Van Gogh's Room at Arles (13 page)

“No,” he said when he was in control again, correcting himself, “not rabbit food. But look at the pail. Doesn’t it remind you of something?”

“Of what?”

“No, you’ll get it,” he said, still the teacher. “What does it remind you of? Where have you seen pails like it before? All that chopped-up green shit?”

“Where?”

“At the
zoo!
In cages at the
zoo!
In the gorilla house. Where the elephant roams, and the skies are not cloudy all day.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, “right.”

“Look at this place,” he said.

“Oh, it’ll be all right. No permanent damage has been done.”

“Look at this place. Look what I’ve allowed to happen. My wife would kill me.” He was quite sad. It was as if Claire were dead and his house were being reclaimed by nature.

To keep himself from falling forward again, or from slipping to the side, he hooked his left arm under the arm of the wheelchair and steadied himself, sitting in a sort of stolid, struggled balance. In this way, planted as somebody in a tug-of-war, he managed to feed himself some of the pasta and salad. But it was rigid work, he knew how stiff he looked.

It was as if she could read his mind.

“Would you like me to help you with that?” Miss Simmons volunteered.

Still hungry but pretending not to have heard her, Schiff set the plastic fork down on the paper plate. He took a cocktail napkin and tapped at the corners of his lips in mock satiety. Had he the ability to belch at will he might have fired off the better part of a twenty-one-gun salute in Miss Simmons’s direction. He patted his stomach in a round, broad dumbshow of yum-yum satisfaction. Miming full holiday dinners, a kind of exhaustion, a vow not to eat again for a week, to forgo feasts forever. With his faked belly applause and silent, phony tongue-in-tooth, chewy exaggeration, it was almost as if he were congratulating himself. He was conscious that his forearm was still hooked under the arm of his wheelchair, that he might even have appeared defiant the way he held on to his balance for dear life, protecting himself from all comers like a kid playing king-of- the-hill. He might almost have seemed to have been challenging someone to break his hold, to see if they could tip him over. It seemed an odd thought for an old fellow with an S.O.S. amulet under his shirt, around his neck. “I know you wouldn’t think it to look at me,” he told Miss Simmons, “but I actually used to be fairly athletic I won’t even say when I was a kid but back before I was stricken, while I was still a professor even, almost up until the time it might have begun to appear maybe a little unseemly for somebody my age to be scrambling around doing the run, jump, hit, and throw with fellows ten years younger than himself, almost as if he was trying to recapture his lost youth or something. That wasn’t the way of it,” he said. “I wasn’t even particularly competitive. Except in table tennis. I was good at table tennis. Oh, I wasn’t one of those guys who stand twenty feet back from the table, I’m not saying
that,
but I had a relatively exceptional slam. That’s why I preferred sandpaper over rubber paddles. To my way of thinking, a rubber paddle was for putting spin and English on the ball, to
deceive
your opponent to death, to turn Ping-Pong into a game of chess. For me it was always a physical, aggressive sport. With sandpaper you could hear all the bang-bang and take-that that the game was designed for. Whenever my opponents took up a rubber paddle I pretty much knew what I was in for—— defense and stinking strategy. Some joker who’d just pretty much just stand there and let me wear myself out. I loved playing with the punchers and always pretty much resented the little judo and ju-jitsu guys who nickeled-and-dimed me and in the end usually beat my brains out. You think that’s odd in a fellow trained in the art of political geography? It probably is, but probably it was my way of letting off steam, of that final, futile satisfaction one must feel after he’s dropped the big one.

“It was pretty much the same when I played softball,” Schiff said. “I was a fairly lousy first baseman, but not a bad hitter. Good hit, no field. Story of my life. And you’ll have to take my word for this—— Hell,
I
have to take my word for it, because seeing how I am now it’s pretty difficult to believe, but I was actually something of a diver back in high school. My specialty was a double somersault off the high board, though I have to admit I always lost a few points for my angle of entry when I hit the water. If you were anywhere near the pool you probably still feel the splash, and …”

Hearing himself, his flagrant boasting, Schiff quite suddenly paused, broke off. “Well,” he said a few seconds later, “you get the idea. I knew him, Horatio. I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t know why I take on like this. Possibly to keep you from noticing the salad dressing on my pants.”

“Oh, those stains come right out. They’re nothing to worry about,” Miss Simmons said.

“No, I’m not worried,” Schiff said.

