William Gass - Omensetter’s Luck

Pike speaks: o hemulous blarsh! cole shemly kitch! rah poffomouse twild!

Don't mock me, Pike. After I've furnished you with life, it isn't fair. Besides I'm being bitten by these insects for your sake. What's that? Is someone speaking? I'll ask Samantha Tott to teach a Sunday school — now there's a move — a charming thought that's just this minute come to me. Oh I'm ill, I'm ill, I've chipped my nose, and nothing will restore me. Then make a clean breast, eh? Throw myself, you know, like the bride's bouquet, into their arms. My father prints a paper, Pike. All those words. Ah, I'll heel them home and make myself loved like a stray. A miracle, Pike — life out of ink. Why, it frees me. Feeesh? Who's wise? Who is it who keeps buffohoing me? Is it you Flack, or these bloody fever bees? Well, He's a great comedian — the King of the High Wire, and He's surely made a fool of me. Ill. Ill. I no longer feel, I only remember. Look: He's lost His trousers. Say, fatty Ruth had a face on both her knees. Merciful heaven, He's wearing red-hot BVD's. Cherubic windpuffers, they looked like, wrought of hinge-wrinks by a genius: little mump-cheeked North, cruel smiling West. Thus appear the parts. What a howl by all that's holy. Luff? Who said so? Oh breathe your spirit into me! Pike? Don't leave me. Ill. Ill. Ill. Don't leave. Listen. I'm in your debt for six sentences of wisdom, but seven is the sacred number. Yield another and I'll have no other ghosts before me. Be Lombardy Peter, Pike. Seven metals, seven wonders, seven ages… That sentence of Paul's — I'd almost forgot how it transformed me when I was nearly twelve and picked up Janet's hair shirt from the floor. Tomorrow I'm going to dig up the sundial and beat the body from that plaster St. Francis.

Pike speaks: the way the world is, you have to look down to see up.

You do by god. The thought turned him topsy-turvy. It seemed to summarize the whole worthless way of the world — if there was one. And versions of it began to flutter wildly through his head. You have to look round to see straight. Good enough. Useful. And the rough places plain. But all that's geometry. But it measures the earth. You have to go slow to catch up. Eat to get thin? no, but fast to grow fat, that was a fine one. Then lose to win? fail to succeed? Risky. Stop to begin. The form made noiseless music — lumly lum lum or lum-lee-lee lum — like fill to empty, every physical extreme. Die to live was a bit old hat. But default to repay. And lie to be honest. He liked the ring of that. Flack! I'm white in order to be black. Sin first and saint later. Cruel to be kind, of course, and the hurt's in the hurter — that's what they say — a lot of blap. That's my name, my nomination: Saint Later. Now then: humble to be proud; poor to be rich. Enslave to make free? That moved naturally. Also multiply to subtract. Dee dee dee. Young Saint Later. A list of them, as old Pythagoras had. Even engenders odd. How would that be? Eight is five and three. There were no middle-aged saints — they were old men or babies. Ah, god — the wise fool. The simpleton sublime. Babe in the woods, roach in the pudding, prince in the pauper, enchanted beauty in the toad. This was the wisdom of the folk and the philosopher alike — the disorder of the lyre, or the drawn-out bow of that sane madman, the holy Heraclitus. The poet Zeno. The logician Keats. Discovery after discovery: the more the mice eat, the fatter the cats. There were tears and laughter, for instance — how they shook and ran together into one gay grief. Dumb eloquence, swift still waters, shallow deeps. Let's see: impenitent remorse, careless anxiety, heedless worry, tense repose. So true of tigers. Then there was the friendly enmity of sun and snow, and the sweet disharmony of every union, the greasy mate of cock and cunt, the cosmic poles, the war that's peace, the stumble that's an everlasting poise and balance, spring and fall, love, strife, health, disease, and the cold duplicity of Number One and all its warm divisions. The sameness that's in difference. The limit that's limitless. The permanence that's change. The distance of the near at home. So — to roam, stay home. Then pursue to be caught, submit to conquer. Method — ancient — of Chinese. To pacify, inflame. Love, hate. Kiss, kill. In, out, up, down, start, stop. Ah… from pleasure, pain. Like circumcision of the heart. Judgment and mercy. Sin and grace. It little mattered; everything seemed to Furber to be magically right, and his heart grew fat with satisfaction. Therefore there is good in every evil; one must lower away to raise; seek what's found to mourn its loss; conceive in stone and execute in water; turn profound and obvious, miraculous and commonplace, around; sin to save; destroy in order to create; live in the sun, though underground. Yes. Doubt in order to believe — that was an old one — for thus the square is in the circle. O Phaedo, Phaedo. O endless ending. Soul is immortal after all — at last it's proved. Between dead and living there's no difference but the one has whiter bones. Furber rose, the mosquitoes swarming around him, and ran inside.

