Every Third Thought (12 page)
Read Every Third Thought Online
Authors: John Barth
Problem:
This long-since-sprung “Spring” chapter of this whatever-it-turns-out-to-be is clearly winding down, but our guys are still only at the beginning of their twenties. Seven Spring-years yet to go for G., in the course whereof he’ll complete his Master of Arts degree at TSU, wed his self-designated “Mistress of Artist” Marsha Green, score an entry-level instructorship in English Composition down at Marshyhope State College on the lower Eastern Shore, manage after all to
place a few short stories in those more or less obscure lit-mags, complete his first (and thus far still his only published) novel, and terminate by mutual consent (Irreconcilable Differences) that short-lived first marriage. Only two more years for his nipped-in-the-bud buddy before N.’s Arms-of-Life curriculum* leads him—evidently by meaningless, random accident—into the arms of death. Experience-rich, lesson-teaching years for both, well worth memoiring! But always at his back Narrator hears, not “Time’s winged chariot hurrying near” (as in Andrew Marvell’s seventeenth-century lyric pitch “To His Coy Mistress,” a favorite of both of these twenty-somethings), but rather . . . some sort of
birdcall
, is it?
This long-since-sprung “Spring” chapter of this whatever-it-turns-out-to-be is clearly winding down, but our guys are still only at the beginning of their twenties. Seven Spring-years yet to go for G., in the course whereof he’ll complete his Master of Arts degree at TSU, wed his self-designated “Mistress of Artist” Marsha Green, score an entry-level instructorship in English Composition down at Marshyhope State College on the lower Eastern Shore, manage after all to
place a few short stories in those more or less obscure lit-mags, complete his first (and thus far still his only published) novel, and terminate by mutual consent (Irreconcilable Differences) that short-lived first marriage. Only two more years for his nipped-in-the-bud buddy before N.’s Arms-of-Life curriculum* leads him—evidently by meaningless, random accident—into the arms of death. Experience-rich, lesson-teaching years for both, well worth memoiring! But always at his back Narrator hears, not “Time’s winged chariot hurrying near” (as in Andrew Marvell’s seventeenth-century lyric pitch “To His Coy Mistress,” a favorite of both of these twenty-somethings), but rather . . . some sort of
birdcall
, is it?
Pigeon? Dove? Canada Goose?
Cuckoo?
4
summer
Sumer is icumin in,
Lhude sing cuccu.
Groweth sed and bloweth med,
And springth the wude nu—
Sing cuccu!
9
Lhude sing cuccu.
Groweth sed and bloweth med,
And springth the wude nu—
Sing cuccu!
9
O
N A MID-JULY Maryland mid-day some three weeks past the summer solstice, Poet/Professor/Life-Partner/Critic Amanda Todd, having reviewed at her mate’s request the foregoing chapter (“Spring”) of his whatever-it-might-turn-out-to-be, declared or announced to its author, “Two questions-slashcomments, okay?”
N A MID-JULY Maryland mid-day some three weeks past the summer solstice, Poet/Professor/Life-Partner/Critic Amanda Todd, having reviewed at her mate’s request the foregoing chapter (“Spring”) of his whatever-it-might-turn-out-to-be, declared or announced to its author, “Two questions-slashcomments, okay?”
“Slash away.” No Vision/Transport/Whatever #3 as yet, to George Irving Newett’s perplexed disappointment. But while he’d been awaiting its arrival, Tropical Storm Arthur
and Hurricane Bertha, as if summoned by his tempest-tossed Vision #2, had kicked off in the Caribbean what looked to be another busy Atlantic hurricane season. The Dow-Jones Industrial Average had dropped from its record high of 14,000 the previous October to below 11,000 in the subsequent worldwide economic recession, and continued its alarming downward slide. And we Newett/Todds, the night before this lunch-hour conversation, had enjoyed a gorgeous full Buck Moon
10
and brilliant Jupiter gleaming over Stratford/Bridgetown. Now, having finished our morning’s separate muse-work, we were sipping smoothies and nibbling granola-bars in the air-conditioned kitchen of our rented condominium, it being too hot and humid outside to lunch on its little screened porch.