“I’m like that, too,” Miss Simmons said, “I think everyone is. It’s a nuisance when you get all dressed up, then spill something on yourself.”

“Good hit, no field.”

“That’s right,” Jenny Simmons said.

Schiff was thanking his lucky stars he’d had enough sense not to loosen his grip on the arm of his chair, fall forward and kiss her—presence of mind, he thought, regarding the terrible disorder throughout his house, the joke decorations that had come undone and fallen, draped now in waves of construction paper over his sideboard, his dining-room table, over the Oriental rug in his entrance hall like a comic treasure map, casting an eye on the abandoned picnic table that was his living-room floor, the uneaten plates of food, the crushed cocktail napkins working their capillary action on the liquory dregs and stubbed, cold cigarettes at the bottoms of the plastic glasses of booze, abandoned, displaced sofa cushions, on the carpet, against the living-room walls; presence of mind when all about you are losing theirs— when he became conscious of the buzz and grind of his Stair-Glide. Unmistakably—from where he sat he could not see this, merely heard their joyous squeals as they went up his stairs—people were riding his chair, Ms. Kohm directing them like someone working a ride in an amusement park, the Ferris wheel, say, the carousel.

“All right, Bautz, you’ve had your turn. Get off and let Miss Carter have a ride.”

“Aw, come on, Molly, one more time. Please?”

“No, it’s Carter’s turn. Then Tysver, Miss Freistadt next, then Wilkins, Dickerson, Lipsey, Miss Moffett, and Disch.”

“I don’t see why
she
gets to have all the say-so.”

“What are
you
complaining about? You’re next. I don’t get to go until last.”

“Disch, you’re
such
a baby!”

“I’m not a baby. I was here putting up the decorations hours before anyone else even showed up.”

“Oh, yeah,
hours,”
Dickerson said.

“Well, I was.”

“Big fucking federal deal,” Dickerson said.

“Yeah,” Tysver said.

“If you want,” Miss Freistadt said, “you can ride up with me. You can sit on my lap.”

“Really?”

“Would I tease a baby?”

“Hey!” Schiff called. “Hey!” He turned to Miss Simmons. “Are they really using my Stair-Glide, you think?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Shall I go see?”

“Go see,” Schiff said.

In seconds she was back. A trip that would have taken him five minutes at least, he couldn’t help thinking.
If he
was even up to it.

“They are,” she said.

“Hey,” called Schiff. “Hey now.”

There was hysterical squealing, shouting, a terrible clamor of drunken, almost falsetto rivalry. Schiff would recall crying out at them to cut the foofaraw, using this word which he’d not only never used before but which he couldn’t remember having ever even heard. Remembering, moreover, that he called it out not once but three times. Like some magic cockcrow in legend. Angered now, crying, “Cut out that foofaraw! Knock off the foofaraw! Enough with this foofaraw!” Thrice denying them foofaraw, forbidding them foofaraw within his house, as if to say, not in
this
household you don’t, or, take that outside where it belongs, or proclaiming that the neighborhood wasn’t zoned for foofaraw. But overruled. At the very least ignored. Almost, so unmindful of him were they, cut.

Close to tears now he was, the rage of his helplessness. As if they didn’t understand him or, worse yet, as if they did, some nice question of choice here, equating the hick, obsolete word with the hick, obsolete professor. Their continued laughter and cackle not merely an unmindfulness of his sovereignty here, but of his simple (simple, hah!), physical (physical,
hah!)
presence, an absolute refutation of his existence, an argument against his claims and rights as a landlord. The inmates were in control of the asylum. The students were calling the shots, making the assignments, handing out the grades. Now he was scared, beside himself.

“He
is,
he
is
on her lap!”

“How is that, Disch? You like that?”

“May I ride with Dickerson, Ms. Kohm?”

“Little Miss Moffett.”

“Sat on Dickerson’s tuffet.”

Their voices were like noises made in free-fall, a glimpse of the abyss from the apogee at the lip of a thrill ride. Then, suddenly, abruptly, their brassy shrillness ceased—— all their odd, excited, asexual soprano. Displaced by a screech. Something mechanical. A sick, scraping sound. Something unoiled and harsh. To Schiff’s ears, perfectly pitched for the noises of stuck, soiled machinery, stalled, soured works.

