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Heroes And Fools
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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
thing returned to normal. Individuals became themselves
again.
Nathaniel does not believe this story, but he appreciates
the soul thief 85
his stepfather having taken the trouble to think it up and
to tell it. The narrative seems like a mask covering over
another actual story that his stepfather will never tell, so
Nathaniel asks, Did anyone kill anybody else?
His stepfather, puzzled, says that of course no one killed
anyone else. Why would he ask such a question? Why do
you ask? People like us don t kill each other, he says. We
don t do that. But, now that I think about it, he adds, as an
afterthought, two people, two of these Andrews, did try to
kill themselves.
Each other?
No, themselves, his stepfather insists. You know, suicide.
He waits. But they didn t succeed. Then he says something
that sounds like his verdict on this particular history. You
know, few people really want to become individuals, he
says. People claim that they do, but they don t. They want
to retain the invisibility of childhood anonymity forever.
But that s not possible except in a police state. In an ordi-
nary life, you have to become yourself. He takes a deep
breath. So. Classes going well?
Oh, yeah, the classes are fine.
Good. Your mother s good. She misses you. Your sister s
all right, too.
That all right also has a touch of the disingenuous itself,
Catherine s condition being timeless and unreconciled to
reality. Having refused to give up her lifelong mourning, she
lives outside of Milwaukee in a small group home with a
view of Lake Michigan. There, minded by salaried employ-
ees, she passes a contemplative life colored by the narrow
spectrum of apathy, except for episodes at the piano. She has
been given antidepressants, sedatives, and stimulants, but
still she does not speak. She reads, or seems to: she glares at
the words and turns the pages with impatient finger flicks.
86 charles baxter
Occasionally she peeps and squeaks. But when she sits down
at the keyboard, she plays with a rather frightening virtuos-
ity, though without any recognizable human feeling the
music emerges from the instrument with the dead expres-
sionism of a player piano switched on in an empty room.
Catherine s face remains vacant no matter what musical
notation passes in front of her or what her fingers find to do
to occupy the time.
The subject of the job market removes Catherine from
the conversation, and soon his stepfather tells Nathaniel
that he has to go back to work. If this were a real crisis, the
old man would stay on the line, but for him identity has
nothing to do with money or with how the world actually
works, and that is that.
Thanks, Pop, Nathaniel says. He puts down the phone
and looks around at the comfortable dinginess of his apart-
ment, now, thanks to the absence of valuables, unburglariz-
able. Outside the window, a cardinal chirps frantically as if
affrighted. Nathaniel would like to snap off his imagination
and its multiple narratives, but it s stuck in the on position,
and if he didn t live in his imagination half the time, he
wouldn t be himself, and he wouldn t be bothered by Cool-
berg. Maybe he wouldn t be bothered by anything, period.
He would live on the Blessed Isles.
He leans forward to gaze out the window. He sees his
own reflection in the glass. What good is an identity, any-
way? his reflection asks him. For that matter, what good is a
reflection? I lived in Wisconsin before I lived in New York, he tells
the reflection, these were my parents, I broke my arm when I was
twelve and Brian Hennerley tackled me when we were playing touch foot-
ball, I first kissed a girl when I was fourteen, I remember she was
ticklish . . . the rubble of the personal, the dust motes of the
specific. Who cares who you are? the reflection asks, point-
the soul thief 87
ing at him. Every identity consists of a pile of moldering
personal clichés given sentimental value by the fact that
someone owns them. The fallacy of the unique! A rubbish
heap of personal data, anybody s autobiography. You can t
sell it or trade it. Besides, everyone has an autobiography,
the principle of inflation thereby causing each one to be
worthless.
Well, okay, the reflection admits, maybe some identities
do shape up better than others thanks to the clothing of
grace and good fortune. Of course, of course, of course, of
course. Some identities are significantly richer than others, you d
have to be a fool to deny it. Better, more magnificent sins
enacted on satin sheets in the penthouse, with music piped
in through the floor grates along with the perfume, lend a
certain robust glory to a man s memory trove. Whereas
some existences are empty dry sockets giving off the radia-
tion of pain, victimization, mere shadows on the wall, dim
bulbs, lethal vicissitudes, black holes in space, gigantic gravi-
tational vacuums piloted by hungry ghosts . . .
Nathaniel finds that he is sweating again as these gigantic
formless concepts tumble out of the window glass s reflection
into him, taking up mental occupancy. The unpleasantness
of these ideas causes him to radiate a nervous malodorous
sweat that he himself can smell and be offended by, and to
remedy the smell of himself, he rushes to his closet to put on
a clean shirt. He searches among the hangers and in the
dresser drawers for the blue Brooks Brothers that his sister
gave him, once upon a time, the one with thin rust-colored
vertical stripes and a button-down collar, the shirt that
always cheers him up, the wonder-working shirt. Wearing it
makes him into a serious man, what they used to call a man of
parts. Outside, snow has started to fall and is tapping against
his bedroom s window glass. The cardinal is no longer
88 charles baxter
chirping, his reflection has disappeared, and the shirt s not
here it has gone conspicuously missing. The dresser
drawer advertises its own emptiness. And what about the
white shirt his stepfather gave him, the one tailored in Italy,
the elegant Fratelli Moda? What about that one? That one
isn t here either.
Where did they go? Who would burglarize two shirts?
Where are my shirts?
16
At one of the tables in the dining area of the
People s Kitchen sits Ben the Burglar, alone, slurping his
soup. He wears a red cap. He eats with his gloves on, spoon
in his right hand, lit cigarette in his left. Today he sports
a pair of old tortoiseshell glasses, a 1940s look, that of
a chump in a downtown diner wearing a cheap disguise,
behind which his junkie eyes peer at his fellow citizens. A
bruise shines from the left side of his jaw. Deep film-noir
shadows fall on him; blue smoke rises from his head. It is
four o clock in the afternoon, and Nathaniel sits down next
to him uninvited.
Whad I do this time? Ben asks without looking up. He
swallows, then takes a puff from the cigarette.
I m missing two shirts, Nathaniel says. I think you
know where they are.
Would you let me finish? Ben slows down the eating
process, savoring each bite of potato, carrot, and stew meat.
Why hasn t he taken off his gloves? He needs a gangster
affectation.
You broke into my place again. That was unfair.
90 charles baxter
So? Ben smiles. You didn t mind when I did it before.
Confessions of misdeeds apparently emerge easily from this
hard-boiled guy. Like any tradesman, he takes pride in his
work and in a job successfully accomplished. He smiles
coldly, blowing smoke upward toward the ceiling. It is an era
when people still know how to smoke and eat at the same
time.
So why did you take those shirts?
You forgot to lock the door again, for starters. I took a
pair of pants, too, Ben says thoughtfully. And a pair of
shoes.
He s now madly grinning with self-love. Also, his speech
has slowed down, an effect caused by the good life of ciga-
rettes, food, and opiates. For him, heroin is to experience
what salt is to rice. It makes it palatable.
How come you took them?
How come? I was on commission.
You were what? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
