“Whatever things men are doing shall germ

  the motley subject of my page.” And that shall leave a great deal after it

  in the way of trails. Besides, as trails go, we are pretty incompetent

  except to watch the sun slide away, and the trellis of clouds

  with it, while the city’s modest spires stay put, again, as usual.

  The madhouse statuary seemed to dispel the pre-life we gave it

  in sleep, to become the one bauble rescued from that hoard, whose shapes

  no one now will know. It cannot be said they existed. Yet

  surely there was life once in those seams, life the daughters of the iron teeth

  of time gave it, and swallows flew over it. One might say, casually,

  that there was variation in it, that there was texture. More, though,

  one still couldn’t say. Yet one day the sanitation department decreed

  it was coming through, a nice day in May with the usual blossoms, though these

  were only accessories, having no bearing on the tale or

  its context, petal-like, in fact, like a cat’s nose, but the judge

  happened by just then and told them to stop it. They went away and someone,

  a bushy-haired man, came back and said it was OK, they could keep on doing it

  if they wanted to, but not to say he said so, but that it was OK.

  I long meanwhile for the confines of any other principality, but can’t abandon

  working even if I wanted to, it’s like play to me though I get no pleasure from it

  except pausing at odd moments to watch the rill for a few seconds,

  and then it’s back to work again, more work, lots of it, and the pollution

  attendant on it, like Hebe to the rainbow’s gauzy showers, or web, and I

  can’t stand on tradition nor beside it. Here it suits me, boys, to turn

  over a new leaf like a chunk of recalcitrant granite. I know no other gadfly

  who berates me so much; I love it; the woman came back to say she was in the way

  and would we go away please it was four o’clock. Not on your life thundered the

  hangman, and so it became a kind of ritual, then a game, and every day

  someone came to ask after the stone, and someone would stand up to say

  it has gone away, go lose yourself in studies or the wilderness;

  more none can say. He just came up that day,

  had a look round, and left. We aren’t even sure

  we saw him. It could have been wildflowers in the wallpaper

  or stray ashes in the grate, no more. Then the bird came back and shat

  on the stone, and that proved it was there for a while, but somehow

  that got forgotten and we were thrust out of doors to play in the rain

  and sleet, and somebody got hold of the key, we entered, and presto, no one

  was there, it was a different room, another empty one too, and had

  obviously been vacated pretty recently. A smell of kippers

  hung in the front hall. OK, I said, we must press on to the last house

  they were seen in in the next block. The green cement one. But my

  companions whispered why, let’s ditch him at the first opportunity, no

  let’s not even wait that long, which is why I came across the lawn bruised

  and moist, and trembling with pity to be let in, and you came

  and let me in. Nowhere did I have anything to say again, but that

  was not noticed until yesterday, too late to have us do anything about it.

  One source said it was the tulips, against the nice gesture to be led and fed

  and have others shut up about it. But one said, you can’t have that

  and not condone the listless others who don’t know yet they’re walking

  in your tracks and will be sorry when they find out, but another man joined

  the woman and said you could too talk about it, it was just a subject

  and therefore forgotten, i.e. dead. And Joan she said

  too it was like being dead only she didn’t care, she might as well be anyway, for all

  she cared, and then someone came back with beef. And said here

  put a rose on this, you’re not afraid, you do it, and someone said, O if the law

  decree it he must do it. So the one went in and the others stayed out and waited.

  And if you’re not going to do it, and if it’s none of your business, why are

  you going to do it, the first one said, to which that one said: begone. You are my

  business in any case and it behooves me not to be in the shadow of you

  while I wait. And then one who came from a great distance said, why does it suit you

  to be ornery, if others cannot join the general purgative exodus, to which that one inside

  said, and so it becomes you, if it become you. And then in the shade they put their heads

  together, and one comes back, the others being a little way off, and says, who

  do you think taught you to disobey in the first place? And he says, my father.

  And at that they were all struck dumb

  and left that place falling all over each other

  in their haste to get away, and it was all over for that day.

  But another day came and the rice was still laying

  on the ground, next to the dust ball. And one took it up, saying,

  this is all that shall be till I get back from my trip.

  And the others were amused because he had never mentioned a trip before,

  but he spat at them, saying, you are too powerful now for my injunction to take hold,

  but just wait till the others see you in my chamois costume, because if you think it’s too late

  now what will you think when it has gotten really out of hand

  like a vine that grows and grows and cannot stop growing, or a fire

  deep in a coal mine that burns for centuries before anyone can do anything

  about it. So he stepped down at last. And the others, charred

  and unrecognizable, concurred that something extraordinary had taken place and that there

  was nothing to be done about it. And so he went away.

