William Gass - Middle C

Joseph had lost a father once, long long ago. Was that actually so bad? Blah or ha-ha or ho-ho. He didn’t know. But that little pang he felt as pleasure when he played and sang the long-ago song made him happy about what? It made him happy about loss. The dear dead days beyond recall.

My little dog always waggles his tail

Whenever he wants his grog;

And if the tail were more strong than he,

Why the tail would wag the dog.

Blah de blah ah ha, hurrah, ho ha, blah blah.

Pitches and beats, pitches and beats, that’s all the blahs were, pitches and beats. It made him want to skippedy do dah. Hit it boys. That odd command meant: start together now. The words were all so violent: hit it, strike up the band, pick up or capture the beat. There was also stomping at the Savoy. Reading at sight from his hymn book Joseph sang

My name is Solomon Levi,

at my store in Baxter street,

That’s where you’ll find your coats and vests,

and everything that’s neat;

I’ve second-handed overcoats,

and everything that’s fine,

For all the boys they trade with me

at one hundred and forty-nine.

Now the chorus, boys, the chorus:

Oh, Mister Levi, Levi, tra, la, la, la;

… Poor Sheeny Levi, tra, la, la

la, la, la la, la, la la, la,

My name is Solomon Levi,

At my store in Baxter street,

There’s where you’ll find your coats and vests,

and everything that’s neat;

I’ve second-handed overcoats,

and everything else that’s fine,

For all the boys they trade with me,

At one hundred and forty-nine.

This last, Joseph presumed, was the street number of the shop, not the price of the overcoats. One tra and ten las rollicked along after poor sheeny Levi like yappy little dogs.

His songbook had suckered him. He had a tune for his temper:

I think I’ll go down in the dumps

’cause lately I’ve taken my lumps.

I’m feeling so low

I call myself Joe …

He stared at the keyboard as he sometimes had to, ordering the piano to play, willing it to anticipate his fingers. This exercise was not a Czerny, nor a Cramer either. He had to relax his fingers. They needed to be fluid, loose as cooked pasta.

Whats that you hummin?

Joseph had been singing just above his breath. It has no name. It’s improvised.

You a real musician then, Miss Spiky said in some surprise. Her hair had been cut and combed out of its customary wrappings. It transformed her appearance, but she remained wide. Now Joey would have to find her another name. He might just ask for the present one.

Instead he said, No, not real. I’m just a pick-it-out, pick-it-up player.

Thats the best kind. You humm you is down in the dumps. Well thats what blues are for. Singin em brings the spirits up.

Yes, it does but that’s what’s got me down.

What?

Sometimes you deserve to be down in the dumps.

Hey, I own a dump, I dont have to live there. She sang “I gotta right to sing the blues, / I gotta right to feel low down.”

Joey laughed. Music is cheap medicine.

Thats right. What else so cheap does so much good?

You really love singing in the choir, don’t you?

Shurely do. We all go up together. We just rise up together like steam from the road.

May I ask what your name is? My name is Joseph Skizzen.

My name is Hazel Hawkins. People call me Witch.

The spring semester is almost over, Professor Skizzen said as he drifted from one side of the classroom to another, a manner he had just recently adopted; only a week, a week and a half, remain, and most of you will leave the campus, leave this community, for your summer vacation and your menial job in a burger palace. Then after a few months — to play the alternatives — those of you who haven’t failed this class or some lesser subject, those of you who haven’t transferred to one of the cheaper Ivies, graduated to the job market, or run away to Europe or the circus, those … those of you who remain will return. That means most of you … most of you will be back, for who fails at Whittlebauer? we are so built upon success.

Of course, in order to come to college you had to fly from your nest, bid bye-bye to your yard, your toaster, your elm tree with its tired swing — too many loved things for me in this crudely shaved hour to touch on … touch on or to name — and from that vantage point … hold on … correction … you may have brought your toaster with you — true — bags of clothes, toaster — yes, certainly — indispensable … anyway, from that perspective what you shall do next is fly back to your old neighborhood. Take your toaster if that pleases. Note this — you shall go home even if the elm is dying. Even if an aunt is. Even if you don’t want to. This cycle — of departure and return — evaporation and rain — yo and yo-yo — will be repeated in one form or another your entire lives.

I beg your pardons, all … I used a misleading migratory metaphor — branch, nest, yard, garden — not wise, requires correction … why? because the migratory bird has two homes, its cool summer cottage and its warm winter cabaña. Hands if you see the difference. When you achieve physicianhood you may be able to afford it. But let me turn this inadequate image to account. Twin homesteads are not unknown to sociological research. Our earth has two poles. Such divided loyalties are regularly demonstrated by those in the dough, though one habitation is usually the castle while the other is a cabin. If you have too many homes, however, as the jet-setter presumably does, we are compelled to conclude that the jetter is really homeless … homeless as only the very rich can afford to be. They are on permanent vacation — not to and fro, but fro and fro. A woeful situation. So sad for them, you see.

Miss Rudolph, if you have a cough that bad, you should go to the infirmary.

So … yes … We start with your dorm room … a dorm room is your local habitation from which every morning, if you can manage it, you rise from your bed and wobble off to the Student Union where … where you’ll crunch some sugar-laden biscuit … some processed wheat or exploded corn before it sogs in the bowl. I can see you … Professor Skizzen made an I-spy gesture with his hands. I can see you sweet-rolling your way to your first class. What a pretty sight! You dutifully follow your schedule throughout the day and return at the end of it to that same rubble of a room … to sit under a study lamp, perhaps to gossip with a friend, guzzle cola, or play guitar noise on the old Victrola before sleep … yes, before sleep takes you once again into its somber chamber of dreams and its crude simulation of death. That’s how it is at your home — here. But soon you shall have to return to your home — there. Perhaps you will drive your own tin lizzie back, or your family car will come to fetch you — Father and Aunt Louise — or you will ride a bus with a bunch of strangers from another world—

What?

Ah, I see … We don’t say that anymore … Too bad. “Lizzie” makes an appropriate sound and ought to be still in use. The car wasn’t made of tin either. Anyway … while you are traveling, you will leave the car to fuel, leave it for relief, leave it to snack, to stretch your legs — candy, rest-room, gasoline, coffee — leave, lock, carry out your mission, bomb the supply dump, make a safe return. The vehicle will seem in such moments to be your special place, your familiar surroundings where your guard can roll down like one of its windows, where your can of pop, wad of highway maps, or that sweet roll waits. Small cycles turn inside of wider ones, don’t they? Every sentence has a subject to which its predicate must return. First establish a base. Then see to its safety. Embark on your adventures. Return to rest up. In relief if not in jubilation. Round as a gong. Wheels within wheel, you see. Like Ezekiel’s, wheels with eyes, eh? fire filled … Ezekiel? Show of hands … Show … Ah, yes, no surprise to me … ignorance … ignorance is epidemic.