William Gass - Omensetter’s Luck

Pike speaks: that was the face of truth on fatty Ruth.

By god Pike you're right. The head of Medusa, with Medusa's softly whiskered grin. Were you turned to stone by such a sight? Morton, I remember, rubbed my back. Humility, my boy, is also important. The hymnal he gave roe was dog-eared at all the customary places and it always fell open at A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. Now there was a man who made a downy pillow. Pike… when I stopped trembling and fainting, the ladies wrapped me in their warm arms and cooed in my ears and gently ruffled my hair. Aunt Janet's chair had skidded, tipping when she fell. Both were light but my aunt was voluptuous. I held her like a lover, receiving her soul. It was then I felt my whole interior shudder. It was nothing like the palsy of the body. I have that still. It was a fright of the spirit, a terrible ghost-fear. Hats shaded me. The petals of the potted plants were turning purple. She rose through the circle of my grasp, rubbing herself ecstatically against me. Well why not? I was the vulgar flesh receiver, wasn't I? And wasn't it all over, the harsh press and scruple of life? There ought to be some sweet to console her for the fall. So she thought. But it was her limp spirit I held, as helpless, flung over my arm, as a wrap. This was my first use of the godly eye, Pike, and in the beginning I was no better for it. Beads and cameos and buttons cut me. Morton squeezed my arm, the dirty old butt. In the moment that we lifted her, I saw her estimate the age of the zinnias. Ghostfallen, Pike. You know what that means. She was ghostfallen, yet she troubled to guess how recently my mother's flowers had been cut. Well I'd declared for God, my mother said, and smartly dressed auxiliary ladies came to look at me and whisper about Jesus. A fat lot of good it would have done to insist I hadn't chosen him, I'd chosen the Lord of Hosts, His Tent, Tights, and Trapeze, not the aime thing at all; so I refrained. My prematurely wrinkled aunt held out her head. Its lips were spread with love. Now what do you make of that?

Pike speaks: in women revenge takes the form of religion.

By god Pike you're right. And I had mine. Faithfully I went to Brother Morton's services and sat apart, not proudly or disdainfully, but in an absent mind, as if rapt; and I dare say there were eyes that saw wisps of pink cherubic cloud like straw in my hair. I bent my head and printed in his hymnals with a pencil end, which you can bet I kept most carefully concealed, every dirty word or line, every bawdy jingle I could remember or make up on the spot (I had an aptitude, but eleven isn't an accomplished age), while throughout I'd note the pages of the hymns I'd written on, referring the reader to them, or I would advise the devout to

sing psalm one eleven

if you would see heaven

but for a good time

sing psalm sixty-nine.

Pop pop pop, I'd crack the spines. Oh Pike, my spirit was light then. How heavy it is now. Breathe your spirit into me: I don't know what to believe. My luck has left me. I preach and no one listens. Only the crack in the window widens. Nar. Nar. Nar.

Pike speaks: believe nothing that does not sound well.

