Erasure

15

I recalled the stupid fight that had ended my brief, and no doubt short-lived-anyway, relationship with Marilyn. It was not her lack of taste or possession of questionable taste that caused me to make a scene upon finding that awful novel by her bedside. I reacted because the book reminded me of what I had become, however covert. And that was an overly ironic, cynical, self-conscious and yet faithful copy of Juanita Mae Jenkins, author of the runaway-bestseller-soon-to-be-a-major-motion-picture We’s Lives In Da Ghetto.

Not only my situation but my constitution seemed to make me an unsuitable candidate for the most basic of friendships, new or old, and romantic involvement seemed nearly ridiculous to me. Perhaps my outburst with Marilyn was as much a well-timed retreat as it was an expression of snobbish literary outrage.

My agent was not so much angry as he was amazed by my demand that the title of the novel be changed to Fuck. He asked me if I was crazy and I reminded him that he thought I was crazy when I first suggested he send My Pafology out.

“You’ve got a point,” he said. “Still, don’t you think you’re pushing it just a bit?”

“Not really. This thing is in fact a work of art for me. It has to do the work I want it to do.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t think they’re going to let you do it. Why not Hell or Damn? Why Fuck?” I could hear him shaking his head.

“That’s the title I want.”

“What if their lawyers say no.”

“They won’t say no.”

After a pause. “And what did you say to Morgenstein?”

“Nothing really.”

“Well, the guy’s in love with you. He’s scared to death of you, but he said, ‘That fuckin’ guy’s da real thing.‘”

“He’s right.”

Rothko: I’m sick of painting these damn rectangles.Resnais: Don’t you see that you’re tracing the painting’s physical limits? Your kind of seeming impoverishment becomes a sort of adventure in the art of elimination. The background and the foreground are your details and they render each other neutral. The one negates the other and so oddly we are left with only details, which in fact are not there.Rothko: But what’s the bottom line?Resnais: The idiots are buying it.Rothko: That is it, isn’t it?Resnais: I’m afraid so. They won’t watch my films and believe me, my art is no better for the neglect.Rothko: And no worse, Alain.

Yul: They say you can have the title change if you spell it with a PH.Me: P-huck. Why would I spell it with a PH?Yul: They say it won’t be as offensive on the jacket.Me: The hell it won’t. Fuck with an F or they can p-huck off.

(LATER)Yul: They said okay.Me: That’s fucking great.

I visited Mother every day for the first three weeks. The drive to Columbia wasn’t so long and it made for a healthy break in my boredom. I would awake each morning, piddle around in the garage-turned-workshop, go for a long walk, sit down at my desk for several hours and try to construct a new novel that would redeem my lost literary soul, then get in the car to go see Mother. Once I was back home I would read, then torture myself about work. I was lonely, angrier than I had been in a long time, angrier than when I was an angry youth, but now I was rich and angry. I realized how much easier it was to be angry when one is rich. Of course, there was the accompanying guilt and the feeling stupid for feeling guilty, what I was told was one of two common intellectual’s diseases — the other being diarrhea.

Mother was more out than in lately, but the staff kept a close watch and I was confident that she was safe. The irony was that as her mind failed, her body became healthier, she even put on a few pounds and her hand strength was greater than it had been in years. The doctor told me that it would be a short-lived irony. Of course, he didn’t put it that way. He said, “Her body won’t be that way for long.” He said it as if to reassure me, as if the incongruity of her mental and physical states should be more offensive than her complete and total decay.

When she was herself, we listened to music and talked fancifully about going into the city to hear something at the Kennedy. Then she would drift, rather peaceably, off to sleep. It was all very sad and I more than once sat behind the wheel of the car and cried.

The call came in the morning and it was basically what I needed — something to do. Carl Brunt was the director of the National Book Association, the NBA, which sponsored the so-called major award in fiction each year, called simply and pretentiously The Book Award.

“Your name came up as a possible judge for the award,” Brunt said.

“I’m flattered.”

“Personally, I’d really like to have you as a judge. There will be five of you and about three hundred novels and collections of stories.”