and Hurricane Bertha, as if summoned by his tempest-tossed Vision #2, had kicked off in the Caribbean what looked to be another busy Atlantic hurricane season. The Dow-Jones Industrial Average had dropped from its record high of 14,000 the previous October to below 11,000 in the subsequent worldwide economic recession, and continued its alarming downward slide. And we Newett/Todds, the night before this lunch-hour conversation, had enjoyed a gorgeous full Buck Moon
10
and brilliant Jupiter gleaming over Stratford/Bridgetown. Now, having finished our morning’s separate muse-work, we were sipping smoothies and nibbling granola-bars in the air-conditioned kitchen of our rented condominium, it being too hot and humid outside to lunch on its little screened porch.
“Well: To begin with?” Mandy began, with the interrogative rising inflection lately picked up from her students. “If I remember correctly—which I do, because I checked it?—back in your ‘Winter’ chapter, when your Narrator-guy steps up into StratColl’s Shakespeare House to meet his missus for lunch on the December solstice, he’s reminded of his trip-and-fall in
Shakespeare’s
house on the September equinox, right? And
that
—plus the sight of that of that kid with the Jehovah’s Witness
Watchtower
mag—reminds him of his fire-tower climb with Pal Neddie’s family in their kiddie-days, when he first
learned about equinoxes and solstices—which leads to his so-called Solstitial Illumination of Post-Equinoctial Vision #1. All reasonable enough. You with me so far?”
Shakespeare’s
house on the September equinox, right? And
that
—plus the sight of that of that kid with the Jehovah’s Witness
Watchtower
mag—reminds him of his fire-tower climb with Pal Neddie’s family in their kiddie-days, when he first
learned about equinoxes and solstices—which leads to his so-called Solstitial Illumination of Post-Equinoctial Vision #1. All reasonable enough. You with me so far?”
Her husband supposes so: “I mean, I
wrote
the freaking thing. . . . ”
wrote
the freaking thing. . . . ”
“Then maybe you can explain what Narrator doesn’t: why it is that what also jump-starts his fire-tower illumination is the kid’s Everyman edition of Will’s comedies. I remember how you went on about that over lunch at Bozzelli’s, but I don’t think you’ve ever said exactly what its relevance was, other than Shakespeare House/Shakespeare’s house/Shakespeare’s plays. Are we supposed to think of that big-deal Illumination as G.I.N.’s Mid
winter
Night’s Dream, or what?”
winter
Night’s Dream, or what?”
Well, now: Author realized and readily admitted that in fact he hadn’t known exactly
what
the connection was: only that it was sudden and strong. His mate’s suggestion struck him as both plausible and too clever by half; now that she’d raised the question, however, its answer seemed evident, especially in retrospect from that storm-fraught Spring Break Flashbang Vision #2: The Shakespeare Connection was not
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, but that grimmer “comedy”
The Tempest
. Prosper=Prospero, the storm-conjuring wizard protagonist of that play, who predicts at its close (how had G. not seen so obvious an echo before, especially given the last working title of Ned’s lost opus-in-progress and his friend’s habit of naming First, Second, and Third Thoughts?) that henceforth his “every third thought shall be the grave”!
what
the connection was: only that it was sudden and strong. His mate’s suggestion struck him as both plausible and too clever by half; now that she’d raised the question, however, its answer seemed evident, especially in retrospect from that storm-fraught Spring Break Flashbang Vision #2: The Shakespeare Connection was not
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, but that grimmer “comedy”
The Tempest
. Prosper=Prospero, the storm-conjuring wizard protagonist of that play, who predicts at its close (how had G. not seen so obvious an echo before, especially given the last working title of Ned’s lost opus-in-progress and his friend’s habit of naming First, Second, and Third Thoughts?) that henceforth his “every third thought shall be the grave”!
“Hiding in plain sight,” supposed Amanda, to whom the connection had seemed self-evident enough not to need remarking. And Ned himself, oddly, back in their apprentice-writer days, had never, as far as G. can recall, ever linked his surname to that of Shakespeare’s island-stranded Duke of Milan.
