Erasure

16

It was the season of the absent or lazy editor. So many of the novels were needlessly fat. Six were more than nine hundred pages, twelve were better than seven hundred and any one of them would have and could have been, with a modicum of editorial attention, a good four-hundred-page novel. There was an incredibly dense novel from a well-known, reclusive writer of dense novels. There was a nicely crafted and notably lean novel from a writer whose reputation was astonishingly well made. There was a volume of collected stories from a dead writer, a shelf of first novels about fatherly abuse and motherly alcoholism (and the reverse), a mid-list author’s new (but dreadfully old) take on the academic novel, twenty-eight middle America, domestic, where-will-the-children-live novels, forty coming-of-age novels, thirty-five new-life-after-the-wrecked-marriage novels, thirty crime novels, forty so-called adventure novels and six yeah-we’re-Christians-with-chips-on-our-shoulders novels. For the most part the titles received more consideration than the stories or the writing. Still, I found thirty I wished I had written — ten because I would have done a better job. Of ten others I was saddened to admit I could not have written them better. The other ten were simply good, well-crafted, serious, thoughtful.

At the first conference, one of the judges, I am not to say which one, said, “I’d like to see Rita Totten’s Over My Body on the short list.” When asked why? she said, “For two reasons: because Rita is a good friend of mine and because she got such a scathing review in the New York Times.”

I pointed out that one could argue that either of those reasons might be enough to keep her off the list.

Thomas Tomad sighed, “This is Tomad speaking—” (as it was a telephone conference it was kind of him to identify himself) “—and I believe that Totten’s novel is just so much fluff. Filthy fluff, but fluff none-the-less.”

Another judge: “I’d like to see Richard Wordiman’s book on one of the lists.”

“Don’t you work with him?” someone asked.

“Why yes, and although I don’t think it’s his best book, I’d like for him to know that I take his work seriously.”

“Why don’t we wait until all the books come in?” I asked.

“Sounds reasonable,” Wilson Harnet said. “This is my suggested course of action. We each compile a list of twenty-five books. Then we see if there’s any overlap. We’ll discuss the list and any book with at least two mentioners goes to the next round. From there we’ll wing it.”

Tomad: “Sounds good. I’ve already got a couple I’m willing to go to the mat for. There is some gritty stuff out there.”

Sigmarsen: “Ya, sure. The nature writing is skinny by my standards, but still there are a couple good ones. Toby Lancfugen’s book is remarkable.”

Hoover: “I didn’t get all of that. Yes, of course. I was surprised to see so many books by such big names. Shouldn’t we just go ahead and put them on the first list?”

Ellison: “Okay.”

Christmas came and went. Mother’s body became more fit as her mind failed completely. My editor called my agent with the exciting news that Fuck was going to be released earlier because of the great interest. And even then, when I heard that I would see the book in March, I did not suspect that in January I would open a padded envelope addressed to Thelonius Ellison and find a bound galley of Fuck with the request that it be considered for The Book Award.

Dilemma: I refused to admit that I, Thelonius Ellison, was also Stagg R. Leigh, author of Fuck. But yet here was the book. I could not disqualify myself, because I would betray my secret.

Solution: Ignore it. Who in his right mind would consider giving that novel an award?

Yep.

I had become a hermit. I had a stack of mail from friends, which I had not opened. I had a stack of letters from people at various universities either requesting letters of recommendation for applicants seeking employment or students seeking admission to programs — such was my conjecture, as all of them remained sealed. I felt guilty about those, more so than the personal ones. From a couple of institutions there were three or four letters and I guessed that they were invitations to give readings. I gave few enough readings, as I found the whole custom rather idiotic. “Read the damn book,” I always wanted to shout and just sit down. Once I considered taking a couple of boxes of books and having the audience read silently while I read silently, then point out that they didn’t need me after all. I was not a popular reader, a fact that never hurt my feelings, but now I could imagine that my failure to even respond to the invitations made me that much more desirable.