I listened.

“We don’t pay much. A couple of thousand and travel to New York for the ceremony. Your library will be greatly fattened.”

“That’s fine.”

“Are you interested?”

I detested awards, but as I complained endlessly about the direction of American letters, when presented with an opportunity to affect it, how could I say no? So I said, “Yes.”

“Well, that was easy.”

“Who are the other judges?”

“I haven’t lined all of them up yet, but Wilson Harnet has agreed to be the chair of the committee. Do you know him?”

“Yes, I do. He should be good.”

“Well, this is great,” Brunt said. “I’m looking forward to working with you. And of course keep this to yourself until we announce the panel.”

“Certainly.”

“Great.”

The Judges

Wilson Harnet (chair): Author of six novels. His most recent book was a work of creative nonfiction called Time is Running Out, about his wife who was diagnosed with cancer. As it turned out, his wife did not die and all the secrets of theirs that he revealed led her to divorce him and so the literary community eagerly awaited his forthcoming book titled My Mistake. A professor at the University of Alabama.

Ailene Hoover: Author of two novels and a collection of short stories. Her book of stories, Trivial Pursuits, won the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her novel, Minutia, reached four on the NY Times bestseller list. A resident of upstate New York (apparently all of it).

Thomas Tomad: Author of five collections of stories. Among them, The Night They Came, A Night in Jail, The Night Has Eyes. His work was praised by the American Association of Incarcerated People Who Write. Also the senior editor of an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, Living Cell Books, specializing in books by lifers. From San Francisco, California.

Jon Paul Sigmarsen: A Minnesota-based writer. Author of three novels and three books of nature writing. Won several awards for his Living with the Muskellunge. Host of a literary talk show aired on PBS in St. Paul called With All This Snow, Why Not Read?

Thelonious Ellison: Author of five books. Widely unread experimental stories and novels. Considered dense and often inaccessible. Best known for his novel The Second Failure. A lonely man, seemingly having shed all his friends. Visits his mother daily though she cannot remember who he is. Cannot talk to his brother because he is a nut. Cannot speak to his sister because she is dead. Too mystified to actually be depressed. Likes to fish and work with wood. Looking for single woman interested in same. Lives in nation’s capital.

We five judges were introduced during a teleconference and the other four were decent and reasonable enough, as people are wont to seem at first meetings, especially over the phone.

Harnet, the chair, sounded as if he were smoking a pipe, not that something was in fact in his mouth, but as if he were tasting his breath. “We have an arduous and taxing task facing us, colleagues,” he said. “They tell me we’ve more like four hundred books coming to us.”

“Oh, good heavens,” Ailene Hoover said. Her voice that of an older woman. “I’m just finishing a book myself.”

Thomas Tomad said, “Surely we’re not expected to read every word of every book. We do have lives. I can’t be cooped up in the house all winter long.”

“I think a lot of the books you’ll be able to dismiss after the first couple of sentences,” Harnet said. “Of course, if one of those books ends up on another judge’s list, you’ll have to go back to it.”

“I’m not reading any of that experimental shit,” Hoover said.

“I’m sure we’ll discover each other’s tastes and show due respect,” Harnet said.

Jon Paul Sigmarsen laughed and said, “I plan to do a lot of my reading while ice fishing.”

“How much ice do you usually catch?” Tomad said.

Tomad and Sigmarsen laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Hoover asked.

“I have a question,” Sigmarsen said. “How does one judge a novel against a collection of stories? I mean, if a novel has a bad chapter, then it’s a flawed novel. But if all the stories in a book are great except one, then it’s still a great book. Do you see what I mean, what I’m getting at?”

“That’s a good question,” Tomad said.

“What question is that?” Hoover asked.

“About stories and novels,” Harnet said.

“Oh, yes, I suppose we’re to read them both,” Hoover said.

“Ellison, you haven’t said anything,” Hoover said. “Ellison?”

“I’m here.”

“What do you think?”

“Nothing yet. I haven’t seen any books. How often are we supposed to meet, on the phone or otherwise?”

