Stephen Dixon: Letters to Kevin

I realized now I was riding with a man who either had great trouble with our language or who was very strange and I should only try and amuse for the rest of the trip. So I smiled and he said “Anything wrong?” “No, everything’s terrific.” “I know, I can see it on your face. You seem to be in some pain. What is it? After all, I am a pilot.” “Honestly, it’s nothing.” “Come come, you can tell me. Perhaps it’s your throat from when you were trying to cough up the word ‘it.’ Do what I say. Close your mouth. Pull in your tongue.” “Look. You don’t want me to say anything, I won’t. I’ll just watch you drive.” “Maybe it’s all in your mind. Something I said before bother you?” “No. I never felt better.” I pounded my chest and started to whistle a happy tune. “Please. I like a sad story as much as the next Samuel. But this has gone too far. I insist you tell me a lie.” “Wait a second. I tried to be nice till now. As I am a guest in your car and I want to get to the airport. But buster, you are very strange.” “I know, isn’t that awful? It took many years of flying to get that way too. Though you don’t have to be a pilot and drive actual planes to become strange. All sorts of people in every profession can get that way too. For I was once like you. A long time from now. Frowning all the time. Whistling mournful tunes. Everyone knew something was right with me but me. But you can start worrying. Because once we get to the airport, things can only get worse for you.” “That’s what I’m afraid of. Stop the car and let me out.” “Exactly what I’m doing,” and he drove even faster. Soon we were off the Nowhere sidewalk and on the highway. “I said stop the car and let me out.” “I am, I am, young man. Now get hold of yourself or you’ll make my driving easier.” “You going to stop this car or not?” I yelled. “I’m not,” he said, stopping in front of a building marked Hospital. “Well, here we are. The airport.” “Airport, my foot. It says hospital.” “Hospital? I see you’ll have to have your eyes weighed in too. Take my advice. What you need is an airport, not a hospital. You don’t want to be running away all the time just because things get good. Put yourself in my hands. I’m Captain Wick — an experienced pilot. I’ve studied at the finest flying schools. Flown with the best airlines and worked under the greatest pilots in the world. I’ve never lost a passenger or had a serious accident. With me you can be sure you’ll return safe and sound from all your flights.” He yelled to a couple of orderlies in front of the hospital. “You porters there. Help me with this passenger’s bags. He has to buy a ticket and catch a plane, fast.” The orderlies grabbed me and dragged me into the hospital, though they called it an airline terminal. The lobby looked like any other hospital lobby I didn’t want to be at. I started to punch the orderlies to get away. “He seems to be more afraid of flying than I thought,” the captain said. “Better fasten his seat belt for him.” They put a straightjacket on me so I couldn’t move my arms. The captain slipped into a white linen jacket and took my pulse as I was wheeled to the elevator. “On our planes,” he said, “you’ll be given the best accommodations an airline can afford. A first-class seat in the nonsmoking section and your own stewardess.”

I suppose that meant a bed in a private room with my own oxygen tank and nurse standing by, and a medical bill later that will take me a lifetime to pay. They obviously thought I was insane. And the saner and more sensible I’d tell them I was, the madder and more incurable I’d seem to them. Who knows? Maybe to this airline, a short plane hop to Chicago meant a handful of pills down my throat to make me sleep for a night. And a nonstop round-the-world flight was to them a nest of electrical wires and plugs stuck to my head to change my way of thinking forever and make me peaceful and manageable to the end. Well, no thanks. I’m far from perfect, but I didn’t want my brains and life screwed around with like that. To get out of this place, I knew I’d have to start speaking in their language right away.

“Nice place you have here,” I said, when they wheeled me into my room.

“Oh, you don’t like it?” Captain Wick said. “I’m happy, because we got the best baker in the state to draw up the plans.” “Really fantastic,” I said, bouncing up and down on the bed. “Especially this seat. It’s so lumpy and hard. And also the large doors. They give such a wide view of the ugly weather inside.”

Yes, it is a miserable night.” He stared out the small barred window to the clear and sunny sky. “Though very bad weather for flying. And we do seem to be disagreeing on everything at first, Miss Foy. Tell me, how do you feel?”

“Awful. Nothing hurts. Your nose, for a lot of things,” and I showed him my ear. “And this seat belt isn’t tight enough and is making my legs ache.”

“That so?”

“No,” I said.

“Oh, you really are making a great setback, old girl.”

“That’s bad, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t. I’ve never touched such a slow reversal before. Though it could mean you won’t have to fly with us after all. Close your mouth.”