I sat back on the sofa in the study, closed my eyes and imagined a reading given by Stagg Leigh:

Site: East St. Louis Public Library or the Lansing Public Library or the Worcester Public Library or Borders Bookstore in Philadelphia, Dallas, Jacksonville or Waterstone’s Bookstore in Boston, New York, Chicago.

Stagg’s outfit: Yellow, baggy, draping wool pants. Black silk shirt with loose sleeves and several buttons at the cuff. A gray, sharkskin blazer, double vented, double breasted with a yellow kerchief peeking from the breast pocket. Gray hose. Tasseled loafers, black.

or

Black pants, black shirt, black watch cap, dark glasses, black army boots.

or

A colorful dashiki, white trousers, sandals, red fez.

Stagg is to be introduced by a young white woman, a representative of the Friends of Books Society, Becky Unger. “I’m just so pleased you could come and read for us,” she says privately. “We’d heard that you’re very shy. Oh, I didn’t mean anything by my use of the word ‘shy.’ Private, I meant to say private.”

“I prefer ‘reclusive,’” Stagg says, his voice barely audible.

“Reclusive. Okay, then.” The friend of books gets up and steps to the lectern. She clears her throat and the room comes together “Thank you all for coming,” She clears her throat once more. “It is my pleasure to introduce our guest, Mr. Stagg Leigh. I know that many of you have been as eagerly awaiting Mr. Leigh’s reading as I have, so I’ll make this short. Mr. Leigh is the author of an exceptional first novel,” looks at the audience, catches her breath, looks at her hands, then, “Fuck.” Mixed giggles and muttering erupt in the audience. “This first novel is a runaway bestseller and is presently enjoying its third week at number one. I believe that Mr. Leigh lives in Washington, D.C. This book meant so much to me when I read it. It opened my eyes to ways of black life and helped me understand the pain of those people. So, please join me in welcoming Mr. Stagg R. Leigh.”

Stagg stands and steps to the lectern, acknowledges Ms. Unger with a nod and faces the audience. There are a couple of blue-haired older white women in the front row, nervous-seeming, eyes darting, Stagg says, “Thank you for having me.” His voice is barely audible. The audience leans forward, collectively, hanging on his voice, staring at him. Stagg takes a breath and says,

“Fuck!” The audience is knocked back into their seats. “—is a true story.” Again his voice is barely loud enough to hear, but they do and they moan their approval. “This novel is not true factually, but it is the true story of what it is like to be black in America. It ain’t pretty.”

“Here, here,” from a white, bow-tied man in the back.

“During my time in prison,” a look at the blue-haired ladies, “I learned that words belong to everybody, that I could make my place in this bankrupt society by using my God-given talent with language.”

Applause.

“Fuck! is my contribution to this wonderful country of ours. Where a black ex-con can become rich by simply telling the truth about his unfortunate people.”

Applause. Applause. Applause.

Stagg opens his book. “Fuck!” The audience falls back, then forward to listen. “‘Mama look at me and Tardreece and she call us human slough …’”

Fuck, despite its title, was chosen by Kenya Dunston, or whoever made those kinds of decisions for her, to be a selection of her book club. There was much excitement at the publisher’s offices as it meant that somehow we would split a huge chunk of money. One of the conditions, however, was that Stagg Leigh would appear on the Kenya Dunston Show. This was a bad thing and it filled me with fear and hate. The fear was of being exposed. The hatred, of myself. But the money was more than significant, nearly doubling my advance. Il faut de l’argent.

“What are you going to do?” Yul asked.

“You mean what is Stagg Leigh going to do,” I said.

“I suppose I do mean that.”

“I suppose the author will show up at the studio at the specified time.”

“Good lord.”

