William Gass - Eyes - Novellas and Stories

Most mysterious, most calamitous of all: we did not see any of the barbers leave for home, or stay for cards, or hear a late-in-the-day customer say, “Here! What’s this?” and bring the pot in, or yell at Walt, “Hey, you got a plant on your front porch” while walking off to other business, innocent of evil intention in every alternative. Where, in the container, was the explosive placed? Was it buried in the soil or propped against the plant? Was it a firework, or vial of nitro, piece of plaster, or a grenade? Was propelling Natty so forcibly across the street a likely direction for an explosive planted in the soil of a flowerpot parked in the seat of a folding chair? The police didn’t say much about anything, I think, because they didn’t know anything. The victims — well, they were the shop and some of its fixings — the victims were about to complain to an insurance company instead of the cops but found both were impossible because the complainers were just things . Sam and Mart were annoyed they hadn’t been hurt. Mildly maimed, mind you. Pleasantly pained…A few feigned mental fatigue but not for long; it was too tiring. Metal would have to do. The cops, for their part, picked up lots of pieces of burst dirt, blown plant, and broken glass that were reverently popped into clear plastic as they had seen themselves do on TV, protecting clues from contamination. They interviewed everybody in a human skin by asking, “What do you know about this?” Otherwise, the Law stood around shrugging its shoulders and speaking vaguely about lab work.

Poor Natty Know-it-all could no longer fold neatly into a community stack; could no longer stand ready to sit; he was an innocent servant of happenstance, and whatever remained of him was to be borne away in the rear of a city truck like the trash it had become. What were we doing, meanwhile? We were wondering — I must say, pathetically — whether this destruction would put an end to the shop; whether we should all be out of a job, and headed for Natty’s junk pile. Oh sure, we knew that our bodies could be mashed flatter than a street, and melted like metal into metal, and thus revived for the doubtful pleasures of another life; but these conclusions were hardly palatable to us, not after our life in the barbershop — a good regular job, some appreciation, companionship, and — I would say — clean, even elegant, surroundings.

I now remember only one other act of violence in the shop over the years. I wonder whether there was any connection. I should think not. I should hope not. Of course not. Anyway, as follows: Walt and Marty were woofing around with a client who was undergoing a trim to his beard; Marty was pretending he was about to cut his customer’s throat the way they pretend in the movies, grinning like kids up to something, drawing the blade slowly upward under the chin; when, with a noise that could only be called a growl, Archie stopped polishing Sam’s guy’s shoes, grabbed Barry Buttock by one leg, and flung him at Marty and Marty’s customer’s throat, and the razor too, I dare say. Barry banged into Sam’s raised arm instead, so the blade did graze the customer’s throat to the degree of a scratch. Perhaps. Mart’s man jerked his head and swiped away the hot cloth covering his eyes, all and each with a howl of their own; Barry tumbled to the floor near a tin of polish, and Archie bulldozed his way out the door into the street.

I swear we never saw Archie after that. No one again polished shoes in the shop or hung up coats and lived on tips. Nothing was broken by the bashing. Nothing was said. Barry Buttock was examined and found to be sturdy enough to stand where he ordinarily belonged. Walt acted ashamed of something. He did say…he did say “geez.” The customer, forever anonymous, wiped his face and the beard that grew there, and left without paying. He walked very carefully, looking down as if checking the polish on his shoes. We never saw him again either. I had forgotten all this until just now. Oh yes, Mr. Razor boasted to me that he had dulled his own blade to prevent any real injury. I never believed him. He was a well-known credit taker.

The way we are misused is no worse than any other. I am not like a lot of my companions, bitter about people, or despairing of my own nature, the way glass feels because it can be seen through — ha ha — nor am I surprised to have learned from knives that they have conserved their animus like juice in jam jars, waiting for dullness or — contrarily — the best time to snap, or how to hurry a finger toward the cut that awaits it. In the opinion of the barber guys, the way utensils are misused is no worse than any other treatment, however widespread, that the human species has inflicted on Mother Nature: hills are burrowed or leveled, lakes pumped dry, seas emptied of life, trees cut, forests burnt. It is no matter with men what damage they do, or their paved streets and ubiquitous cellars accomplish. They murder the very ground they walk on — it’s all right — so why should we few chairs complain about a rusty pinion, a small tear, some slight impulsive knockabout?

After the bomb we collected our spirits as well as we could and endured the inadequate renovations that Walt could afford. Nevertheless, our reopening didn’t bring our old customers back. No one likes to chance it. After all, there was no reason and no warning. Destruction just appeared like the ghost of broken dishes does during Easter or the Christmas holidays. The light that falls on glassware now is as tepid as wash water wrung from a strangled rag. It leaves, after it hits me, no differently than before, except that it departs more the way a sigh does than a joyous whoopee from a winner. The marks on the wall where our customers’ hair once leaned will, I bet, be here long after we are removed to the scrap heap, separated from one another for the first time, and unable to feel the warm reassuring weight of a single human ass.

So we wait as much in daylight, as in the darkness of the shop, for the end of our adventures. On her wavelength, hardly heard, a lipstick is sobbing. Know-it-all insists that we were the targets — things were aimed at and the only entities injured. Those were his last sad words to me as he was hauled away.

If it suits him in his heart to say it went this way, why not say it went this way, say I.

From William James, Principles of Psychology , 1890

The man who spoke with his hands was not deaf nor did he speak with his hands because he was communicating with deaf people. The man who spoke with his hands was not noticeably shy, therefore unlikely to say much, or be inclined to wait for a passing noise behind which to hide his remarks. He engaged in conversations with average frequency and ordinary ease, and employed for these everyday purposes a voice that was mellow enough to spread on bread; neither so low as to approach a whisper nor so high as to threaten screech. It was a voice as brown as his eyes.

The man who spoke with his hands did not gesture expansively, because he spoke with his hands not his arms and/or eyebrows. His hands tended to remain in close touch, mostly about mid-chest. His hands were made almost entirely of fingers. These were long and slim and supple. One thought of cigarette holders except for the supple. A cigarette holder is not supple. It is a bamboo tube with a coating of lacquer. Those who believe that smoke filtered through the stem of such a holder is less likely to sicken them are probably mistaken. According to authorities, they are being poisoned when they breathe such drugs. Smoking is a bad habit but the man who spoke with his hands did not appear to have any other habit than his hands.