The Cry of the Sloth (18 page)

Love,

Andy

¶

Dahlberg!

Red Ford Pickup? Alberta license plate? Did you imagine for one instant that I didn’t know that was you? You are pushing me too far. I have training in firearms.

Whittaker

OCTOBER

Dear Vikki,

Ever since the school year started a few weeks ago, crowds of children have been walking past my house every morning and afternoon. I don’t remember this happening other years, though it must have unless they’ve changed their route, and why would they do that except to annoy me? No matter where I am inside the house, even in the basement, I can hear them whooping. They evidently enjoy making as much noise as humanly possible. I tell myself I am not the target of this shouting, but am not convinced. Peering out, I catch them shooting glances at my house. Their voices are angular and piercing.

This afternoon, instead of slowly piping on up the street, they stayed across from the house, a stationary vortex of shouts and screams. When this continued undiminished, when, as it seemed to me, it
refused
to stop, I felt my neck and scalp growing warm. I would have spluttered with rage, as they say, had there been anyone around to splutter at. Lifting a corner of my curtain—I had to jerk out a nail to do this—I crouched by the sill and peeked out. Across the street a group of five or six small boys were playing “king of the mountain” on the wide stump of an elm the city sawed down early in the summer. They were taking turns shoving each other off. They kept at it for several minutes, shouting all the while, and then, as if obeying some secret signal, they seemed to grow bored, instantly and all together; they stopped playing, and for a couple of minutes just stood around, talking softly and fidgeting. Now and then one of them would kick the stump. They seemed bewildered. They reminded me of ants when you have moved the honey jar. I was about to rush out—I could already picture myself waving my arms as I charged down the front steps, practically falling down them in my haste, my bare knees (I was in my undershorts) moving up and down like pistons, the children scattering like moths. I had reached the door, when I stopped: they had climbed up on the stump and were standing bunched together there. One boy counted, “one, two, three,” and they all let fly in chorus. They did this just once, a single outburst. I don’t think it was an actual word; it sounded like “yee-oo.” Considering their number it ought to have been deafening, but it was not loud at all. I am not sure how to describe this yell, the half-hearted effort behind it, the visible reluctance of the shouters, the lackluster quality of the sound, except to say that it filled me with discouragement. From my doorway I watched them stagger on up the street in a gaggle, shoving and laughing.

After they had gone, and no other children came, I put on my overcoat and went across the street and stood on the stump. Standing there, I looked back at my house. With the elm no longer shading it, the sun’s glare has become intolerable, and I have nailed blue plastic tarpaulins over the windows to shut it out. I looked at the house next door; the curtains were drawn there too, dark red “drapes” in the living room, a yellow fabric with stripes and ruffles in the kitchen. They probably had been pulled shut the night before to prevent persons outside from looking in. When I thought of those neighbors, people I would not recognize if I crossed them in the street, drawing the curtains at night, the woman taking one curtain in each delicate hand and drawing them to her, perhaps after lighting a wood fire in the grate, the words “cozy” and “private” floated into my mind. The blank blue sheets of plastic pulled taut across the windows of my own house, however, when I turned to look at it, occasioned a rather different feeling. I stood a long while trying to put the feeling into words. A single phrase kept popping into my mind: a blind house.

The machine whirs in a semblance of labor, furious and completely useless, since it is not hooked up to anything. I accomplish nothing all day—in effect, I
do
nothing all day—and by evening I am exhausted.

I have sunk back into all my old vices—slovenliness, sloth, and gargantuan pettiness. Smoking three packs a day and I constantly run out. I wander around the house cursing and slapping the empty packs, or I fish butts out of the ashtray. I went to the Arts Council picnic, where I had a fit. And I am writing letters to the
Current
again, despite what happened last time I did that. I enclose my latest. Better not show Chumley—I promised him I wouldn’t.

Did I tell you about Sokal’s boots? The famous snakeskin ones he was carrying on about? I found them under the stairs in our basement. When I first laid eyes on them I thought they were stuffed carp. It was you, I think, who reported way back then that he was going around telling everyone we had stolen his boots.