“They’ve left that up to us,” Harnet said. “But I have a plan. I suggest we talk in three weeks just to compare preliminary notes.”

“We should meet in a couple of weeks to see if anything great has shown up,” Hoover said. “I hear Riley Tucker has a book coming out. And Pinky Touchon.”

“You know, somebody got a picture of her the other day,” Tomad said.

“Who?” Hoover asked.

“Touchon,” Tomad said. “In was in the Chronicle. It seems Pinky lives here in San Fran and no one even knew.”

“I heard it’s a big book,” Hoover said.

“I heard that as well,” said Sigmarsen.

“In a couple of weeks then?” I said.

What some people would have you believe is that Duchamp demonstrated that art could be made out of anything, that there is nothing special about an objet d’art that makes it what it is, that all that matters is that we are willing to allow it to be art. To say, This is a work of art, is a strange kind of performative utterance, as when the king knights a fellow or the judge pronounces a couple man and wife. But if it turns out that the marriage license was incorrectly filled out, then the declaration is undone and we will say, “I guess you’re not husband and wife after all.” But even as it’s thrown out of the museum, what has been called art, it is still art, discarded art, shunned art, bad art, misunderstood art, oppressed art, shock art, lost art, dead art, art before its time, artless art, but art nonetheless.

I’m reminded of the parrot in the house, which when he hears a knock at the door says, “Who is it?” The man knocking answers, “It’s the plumber.” The door remains closed and so he knocks again. “Who is it?” the parrot asks. “The plumber.” Knock, knock. “Who is it?” “The plumber!” This goes on until the crazed knocker breaks through the door, falls onto the carpet below the parrot’s perch, has a heart attack and expires. The residents of the home return to find the man stretched out on their floor. “Who is it?” the wife asks. The parrot says, “The plumber.”

The question is of course, does the parrot answer the woman’s query? And of course he does and he doesn’t. He’s a parrot.

Rauschenberg: Here’s a piece of paper, Willem. Now draw me a picture. I don’t care what it is a picture of or how good it is.de Kooning: Why?Rauschenberg: I intend to erase it.de Kooning: Why?Rauscbenberg: Never mind that. I’ll fix your roof in exchange for the picture.de Kooning: Okay. I believe I’ll use pencil, ink and grease pencil.Rauschenberg: Whatever.

(4 weeks later)Rauschenberg: Well, it took me forty erasers, but I did it.de Kooning: Did what?Rauschenberg: Erased it. The picture you drew for me.de Kooning: You erased my picture?Rauschenberg: Yes.de Kooning: Where is it?Rauschenberg: Your drawing is gone. What remains is my erasing and the paper which was mine to begin with.

(Shows de Kooning the picture)de Kooning: You put your name on it.Rauschenberg: Why not? It’s my work.de Kooning: Your work? Look at what you’ve done to my picture.Rauschenberg: Nice job, eh? It was a lot of work erasing it. My wrist is still sore. I call it “Erased Drawing.”de Kooning: That’s very clever.Rauschenberg: I’ve already sold it for ten grand.de Kooning: You sold my picture?Rauschenberg: No, I erased your picture. I sold my erasing.

The books began to arrive, boxes of them. At first I could not open a single one, but was taken by them as objects. The covers were all so attractive. The jacket copy made each one sound great, blurbs from established literary icons told me why I should like it. The fat books were praised for being fat, the skinny books were praised for being skinny, old writers were great because they were old, young writers were talents because of their youth, every one was startling, ground-breaking, warm, chilling, original, honest and human. I would have found refreshing: Jo Blow’s new novel takes on the mundane and leaves it right where it is. The prose is clear and pedestrian. The moves are tried and true. Yet the book is not so alarmingly dishonest. The characters are as wooden as the ones we meet in real life. This is a torturous journey through the banal. The novel is ordinary but not insipid, pointless but not meaningless, savorless but not stale.Jo Blow is a middle aged writer with a family and no discernible special features. He lives in a house and is about as smart as his last novel.