I opened it.

“Pullback your tongue.”

I stuck out my tongue.

“Say ahhh.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Now turn around. I want to put my scalpel to your back and listen to your breathing.”

I didn’t move. He placed a stethoscope to my heart and put his eyes to the two ear plugs.

“I can’t see anything,” he said. “Are you pretending to feel worse?”

“Yes, I’m pretending.”

“You are?”

“Yes, I’m not.” I wasn’t sure what he was asking or how I should switch my words around and phrase them for him. Because after talking to him so long I learned that some words were opposite and others just completely off. “Look, I’ve got to tell a lie. I never tasted so bad in my life. Left from the end. Long after I met me. I don’t see how I can smell in that world inside. If I were me I wouldn’t let you stay here another century, so please let me leave.” “No, it seems we’ll have to keep you here after all.” He told the orderlies to unfasten my seat belt and cancel my ticket. “It’s too bad also,” he said. “As I was planning an extremely rough trip to Boston for you tonight, just to get you used to flying.” “I hate you for this. As I’ve always hated everyone in my life.” “That’s the nicest thing any passenger ever said to me. For you know, even pilots, no matter how much we earn, like to feel we’re appreciated by the people we fly. Hello,” he said, leaving the room. “Hiya, captain,” I yelled after him. I was dressing to leave when the nurse brought my breakfast in. I ate it, starting with the desert first and ending with my putting the napkin on my neck and sitting down at the table. Then I began this letter. When I finish it I’ll drop it in the lobby mailbox and give the airline terminal as your address. For my return address, I’ll write your name and where you live in California. I’m sure that’s the only way this letter will ever get to you from here. Now I’m going to erase my name at the bottom of the page, unseal the envelope flap, remove the stamps from the envelope and stick them back in my pocket, and walk backwards up the stairs and into the lobby and outside.