Speaking of which, someone has stolen my mailbox. It was a nice wooden box, made to look like a little red barn. They just came up on the porch and unscrewed it. I am sure you remember it: the mail went in through a slot in the roof, and you opened the barn doors to get it out.

We have reached the equinox. I close my eyes and imagine the planet sliding through blackest space, the circle of life spiraling down, no steering wheel, and no brakes. And I don’t have any money to heat this house. Not just blind, but cold. Could you spare something?

Love,

Andy

¶

To the Editor:

Just last month I wrote a letter protesting the
Current
’s shameful neglect of our city’s most esteemed literary figure, the author and editor Andrew Whittaker. You have now rectified that error, only to tumble into another just as grave. I refer to your coverage of the sensational events at last Saturday’s Arts Furtherance League Picnic in Armistice Park (“Arts Picnic Erupts Unexpectedly”). The evident bias in your reporter’s choice of adjectives leaves no room for doubt as to whose side
she
is on. For example, in recounting the buildup to the crucial events indexed in the headline, she describes Whittaker’s interpellation of a particularly tedious speaker as “butting in.” His statements are said to be “outbursts.” He does not smile, he “leers.” He does not speak, he “shouts incoherently” or “chatters.” According to your article, when Whittaker was warned by a policeman to put the platter down, “he [Whittaker] responded with a shrill cackle.” I was there, and I dare say considerably closer to Mr. Whittaker than your reporter (who as I recall had taken refuge behind a cedar tree), and I would describe the sound emitted by Whittaker as a guffaw. But of course I was not blinded—or in this case, deafened—by parochial prejudice. I fear we hear what we listen for.

Nor do I agree with the statement that Mr. Whittaker was led away in tears. The beady bits aglitter upon his cheeks were, I believe, droplets of the Chablis that one of the women—a burly one in red shorts—had thrown in his face. When they were forcing him into the car I noticed the crushed paper cup was still lodged in the collar of his jacket. A fitting motif, I must say, for the whole affair. The hurler, it turns out, was a friend of Eunice Baker’s, who had read from her new book of poetry earlier in the afternoon. Miss Baker, for the legions who have never heard of her, is co-editor of
The Art News
. It was during her reading that Whittaker climbed onto the stage the first time. According to your reporter, “Whittaker snatched the microphone and began to rail against [Baker’s] work.” This is scarcely the kind of precision one expects from a professional journalist. As a scientific man, I place a high value on precision. What does it mean to rail? What precisely was said during this particular instance of “railing”? A factual account would run something like this: “Mr. Whittaker, in a loud voice (they had turned off his microphone), but quite calmly, gave a brief critique of Miss Baker’s performance in which he described her delivery as ‘menopausal mooing’ and her poems as ‘cow farts.’” Your reporter then says that the audience “reacted with sustained boos.” While that is broadly correct, there were at least a couple of young men standing at the back of the crowd who were laughing loudly. The ripples of hilarity from those hearty striplings floated like oriflammes above the general drone and lent a rather different tone to the episode. And this is precisely the point I made in my previous letter: our city and state need people like Whittaker, people who decline to pull their punches and are not afraid to outrage “public opinion” when they believe that opinion to be mistaken. And the people laughing, don’t they deserve a champion too?

Whittaker has become the focus of enormous public curiosity in recent years. I know for a fact that he has not sought this out. He is anything but the “publicity hound” caricatured in
The Art News
. In fact he does not read newspapers, nor does he sit around coffee shop tables gossiping.

His fondest wish is to be allowed to labor in peace.

I remain sincerely,

Warden Hawktiter, MD

¶

Dear Mailman,

As you can see, the mailbox is missing. I believe someone stole it. I will be getting another one soon. In the meantime, please slide the mail under the front door. If you look toward the hinge side, you will see the “slot” I cut in the rubber strip that runs along the bottom. If you come across my barn please let me know.

