William Gass - Middle C

To fill their silence, Miriam said: Tonight we are trading plants. Ah, it’s that time of month again, Joey said, joining her in filling it. What do you mean, Miriam pretended to exclaim, don’t talk smart and don’t talk schmutzig to your mother, who, by the way, is well past that point and doesn’t need you to poke up my monatliches like the cinders of a fire. I meant …, Joey said, pretending in his turn to be perplexed, that it’s your meeting with the girls of Woodbine — Don’t do spitzige , I said, she said, we are women and women of one mind, not a one with childish curls. Does it take that many of you to make one mind, replied the smarty, now too young to be in pants. She threw an empty crumple of seed packet at his head. What is this month’s subject?

Weeds, Miriam answered, laughing at something, possibly a thought. Who weeds are. What weeds do. Why weeds are so hateful. And therefore why weeds exist. Finally, how to rid your lawn and garden of them. How to pull them from their dirt. Root them out. They’ve grips like fierce fists. Ausrotten ihnen! And how to poison their progeny, kill their kids. She wagged a warning finger at Joey. Don’t give me your racial-cleansing speech.

I was admiring your cruelty. And your speaker is?

A former weed — now reformed — making up for an evil life with warnings to the rest of us.

But don’t you have all this information already? Ladies and gentlemen! In this ring, introducing Weed Number One! from Bulgaria! It is the Aster-Eating Rabbit! Who will perform death-defying hops! Ta-da! Weed Number Three is … is the Bed-Digging Dog! An Austrian breed!

Who does number two?

Number Two is when—

Ach. You have tricked me. Your Mutter . You made me ask of it.

What I was getting at … well … what I meant was … Don’t you know all about weeds already?

Not just any weeds … they are not the topic— nein —but invaders. Multipliers. Chokers. Carriers. Carnivores. Fremde . Seedy intrusives.

Immigrants, then, who arrive unasked and take the space of native Austrian primroses; immigrants who multiply like rabbits, inconsiderately sucking up nutrients and choking the natives in the throats of their stems—

You are uncorrectable. A naughty smarty. They pretend, you see. They wear pretty leaves like sheep’s ears, or win you over with nice blooms like violets and such, deceive by smelling sweet — honeysuckles humming in the heat — or the way that grosse bamboo grows, faster than bean stalk, and including what they call here bind, or bishop’s weed, because it is so relentless and uncorrectable a sinner it would make even a bishop curse.

Joseph realized with wonder how well spoken his mother had become. He was trying to add Austrian to his speech while she was Ausrotting hers of most things foreign. English with a twist of pepper. Her German had become a sneeze. Today her sneezing was nostalgic. Instead, he said:

Just the same, dear, don’t you know everything about them already?

Most of it, I imagine, but we like to listen, like children, to the story told samely and samely. It warms me, anyway — like mulch — with memories of summer, now it’s winter.

Well, you should be careful going, the paper says it may be snowing. Whose house is it? where you’re meeting, I mean?

Maybelle’s.

Maybelle. Do I know a Mrs. Maybelle?

Wife of that fat professor of geography. You know, the one with the watch chain. Oh yes, and the three chins. His ears are wattles. Well, when we meet at Maybelle’s he sometimes sits in. Sits down. Smooooch. You can hear his rear when the air leaves the pillow. He sits not out of the way in a big chair you’d think had been built for him but in a rickety ladder-back you worry is going to break and stick him like a roasting pig. Sits right in the middle of the living room and listens most attentive to everything.

The club has never met here has it?

Not yet. I go in fear of when it will be my turn.

We’ll have to beat some neat into this house. I shall accompany the buffet on my pianola .

You shall be banished to the belfry.

Does Maybelle do anything?

Nails. She does nails. At that beauty parlor on High Street. She also marcels, perms, and trims.

I meant about her heavy husband.

He is immovable.

They can afford to live around here?

Oh, the fat one is well-off. He owns the furniture store — Leonard’s.

The store that’s always going out of business?

Derselbe .

My goodness. Which house is it?

The one with the glads.

A welcome mat?

The red front door. Her garden is a confinement for die Gladiole . She’s in business for them, too. Sells armloads to funerals. In bunches — one for every sorrowed friend.

Ah … Bouquets that once seemed a measure for sorrow.

She plants them in military rows the way, you remember, I used to arrange my plants — all of them from bulbs to bushes — in her big backyard behind the house, fenced in and everything. There are kinds and kinds of kinds. They look pretty big and brave lined up against the boards, but I don’t like that icebox lover much. A glad stands stiff as a soldier and flowers like a ladder.

Icebox lover. Yes, I imagine he is.

No, dummster . The gladiolus … gladiola … gladioli … They are always in the florist’s icebox.

So Maybelle has a week of big bloom, and then it’s bust for the rest of the year?

You can plant some, wait some, plant some more.

Stagger?

Ya, and they don’t all grow at the same speed either. Lots of various. Kinds, like I said … of kinds.

Aren’t they all orange? I seem to remember—

Nein, mein Kind . It has cultivars in all kinds of colors.

“Cultivars,” Mother? what a word is this? Incorrigible? Confinement? Cultivars?

I never uttered a word of incorrigible.

Uncorrectable.

You lack all education, Joey. You snoozed while you were being — what do you say? “self-taught.” A cultivar is a new plant from an old plant taken. A various. Is what it means.

Variations on a theme.

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Your mother is even on a committee.

Is that what has made you nervous? There’s more German in your speech when you are nervous.

Which is it going to be — too fine English or too much German?

I thought you said this Leonard taught geography? … sells furniture? Maybe he’s living in a gift house like us.

That’s what Mr. Three Chins said when I asked him. He said he taught geography at the college and owned the furniture store. Nothing from him about free rent. Three Chins knew the exact number of miles from here to Columbus, anyway. It came up in conversation. And how far our speaker will have to come from Urichstown. She is staying overnight with Maybelle. Old friend maybe.

Not Gwynne Withers.

I have no idea.

Gwynne Withers sings. It was she who wanted the piano tuned, remember? Well, how many miles is it to Columbus?

I am a member of one of our committees.

Funny. I’ve never seen or heard of him. Odd combination — fat, furniture, and maps — maps and manicures. I shall have to look into it. Maybe he was just leading you on. I don’t think we even teach geography anymore. At the college, I mean. That’s what he said?

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So … ah … Your club has committees?

What club doesn’t have committees? They’re the reason for clubs.

Well … I just thought … your society is so small, couldn’t you conduct all your business as a committee of the whole? The twelve disciples were enough for Jesus.