“Take me in there,” he commanded Miss Simmons. “Bring me, take me. Hurry, I have to see! My wheelchair. Damn,” he said, “the brakes are locked. Wait, I’ll unlock them. Shit,” he said, “my feet aren’t on the footrests. Wait, no, those swing into place. No, the whole whoosis swings over. Right. Yeah. Listen, can you lift up my legs? There. Thanks. There. Hey, thank you. Thanks. Push me into the hall.

“Hey,” he called in the hall, “what’s going on?” But he could see what was going on. His Stair-Glide was stuck, on the blink. Engaging the buttons on its arms, Dickerson could not get it to move. All ten of his students were arranged on the stairway. Frozen in his stare, they seemed like deer startled by headlights on the highway, like folks caught confused in a burning building, not knowing which way to turn in the fire, whether to try to make it to the top of the stairs where it wasn’t yet burning, or to plunge through the fire toward the door. Indeed, some seemed headed in one direction, others in another. Ms. Kohm had somehow been stripped of her powers. Schiff, to judge from the way they looked at him, at least temporarily restored to his. Yet he wasn’t sure he wasn’t mistaken about this. Many of them could have been hiding their real attitudes toward him under what might have been smirks behind the hands they held in front of their mouths. Smirks, or fear, or outright laughter.

Clearly they were still under the influence, had not yet come down. Schiff couldn’t understand the cause of their intoxication. He was certain they hadn’t imbibed that much liquor. Unless, again, strangely,
he
was somehow the cause, his freedom about himself somehow contributing to their vandalism of him.

“What happens now,” he demanded, “what happens now? Am I supposed to sleep on the couch, or what? Look what you’ve done. You’ve busted my Stair-Glide. How do I get upstairs? How do I get upstairs now?”

“That’s nothing to worry about,” Miss Carter explained. “There are ten of us here, eleven counting that one.” She pointed to Miss Simmons. “If worse comes to worse, we could always carry you.”

“That’s right,” a cry went up, “let’s carry him.”

“You get his feet, Lipsey,” instructed Molly Kohm. “Tysver and Wilkins can hold him under the arms.”

“No,” said Miss Freistadt, “that won’t work. This stairway’s too narrow, the chair and the track are in the way. I’m smaller, I’ll get one side. You look strong,” she said to Miss Simmons, “can you take him under the other?”

“I guess,” said Miss Simmons.

“No sweat then, Disch said. “Let’s get him up out of his wheelchair.”

Now they started down the stairs toward him.

“Wait!”
Schift shouted. “Not so fast! What about all that food on my floor? No one leaves until it’s all cleaned up. I don’t have a wife now. I’m crippled. How do you expect me to get that crap up? I warned Ms. Kohm about this. I couldn’t clean up after the party, I said. I
did,
didn’t I? My condition, I said. I asked her what about afterwards, and she specifically said I wouldn’t have to lift a finger, that she wouldn’t even let me, that you’d empty the ashtrays, that you’d vacuum the rugs. It wasn’t even a committee thing, she said, you’d all straighten up, everyone would pitch in, do their fair share. You promised, Ms. Kohm.

“Well, what about it, Ms. Kohm? Those ashtrays are full. Most places these days, they don’t even
let
you smoke. It wasn’t all that long ago the only place they might not permit you to light up was the main branch of the public library. You could puff away everywhere—— health-food stores, City Hall, any part of the cabin after the No Smoking sign was turned off. Even in your doctor’s waiting room, for Christ’s sake! Not now, not today. Most places are off-limits. Entire cities, complete countries. I gave you the whole house, and what do I see? Ashtrays spilling over!

“And as far as the carpet’s concerned, incidentally, it would be swell if you vacuumed, but let’s get real here. I’d be satisfied if you picked most of the salad up off the floor, the onions and cucumbers, the zucchini, the loose lettuce and tomatoes. If you got up some of the raisins. There’s a broom in the closet off of the kitchen should God or good conscience lead you to see the light.”

But they weren’t listening, they seemed to be bickering, arguing amongst themselves on the stairway. Their voices were raised, some were actually shouting. Indeed, it seemed to Schiff to be the end of the PGPC as we know it. He was more than a little alarmed for his stairway, his rail and balusters. Ten people were on the eight steps.

“It’s not an entrance to a museum,” he explained to Miss Simmons. “It’s only a fairly modest home in a nice, middle- class neighborhood. It’s not the summer palace, that ain’t the grand staircase.”