“What I
do
remember his saying early on is that if a story-teller hung a name like ‘Mister Prosper’ on his tale’s eminently successful protagonist, we would wince at his heavy-handedness—unless the piece was a Capital-A Allegory or a flat-out farce, with supporting characters like Suzy Spendthrift and Mary Miser.”
do
remember his saying early on is that if a story-teller hung a name like ‘Mister Prosper’ on his tale’s eminently successful protagonist, we would wince at his heavy-handedness—unless the piece was a Capital-A Allegory or a flat-out farce, with supporting characters like Suzy Spendthrift and Mary Miser.”
“Or,” Mandy added, “unless Protagonist P. at the end of the day turned out despite his name to be a loser at everything he set his hand to, in which case he himself might gnash his teeth at
life’s
ponderous irony, not the author’s. Right? I remember your telling me all this forty years ago, when you and I were a hot new item.”
life’s
ponderous irony, not the author’s. Right? I remember your telling me all this forty years ago, when you and I were a hot new item.”
To the tune of the Mary Hopkin recording from back then, “
Those were the da-a-ays, my friend,
” G. crooned to his stillbeloved; “
we thought they’d ne-ver end.
The blooming summertime of our lives.”
Those were the da-a-ays, my friend,
” G. crooned to his stillbeloved; “
we thought they’d ne-ver end.
The blooming summertime of our lives.”
“So go have yourself a Capital-V Vision about it.”
He’d work on it, Narrator promised. But he believed she mentioned
two
question/comments regarding his tentative draft-thus-far. What was the second?
two
question/comments regarding his tentative draft-thus-far. What was the second?
“Well . . . ” Final slurp of smoothie. “
You’re
supposed to be the story-maker-upper in this condo, and me the mere lyric poet—”
You’re
supposed to be the story-maker-upper in this condo, and me the mere lyric poet—”
“
Mere
shmeer,” her husband interrupts to tut-tut.
Mere
shmeer,” her husband interrupts to tut-tut.
“But I can’t help thinking that something more
interesting
ought to be going on in the present time of this narrative than just a series of visions that trigger Narrator’s recollections of his boyhood with Ned Prosper, and the ho-hum suspense of whether they’ll add up to another G. I. Newett-book. . . . ”
interesting
ought to be going on in the present time of this narrative than just a series of visions that trigger Narrator’s recollections of his boyhood with Ned Prosper, and the ho-hum suspense of whether they’ll add up to another G. I. Newett-book. . . . ”
“Something like what?, its author wonders,” its author wondered.
“Oh, you know . . . like maybe some major bump in the long happy road of Narrator’s marriage, for example, to rev up the story? Suppose I confess an ongoing late affair with one of our StratColleagues, e.g., or maybe discover that you have a grown illegitimate son or daughter by some pre-Me fling of yours that you never got around to telling me about?
That
would juice things up!”
That
would juice things up!”
Parodying Andrew Marvell’s aforecited lyric, “
Help like that I shall refuse
,” Narrator intoned, “
till the conversion of the Juice
—into Manischewitz blackberry wine, maybe, or something else non-toxic. So who’d you hump, luv? And when, and why?”
Help like that I shall refuse
,” Narrator intoned, “
till the conversion of the Juice
—into Manischewitz blackberry wine, maybe, or something else non-toxic. So who’d you hump, luv? And when, and why?”
She smiled one of her Mandy-smiles and raised her smoothie-glass in salute: “See? Situation revved up; Reader hooked.
Lhude sing cuccu!
”
Lhude sing cuccu!
”
“Hooked?” would-be-Author protested. “By such cornball chick-lit plot IEDs
11
as those? But thanks for trying.”
11
as those? But thanks for trying.”
“My pleasure—as has been the all-but-bumpless story of Us. May it remain so.”
“Here’s to that: No Plot-Complications or Rising Action in
our
story, s.v.p.”
our
story, s.v.p.”
Click of empty glasses (no symbolism intended).