I returned home from visiting Mother with the thought that I had only imagined her body remaining in good condition. It was by contrast to her mental failure that I of course was misled. My mother was dying. I felt what I assumed to be normal guilt at the consideration that she might be better off dead. It sounded as awful in my head as it looks on paper. How was I to know what pleasures she was enjoying in her own world. But of course I knew — the fleeting, solitary moments of comprehension must have been punishing and brutal. That night I put on my sneakers and went for a run, resolving to keep my own body fit.

Corpora lente augescunt, cito extinguuntur.

It was easy, difficult, anxiety-making, welcomed, and frightening to forgo a visit to Mother. I had been the dutiful son, the good man, the family rock, but I had to create a little space. In a way it was a trial run, as I would be going to New York soon for a meeting of the award committee and for Stagg Leigh’s appearance on television. I paced the house, believing that this would be the one lucid day for Mother out of the last twelve, that she would turn sad-faced to the young nurse who changed her diaper and say, “Where is my Monksie?” I consciously shrugged off the guilt, as much as one can shrug off guilt. Guilt made for poor cologne. I hated three things on people. I hated the heavy humor of public men. I hated overt and indulgent self-deprecation. And I hated conspicuous guilt. I prided myself in the fact that I had only ever been guilty of the latter two.

I drove out to Columbia the next day. Mother was perhaps worse, certainly no better, and if she had been lucid the previous day, there were no residual effects and the room held no echoes. She held her knotted hands in her lap as she sat in her chair and stared into nothingness.

I stopped by the market on my way home to pick up what had become my diet, yogurt and fruit and those cups of dehyrated soups. I carried three bags, one containing a single honeydew melon as I walked out and toward the parking lot. There was a man standing at the edge of the sidewalk, a man perhaps my age, but still he was older, injured by life. He pointed at me and sang,

Bread and WineBread and Wine,Your cross ain’t nearly soHeavy as mine …

I stood just five feet from him. I could smell the wear on his soiled topcoat, count the wrinkles about his eyes. I think I scared him slightly. He stepped back and hunched almost imperceptibly, as if ready for flight. I nodded to him, said, “You’re right.” And I gave him my bag with the melon. I handed him that weight and he walked away, glancing back suspiciously twice. I looked for my keys, then back to the man and he was gone, as if sucked down a hole.

Thelonious and Monk and Stagg Leigh made the trip to New York together, on the same flight and, sadly, in the same seat. I considered that this charade might well turn out of hand and that I would slip into an actual condition of dual personalities. But as I nursed my juice through turbulent skies I managed to reduce the whole thing to mere drama. I was acting, simple and plain, and my pay was substantial and deserved. So, we were there dressed as myself, once Monksie in my mother’s eyes, once artist in my own eyes. I checked into the Algonquin as was arranged by the staff of the National Book Association, put down my bags and took a nap.

At the meeting of the committee that afternoon, I sat between Ailene Hoover who smelled of garlic and Jon Paul Sigmarsen who somehow smelled of fish. We were in a spacious conference room with a window overlooking a courtyard. We discussed book after book, Sigmarsen and Tomad being the most emotional in their likes and dislikes. Wilson Harnet was almost annoyingly diplomatic and Ailene Hoover was there on and off. Perhaps my participation was the most problematic, as I listened carefully and spoke very little. About an hour into the discussion, a terrible thing happened and it happened like an ambush, as if staged, rehearsed, prepared solely for me; Ailene Hoover brought up Fuck.

“Have you all read Fuck yet?” she asked.

All had, except Sigmarsen.

“What about you?” Harnet asked me.

“I looked at it,” I said. “It didn’t capture me.”

“Oh, I thought it was just marvelous,” said Hoover.

“A gutsy piece of work,” from Tomad.

“I have to agree,” Harnet said. “I think it’s the strongest African American novel I’ve read in a long time.”

“I look forward to reading it,” Sigmarsen said.

“I suspect it will at least be on our list of twenty,” Harnet said.

“I should think so,” Hoover said.

