Fred Wemyss

I wrote this last January or February and posted it. I'm pleased with it, so I'm going to re-run it every now and then...


Sinlessness

by

Frederick Wemyss

"What do you think?" said Eve, holding the apple in her hand.
"Bite it, bite it!" said the snake, but Eve just kept walking toward Adam.
"The snake says I should bite this," said Eve.
Adam looked up from the pear patte he was making. "Isn't he droll?" Adam said.
"You think so," said Eve. "I think so. But the snake takes himself" (and here she leaned in toward her mate and whispered loudly) "very seriously!"
Both Adam and Eve laughed. Eve threw the apple hard. It smashed against the apple tree and Adam and Eve heard the snake slithering away in the rocks and leaves.
"Do you think pear-paste wrapped in fig leaves would taste good?" said Adam, after plucking another apple and throwing it at the snake's rattle (which he hit.)
"Well," said Eve, "There's nothing says it wouldn't."
With that, Eve tore some fig leaves off the fig tree and handed them to Adam. Adam, using a clam shell, scraped the mashed pears off the flat surface of the boulder he was using for a table. He put dollops of pulverized pear in the fig leaves and rolled two treats.
"Eve," said Adam, as he and Eve took bites of the tasty treats, "Do you realize we are unparallelled chefs?"
"Absolutely," said Eve. She grinned. "You know, the snake can't even eat this stuff. He has to eat flies!"
"Loser," said Adam.
"Isn't he?" said Eve.
They laughed and laughed, shaking their heads.
"What should we do with the two extra fig leaves I picked?" said Eve.
Adam snatched one up from the table, let it flutter to the ground and kneeled on it. "It would make a great prayer rug," he said.
Eve took the other fig leaf from the table. She held it out to the side and Adam charged. "O-ley," said Eve, "O-ley!"
Then they ran all over the Garden of Eden, snapping the fig leaves at each other after dipping them in the little spring. Every animal they passed was mystified.
Suddenly the snake hissed at them from between a deer's antlers. "Apples," he said. "Apples."
"None for me," said Adam.
"Me neither," said Eve.
Adam snapped his fig leaf on the snake's head, which stunned the snake for a second. Adam and Eve ran to the top of a rock.
"He has no sense of humor," said Adam.
"I know," said Eve. "And this THING he has with the forbidden fruit--"
"You know what's ironic?" said Adam. "He couldn't eat forbidden fruit if he wanted to, but he desparately wants you to have it."
"As if I'm going to eat forbidden fruit!" said Eve.
Both Adam and Eve raised their arms up and shook their heads.
"I think he's a little afraid of me," said Adam. "He thinks he'll persuade you to bite an apple and that you'll get me to try one."
"What a skunk," said Eve.
"You know what?" said Adam.
"What?" said Eve.
"I've had a little plan for a while."
"Oh, don't tell me," said Eve.
"You know what it is, I bet," said Adam.
"I bet I do! said Eve.
Without a word, Adam and Eve set about their happy task.
They stood up, looked left, looked right, saw the snake coiled up in his favorite palm frond and tip-toed past. Snickering, they crossed a stream and walked into a little forest.
With jagged tools made from rocks, vines and wood, Adam and Eve spent several hours making a boat. They tied the boat to a maple tree and placed it in the stream.
"It floats," said Adam.
Eve tested the rope. "It's secure," she said.
They picked up a giant shovel they'd crafted. They walked across the stream again, tip-toed up the hill past the snake and didn't stop until they reached the apple tree.
With patience, devotion and strength, Adam and Eve dug up the apple tree and carried it, roots and all, down the hill past the serpent, who still slept on the palm frond. With their burden they entered the forest and reached the stream. They placed the tree in the boat.
Adam tipped the boat with his hands. The boat rocked and the tree rocked with it. "It's snug," Adam said.
Eve cut the rope and the craft drifted down the stream.
Adam and Eve ran along the banks as the stream widened. They ran past rocks, mountains and beasts. Great fish swam beside the boat. Birds followed its course from above. Adam and Eve kept up with the boat until the river was so wide they could not even see each other. But from the bank Adam chose, he could see the branches of the tree sticking out from the boat in the vast body of water, and from the bank Eve chose, she could see the other side of the boat and the branches sticking out.
When the boat went over the edge of the falls, leaving nothing behind but the pinkest sunset Adam and Eve had ever seen, Adam began walking back and Eve began walking back. By the time they could see each other on opposite sides of the river the moon was up, and by the time they reached the place from which they'd launched the boat which took away the apple tree and all its fruit, the moon was beamed lustre on their embrace.