“So on with your Summer,” then bade George Irving Newett’s virtual muse. “And if you include this conversation in your chapter-in-progress, consider changing
cornball
chick-lit plot-hooks to
cuckoo
chick-lit et ceteras. Another wink at Dear Reader?”
cornball
chick-lit plot-hooks to
cuckoo
chick-lit et ceteras. Another wink at Dear Reader?”
“Gotcha. I think?”
Heat expands; cold contracts. Although the calendric seasons are of equal three-month length, their days get longer as winter warms into spring and spring into summer, as do the corresponding life-seasons in this narrative. The “Winter” of Ned Prosper’s and George Newett’s childhood was a mere dozen years, 1930–42; the “Spring” of their adolescence and young adulthood was meant to be sixteen years (1943–59, through their teens and twenties), and in G.’s case was. But the “Summer” of Narrator’s full and more-or-less-robust maturity—from his thirties through his fifties, as G. sees it—1960 through 1989, let’s say—is nearly twice that span. How to squeeze it into a single chapter?, he wonders to his balky Muse. And what has it to do with nipped-in-the-bud Ned, who didn’t live to live it, and of whom one understood this rambling narrative to have become a memoir?
What appeared to be the case, its perpetrator realized as Common Era 2008 approached its literal midsummer (i.e., August 21, midway between June solstice and September equinox), was that nothing of Ned Prosper remained to memoirize except his end—a tale quickly told, as there’s frustratingly little of it to tell:
On a mid-June Saturday in 1954 (stalemated Korean War ended by armistice dividing country at 38th Parallel into communist North and democratic South, but Senator Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting witch-hunt continues, and publicinstitution academics like George Irving Newett—entry-level Instructor of English Composition at Marshyhope State on Maryland’s lower Eastern Shore—must grit teeth and sign loyalty oath denying past or present Communist-party membership), twenty-four-year-old Second Lieutenant Edward “Ned” Prosper, on weekend leave from the Army Language School, drove with one Ms. Lucinda Barnes, a young civilian employee in the ALS library and his girlfriend-of-the-moment, from Monterey down to Baja California in her bucktoothbumpered cream-and-green Buick Special sedan in search of warmer-water surfing than could be found nearer by: ideally (Ms. Barnes would later report), a spot isolated enough for them to ride the waves and each other au naturel. Somewhere below Tijuana they located an adequately secluded stretch of beach and commenced what sounds like a replay of that
earlier-narrated southwest Florida Spring Break Flashbang of 1952, but with only one couple this time, and thus no partner-swapping. Consumption of mucho tequila and Acapulco Gold pot while singing with mock-military zest the Latino lyrics of La Cucaracha,
12
duly followed by naked woozy frisking on the sand and in the surf, including not-very-successful attempts to ride the waves while both liquored and stoned. Project soon abandoned (“On Second Thought,” G. imagines N. proposing) in favor of mere splashing and body-surfing in the breakers, and that in turn, by Ms. Barnes anyhow, for passing out on their beach-blanket while her boyfriend carried on out there. “Bit more of a swim,” she believed she remembered his calling after her as she staggered to shore, “and then I’ll join you.”
earlier-narrated southwest Florida Spring Break Flashbang of 1952, but with only one couple this time, and thus no partner-swapping. Consumption of mucho tequila and Acapulco Gold pot while singing with mock-military zest the Latino lyrics of La Cucaracha,
12
duly followed by naked woozy frisking on the sand and in the surf, including not-very-successful attempts to ride the waves while both liquored and stoned. Project soon abandoned (“On Second Thought,” G. imagines N. proposing) in favor of mere splashing and body-surfing in the breakers, and that in turn, by Ms. Barnes anyhow, for passing out on their beach-blanket while her boyfriend carried on out there. “Bit more of a swim,” she believed she remembered his calling after her as she staggered to shore, “and then I’ll join you.”