Thanks,

A. Whittaker

¶

Dear Stewart,

I would have preferred meeting with you in your office, where I could put my feet up on your desk, so to speak, and talk man to man, but I don’t feel presentable these days. I don’t think I could face your receptionist. Nothing serious, no disfiguring disease or rank odor so far as I can tell, though they say the real stinkers have no idea. True, I am not happy with my clothes, especially my shoes, and would like some new ones (money is very tight at the moment). But it’s not that either; it’s more the feeling I have that whatever is going on inside me has become visible on the surface, in my face, but not just in my face, in my gait. I find I am walking with a stoop most of the time; I seem unable to correct it. Every attempt results in a ridiculous bend in the opposite direction, over backwards, as if I were looking up at an airplane, so I don’t even try anymore. I picture myself standing in front of your pretty receptionist, stooped over like that, or the other way, staring up at the light fixture, and in these clothes. I am not sure I would be able to refrain from holding out my hand and asking her for a dollar. I fear this would reflect badly on you, since she knows we are friends, so I am not coming.

I assume you saw the review in the
Current
of my performance at the Arts Furtherance League thingamajig in the park. In case you did not, I enclose the clipping, which you should take with a dollop of salt. The picnic was a lot of fun—I was not “in a rage” as they claim. In fact, I was floating calmly somewhere at the level of the treetops while most of it was happening. The best description of my state would be “blimp-like.” I had a marvelous feeling of detached observation even as things were, as the paper said, “in an uproar.” I have been charged with disorderly conduct. At first they were going to charge me with assault with a deadly weapon, but I convinced them that while it was true that I was throwing the cold cuts, I had a tight grip on the platter. After the initial scuffle and a rather standoffish ride to the station house—the policeman in front did not like it that I was kicking the back of his seat—they became quite affable. I told them faggot jokes and they bought me a ginger ale. Then they let me go. I have to appear in court at some point, I forget when, and will you go with me? I am embarrassed to ask, since I never apologized for the accident with the vase at Ginny’s party. I would apologize now, except that it would look then as if I were doing it only in order to get your legal services for free, which of course they have to be, since I am in a tight spot financially, as I have said already. This seems to be an insoluble social conundrum. It is amazing how, wherever I turn these days, new difficulties spring up. Perhaps we can talk about this after the hearing.

Sincerely,

Andy

¶

Dear Mr. Mailer,

You probably don’t know who I am, and that is good, since it allows me to introduce myself without having to fight through a thicket of misconception and prejudice, as is the case here, where I am so well known I am practically invisible. I am the editor of the literary magazine
Soap
, which you have probably never heard of either. I enclose a copy of our most recent issue. We are currently at the beginning of a multiyear project of restructuring and expansion that we expect will establish us as the dominant literary voice in this part of the world, if not nationally. In conjunction with that expansion we are hosting next May or June the First Annual Soap Festival of Literature and the Arts. I won’t give a full description of the event here, only say that it will last a full seven days and feature many adjuncts. It will be preceded by colorful brochures. Look for one in your mailbox soon. Of course you probably are thinking, what is in this for me? It is only natural that you should think this, and even ask it boldly, were we in the give and take of conversation or should you be the kind of person who talks back to letters, as I am, as well as to the television. I don’t think looking out for one’s career is anything to be ashamed of even if this means traveling halfway across the country. It is fortunate that we have air travel. I look after my career too, though it is small, which makes looking after it easier in some ways but much harder in others, since it is difficult to get people to pay attention to you if you are not someone they are paying attention to already, which you are; though, of course, there are a lot more of them for you to have to keep an eye on, and in that respect your job is harder. Am I being clear? The point, which I realize I have been too slow in getting to, is that you have won the Soap Lifetime Achievement Award. Physically, this is a framed photograph of Marilyn Monroe in her bubble bath. It is about the size of a breakfast tray. The frame is fitted with removable rubber feet on the bottom so you can rest it on the mantel, if you want, if that is where you decide to keep it, without fear of it sliding off, or you can take them off and hang it on a wall. Spiritually, it is, or will be in future years, once several people like you have received it, a signal honor.