. I want all of you Nobel Prize winners to stand up and go over to that wall.” I pointed to the small table of space foods Nate had set up. “That’s right, Morty, by the space pastes.” Morty was the only one who had moved. “Come on now, the rest of you as well. Follow Dr. Perlmutter, please.” I indicated the South American poet. “Señor,” I said, “por favor, if you please.” He smiled shyly but stayed where he was. “To get the hell to where I told you,” I shouted. “All right,” I said when he had started, “now Dr. Green.”

“I didn’t know Green had a Nobel Prize,” someone whispered.

“Peace Prize,” his son the senator said, giggling.

“Now where’s that team from Cal Tech?” I spotted two Chinese lounging near Harold and Margaret. They grinned good-naturedly and set off to join the others. “They go everywhere together,” I told the crowd. “Ying and Yang.” I looked around the room. “Where’s my chemist?” I demanded. “Where’s my authority on International Law?” I prodded the remaining Nobel Prize winners, and soon they made a sizable group by the table. I carefully arranged the rest of them around the room and smiled down at the group approvingly.

“Are we all here?” I asked. “Who’s minding the world?” I motioned for silence.

“Okay,” I said, “the way I see it is this. There’s a symbol involved. We’re behind closed doors, as Green says, but in a deeper sense we’ve always been behind closed doors, if you see what I mean. Well now, I don’t think that’s a very satisfactory way to have to live. Personally I think I’m missing a lot that I might otherwise be getting out of life. Incidentally, I want you to notice that I’m addressing you in clichés. That’s the deliberate oratorical style I’ve adopted in order to reach the greatest possible number with the least possible misunderstanding. It’s going to be my lingua franca with you. I tell you this because my cards are on the table and I don’t intend to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes. I’m not that kind of person. As a matter of fact I have absolutely nothing to hide. Indeed, I never had. But the rest of you— my God! Ask anybody here if Boswell hasn’t always been open and aboveboard in his dealings. I think you’ll find that if the truth were known I certainly have.

“Now you ask what my purpose is and I tell you it’s simply this. I can’t stand the idea of your knowing something I don’t know. Now I know why that is. I haven’t lived this long in the world for nothing. It’s just that you people have to die. I understand that. If you people lived forever you’d be better people than you people are. But you don’t live forever so you become all shut up inside and you rush around hither and yon from pillar to post, keeping your own counsel, living your own lives, with no regard for me and what I might require of you. I know, I know — it’s a rat race. But I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t have to be that way, that if we just use a little common sense and try a little harder to help the other fellow we can change all that. Just as an example, look what we have not fifty feet away from us right out there on Broadway. Open the drapes please, Nate.”

Nate pulled back the drapes and we could see the crowds outside surge forward, swinging their heads around each other’s necks to get a better look at us.

“Okay, Nate, you can close them now. You see? That’s what I mean. You create this wake of curiosity wherever you go. Now these are just little people and you might think they don’t count for much and I grant you that, but the principle is unchanged.

“All right. What I’m asking you to do is to forget your own deaths for a minute and think about mine. That isn’t selfish or unreasonable of me as it might sound. I mean, when you come right down to it I never had anything very much to do with death, and the same can’t be said for a lot of you people. As a matter of fact, some of you folks have been making a pretty good profit out of it for years. Don’t get the wrong idea — I’m not condemning you. You have to make a buck, a name, wherever you can; I appreciate that. General Manara here, for example, has four stars on each shoulder of each suit in his closet. Now just as an approximation, General, how many lives do you suppose each of those stars represents? Just as an approximation, now.”

The general blushed and looked away.

“Just so,” I said. “And it’s pretty much the same story with most of you. Perlmutter here deals in dying cultures. He won’t touch them unless they’re unspoiled. Well, how many of you have ever stopped to consider what an unspoiled culture actually is? It’s one without proper facilities for sanitation, without electricity, without hospitals or a balanced diet or a vaccination program. Anything, in fact, which might extend longevity by a single day may be said to contribute to culture spoilage.

“But I don’t mean to bring this down to a personal level. What’s true of General Manara and Morty here is just as true of a lot of others. Quick, Black Pope, how does a Christian get into your Heaven?”

“He must first die,” the Black Pope said.

“There — you see? And that’s not all. Some of you who are doctors, haven’t you sometimes sent a bill to the next of kin after you’ve already lost the patient? There are lawyers among us, prosecuting attorneys.” I pointed to a famous district attorney.

“Hey, wait a minute,” he said. “I’m not even in favor of capital punishment.”

“There is no other kind, sir,” I said. “But that’s not the point. As I said before, I’m not attacking anybody. It’s just that I’m trying to get across to you that I come to you with my hands clean, a veritable Switzerland among men.”

I paused while they nodded to each other like people who find themselves in agreement about a good pianist. Some of them even winked. I could see that I had impressed them; even Lano was concentrating intently upon me. Only Morty, that egoist, seemed a little bored; I saw him pop a pill onto his tongue. It seemed to me he frowned but of course it may just have been the bitter taste of the dissolving chemicals. Which was an example of what I meant: it was impossible to know what was really happening to someone else.