They lay under the palm frond that night. It was not as low to the ground as it had been earlier, the snake having vacated it, but its breadth was enough to shield the lovers from any rains. Adam and Eve slept so well they didn't notice if there had been rain or not, but when they woke, all the creatures of Eden were around them. Adam and Eve felt tremendous love for all Creation.
Next, they were aware of a slithering sound.
"Oh, him," Adam and Eve said at the same time. The various beasts and bugs jumped as the snake darted under their feet. Back and forth he went, his tongue slipping in and out. "Where is it?" he said. "Where is it?"
Adam, sitting on a log with Eve, said, "He doesn't even stop to hear the answer."
"Good," said Eve.
All day they sat on the log, wiggling their toes in a shallow pool a rhinocerous dug for them with his horn. They listened to a giraffe chewing the top leaves of an oak and patted the little chicadees which had alighted beside them on the log. And they watched the long, twisting entity which had tried to tempt them to eat apples traverse Eden inch by inch, up and down, back and forth, every which way until he started up Eve's leg.
"You're a pest," said Adam, gripping the snake under the jaw. He held the snake in front of him, its mouth opening wide and its tongue protruding. "What do you think, Eve?" said Adam.
Eve stuck her hand in the snake's mouth and as he started snapping it shut she forced her other hand in and soon was ripping the snake in two, all the way down to its whirling rattle.
"An excellent response, my dear," said Adam, and they cooked the tempter over a fire built for them by lightning bugs.
"Are you hungry?" Adam said, skewering a piece of burnt snake.
"Not for him," said Eve.
"Me, neither," said Adam.
Adam threw the piece of snake back on the fire and he and Eve watched the snake burn until he was nothing but smoke.
"Well," said Eve, "That's done."
"Adam?" said a voice. "Eve!" the voice added.
Adam and Eve looked up with a sense of glee. "Well, hello, Lord," they said. They got off the log. Adam saluted. Eve curtsied.
"Why do you curtsy?" said God, "When you have no dress to lift?"
"What?" said Eve.
"Adam," said the Lord. "Must you salute with more than just your hand?"
"What?" said Adam.
"I wouldn't look down if I were you!" said the Lord.
Adam and Eve looked down, first at themselves and then at each other. They gasped.
As the two grabbed fig leaves off the nearby fig tree, the Lord said, "How dare you eat of the apple?"
Covering his loins with a leaf, Adam said, "I didn't eat an apple."
Covering herself, Eve said, "I did not eat an apple."
"Neither of you can make it any better by lying," said the Lord.
Adam and Eve looked around at their friends the woodland creatures and felt preyed upon.
"Lying is wrong," of course," said Adam.
"Yes," said Eve. "It's wrong."
They both said, "But we haven't lied."
"Did I not command thee both not to eat of the fruit of the apple tree?" the Lord asked.
"Yes," said Eve.
"What?" said God.
"No," said Adam. "I mean, yes, you didn't NOT command us--"
"Yes," said Eve, covering her breasts with her forearm, "I mean, 'No, you didn't NOT command--"
"Okay," said God, instantly materializing in front of Adam and Eve. "Stop looking up! I'm right here in front of you."
Adam and Eve looked at God.
God paced three feet to the right, retraced his steps, kept going on another three feet, retraced those three feet worth of steps, turned to face Adam and Eve and said:
"I speak in metaphors."
"We know that," said Adam.
"We know that," said Eve.
"And yet you took what I said literally."
"When?" said Eve.
"When I said not to heed the serpent."
"What about when you said not to eat of the fruit of the--?" said Adam.
"Yes," God said, "You literally thought I meant you couldn't eat apples."
"Well, wasn't that good?" said Adam.
"Yes and no," said the Lord.
Adam saw a bit of Eve's left nipple and had to hold his fig leaf with both hands.
God went on: "Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury."
"What?" said the couple.
"Metaphor! Pretend you're on trial."
"AREN'T we on trial?" said Eve.
"You've been tried, judged and found guilty," said God.
"So we're on trial," said Adam.
"Trial's over. You're punishment began the moment you dug up the tree."
"But that was the happiest moment of our lives," said Adam.
"No it wasn't," said Eve. "The happiest moment of our lives was when I ripped the snake in two."
"Adam," said God, "Were you not the first to stick the shovel under the apple tree, Eve merely following suit?"
"Yes, Lord."
"And you thought you both thought it up at the same time."
"Yes," said Adam.
"Well, you didn't. You were happier about it than she was, because it was YOUR idea. Now, Eve, when Adam had the snake by the neck--"
"Snakes have necks?"
"The part under his head!"
"Okay, Lord."
"When he had his hand gripping the little viper's windpipe...Are you going to question 'windpipe?'"
"No."
"Okay, you thought he wanted you to kill the snake."
"Yes."
"Well, he didn't. He just wanted you to slap the snake's face."
"But when I ripped his face open, it was the happiest moment of our lives."
"'Fraid not, Toots. It was the happiest moment of YOUR life. Adam was a little nauseated. But he put a brave face on it."
"You're lying!" said Adam and Eve.
