Middle C (26 page)

Joseph Skizzen saw his mother’s life begin to flower as her plants bloomed, while his—which had drawn for so long a similarly upward line—was climbing around his obsessive sentence like a predatory vine thereby—since the two pursuits were so obviously connected—adding daily to his inhumanity collection. But there was nothing to be admired in the results of his revising, snipping, and arranging: if he were writing in ink he would have made a blot; if he were molding clay, it would resemble a turd; if he were playing notes, cacophony would be heard; if he were working with string, he would have made a knot. Standing in
the midst of his damning collection, his former pride in it would arrive as a belch.

Short of breath though thin as a scissor blade, Skizzen puffed up the attic stairs. Because he ate so irregularly he was always weary. Once his mother had welcomed him to her table, but now only certain holidays were celebrated with feasts. Miriam seemed to think that, like the cottage, this was her house and that he was the kid who wouldn’t leave home but hung around Mom like a hungry pet. Instead of contriving to cook for himself, Joey had learned to unwrap. Occasionally, Miriam would call his attention to a leftover, but his mother often simply passed through the house at dinnertime with an apple in her mouth and snacked while studying a catalog covered with satisfied bees.

Meanwhile, Skizzen’s eyes had become dim reading books built of footnotes. His muscles were wasted, he was so sedentary, the stairs his sole exertion since he had given up most of his piano practice. His knowledge was still spotty but intense. He had no patience, no forbearance, no sympathies. His mirror mocked him, and he mocked his mirror. The dirt he dug in was as infertile as news—in fact, it was news.

Nevertheless what Joseph Skizzen regretted most was that he would die before the decision to end Creation had been made, before the disease of human life had mortaled even earth, and all the ores and salts and oils had been removed, fertility driven from the land, the juice of every fruit drunk, waters pumped and gulped and pissed, carcasses consumed; indeed, well before the last movie had cost more than the last buck so that debt was the best bet; before every particle and property of matter had disappeared into a knickknack, a floral garment, or ceramic mug and there was nothing but uncycled trash and even dumps were being dumped; because he would like to have looked out on it a little like God on the first day and observed the mess we had made of ourselves, and seen spread out over infinity a single placid sea of shit. He would have liked to be there at the end to find accounts rendered and justice done. There was supposed to be a Last Judgment, wasn’t there? Of course, he would not survive to see such. He would not be recalled to life, either, to enjoy the late show. Only Miriam’s daffodils would enjoy that. Even if his cheeks were powdered by a peony and he was made immortal, he wouldn’t see it, because there wouldn’t be any—any end—to have an end you would have had to have some shape in time. However, there
was no beginning. No end. No middle. No knowing where you were. Meanwhile, waiting for the end, he just turned and turned in one spot like the point of a top till the slowing top began to waver, threatened to flop, whereupon a new asininity would strengthen his circuits and, though he stayed teetery, would keep him going.

Among professional students of the earth there has been a growing concern about the many threats to the continued existence of the human race, but among scholars whose field of expertise is man himself, the worry now is that human beings are becoming even hardier and will never go away
.

17

The library brought Joey Skizzen happiness. It is true he had no instrument available to him now or place to play, though he exercised his fingers daily and caught every radio concert he could. Moreover he had learned to sing a scale built from each of the twelve tones, observing the pattern: whole whole half, whole whole whole half, humming to himself as he worked in the stacks like one of the seven dwarfs. On a piece of paper where he had inscribed a circle he put
C
where noon would be if this were the face of a clock; then he would write around the dial the sharps from one to seven and after that the flats counterclockwise from eleven back to five, just as Newman’s book on playing had taught him to do, by counting off perfect fifths. So his music was not utterly neglected.

