William Gass - Middle C

Moreover, he read, rather systematically, every book on the subject in the Urichstown library, even the two on the guitar. To be sure, this was a modest number, but it was nevertheless many more than he had ever seen in one place before — shelves of opera synopses, opera gossip, singers’ and conductors’ bios and reminiscences (Caruso to Toscanini — alas, only the popular people), a little history, even some stage stuff. Ballet was less generously endowed: ballet plots, ballet dancers and their aching legs, their love-crossed lives, impresarios — bullies — as well as dancers (Nijinsky, Diaghilev and Balanchine, Gelsey Kirkland) — a little history, even less criticism, one Sert, which was really a surprise. Had the collection been tall enough to have a head, it could have been called top-heavy with performers (Beecham), rather than composers (Bloch), though the latters’ lives were spottily represented: Schubert not Schumann, Verdi not Bellini, Beethoven not Bruckner, Bach not Webern. As in all libraries, however, there were volumes whose presence was inexplicable. Though musicology was represented by Young People’s Introductions to the Orchestra and Old People’s Appreciations of the Classics , there was Schenker present — Schenker, of all people, Schenker, about whom Joseph hadn’t a notion when he first thumbed through the pages of Harmony , so his astonishment was entirely retrospective. There was Schenker and Schoenberg, there was Style and Idea . So if, by some standards, the collection didn’t amount to much, by Joey’s it was enough.

It almost painfully pleased his eye to run along the rows of titles, teasing his imagination with what really was a gesture, because it and longing were twins, and longing could not help itself, it had to experience the interiors of these volumes, again not as printed words upon a page but as words read, as heard, as realized, as conceived; and this building was so cozy, trim, and tidy, it was easy for Joey to feel the books were his; the small close halls made of shelves, the little reading room with its library table and its stately chairs were spaces in his new home where windows — casement windows — opened onto a side yard with great trees and forsythia yellower than a bonnet. He would indulge his fingers, letting them slide along the ends of books, as his eyes had, touching the titles, as if imbibing paper, cloth, and leather, feeling width, and with width, length, and with that, weight, and with weight, importance and ambition — a series of associations that did not always lead him astray.

Through his garage windows he could see his car. “His car”—it was a phrase he could not call customary. The car itself still scared him. Like being a grown-up with a tank full of obligations. Fortunately, he had little use for his vehicle. As it had sat, before its sale, it sat now. He knew it sat, and while it sat, it rusted. Already a ruin, it grew older out of enervation. Joseph had begun to assess the Rambler’s ailments, which were many, various, and apparently serious, but why should that surprise him, what did he expect for thirty-five dollars? Miss Spiky would probably have paid him just to drive it off the lot. The plastic upholstery had split. Only every other dial on the dashboard registered. The overhead light would glow occasionally, although there seemed to be no reason for it. The speedometer sounded as if it were grinding gravel. Yet this Rambler had driven him to Urichstown, and it had driven him back to Woodbine, too, though this time in another gear — he still wasn’t sure which — carrying him by the car yard in Lowell from which he had rescued its carcass and sent it into action to enjoy a last run of life if not a new one. Joseph had blown the Rambler’s horn (it awk ’d) as he and his auto passed Miss Spiky’s place, out of thanks and in triumph, but he did not suppose she had heard him greet her or, if she had, cared to give notice. Anyway, he could not have seen her had her trailer been on fire because he wisely kept his eyes on the road, tense as most new drivers, even more ignorant, fearful of every curve ahead, of overtaking or oncoming cars — trucks were worst — trying to avoid clutch lurch and calculating how to steer and how to stop.

One wall of his room had been a retractable door with a row of square windows across it. This was infirmly fastened across the driveway, the end of which now served as his floor, by strips of felt and plenty of stickum. Shag rugs made from plastic rags had been used to cover ancient oil and grease spots. They tepidly warmed his toes, though it wasn’t winter yet. He anticipated the cold creeping like an animal into the concrete and crawling under the door toward his bed to warm itself. Fortunately there was no odor of gasoline. The place smelled as if it had been taken fresh from its box, nevertheless it looked the way things long unused seem — new yet forlornly out of style. Two walls, rear and side, backed into the house, but the fourth wall had a standard window covered by bathroom curtains so you couldn’t see the neighbors — or they, presumably, you. At the back of the garage, a door led into the house where a bathroom offered its mirror, a tumbler for a toothbrush, a towel hook, and a saucer that held soap. The badly stained john had a yellowed enamel handle that looked tired and familiar; the porcelain sink was spider-webbed with cracks; and crowded into a corner, a glassine shower, the size of its stream, had been amateurishly squeezed. Everything about his bed was brief, but its brevity left room for a desk served by a goosenecked study lamp and a stiff straight chair. He thought of Mr. Hirk’s. The lamp’s brown metal shade was schoolboy standard. Thank God it wasn’t green. He also had a squat stuffed flower-covered chair with fat arms and a bulbous back that bent his knees but made him sit straight. There was a cardboard closet and a plywood dresser available for his things. On the wall was last year’s calendar featuring a different library for every month. February, where it fell open, was distinguished by an archival photo of the Newberry Library in Chicago, sitting appropriately across from a park of snow.

Ms. Bruss’s modest house perched on its hillside like a bird, so through his row of windows he could not only watch the drive roll briefly down the hill to the cross street but see the Quick and one of its bridges in the valley. It was not a long walk to the library; however, the return was a stiff one, and Joseph already envisioned hill snow and sidewalk ice making every step precarious. With the drive steep, and the car unreliable, Ms. Bruss provided bricks to place behind its rear wheels and prevent its return to the scrap yard.

Miriam was not impressed with Joseph’s Rambler. You are like the simpleton who is sent to sell a cow and comes back with a few seeds.

But they grew upward toward heaven and a hoard of gold. Besides that’s what you like most of all — seeds.

Weed the comparison, she said with some annoyance, you know what I mean. My fifty went for this ugly old thing?

No. Only thirty-five.

Oh God, the good bills — the twenty, ten, and five, I bet, not any of the ones.

It’s just paper money, Mother, it doesn’t matter.

Doesn’t? ones are only ones like pennies are only pennies. Remember the penny pot? None of them was money till they were exchanged for a bill. You know how to destroy five dollars? Buy five hundred pennies with it. Less than worthless, then, just a bother. Heavy as Hades.

Put a penny in the ground, your hydrangeas will thank you.

Pennies? pooh. They’re made of aluminum and brown paint, not iron.

I guess.

Joseph described his library, said nice things about his new boss, and, in general, blessed the town.

Woman at work told me the place — what’s it called? I’m forgetting.