William Gass - Omensetter’s Luck

Resting places. Where, for god's sake, were there resting places? He hardly knew them, their features dissolved as he looked; yet he knew they were no more at home than he was. There was hair and nose and napkin cloth and painted trim along the stair. He peered through his eyes at the other boys at play, afraid of the cool glass, his incomplete reflection like a boogie watching, or like God, transparent, evanescent, here and there. Good the skull held the head in, the caged chest in safety. He was master of the resting places. How? Where? These pacing cats, these bears, these songless singing birds, these slaty cases. . If the soul has a body for its grave, graves are no resting places. I am afloat in here. The panes are smeared; there's steam in the air and the litter of voices. They do not touch me. The world cranked by his window. Cinders flew and flags of smoke; the grass was gray; the sun seemed large and orange though it was morning; he bobbed lightly in his jar and the shadow of his hand descended on the lap of the thick young lady sitting next to him. There it fluttered gently despite its passion, scratching the smooth cloth of her skirt where a stripe like one upon a peppermint began describing the ample spread of her thighs — thighs which widened beneath her weight, he felt, like puddles of honey. He was sure she'd seen his ghost alight and felt its brushing. With inflated cheeks, wool hair, sewn eyes, she seemed as tranquil as a dove, as pink and plump and smooth besides. Furber flexed his fingers. The head of a rabbit fell asunder. Her eyes were warming, weren't they? Had he seen a slackness in her lips just then? her breathing quicken? Cornering, he watched her chest lift slowly while his hand paled out at her waist. Agony. He began again at the knee… thumb, forefinger at a wrinkle, delicately pinched together. There was a storm inside him, gusts of desire, intervals of weakness, rain… his hand flew off, then reappeared. . again… He watched it anxiously, each time willing it under until he felt it sink to her skin. A sigh escaped him. Pretty pudcums. She stirred; her legs moved lightly under his fingertips, down tickling, and his undulating flower bird settled in the hollow of her lap. Pet my bunny. Eee, sweet fig. His back was aching. He had brought her to the limit of her nature; he was showing her unventured seas beyond; she wiped her brow with her arm. Seecreeshun — oh my lovey-dolly. His fingers startled, then burrowed toward her privacy. The train lurched and as it whistled she rose clumsily, bumping his leg. His hand fell from the window, ah… he squeezed himself, weary. The girl edged up the aisle, hatbox rocking, her buttocks fastened moistly to her dress. A whore at heart for all she is a cow, Furber thought, and as the sun turned he tried to throw his outline under the wheels of the train, but when he peered out all he saw were the shadows of the cars and in them gray oblongs of window, irregularly splotched. Thus the china smutched the cloth. His own plate had escaped him and was passing wildly now from hand to hand. Master of the resting places. Hadn't he this blackened clothing? hadn't he by heart the words for setting out? God cast His shadow over him; he was divine in his darkness; somewhat, like these villagers, an ardent agriculturalist, a specialist in earth. That paten douse could have saved me? Why not? Put your hand here, reverend, just while we travel, she could have said, and take your rest. Wrong? Aunt Janet had succeeded where he'd failed. It was only luck his image would not leave him. Rest? Peace? There? He'd be a cutout creased by the brilliant rails, cinders would pucker his chest. But she bumped me most unkindly; waddled off. He shuddered; heard the silver clatter. Careful. Care oh care. To sink down rest. Duckie. To touch. These faces all in tatters, words passing, glasses clinking, steam and condensation… He drew a line on his goblet. Dewy, cool, a drop hung from the tip. There was no law unproclaiming it. End to his lip then. Off hand. The taste of life. Proof of the labor in the glass. Sad testimonial to love.

Omensetter's luck, they said. Furber thought he could distinguish Omensetter's noises from the rest. What good was a wall that didn't blind and deafen? He could see and hear them as well as if he were on the beach beside them, smoking like a green branch against mosquitoes. Fingering the ivy he touched them more closely than if he held a still attached hank of their hair in his hand. It was a strange method of communication, skipping space and contravening causal laws. He remembered, on those rare occasions when his family entertained in the evenings after his bedtime, how the sounds of their voices would tease and draw him, how the laughter seemed to him so wondrously musical, so richly dipped in something sweet, like jelly in chocolate sometimes, that his mouth filled, and he would creep to the stairhead, straining to make it all out, then smelling them too, their perfume and tobacco, the fragrance of warm cakes and coffee rising with the click of their cups and spoons and their low bubbling speech, and once in a while a word would stand out clearly amid their scraping chairs and rustling garments, bewitching him. How he hated sleep. The world — how did it dare — went on without him while he slept, went on happily — this was proof — for everything he wanted and missed and felt should exist existed just beneath him, as close at hand while out of reach as his own insides, yet tomorrow when he was released and woke and went downstairs the rooms would be stale and unfriendly, a forgotten saucer, maybe, would disgust him, and his parents would be lethargic, cross, and awkward with objects. It had finally occurred to him that he was the figure that altered the sum, just as his presence on the beach so much later had subtracted from everyone's pleasure. So his family and his family's friends were happy because he slept. If he died in the night as he sometimes hoped, thinking to punish them, they would not weep but would pass the hours of his death dipping cookies in their coffee, chuckling, and swirling cream in their frail scalloped cups. Tree, ball, wagon: they were greener, firmer, smoother without him. Hoops, the street: it was intolerable they did not need him, but when he lay in his bed they were more completely. Sleep was bearable only if the whole world slept, he'd decided; yes, we must all sleep together, that was just; and these thoughts, the words "sleep together," without his in the least understanding why at the time, had suddenly awakened the monster in him. Then he'd cruelly scraped his ears and listened at the stairhead like a deer. He thought he heard their clothing parting. Certainly they giggled at the flesh they showed. He saw through the barriers of wall and floor the pale tangle of their limbs. Later he understood what people feared in fearing ghosts. Strange forms smoked along the stairs. Shapes moved vaguely in sheets. Holding his throat he'd risen and wobbled to his bed and sought sleep as he'd sought it ever since: as a friend and lover — further: as a medicine and god.

Watchman. What a monstrous liar. He hadn't stopped their games at all. They'd stopped their ears, so he made useless noises. Composing sentences he flew down. Kek. Is this a Sunday thing? Ke-kek. Now when he closed his eyes… hullabillyhooly… what went on?… that?

Creep away, sneak away, leak away — hide.

There are animals hunting in Furber's inside.

What will they find there? What will they eat?

Lungs, liver, the kidneys, and watery meat.

Much later than that lying moment on the stair, in the flower-decked pavilion of his dreams, he'd made love too — to handsome monsters virtuous as witches, their bodies flung full length upon divans, rows of mouths along their limbs beseeching kisses, bald vaginas drawing wind; for he was constantly deceived by sleep. Of course it would not give him peace, and as he'd gradually come to realize it was his own heart he'd heard on the stairs, these visions had entered his dreams to take their place. Sometimes, gratefully, he was a long silk multicolored handkerchief a magician drew with tantalizing slowness from his fist. Triumphantly, no butterfly more beautiful, he would emerge, and with a snap, unfurl. He was so slender the wind made him wiggle. Then the face of the magician would fall near. Cosmetic smoothed his cheeks. The handkerchief would fold about his nose.