  Love that lasts a minute like a filter

  on a faucet, love that is always like headlights in the glistening dark, heed

  the pen’s screech. Do not read what is written. In time

  it too shall become incoherent but for the time being it is good

  just to tamper with it and be off, lest someone see you. And when this veil

  of twisted creeper is parted, and the listing tundra is revealed

  behind it, say why you had come to say it: the divorce. The no reason, as

  the plane dives up into the sky and is lost. All that one had so carefully polished

  and preserved, arranged in rows, boasted modestly to the neighbors about,

  is gone and there is nothing, repeat nothing, to take its place. Only should we

  wander a bit and then return without expectations, does some faint impulse twitch at its

  base before expiring, and a lesbian truth rise up for a split second, and the faint

  material truth dies again, and then flickers like a post-mortem arrangement

  until the rabble of the skies cries and all is assumed to be productive.

  Get your ass out of here. But it is time

  to work again, but a sad, a tragic time, a time of trifles

  and vast snowbanks, and so

  you put on your hat backwards and decipher it again dutifully; it’s the home stretch

  but dare I say more before you think it’s time to go and they think so

  but they say only, is no more time to stay here, in any case we would have gone

  if we knew where to go, but we have a place to go, so we will go there. And behind

  the barn it behooves us again to take up the principle, so like the art

  of tragedy and so unlike, and so we let it rest carefully, and someone says

  he would like to be off, and the others agree, it ignites a general stampede

  before the clock closes down. In the old corners of why the situation

  was ever allowed to come into existence in the first place, the nasal whining

  is first heard, then perturbed groans and idle retreats into shuttered

  middle distances and auxiliary alcoves. Aw, shucks, someone

  seems to be repeating, we could stay here all night if we wanted to

  but that couldn’t bring the child back into being, and I say, I suppose so.

  One’s gone for some grants. Be back

  when the coal trestle is finished, and idle

  against the apricot lamé of the distance here. And boys I know

  the distance between your empty bellies and the jobs that will not fill them,

  but I still maintain you are better here, but better off far from here

  where the choo-choo whistles and a deadly white wind stoops to take a few prisoners,

  where we shall be pleasant once the future has had its way with us. And you know,

  he said, sure, that’s the way to hell and its conundrums if that’s the way

  you want to go, and they all said we know, we are going that way

  cautiously approved of in the introduction, only it seems so full of asperities now.

  And he said that’s the way it was, it was a tangle and will never be anything

  more than a diagram pointing you in a senseless direction toward yourself.

  Sure, they come with snacks you have foreseen,

  but that doesn’t excuse you for having been caught in this place. And they all said

  giddyap, let’s go on to the next

  place on the side, for having won, and being here to count up our winnings, which are

  surely all right with us. Watch it, he said.

  So the initial exuberance departed. But that was fine, because surely

  the beginning of a festival is a nice place to be, if it’s Asia, and more hogs

  were brought down. But when he saw the hogs, the owner of the grain elevator was angry

  and went out. Now, there were two others who were there. And they were

  each determined to get what was coming to them. The master returning, said OK boys,

  never let it be said you didn’t ask for it. And in that moment a fuzz of bloom

  was on them. Each spring the desert comes alive with birds and flowers,

  a breathtaking view at the foot of the famed Superstition Mountains,

  reported home of the Lost Dutchman Mine with its still undiscovered caches of gold.

  And all around it is nice too. The mineral springs I wanted so much to exploit—what

  does any of it matter now, now that I have found my home in a narrow cleft

  stained with Indian paintbrush and boar’s blood, from which an avenue eventually leads

  to the flatter, more civilized places I have no quarrel with either. After all,

  we have to go in once or twice a month to pick up supplies, the few

  articles we don’t grow such as coffee, to which I’m still addicted by the way, and

  records too from a local music shop, which are important to have—no man

  needs to live by his own law in the wilderness after all, but even if he is going

  to try it is best not to let the old world slip too casually. Rather it should come about

  naturally, without too much fuss or horn tooting. And then, by and by, if he sees

  he likes it, why then there is always time to make such decisions later on as regards

  one’s insurance, and such, and peter out from there—trickle accurately

  into the sand so that each drop is utilized to the max, and then we’ll see

  how the desert is improving—only “improve” is a word I don’t want to use too much

  either. For after all everything is good of its kind to start with. It’s all a

  question only of finding out what the kind is and letting the thing ferment

  in its own bile for a few decades. By then

  it should become apparent to whoever has been watching how much the land owes us,

  and how we re-distribute it wisely, if only we ever stop to think about it. Don’t

  you agree? I mean, don’t you see the silhouetted foothills too? How bland and discordant,

  yet after all how deeply satisfying in one’s rage—and then too the pods fall off

  all at once eventually, and must rot

  if the seeds are to get into the ground, providing they are still alive and haven’t rotted too.