By god Pike you have something there. But I have a ringing in my ears, and all those noisy faces…. The fifth face is a pig's, its nostrils aimed like eyes, its cheek skin moistly glistening, teeth like pebbles overgrown with moss, they've stood so long in saliva, stiff white hair in rows above the brow. Hardly Circean. Let us have another number, Mrs. Samson, say, The Old Rugged Cross. Isn't it nice here in the yard, the fresh breeze and the white wickets? My boy, to follow Christ is nice, you will enjoy it. Happy? Proud? Asleep? Pike? Don't leave me, I'm lonely. Oh lord you weren't a jew's-harp religionist? you didn't squeeze an accordion? slap your knee? jig? Not Samson, damn it, but my Kinsman, the stoned man, whose corpse is blind. What's happened to the light? Ah, Pike, the flies have failed us. That Mrs. Pimber has a strenuously knuckled hand, it just occurred to me to think so, not like Mrs. Claude… um… Spink, the fidgety, who is losing her hair but goes bravely anywhere there's music because of her calling. How about a bit of Throw Out the Lifeline, that's rousing. Another muffin? Don't drip butter, the cloth's so white, a beautiful expanse of something clean, and the blue shadows of the silver calm me wonderfully, and don't you feel the coolness of the crystal and the silence of the porcelain? No? Another muffin? coffee? please cream and sugar. See the ghostly spirit spill into the darkness, clouding. Dunk? Only on occasion. Mrs. Chamlay fries the greatest doughnuts; you'll love them, Mr. Furber. There's nothing like country cooking. Well I've always loved what's large. The church must have a sale, a way to get going. For sweethearting charity. Cakes, clothes, and kisses. Prizes of chastity. Ice creams are such fun in July. Think of the long white papered tables under the trees. The cool mouth of watermelon. Pike, Pike! rally! rally to me! Rowdies a rarity although known to happen. Threw stones in the pudding of old Mrs. Jasper. Which was bought by Carl Skelton to sicken his dog. It was quite entertaining. I remember the bowl; it went in her auction. Didn't she have some lovely things, poor dear. A shade of blue not too pleasing for chocolate. Who was it that got it? (Samantha has darkened; her lips are severe.) That fat Mrs. Arthur who moved back to Windham. And not a month here. Pike! A desert, Pike, a wilderness Jerome would not have dwelled in. He'd have gathered up his books and gone to Rome. You lived with Indians — very well — but I've fallen among people. Is there no one who will pity me? Speak and say, oh great recumbency of sky, vast chest and hollow water bottle, would you spit upon your image, eh? Ho, Barlar? Grunn? Petvich? Hooloo? Kishish? Quarckaling? Sull Yully? Nannerbantandan? TuK? Too rooky, won't reply, all tweetered up with ravens, swifts, and fowling hawks. Anyway let's have an answer… some bird of omen… no ghost… shreeeeeee…

The moon is falling near. Here are the deserts and the mountains. There I am, the raisin-eyed, cross-legged on a stone. Is that a lion feeding from my lap? My spirit dines on salt and water. I don't suppose you know the desert fathers, Pike, you were never a scholar. Well listen, you've much to learn. A monk who lived in one of those Egyptian monasteries found himself set upon by thoughts of distant places, and the desire to leave the dry hole where he was and visit them began to torment him severely as you might expect, for he was put together in the same way as the rest of us — weak eyes and hairless knees. He told the abbot of his troubles, much as I am telling you of mine, Pike, and the abbot said: go to your cell and give your body in pledge to its walls; let your thoughts roam as they will but forbid your body to stir. So the monk did as his abbot suggested and apparently his desires were quelled: Now do you see how wrong that was? Dear me. Satan had that abbot by the heels. He had them all by the heels, even Macarius and Paul and Anthony. He swung them like a storm through the desert.

Pike speaks: pounding the pipe won't punish the plumber.

By god Pike you're quick. I preached in Cleveland once upon that theme. You can't feel the spirit through the body, it's far too thick and woolly. That monk should have fastened his mind to the wall and let his body go hang. There's a better story, though, about the saintly Arsenius who was willed some property by a kinsman of his, a senator. Pay attention, Pike, you've a good deal to learn. When the magistrate brought him the will, ceremoniously phrased and piously laced as our wills invariably are, he indignantly refused it, sending the magistrate away. I died before he did, Arsenius said, and now he's dead, how can he make me his heir? Yes sir, that was the ticket. He slipped the Devil there, and got scot-free. And so it was I saw the fall of my Aunt Janet from the Shaker chair. She died, poor soul, in the jump. Not however like a saint but like a suicide. What did it matter if her body bloomed for thirty years and her face dried? Age made trenches for her eyes. It might have been the source of some annoyance as the years went by, this sapling body and this withered face, but I think she saw what was coming. You have to peek under the covers, Pike; then by the holy rood of Moses what you see! It was only surfaces, before, that frightened me. I pledged my body to the fence but my love fell beyond it. And when I read of war in Israel, it was the banners and dust in that Egyptian desert that moved me, the misshapen trees in which the kings were hung. All wrong. Then afterward, when the armies moved and the warriors grimaced at one another and shouting struck their swords together, I did not linger among the shields and weapon edges like a coward in the camp, but my eyes rode in with the spear.