William Gass - Omensetter’s Luck

Dressed in black hose and a loose white doublet, he was smiling gently, his eyes were shining, he looked directly at Horatio, with deep intent, prepared to go back over his speech to improve it, change its meaning if need be, anything, so that it might be eloquent. Flesh, he might begin, flesh is male and female in one fabric, interlaced like fingers, good Horatio, and death's their double shadow; therefore there are four of them together in this wedding bed. Straighten smiling; on tiptoe turn. Sweet my dancing clothes, sweet blossoms on my dancing branch, my arm unrolls. Bone cell, skin cell, gristle cell, blood cell… bone… bone … rap against the wall like a stave. Yet since flesh is partly canine — mark the tongue, Horatio, the abundance of saliva, the lowered snout, the panting breath — we must add a fifth. Bone… oh love this glove of flesh contains— the mother of the world. What kind of dog do you imagine serves this purpose best, one that nicely fits the hollow of the lap and has soft hair, do you vote for that? Finally, because death has a fat bald stubby nigger slave with neither genitals nor fingers, we must count to six… in one love bundle all enwrapped… and you will admit, Horatio, that only a god could have contrived such a tangle. Outside the bedroom door the wedding party beats on pans.

Be fruitul. Wasn't He a merry joker, the Old Man?

Sometimes while he walked he would break into wild half-whispered words instead, and turn with open arms to the walls and leaves, his gaze fixed ecstatically on heaven, adopting the posture of saints he'd seen in prints. I am the Francis of this place. I feed these vines and they grow tame for love of me. Or unable to stomach his own acting, he would turn to mockery. Oh give us a dramatic speech. And often he would oblige, charming himself with his rhetoric like a snake playing the flute.

What is the holiest thing in God's world?

Hands lift to his eyes as they did each Sunday when he spoke from his sacred stump.

Everything is God's — hearts, stars, and carrots, dry sticks and infinite spaces — hah? We start with that. What shows His limitless glory?

The private parts? More dainty japery. Pun of God. And what do we say to that? Bla-a-a-a-a-a—

He bends near the twigs of a bush and stares at them fiercely. Have you heard we compete, you and I, like Jacob and angel? You're entangling my air. Laughing coarsely, he snatches the head from a flower.

The good man? His mouth pulls apart at the corners. Gah. He leans weakly against the wall. The loveliest river? His eyes light, his thumbs plug his ears, his fingers waggle. The sun when it burns in the heart of a cloud? He skips… la, la, la … his eyes turn up in despair. No. No. Oh no no no. There's no reach for Him in these; there's no extension of Him here. Why He would soften with such exercise; grow short of breath and weak. Wobbling, he bends his knees, cane feeling the flagstones. Are we more amazed when the strong man lifts his leg than when he lifts the chair he stands on? Whoo-ee. Impressed? Indeed.

A swift kick has swithened the spirit of love. So stiffly military, a statue unstuck, he speaks.

Consider then that He is present most in what seems fartherest from Him.

Youthfully to the bench soars, torches around him, vibrating arms: oh this is His greatest triumph — to turn dung into a monument.

Ah well, too bad. I've given the game away.

Um? I have? Pity.

Hiccoughs.

So then it is the Devil, of course, the sly old snake, who is holiest… think of that. He fell, he was The Fall itself, the suicidal star; but he fell at the end of a fine elastic. It is the cord through which he even yet is fed and thrives. Obvious when you think about it. Eh? Nonsense. Obvious. She-e-e… cluck, cluck, cluck… Try to think. Try. Quack, quack, quack… Satan shows God's power best. Oh you're cows. Browse then, damn you. Wallow. Drink. Moo-oo-oo… How well He wears the tragic mask; how splendid perfect goodness is in such a role! Was God not Pontius Pilate? And everybody else? He was the nails, the spear, the thorns, the soldiers asleep. For christ's sake, how can you disbelieve it? It's yes now, is it? That's better. Yes. A brilliant performance, you agree? Yes. Oh yes. Listen. It's HE in that red clothing. Hah. Good day. It's He. It's old St. Nick, the jolly redman. Now then — applaud. Applaud. Pigs. Pee-e-eegs!

You and I — you, master builder, spinner of threads, you and I, like Jacob and angel, we — fight. The spider floats on a bit of web. Furber follows grimly; raises his foot.

Nevertheless pigs. Oh yes. Evil is His chiefest work. Take some delight in it. Do. Do do do. He might well have set aside one of the six days of creation for it. Man, woman, fawning dog, nigger, gnome and worm, then rest. Which day would it have been? Gnomesday? Manday or Wormsday? Or did it rain, keeping Him in, pruning the masculine crotch? Dogsday? Well no matter. Applause is due Him. You ought to stand and cheer Him, hats in hand… Ah, there He is, at the top of the tent, in pink tights and carrying a striped umbrella. Nononono nets! I hope you're on to this. It is His chiefest work. Oh you'll feel it; you'll get a taste of it. But listen. To have put Himself safely, entirely, in even that… there my dears, there… there is glory!

But wait. The devil is a clever fellow surely. He hides himself, eh? Good. Where? Where's he hid? Find his face in the picture. He'll have lit on the sweet cream like a fly in a dairy. Why there he is, tree-twigged and woolly-swaddled, outspread to rise, grimace on his geezer… oh ho! in the butt and body of the best… ah ha! in the goody's soulskin shoes, a comical surprise, who'd ever figure… Flack? Goody's got gah-lory in his gut, Flack; that's what goody's got, gah-lory

Flack? Where are you, Flack? Help me up.

The colored man would come without a word and help Furber to his feet wherever he had fallen and lead palsied and weak, to his room to rest.

The Lord succeed my pink borders.

Yes sir. I hope so. Yes indeed.

He had gotten his days confused. The air had done it. From where he sat there were easily visible hips on the rose. That little girl had been from Cleveland, a guest of Chamlay's. He hadn't seen her since. Her bloomers had been green too, a matching shade, flowering beneath her skirt… sweet and cool. Who'd made the broom? His legs filled with energy. Kangaroo! The opening curtain found him to the left of the stage poised on his right toe in the posture of Mercury. Slowly he folded his limbs and sank to his haunches… Up! Without warning he was soaring, turning, wingspreading; then he was rising again, going up and up, wheeling, floating… Fish in the skywater, a glint of gold as he passed through the limbs of the seatrees, deeply voyaging, even to the purple shadows along the bottom where he lay on his side to wait for seamice, small luminous shrimps, and butterflies. Wasn't that the shadow of the hat, the hooks hanging? Or was it a moon in a green sky? There's the line come down, a homemade spinner, Knox's surely, a little rusty, the sinker's already clouding an inch of the bottom. What's he using, grubs? Fly maggots maybe. Nothing heaves with life like they do. Two or three are forked on the hook like peas. Is it channel cat he's after? Is that where I'm lying. Um. His spinner's dancing. Catches the eye. Revolving white haunches. What if I bit? The moment the mouth surrounds the grub, the throat will endeavor to swallow. Saliva will skid the grub along; the hook will be carried down. Ah but the angler — that's the mark of his boat passing… see the streaks and bubbles of the dipping oars? — retracts his line. The hook pulls free of the grub and lodges its point on the roof of the mouth or in the side of the cheek or at the root of the tongue. Then it's up… turning, spinning… up… and you're out and it's all over. Sweet world of air, another element.