So, I opened the first book and I loved it. Actually, I enjoyed reading. The book sucked. But I did enjoy reading it and so I read another and another. I read three in one night and the better part of the next day. All three were sterile, well-constructed, predictable fare. I decided that perhaps I was jaded. I was familiar with novels the way a surgeon is familiar with blood. I would have to contact my innocent, inner self, the part of me that could be amazed by the dull and commonplace.

As I was leaving the house to visit Mother, the telephone rang.

She said, “Wanna fuck?”

“Linda?”

“How’d you guess?”

Linda Mallory. I considered her name. And as she spoke, saying things that I could not remember because I was not listening, I realized that my life was in need of a gratuitous sex scene. My mind required a new source of guilt, as Mother’s failing condition had justified her placement. And even as I decided to pursue that guilt, I also sought to assuage it by reminding myself that Linda very much was using me. I caught in her stream of language that she was in Washington.

“Where are you staying?” I asked.

“What?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at the Mayflower again.”

“I’ll be there at seven. How’s that for you?”

“That’s fine,” she said, skeptically. “Monk? This is Monk Ellison, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Seven.”

“Seven is great.”

Mother’s incontinence had become more pronounced and though she seemed strong enough to move herself around, she chose not to. When I arrived, the attending nurse and an orderly were changing the sheet while my mother lay in the bed. She was uncovered from the waist down and while the orderly pulled away the soiled sheets, the nurse wiped the mess from my mother’s skin. I turned away and stepped back into the corridor, still seeing Mother’s head rolling toward me and her vacant eyes pointing my way. She was so far from the woman who had told me once that listening to Mahler made her see colors right before she cried. “I see autumn in the fourth symphony,” she said. “Ashen greens giving way to reds and ochre while the sky darkens and the night feels cool.” The same woman whose shitty ass was being wiped by a woman who didn’t know who Mahler was had said that.

Linda Mallory was the postmodern fuck. She was self-conscious to the point of distraction, counted her orgasms and felt none of them. She worried about how she looked while making love, about how her expression changed when she started to come, whether she was too tight, too loose, too dry, too wet, too loud, too quiet and she found need to express these concerns during the course of the event.

“Does my hair look nice splayed out across the pillow?” she asked.

“It looks fine, Linda.”

“Am I moving all right, too fast, too slow?”

“Move however it feels good to you.”

And so I suspected she did, as she screamed into my face, startling me somewhat and my reaction must have shown, because she said, “Was that too loud? Was I ugly? Oh, my god, I can’t believe I did that. Oh, my god.”

“It’s okay, Linda. Are you all right?” I asked.

“Why, don’t I seem all right? Did you come?” She leaned after me as I rolled off her.

“No.”

“I can’t believe I screamed like that.” She turned to the nightstand and grabbed a cigarette, lit it.

“Don’t worry. So, you screamed when you came. That’s good, isn’t it?”

“I think I came. Yes, that would be good, right?”

She put her cigarette-free hand down on my penis. I was still hard, but far from excited.

“Mister Ready,” she said.

Paying a visit to Linda had been a bad idea and it was still one. I could not simply get dressed and leave, though guiltily I must admit that is exactly what I wanted to do. I harbored no ill feelings toward Linda and in fact respected her enough not to pity her. Oddly, her anxieties were coming across as endearingly comic. Even then, when I first considered that awkward thought I understood my judgment to be mere rationalization, not to have me think better of her, but of myself.

“Shall we watch a movie?” I asked.

“Don’t you want to make love again?”

“I’m afraid you’ve worn me out,” I said. “You’re really quite athletic.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

I used the remote control to turn on the television. Linda nestled her head onto my chest and I was saddened by the fact that I disliked the coconut fragrance of her shampoo. The first image on the screen was a wildcat tearing apart a rabbit. “Change,” she said and I did. “Change.” I did. “Change.” I did and offered her the controller. She refused, said, “No, you hold on to it. Change.” Finally, she had me settle on some noir film with actors I didn’t recognize. She squirmed playfully, as to get more comfortable, then promptly began to snore.