William Gass - Middle C

He disapproved of her husband and their rustic life, her workaday world, her smooth and easy accommodation to American ways, her enviable disposal of the past, yet what sort of level of living did he enjoy? Was there any lock he felt he would fit? one whose opening would make him a pasha, a gallant, a piano player, even? He had never felt he needed a reason for his distaste of Debbie’s showy ways, her saddle shoes, her short skirt, her letter sweater, her

beaux ………………………………………………

her ………………………………………………

her attachment to something so shallow as a school……………

her………………………………………………

careless glee …………………………………………

Debbie’s soybean and potato farm did not enjoy a traditional white two-story clapboard house with its mandatory wraparound porch. Its managers had settled for a prefab ranch: low, sprawling, and painted a color Joey’s mother had described as “dying daffodil.” A concrete slab was its only connection with the earth. The front windows were as wide as the draw of their drapes and faintly bayed like a distant dog, though curtains clouded the view, such as the view was: of plastic chairs idling in the yard, an empty road in front of an empty field, a postbox lonesome as a sentry. With its requisite rusty grill, a picnic table rotted in the rear. Because of a heavy overhang, the house appeared to be wearing a hat and seemed to have strayed from a suburb that, in turn, had strayed from its city. Now it sat in the middle of a flatness that also belonged to another state, shaded by its one big tree and encircled by a lawn of winter-yellow grass that made it seem in the beam of a theatrical spot.

You reached this house down a gravel road. The road was accompanied by two weed-filled ditches that occasionally stopped altogether as if they had grown tired of running alongside and then, revived by their rest, took up the race again. A fence post could be counted, less often a cattail, and, almost as an afterthought, a thicket, a foolhardy shrub. The land on either side had been stripped of its crop and lay cold wet dark and fallow. Birds had fled to find trees. Joey’s mood was morose; it was melancholy; it was angry; it was the mood of one who felt put upon, betrayed, discovered in the wrong, disturbed in his life when life seemed to be, for a change, proceeding properly.

The interruption was his mother’s doing. Miriam could not understand Joey’s attitudes and would not try to imagine why the prospect of Debbie’s baby was not a cause for rejoicing and a feeling of fulfillment, as if some significant aim in life had been realized. Begetting was so inevitable, Joey thought, it was as routine as dying, consequently it could be safely left to nature, and otherwise ignored, the way Portho’s presence was ignored even when he slunk indoors, even when he scattered magazines donated by doctors’ offices on one of the polished tables, even when he dropped off, even when he snored. In due course people were born, in due course they managed to walk, they learned to talk, they attended school, they got a job, partied, married, had kids, sold stuff, bought more, overate, drank to be drunk, were relieved to be regular, labored in order to loaf, lived that way a spell — its passage sometimes stealing years — coasting down due’s course — while they lost their hair, sight, hearing, teeth, the use of limbs, the will to live, until, in due course and as their diseases desired, they took to bed; they laughed their last; they said good-bye to the ones they said were loved ones — they curled up in a fist of aches — said good-bye to the ones they said were closest to them — complained about their care — said good-bye to the ones who came to kiss them off, said good-bye to comfort themselves with the sight of another’s going, said good-bye while the designated goer complained, complained of neglect, complained of fear, complained of pain, and disinclined going, but would go, go over, cross Jordan, nevertheless. They uttered last words that no one could understand; they curled up like a drying worm; they cried to no avail because weeping begot only weeping, wailing was answered with wails; they repented to no one in particular; they died as someone whose loss was likely to be felt no farther than the idler’s door, and dying, quite often, in debt for a cemetery plot, the service of a funeral parlor, in the pursuit of a false ideal. Joey didn’t see much to interest him in any of this. It was what was done between times that fascinated him, when due course was interrupted by dream or discovery, murder or music, though wars were, he had to admit, due course to a faretheewell. And he thought, more and more, that death, assuredly dire, was also something due.

His attention, now and then, took to leaning in Portho’s direction. He thought about those whose lives were so lean and broken there was no due course within them to enjoy, no lifeline to snap, for whom complaisance could never be a complaint about them, who didn’t know a norm, could not experience even the average, reach a grade of C on any exam, would never bathe in tepid water or enjoy warm, whose lives were simply endless stretches of suffering, and numbness was a coveted relief, death a reward. Maybe Debbie was concealing herself beneath a blanket of middle-class comfort. Didn’t she deserve both comforting and comfort? Didn’t she deserve an American identity? Joey had felt its force, the lure of security. Didn’t he also merit a little griefless good and his own soft harmless life?

Joey and his mother arrived still arguing over the use of his car, because, as he had pointed out more than once, Debbie and her husband had a car of their own, and why couldn’t they, at least now and then, pay a visit to Mom, their martyr, so that she could size up her enlarging daughter and determine the remaining distance to the tape, the birth weight of the baby, its sex, the color of its eventual hair and eyes, the side of the family it would most resemble, and inquire of its name — had there been a choice of kinds? Hermann for a beefy kid, Hans for ordinary, or Heinrich if he was going to be tall, Gretchen if she was fated to be fat.

But Grandmother could not remember that the baby’s name was Boulder, would remain Boulder, and that Hans or Hermann Boulder was not a felicitous combination — as if much went with Skizzen either — or plainly face the problem that would arise if the baby was a girl — Heidi Boulder? Gretel then? or Melanie? Melanie Boulder, for heaven’s sake.

They sat in the drive for a moment to conclude wounding each other in a nice way before they knocked at Deborah’s door like explorers who switch on their lamps when entering a cave: smiles like headlights, eagerness concealing caution in one case, apprehension in another.

After having stared at his sister with the requisite interest, Joey said, I don’t see any difference; you look the same to me, cheerleader lady. Oh no, the roundness is easy to be present, his mother exclaimed, releasing Debbie from her first, wet-eyed embrace. Later, feeling a bit more welcome than she worried she might be, Miriam touched the cloth that covered her daughter’s sacred stomach the way she might pat the head of a pet. You will be showing soon. I shall sew some skirts. With a maternity panel.

Deborah wasn’t wearing bobby socks and a letter sweater. She was wearing an apron. Joey’s remark had been both stupid and dishonest. He felt sorry for the first, ashamed for the second. She did look different. Her hair was no longer ponytailed but full of waves that fell to her shoulders, her face was fatter, too, and rosy, her eyes didn’t appear to be looking into a mirror, no makeup was noticeable, no crimson nails. She was as matter-of-fact as a spoon. There was one positive outcome to this exchange of clichés. Joey had concealed his consternations.