But he never did. No sign of him when she woke up some while later, sunburned and hung over; nor any thereafter, despite her ever-more-frantic searching and calling up and down the beach and adjoining headlands, then an at-least-perfunctory search by Tijuana authorities upon the hysterical gringuita’s reporting the matter to them, and more extensive follow-up investigations by both the U.S. military and the missing man’s grief-stricken parents, who flew out with sister Ruth from Maryland to Mexico and then Monterey. By general best-guess consensus, he must have been either caught in a riptide and
carried out farther than he could swim back in his impaired condition, or attacked by a shark: Both perils were reported in the vicinity from time to time. A third possibility briefly considered by the military was that with or without Ms. Barnes’ knowledge and collusion, Lt. Prosper had planned and staged his disappearance in order to desert the service and embrace some other of life’s arms. But while it was true that in recent communications to his family and to G., as well as in conversation with his Language School comrades, he had expressed a growing boredom with his military life and a hope to move on before very long to some interesting Next Thing that would also give him more time for his writing, criminal desertion and the attendant elaborate subterfuges were altogether out of character for him. Moreover, his clothing, backpack, passport, and wallet were on the beach and in the Buick, where he’d left them, and his other belongings all in place back in his quarters. Suicide, then, perhaps? But except for the aforementioned restlessness he had seemed in fine spirits, all hands testified, and very much involved with that “Third Thought” opus-in-presumable-progress, which despite G.’s several requests his friend had steadfastly declined to share with him until at least its first draft was complete. No trace of Edward “Ned” Prosper from that mid-June afternoon to this mid-August one fifty-four summers later—nor of that manuscript (which, despite her hungover and much-distressed condition, Ms. Barnes was confident he’d not brought along with them to Mexico, much less taken into the surf).
carried out farther than he could swim back in his impaired condition, or attacked by a shark: Both perils were reported in the vicinity from time to time. A third possibility briefly considered by the military was that with or without Ms. Barnes’ knowledge and collusion, Lt. Prosper had planned and staged his disappearance in order to desert the service and embrace some other of life’s arms. But while it was true that in recent communications to his family and to G., as well as in conversation with his Language School comrades, he had expressed a growing boredom with his military life and a hope to move on before very long to some interesting Next Thing that would also give him more time for his writing, criminal desertion and the attendant elaborate subterfuges were altogether out of character for him. Moreover, his clothing, backpack, passport, and wallet were on the beach and in the Buick, where he’d left them, and his other belongings all in place back in his quarters. Suicide, then, perhaps? But except for the aforementioned restlessness he had seemed in fine spirits, all hands testified, and very much involved with that “Third Thought” opus-in-presumable-progress, which despite G.’s several requests his friend had steadfastly declined to share with him until at least its first draft was complete. No trace of Edward “Ned” Prosper from that mid-June afternoon to this mid-August one fifty-four summers later—nor of that manuscript (which, despite her hungover and much-distressed condition, Ms. Barnes was confident he’d not brought along with them to Mexico, much less taken into the surf).
What kind of story-ending is that?
Well: As Ned himself remarked apropos of something-or-other in the last letter G. received from him, shortly before that ill-fated south-of-the-border excursion,
Our lives are not stories, G-Man. The story of one’s life is not one’s life; it is one’s Story (
one
of one’s stories, anyhow). ¡Hasta la vista, amigo mio, and on with the story! N.
one
of one’s stories, anyhow). ¡Hasta la vista, amigo mio, and on with the story! N.
That was that—and the unfinishedness of it, as Reader may have noticed, haunts Narrator to this hour, this minute, this sentence. Was his friend even
really
writing that “Seasons” thing through the two years between spring break ’52 and June’54, or did he for some inscrutable reason only
pretend
to be absorbed in doing so while G. himself completed his modest Tidewater State M.F.A., scored his first modest short-story publications (which Ned praised—and helpfully appraised—with a perceptive astuteness unmatched by any subsequent G.-readers except Amanda Todd), and commenced his modest academic career? Could it be that that fiction so long in the works was in fact fictitious?
really
writing that “Seasons” thing through the two years between spring break ’52 and June’54, or did he for some inscrutable reason only
pretend
to be absorbed in doing so while G. himself completed his modest Tidewater State M.F.A., scored his first modest short-story publications (which Ned praised—and helpfully appraised—with a perceptive astuteness unmatched by any subsequent G.-readers except Amanda Todd), and commenced his modest academic career? Could it be that that fiction so long in the works was in fact fictitious?
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