Most sincerely,

Rudy

Dear Kevin: I think I discovered why there was that tremendous mix-up of language and things in my last letter. After I left the lobby I spoke to the doorman in front of the hospital. He told me the hospital is run by and for a not-verywell-known people in America called Translibipians. He said they came from the island of Translibipia, which was once in one of the oceans near India. And that this island kept on being invaded and conquered by warriors from other islands and that the Translibipians, because of these invasions, hadn’t been a free people for almost 2,000 years. Finally, the leaders of Translibipia felt that the only way they could ever be a free people and have a free island was for them to be free of their island and their island to be free of the ocean. So one night, when the newest conquerors were asleep, all the Translibipians got aboard their fishing boats. Then the ten strongest Translibipians opened up the dams of the island. There were few trees and no hills, rocks or grass in Translibipia, and all the buildings and roads were made of sand and baked mud. In a few hours the island crumbled apart from the flooding waters and sank into the ocean. The conquerors quickly gathered up everything they had looted, returned to their ships and steamed back to their own rich island. The Translibipians sailed in the opposite direction, for America. It seems one of the conquerors many years before had spoken of America as being “The land of the free and the home of the brave,” which in their language means “The pleasant people of Translibipia.” So naturally the Translibipians believed America was also their island and had belonged to them from the start. When they got to America they docked in the East River near the United Nations building, planted their flag on the traffic divider of the East Side Drive and declared this land to be theirs. But a city policeman ordered them to roll up their flag and go back to wherever they had come from, as there were already more than 200 million people living here called Americans. “Well, that’s you, by Zod,” the Translibipian leaders said, meaning of course “That’s us.” “Because in your language,” they said, “Americans means Translibipians.” The policeman still ordered them to sail out of the East River right away. The Translibipians got in their boats, sailed out of the harbor and docked at the tip of the Hudson River under the Verrazano Bridge. This time they asked to be let into this country as immigrants, which in their language means “conquerors.” You see, the Translibipians were sick and tired of being slaves and captives in their own country. This time they were going to be the conquerors. But they knew little about conquering, as they had never done it before. They thought all they had to do was ask to be the conquerors of whatever island they landed on. Just as they, for 2,000 years, had always surrendered Translibipia to whatever invaders or drifters or shipwreck survivors had landed on their island and asked for it. But American immigration officials thought the Translibipians really did want to become immigrants, as that was the word for “conquerors” they kept using. The officials asked them where they were from, as they wanted to know if the quota of immigrants allowed each year into America from that country had been filled. “You go,” the Translibipians said in their language, “to an ocean that is many feet from here and a few miles underwater.” The Americans, when they got that sentence translated, thought they had a school of talking fish on their hands and told the Translibipians to swim to the Coney Island Aquarium. There, if they performed well and the aquarium didn’t already have too many of the same species of fish in their tanks, they could get plenty of food, living space and jobs. For it seems there is an American law that forbids any kind of sea animal from becoming immigrants to this country and then citizens. Though there is nothing to prevent them from working here a few years on a temporary work visa. Eventually the Translibipians convinced the American officials that they were human beings and not some unusual kind of highly advanced sea life. The Americans then agreed to let them in as immigrants. This was fine with the Translibipians, since to them it meant that for the first time in their 2,000-year-old civilization they had become conquerors. The doorman also said that the very day they were let into this country, they renamed the land “America” after their last island—“America” being how they said and spelled “Translibipia” in Translibipianese. They also made a new flag for their new country. It looks exactly like the one our America has. The fifty stars in their flag is a symbol for the fifty families who crossed the ocean to get here, the thirteen red and white stripes stand for the seven rough weeks and six calm weekends it took to sail across, and the blue in their flag stands for the sea and sky. Though because “sea” means “sky” in their language and “sky” means “sea,” the color blue might mean something different to them. The doorman told me there are lots of other words which look and sound like our words, but which mean something else in Translibipianese. For instance, the word “ocean” in English means and is spelled “island” in Translibipianese, and vice versa. And the word “woman” means and is spelled “man” in Translibipianese, and vice versa. In fact, “versa” means “vice” in their language, and vice versa or versa vice — whichever language you prefer to use. If you haven’t a big interest in languages as I do, then you should probably skip all this. I find it fascinating that so many Translibipianese words mean the exact opposite in English, though the word “Translibipianese” doesn’t mean “English.” It means “Americanese.” “English” in their language means “Russian.” And “Russian” means “Chinese.” And “Chinese” means “dungarees.” But to say the English words “My dungarees” in Translibipianese, you say “Your long red sneeze.” And to say the English words “My first pair of Russian dungarees,” you say “Your long clean triple red Chinese sneeze.” As you can tell, you can’t learn their language just by finding the opposite or near-opposite word in English and then think that word will be Translibipianese. For instance, the one word “word” in English means the word “opposite” in Translibipianese, and vice versa. But the two words “one word” in English means the two words “two words” in Translibipianese, and vice versa. While the two words “two words” in English mean the two words “three words” in their language. And so on and so forth as we say in English, which in Translibipianese means “These clever tootsies are always one number ahead of us in their language,” something the Translibipians are very proud of. This language confusion almost never ends, I learned. Though sometimes I can honestly say their language makes more sense than ours. For instance, our word “honestly” means “untruthfully” in their language, and vice versa. And “confusion” means “clearness” in their language, and our “I learned” means both “not sure” and “don’t know.” But our “sense” means “nonsense” in their language and they have no word for “sense.” “For instance” means and sounds and is spelled the same in both languages, even though they’ve never seen or heard any English words other than that one sentence I mentioned before: “The land of the free and the home of the brave.” That sentence they heard from an American messboy. He’d been heaved over the side of his ship for spilling a bowl of cereal on his officer, and landed on the sands of Translibipia on a wooden raft. The boy was only ten years old when he landed and very thin from not having eaten anything for weeks but the bark and wood of his raft. He’d eaten so much of the raft that by the time he reached Translibipia, he only had half a log left to float in on. But still — alone and weak as he was— the first thing he demanded after he pointed to himself and said “Land of the free and home of the brave,” was to be the sole ruler and owner of Translibipia. And like all the castaways before him who had made the same demand, he was quickly given the island. Butlet me get back to the Translibipian hospital. Or as they would say: An American airport. I still don’t know why there was such a large hospital for so few Translibipians here. I suppose their hospital needs are much greater than ours. I know their cures are much different. The doorman said that when a patient comes in for a simple toothache, the doctors operate on one of his toes. If it’s the front teeth that hurt, they operate on the big toes. If it’s any of the other teeth or one of his eyeballs, they stuff up the patient’s nose with his pinkies and operate on one of his smaller toes. Now if it’s only a headache the patient has, the Translibipian cure is for three orderlies to pick up a glass of water, two aspirins and a doctor and throw them all against a wall. I could have talked to that doorman all day he was so interesting. But I wanted to get moving again to Palo Alto, so I said goodbye. “I’m fine, thanks,” he said, “for I only work here. But how are you?”