“I guess I’ll have to give it a reading,” said I. My spirit could not have been more deflated. My feet felt leaden, my stomach hollow, my hands cold. Nothing could have been more frightening or objectionable to me. I would rather have included the screenplay to Birth of a Nation on the list than that novel.

I went back to my room fit to be tied. I paced. Then I watched Imitation of Life. Then I paced. I ordered dinner to my room, but ate none of it.

The following morning, after no sleep, I showered, dressed and took a cab to the address I’d found in Father’s papers, to what was, at least at one time, the apartment of Fiona’s sister, Tilly McFadden. The name on the box was still McFadden and so I rang the bell. The door buzzed and I entered the stairwell. The brownstone had seen better, cleaner days, but still the building was not in bad repair. I walked up the four flights and found the door ajar. I knocked.

“Come on in,” a man called. Upon seeing me, he said, “Who you?” He was a shirtless, bald white man with a ring in his lip and a large tattoo covering his left shoulder and left side of his chest. He was fat as well, one biscuit shy of three hundred pounds. He had one boot on and was laboring to dress the other foot. Frankly, he scared me.

“My name is Thelonious Ellison.”

“So the fuck what?”

“I was hoping you might be able to help me.” I stared at his tattoo. It was a scene, a wooded place with a tiger fighting a snake.

“If you ask for money I’m going to beat the shit out of you.”

“Are you a skinhead?” I asked. The question just popped out. I was curious.

“Get the fuck outta my house,” he said and hauled himself up onto one boot and one sock.

“I’m looking for Tilly McFadden,” I said.

“Well, you’re ten years too late,” he said. “She’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you.” For whatever reason he sat back down. Perhaps he was tired.

“Are you her son?”

“Why the hell you want to know?” He gave me a hard stare.

“Actually, I’m looking for her sister, Fiona.”

“Dead, too,” he said. “Shit, boy, you too late for everybody.” Now, he seemed amused. “What you want them for?” He acted like he smelled money.

“I’m looking for your cousin Gretchen. Is she dead as well?”

He stopped lacing his boot and sat up straight. “Naw, she ain’t dead. Why you want her?”

I decided to come right to the point. “It appears that she’s my half-sister.”

“I knew,” he said and rocked his head a little. “I knew she had nigger in her. My mother wouldn’t own up to it, but I knew it.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“I might. Why you looking for her?”

I looked at the crucifix on the wall, right next to the swastika. “Actually, it’s personal.”

“Hey, I know where she is, you don’t.”

“Maybe you could just tell me her last name.”

He smiled at me and said nothing.

“How much?” I asked. “A hundred?” I had my money out of my pocket. “Two?” His face didn’t change. “I’ve got two-fifty. I’ll give it to you if the address is correct.”

“What if I just kick your ass and take it.”

“That wouldn’t be as easy as just taking me there.”

A nasty, wicked smile filled his ugly face and it made me hate him. I wasn’t sure if he was finishing his boot tying so that he could beat me up or to take me to Gretchen’s.

“Let’s go,” he said.

And so we walked from his building several blocks to another brownstone. For a fat man his pace was decent, though he panted alarmingly. I bristled at the thought of trying to resuscitate him should he collapse. The while I worried that he would turn and punch me or that we would happen onto some of his neo-Nazi pals and that I would be left for dead. Just a pause here to point out that if my mood before this was dark, by now it was pitch and dour, and I perceived it as pernicious itself, attacking me as much as the situation. This man was in fact related to me. He was the cousin of my half sister, which by my reckoning made him my half-cousin-by-law-once-removed, granted not a close relation, but close enough to sicken me some considerable measure.

“She’s on the third floor,” the skinhead said. “Her last name is Hanley.” He held his red-knuckled hand out open for the cash. I gave him the money and watched him walk away. At the corner he glanced back at me with that grin.

Up the steps, I found the name Gretchen Hanley on the box and pressed the bell.