"No," said God. "Adam thinks I'm lying about what Eve thought and Eve thinks I'm lying about what Adam thought, but Adam knows I'm telling you exactly what he thought and Eve knows I'm telling you exactly what she thought. Answer me: On the night of the day you dug the tree up and shipped it into God knows where -- I being that God who does indeed know where -- Did you not, on that night, which was the night before you killed the serpent -- Did you not have sexual intercourse?"
"No!" said Adam and Eve.
"Why do you lie?"
"We're not lying."
"Yes, you are."
"No."
"Yes."
"What's wrong with sexual intercourse?" said Adam, puffing his chest.
"Yes," said Eve, her chin sticking out, "What's wrong with it?"
God smiled.
"Yes!" Adam exclaimed. "I had relations with her!"
"Yes!" said Eve. "I had relations with him!"
"So?" asked God.
Adam and Eve looked at each other, then at their feet and then at God.
"And yet neither of you says that was the happiest moment of your lives! Interesting."
"Why shouldn't it have been the happiest moment of our lives?" said Eve.
"Yes," said Adam, "Why shouldn't it have been?"
"I should ask you two that. Now," said God. "That was the first time you two did that."
"And the only time!" said Adam.
"So far!" said God. "You could have done it any time before."
"So we were obediant before having intercourse, but not afterward?" said Eve.
"What interests me is that you didn't have sexual union before uprooting and disposing of the apple tree."
"Don't dispose of the apple tree, with anyone else but me," sang Adam sarcastically.
"Bet you didn't know that song until you tried to get rid of temptation," said the Lord. "Did you?"
"I can't remember," said Adam.
"I can assure you, mortal, that you didn't. But now that you've eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, you know a little bit about everything. Even the future."
"But we didn't eat the apple."
"You didn't eat it, but you couldn't leave well enough alone. You wouldn't have destroyed the tree if you felt strong enough to resist its offerings. And once the source of temptation was seemingly removed from your universe you destroyed the creature I told you to ignore, which was doubly foolish because, in your mind, the thing he would have tried to tempt you to eat, that is, the apple, was absent."
"So what does this have to do with Eve and me attaining orgasm with each other?"
"Well, Adam, while you told yourself that you and Eve thought up the dispatching of the apple-tree, it was your idea, which you got her to carry out with you. Feeling, then, that you had power over her, you then felt she would yield to you sexually. Eve, when you did indeed yield to Adam sexually, you felt this gave you power over him and that he would let you destroy the snake, who, with the apple tree gone, could be an annoyance only, as opposed to the threat he was before the tree was removed. So, your night of mutual orgasm was not, as it should have been, a night of mutual giving, but actually a nocturne of enacted bargaining."
"Well, if you know so much--" said Adam.
"Yes," said Eve, "If you know so much--"
And together they said, "Make another snake and we won't listen to him and create another apple tree and we won't eat from it. We'll show you how much you know about us."
"I know something you don't know," said God.
"No you don't," said Adam and Eve.
Suddenly they no longer saw God standing in front of them.
"Where'd he go?" they said. "What does he know?"
A grove of apple trees was there now. Snakes slithered everywhere.
A voice boomed, "To show you I know everything, I've restored the apple tree tenfold and the snake a thousandfold. And if you want to see me, look in places you doubt exist. In nine months, less a day, you'll know what I know now that you don't now know."
"And then we'll know everything?" said Eve hopefully.
"And then we'll know everything?" said Adam, looking at a cloud which had just evaporated.
Amidst the snakes and apples and Adam and Eve, the Lord maintained his silence.
The day the baby was born Adam knew the truth. "Eve," he said, as the newborn suckled at her breast. "He's only a few hours old but I know what God knows!"
"Oh?" said Eve. She burped the baby.
"Yes, Eve. Remember looking at the boat going off into oblivion off the edge of the water-fall?"
"Yes," Eve said.
"Well, we were at the top of the waterfall, right?"
"Yes."
"And that was the edge of Eden."
"I assume so, yes."
"And we were looking West, because the sunset faced us."
"Yes."
"Well, I think we were looking Southwest."
Eve put the baby in the cradle. "That's what God knows?"
"No. Now, we weren't physically removed from anyplace, but we were metaphorically removed from our innocent Eden because God put up all those apple trees and installed the snakes."
"Obviously."
"Well, don't you see? That was our honeymoon. That was Niagara Falls!"
"Thrilling."
"That's not the point, Evie."
"No?"
"No! The direction we were looking. We were on the North side!"
"And?"
"We're Canadian!"
"Well, sort of pre-Canadian, yes."
"No, Eve! It's good news! Given the locale, we'll NEVER be responsible for Bush!"