It was six, surely. Counting from the moment when he took a spoon to his melon and looked along the row of faces, lips wrinkling, jaws in gentle motion, all in greeting, it was seven; so six from the night at the stone was correct. Andy Pike didn't put up the church as she stands, of course, Brother Rush did that; some of us think the original location was a little west of where it is now, Mossy and me mainly, I guess — you'll meet Mossteller later, first-rate fellow, he was sorry he couldn't make it — but people around here call it Pike's Peak just the same, on account of the steeple, out of love for his memory, you know, not disrespect… Fly near the butter. Mossy and me. Me and Mossy. If I tip my cup I may get a peek at the maker. Would he look like a lichen? Nice shape to the bowls, they're feathery; my fingers show through them. Oh God what must be eaten in Your Name — not counting Yourself. That steeple didn't look any more than elm high to me and just a little shovel-nosed. Now that Brother Pike has rotted out his clothes and ghosts to the let of his halter, he's old Andy to this bung-mouth. I'm to see his grave too. What bores the dead are. I'll bet a bible ribbon it's Pike's Penis to the barn boys. Well, like Sir Thomas Browne, I'm great on resting places. Oh yes reverence really. I saw it from the train. Impressive. A round of watermelon slid from his spoon as he raised it to his lips. Falling, it tumbled from the mound of fruit and slipped over the edge of the glass where his deft spoon pinned it just in time. Silly lie. They probably knew you couldn't see a thing ahead of the hills. Why hadn't he said he'd peeked from the second story of the station? Impossible. They thought he was taking a leak. There was, thank god, salt, but they'd never heard of lemon. Actually, it should have been served over ice with a thin slice of lime. Now the melon was warmish and slippery. Poor season? There wasn't much juice. Too little rain? And the fruit should have been laced with kirsch or drowned in white wine. His name was Tott, remember, something Bester. Telegrapher? ticket-taker? grocery clerk? drygoods maybe, or real estate and insurance. He was some sort of pencil-licker certainly. Local oracle. Village idiot. Town pump.