Moreover, he read, rather systematically, every book on the subject in the Urichstown library, even the two on the guitar. To be sure, this was a modest number, but it was nevertheless many more than he had ever seen in one place before—shelves of opera synopses, opera gossip, singers’ and conductors’ bios and reminiscences (Caruso to Toscanini—alas,
only the popular people), a little history, even some stage stuff. Ballet was less generously endowed: ballet plots, ballet dancers and their aching legs, their love-crossed lives, impresarios—bullies—as well as dancers (Nijinsky, Diaghilev and Balanchine, Gelsey Kirkland)—a little history, even less criticism, one Sert, which was really a surprise. Had the collection been tall enough to have a head, it could have been called top-heavy with performers (Beecham), rather than composers (Bloch), though the latters’ lives were spottily represented: Schubert not Schumann, Verdi not Bellini, Beethoven not Bruckner, Bach not Webern. As in all libraries, however, there were volumes whose presence was inexplicable. Though musicology was represented by
Young People’s Introductions to the Orchestra
and
Old People’s Appreciations of the Classics
, there was Schenker present—Schenker, of all people, Schenker, about whom Joseph hadn’t a notion when he first thumbed through the pages of
Harmony
, so his astonishment was entirely retrospective. There was Schenker and Schoenberg, there was
Style and Idea
. So if, by some standards, the collection didn’t amount to much, by Joey’s it was enough.

It almost painfully pleased his eye to run along the rows of titles, teasing his imagination with what really was a gesture, because it and longing were twins, and longing could not help itself, it had to experience the interiors of these volumes, again not as printed words upon a page but as words read, as heard, as realized, as conceived; and this building was so cozy, trim, and tidy, it was easy for Joey to feel the books were his; the small close halls made of shelves, the little reading room with its library table and its stately chairs were spaces in his new home where windows—casement windows—opened onto a side yard with great trees and forsythia yellower than a bonnet. He would indulge his fingers, letting them slide along the ends of books, as his eyes had, touching the titles, as if imbibing paper, cloth, and leather, feeling width, and with width, length, and with that, weight, and with weight, importance and ambition—a series of associations that did not always lead him astray.

Through his garage windows he could see his car. “His car”—it was a phrase he could not call customary. The car itself still scared him. Like being a grown-up with a tank full of obligations. Fortunately, he had little use for his vehicle. As it had sat, before its sale, it sat now. He knew it sat, and while it sat, it rusted. Already a ruin, it grew older out
of enervation. Joseph had begun to assess the Rambler’s ailments, which were many, various, and apparently serious, but why should that surprise him, what did he expect for thirty-five dollars? Miss Spiky would probably have paid him just to drive it off the lot. The plastic upholstery had split. Only every other dial on the dashboard registered. The overhead light would glow occasionally, although there seemed to be no reason for it. The speedometer sounded as if it were grinding gravel. Yet this Rambler had driven him to Urichstown, and it had driven him back to Woodbine, too, though this time in another gear—he still wasn’t sure which—carrying him by the car yard in Lowell from which he had rescued its carcass and sent it into action to enjoy a last run of life if not a new one. Joseph had blown the Rambler’s horn (it
awk
’d) as he and his auto passed Miss Spiky’s place, out of thanks and in triumph, but he did not suppose she had heard him greet her or, if she had, cared to give notice. Anyway, he could not have seen her had her trailer been on fire because he wisely kept his eyes on the road, tense as most new drivers, even more ignorant, fearful of every curve ahead, of overtaking or oncoming cars—trucks were worst—trying to avoid clutch lurch and calculating how to steer and how to stop.

One wall of his room had been a retractable door with a row of square windows across it. This was infirmly fastened across the driveway, the end of which now served as his floor, by strips of felt and plenty of stickum. Shag rugs made from plastic rags had been used to cover ancient oil and grease spots. They tepidly warmed his toes, though it wasn’t winter yet. He anticipated the cold creeping like an animal into the concrete and crawling under the door toward his bed to warm itself. Fortunately there was no odor of gasoline. The place smelled as if it had been taken fresh from its box, nevertheless it looked the way things long unused seem—new yet forlornly out of style. Two walls, rear and side, backed into the house, but the fourth wall had a standard window covered by bathroom curtains so you couldn’t see the neighbors—or they, presumably, you. At the back of the garage, a door led into the house where a bathroom offered its mirror, a tumbler for a toothbrush, a towel hook, and a saucer that held soap. The badly stained john had a yellowed enamel handle that looked tired and familiar; the porcelain sink was spider-webbed with cracks; and crowded into a corner, a glassine shower, the size of its stream, had been amateurishly squeezed. Everything about
his bed was brief, but its brevity left room for a desk served by a goosenecked study lamp and a stiff straight chair. He thought of Mr. Hirk’s. The lamp’s brown metal shade was schoolboy standard. Thank God it wasn’t green. He also had a squat stuffed flower-covered chair with fat arms and a bulbous back that bent his knees but made him sit straight. There was a cardboard closet and a plywood dresser available for his things. On the wall was last year’s calendar featuring a different library for every month. February, where it fell open, was distinguished by an archival photo of the Newberry Library in Chicago, sitting appropriately across from a park of snow.