“Who is it?” a woman answered through the intercom.

“Ms. Hanley?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Thelonious Ellison. I’d like to talk with you.”

There was a long pause, then the door buzzed. I reached for it quickly and entered the building, which had fallen into a sadder state than her cousin’s building. I hadn’t noticed before, but the day had turned hot and so with all the walking and climbing I had become rather sweaty and somewhat disheveled. I tucked in my shirt, took in a deep breath and knocked.

If there was a family resemblance, it was lost to my eye. Gretchen was in fact an attractive woman, wide in the shoulder and hips and tallish, with light brown hair which fell past her shoulder and hazel eyes. A baby cried in the corner and after opening the door, she turned to see to it.

“Gretchen?” I said.

“Yes, that’s my name.” There was an edge on her voice. “What can I do for you?” I could hear her accent.

“My father was Benjamin Ellison,” I said.

She was holding the child now so that its face was at her shoulder. She looked at me. Her back was to the window and I could not read her expression.

“Your mother’s name was Fiona?”

“Yes.” She stepped closer and looked at my face. “So, you’re my brother.” She smiled and I could detect ever so faintly a likeness to her skinhead cousin. “So, is our old man dead yet?”

“Yes, he is.”

That seemed to unscrew her slightly and she sat down at the table, rocked the baby.

“If it makes any difference,” I said, “my father never knew where you were. He died about seven years ago. I didn’t know about you and your mother until I found some letters.”

She stared at me. Then I realized she was looking at my clothes. I looked around the apartment and saw that she was living badly. The place was clean enough, but it wore the scars of hard times. The Formica-topped table might have seemed chic in a bright, suburban kitchen, but there it served as merely a log, the dents and blemishes marking memories. Just looking at the sofa, I knew that the reverse sides of the cushions were even more stained.

“This is my granddaughter,” she said. “I watch her while my daughter works. Then I go to work. Tomorrow will be the same and the day after even more the same. What do you do, Mr. Ellison?”

“I’m a writer.”

“How wonderful.” She looked at the baby’s face, touched it with her finger. “A writer. Did you go to college?”

“I did.”

“How nice. I suppose you learned a lot in college.” The baby made a another crying sound and she shushed him somewhat roughly. “Support the Negro College Fund, I always say.”

I didn’t like the woman, but her bitterness didn’t and shouldn’t have surprised me. “Anyway,” I said, “my father wrote you this letter before he died. I recently found it and so I tracked you down.” I put the letter on the table in front of her.

She looked at it, but did not reach for it.

I sat down in the chair closest to me and studied her face. A terrible sense of loneliness came over me and I was hard put to understand whether it was an empathetic response to Gretchen or simply my own feeling. I also felt responsible, however wrongly, for the poverty in the room with me.

“So, you’re my brother.”

I nodded.

“Do I have other brothers and sisters?”

“You have another brother. Your sister is dead.” I looked at the dirty window. “I didn’t mean to come and stir up bad feelings for you. My father left his letters to be found and I was the one who read them. From what I can see, he loved your mother very much. I think he wanted to find you, but didn’t know how.”

“You found me.”

She was quite right and to that I had no satisfactory reply.

“Father wanted you to have this money.” I took out my checkbook and pen.

“Money?”

I could not tell if she was surprised or offended, but I twisted the point of the pen out and continued. “Yes, Ms. Hanley, my father left you some money.” I wrote out a check for one hundred thousand dollars and handed it to her, to my astonishment without hesitation. I’d never before written a check near that large and it felt strange, dizzying.

“My goodness,” she said, not looking at the check. “Money, how about that? And that makes it all okay, does it?” She glanced about her home, seeming to take it in, seeming to draw my attention to the conditions of her life.

“I don’t think so.” I stood. “But that’s all I’m here to do. Well, good luck,” I said, turned and walked out of her apartment.

She came to the door and opened it after me. “This is real?”

“Yes.”