All kinds of containers sat about the table in sullen disconnection. Some steamed despite the hot day; others enclosed pools of green brine where pickles drowsed like crocodiles; still others held up mounds of melting jellies. Fans of ham and meat loaf lay on platters let to drift among conserves and cheeses, and bowls of candied carrots, scalloped potatoes and baked beans bulged above the cloth, scraping sides, while baskets heaped with rolls were set among trays of cake and tins of pie and sheets of slicing cookie. God curse the covered dish. Curse this peasant Trimalchio beside me. Peasant food was poison. Most of them, all of them maybe, just look at Mrs. Grimmouth, were temperance quacks, the worst kind. Piety of the palate. He remembered St. Jerome's favorite proverb: when an ass eats thistles up, his lips have lettuce like themselves. There was a little embarrassment at the platform when he went so briskly off to pee but really it was all right because he was in a sweat to see the tower of God — the spike that was to spit him. Natural function, ladies, like the menses. By the stools of Jesus, as they used to say at school. Here sir, in this antique metal box, all verdigris, I have several curious relics of Our Saviour. What an awesome beauty swells that notion. Too bad the better sermons can't be preached. Debilitating heat. . terror of traveling. . rivers of dust. Would he like to wash before lunch? Of course he just. . but perhaps the ride. Has shaken me up? oh yes PLEASE; beneath the stairs7 how clever and amusing, perfectly charming, thank you kindly. Just waste space says Mr. Tott. To wash. Flicker of unease: wash-up. Dirty word. Hee. Sloping ceiling, coffin close. Round silver mirror to examine your teeth. Shakes with a step on the stair. Roses on the sloping ceiling. Silver leaves match the silver mirror. The latest improvements. Height of luxury. Jesus I'm going to have the jerks. Button your pants and practice deep breathing. Not built for bowels, the gas overwhelming. Breathed his last. Dung dead. The body of Our Saviour shat but Our Saviour shat not. Would it be appropriate to say, then, that the body of Our Saviour saw but Our Saviour saw not, swot but swot not, swinked but… The bowl was deeply stained. Blood of martyrs. "I will wash mine hands in innocency…" He covered his eyes; his stomach gurgled; he still heard the train. He'd seen everything through a haze: the stack spitting cinders, the dirt smears dancing, the impatient flies. There was a landscape of flaws in the glass, footprints of fingers, and he found himself traveling along them, ticking each off carefully as though they were squares composing the perilous wandering path of a children's game. It wound over blue-gray wastes and sticky rivers. The mirror bleary, the roses grinning, he shook as though riding. Dust on the sills, boot marks in the aisles, the car close and still, the heat profound… a passage to Hell — here, under the rose-smiling slope and the shoe-creaking stair, in company with the sound of water and the oppressive smell of his urine, loud and orange; while the mirror jiggled his image and he bent above the basin Proposing to Purify Himself in Preparation for a Feast of Love; he began to understand the nature of his destination and the extent of his punishment. So far there were significant absentees: the husband of the ledge-chested lady, for instance, and the husband of the woman with the fatuous first name — neither was present. Undoubtedly they scorned him; they hated his appointment, his having been so hastily thrust upon them, so immoderately squeezed between the rails of their objections; and he was cityish too, quite plainly, sour and runty, with a handshake far from hearty, even, one might say, unmanly (better that a preacher stutter); and he had a noticeable general shiver, though these seizures seemed infrequent; and he was pale, truly pale, like one whom caves have shaded. . yes, overall he gave the impression of something unwholesome and hidden; he was the same species as the spider, bat or beetle, companions who — a class which… — or they scorned Tott, they might, he was a determined gabbler, who knew what else? Or they were not scorners but the scorned themselves; or rather, being husbands who — no, there was hanky-panky somewhere certainly, and rancor, you could count on it — petty local pride and fancied injuries, little intrigues like snarls of twine. Well his host was pleased with his, ah… dear me… his divers lavers. Better make no mention that direction. Wit and pedantry were out of place among these dreary villagers. Trees, hills, river… yet life was monotonously flat, straight… plankish… with a dreadful sameness everywhere like dust.. a climate without any real extremes, deprived of virtue even in its mean. though there were trees, the sloping fields, the river, still life was hard, level… wooden… inevitable… and moments ran on mindlessly like driven cattle, and young men struggled in the net of their friends, relatives, and other connections for a while like dripping fish before wearing out their wills and settling down to live with the rest of the gently poor, their pets, and their obsequious diseases… where bitterness grew up on everything like ivy. Yet the fact was he wanted their good opinion. Lord, lord, he was a dreadful creature. Why did he mind? They were such small potatoes. How could they nourish him? Furber grasped the chain. "Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men…" Bowels up, bladders down. Where had they got their money? another happy consequence of papa's passing on? Turreted, scalloped, the clapboards patterned, the roof-tree edged with iron tracery, the house was huge, with wide curving porches and a stained-glass window on the landing; it had been built to be grand. He unsnicked, and stooping grotesquely, emerged. Somebody grasped his newly purified—"In whose hands is mischief. . " People stood about in the hall, bumping when they moved. Between them, beyond the door, he saw the table, another landscape, harshly white, already cluttered with bowls and goblets. Were there really so many or was he failing to sort them? He smiled and nodded and dropped his jaw like a visor. The ceiling slowly turned. Perhaps there would be blizzards now, tornadoes in the spring, and floods; for he had always perched on the end of the teeter, weighing it down. The air felt like wool. Was it something he'd brought with him from Cleveland? The staircase wrapped itself around the inside of the tower. Of course. They were in the foot of the turret. It had a top like a Prussian's helmet and shone dully in the sun like lead. These people couldn't lift their feet. In the presence of the holy, their voices fell to a murmur, and he could scarcely understand a word. Death, doubtless, did it. Reverence really. That girl had brought it with her. No, she had gotten off a station ahead of him and loosed clouds of stinging Spites which flew from Windham: Old Age, Labor, Sickness, Vice. For prying into the mysteries of women. Passion. Madness. Blind, lying Hope — hemmed in. Click of jewelry, buttons maybe. Rub of clothing. And the sheriffy person he'd met for a moment in Cleveland was missing too. Held at the elbow, he was being steered. Hold on, you don't touch the minister. Way up here? at the head? dear me. In the box: fallen air, prostrate winds, unmoving steam. The ladies struggling not to sweat, their hairy parts ahead nevertheless. Deep in the tank, deep in the cage — descending. The light is failing. Courage, old friend.