Ms. Bruss’s modest house perched on its hillside like a bird, so through his row of windows he could not only watch the drive roll briefly down the hill to the cross street but see the Quick and one of its bridges in the valley. It was not a long walk to the library; however, the return was a stiff one, and Joseph already envisioned hill snow and sidewalk ice making every step precarious. With the drive steep, and the car unreliable, Ms. Bruss provided bricks to place behind its rear wheels and prevent its return to the scrap yard.

Miriam was not impressed with Joseph’s Rambler. You are like the simpleton who is sent to sell a cow and comes back with a few seeds.

But they grew upward toward heaven and a hoard of gold. Besides that’s what you like most of all—seeds.

Weed the comparison, she said with some annoyance, you know what I mean. My fifty went for this ugly old thing?

No. Only thirty-five.

Oh God, the good bills—the twenty, ten, and five, I bet, not any of the ones.

It’s just paper money, Mother, it doesn’t matter.

Doesn’t? ones are only ones like pennies are only pennies. Remember the penny pot? None of them was money till they were exchanged for a bill. You know how to destroy five dollars? Buy five hundred pennies with it. Less than worthless, then, just a bother. Heavy as Hades.

Put a penny in the ground, your hydrangeas will thank you.

Pennies? pooh. They’re made of aluminum and brown paint, not iron.

I guess.

Joseph described his library, said nice things about his new boss, and, in general, blessed the town.

Woman at work told me the place—what’s it called? I’m forgetting.

Urichstown.

Ugly. Ugly name. Urichsburg. Anyway, she said the place was cursed. Cursed?

Some women were accused of being witches there one time. Ages ago, of course. The witches put a curse upon the place. It floods regular. As the Nile, she said. To wash away the stain.

I hope your room’s high up.

Joseph described his digs to his mother, but discreetly, without any damaging details. He repeatedly mentioned the rent and how reasonable he thought it was. A garage, Miriam said dubiously, a garage isn’t reasonable: a garage is going to be drafty, the floor will be cold, on a hill the wind will be shrill and biting, the windows—you can count on it—will fill with frost—they will—it will be cold, ears to tootsies cold, so be careful to keep plenty of blankets about, and if there’s no charge for utilities, plug in an electric blanket, have a little heater, don’t freeze.

Joseph agreed to every suggestion while trying to forestall criticism. What’s this “digs,” she wanted to know. It’s not a basement. You’ve rented a garage. He explained that it was a word he’d come upon in an English novel. This is America, Lord save us. You are living in a garage. Like a car. You are living like a car in a garage. With your friend the rust-colored car living like a homeless one on the hard cold pavement.

I’ll be fine, Mother, and it’s such a brief walk to work.

Watch out about that Miss Brush—

Bruss.

It’s too convenient for her, too tidy entirely, giving the space away after she’s fixed it up, invested some of the little money she must make at that library—look at what you’re getting—they pay in book paste, those people—in fines and petty change, dime a day for overdue. So be punctual. They’ll expect that.

Joseph did not speak to his mother about Miss Moss, whom he finally met in the stacks one afternoon about a week after he started in his job, though he and Ms. Bruss had gone hunting for her a time or two so that he could be properly introduced. She was indeed—as Ms. Bruss had said after they’d missed her yet another time—a wraith. She drifts. And when she drifts all that needs to be there is a draft, a whiff, a puff of air—or so it seems, she said, a certain determination in her voice. I’ve
been startled a hundred times. She drifts. Miss Moss reshelved, dusted, and repaired books. She had an office in the basement furnished with a book vise and adhesive. Breathe easy around her, Ms. Bruss advised, an unguarded sneeze could blow her into a corner. Loud voices will extinguish her like a match.