  So in all ways I think it’s a question of a man coming—he had

  a chicken or something on his arm. And when he arrived, the expected salutation

  rang out like a shot; people took cover. I don’t mean

  I did, though. I stood up to him, just like a man, the man I was, or is, and he, he just

  looked back at me, kind of funny and defiant-like, but he wuz saying nothing.

  Too smart for that.

  Since the last heist I sense a quintessential weariness; I can

  neither lay my barrel down nor look directly into it; I think I’ll have a go at the food—

  h’mm, squirrel ragout again. No, I’ll opt, I’ll ope my eyelids for this next one

  coming, without food. It was the cutest darn haunted house you ever saw. It had blue

  shutters with squirrel cutouts in them. Inside everything was clean and neat.

  But haunted houses are like whores—there’s no such thing as a nice one, no matter

  how prim they act, or how the spotted sun greets them as the warm morning is painted.

  And then such a one, some other one, would want to know why in the name of thunder

  these repairs were necessary. After all, the place looked all right. Even the bailiff

  who lived next door said so. In the event of a storm or flood, the door

  could be shut, and there was an end to it. But it never occurs to anyone that when the

  light of the sun does reach the deep pools which are almost always bathed in shadow,

  why then a short plop is heard and two people are unable to occupy the same space.

  It sounds simple enough in my book. Someone on lead feet looked out

  the upstairs window, astonished at the loud knocking below, and then withdrew.

  Whether or not this person was actually coming downstairs to answer the door was unclear,

  at least at first, as minutes and then hours seemed literally to go by. At

  midnight the door slowly opened a crack: “Who’s there?” Who wants to know?

  It would be better if you returned to whatever kingdom you came from. But if you sincerely

  want to know, bring me boiling water in a paper hat at three minutes before two, and that

  without spilling a drop. Then I may let you in on my age-old secret, which, of course,

  isn’t mine. I’m only one of a group of seven or eight people who are in on it,

  until then.

  I could hear the hissing of soda water in the seltzer bottle and the roar

  of the wind in the trees, the cat scratching at the back door, the mice rotating

  in place like dust mice, the jangle

  of keys the size of fenceposts and the thunk of cylinders as the lock—what was

  all the fuss about?—goes through the motions and the clipclopping door falls silent

  again. Inside the place reeked of mildew and decay though it looked pretty tidy

  considering no one had set foot there for twenty years. A newspaper, still dangling

  precariously from the rim of the mail slot, hadn’t aged. There was a coffeepot, still warm,

  on the stove.

  Presently they began the rudimentary preparations for the raindance

  everyone knew was to follow in order for the séance to take place. I’ll

  double you. That’s what you think. You can have the two-spot, but please,

  leave me the domino with my head scratched into it. Thus the bidding opened,

  and it was to be years before it died down again, years that were not unpleasant

  on the whole, as many owls stared in amazement at what was happening underneath.

  What kind of place is this, anyway, to let such things occur in silence?

  Surely there must come a time toward the end when an old man gets up

  and says what needs to be said? But a rose, or, more precisely, a cactus, could do that

  just as well and still leave time for whatever else wanted to get recognized.

  There is no truth, saith the judge, and one is obliged to concur,

  if by truth one means that an occasion has been fitted to an event, and it all came

  about just so. If, however, one accepts a broader definition along the lines of

  something being more or less appropriate to its time and place, then, by gosh, one is

  pretty darn sure of having to own up to the fact that, yes, it does exist

  here and there, if only in the gaudy hues of the diaphanous wings

  of some passing insect. That is enough, however, to send the scribes back to their tablets.

  I don’t know where this one came in—but wait,

  it is of myself I speak, and I do know! But the looks I got convinced me I was someone

  else as I walked in, not at all sure of myself or (rightly, as it turned out) of

  the reception I would be getting. There were framed silhouettes hanging on the walls

  of the hall, depicting different forms of mild corporal punishment. A large vase

  of pussy willows dominated the sitting room—it was here that the occupants

  came to cry, out of vexation or frustration, and whence, having experienced some relief,

  they departed to seek out others and compare notes

  on the battle of time being waged in spiral notebooks and the dour feeling of

  banging them shut. There was never any apparent politeness,

  but the children sometimes talked with each other for a long time, and, though

  conclusions were not ordinarily reached, it shook down some of the stuffing in the mattress

  of each one’s ego, for a time at least. A kettle boiled happily

  on the hob. But it was too dark and, above all, too damp to read by. Tall

  figures like the shadows of men had been blended into the viscosity of the plastered

 

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