Here are some books I've started to read but haven't finished:

ALL THE KING'S MEN, by Robert Penn Warren...I started it about five months ago, when I read that a remake of the 1948 movie was on the way. I read about twenty-five pages and gave up.

CLAREL...Herman Melville's book-length poem of his trip to the Holy Land is damned difficult. I've read five novels by Melville, and six or seven of his short stories. I've tried to understand his short poems ("The Maldive Shark" being one of them.) I haven't been able to do so. And I'm a fan! I have CLAREL, of course, which is more than even most serious Melville scholars have. I liked what little of it I read, but I won't say I had any idea of what was happening. I liked the extreme brevity of each stanza. Each stanza seems to consist of three or four lines of about five syllables each.

THE IDIOT, by Fyodor Dostoevsky...I first started reading this when I was in eighth grade. I got to page 48 of the Bantam paperback I got at Oscar's (which was the great book store in Huntington then) and stopped. The fact that the thugs in school kept saying "Readin' about yourself, huh?" when they saw me with the book had nothing to do with me stopping reading it. I tried again in eleventh grade and got to page 48 again. I tried when I was thirty-six and, again, got to page 48. So I got a book-on-tape, but, even though it was Dostoevsky, it wasn't THE IDIOT. It was THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV. I didn't want to cheat with THE IDIOT. I listened to THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV in the car on my way to and from work. It took three weeks! After listening to it, I realized listening to a book-on-tape is not cheating. The written word is a substitute for the spoken word. Anyway, I still haven't read or heard any part of THE IDIOT starting after the part represented by page 48 of the Bantam edition.

COMING UP FOR AIR, by George Orwell...I read about half of this about five years ago and was quite taken with it. But I just haven't gotten up the will to continue reading it.

ULYSSES, by James Joyce...Every June 16th, the day this novel takes place, I listen to excerpts read live on the air. I feel quite acquainted with it. But I have neither heard nor read it straight through. I read "The Dead," though! Joyce wrote that!

CHANCE, by Joseph Conrad...I read about a third of it. It's the only time in reading Conrad that I've felt the problem wasn't that I was not up to his challenge, but that he was being pointless.

THE BIBLE...I try and try. God knows I'll try again.

THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, by Thomas Mann...I missed the tension which was so present in other works of his I've completed.

THE UNCONSOLED, by Kazuo Ishiguro...I read about a hundred pages and decided that each extremely lengthy passage was not narrated by a different person but that one schizophrenic character was narrating the whole book. I think Ishiguro didn't think a reader would catch on so early as page one-hundred.

Just for a lark, I'm now going to list all the books I can remember having read straight through.

THE MONKEY IN THE ROCKET-Jean Bethell; CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY-Roald Dahl; JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH-Roald Dahl; THE LITTLE PRINCE-Antoine De Saint Exupery (This was read to me); WINNIE-THE-POOH-A.A. Milne (This was read to me, too); THE HOUSE AT POOH CORNER-A.A. Milne (And this); THE MYSTERY OF THE STUTTERING PARROT (starring Alfred Hitchcock's The Three Investigators, and I don't know who wrote it); THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH-Norton Juster; FANTASTIC MR. FOX-Roald Dahl; CHARLIE AND THE GREAT GLASS ELEVATOR-Roald Dahl; WOLF STORY-William McCleary; TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD-Harper Lee; THE LADY IN THE MORGUE-Frank. J. Lattimore; THE CODE OF THE WOOSTERS-P. G. Wodehouse, who wrote the next six books on this list; BRINKLEY MANOR; THE PLOT THICKENS; THE CATNAPPERS; LOVE AMONG THE CHICKENS; UNCLE FRED IN THE SPRINGTIME; JEEVES AND THE TIE THAT BINDS; MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES-James Thurber; THE MIDDLE-AGED MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE-James Thurber; LENNON REMEMBERS-Jann Wenner (interviewing John Lennon and Yoko Ono); APPLE TO THE CORE-McCabe and Davis; MOBY-DICK--Herman Melville; LORD JIM-Joseph Conrad; UNDER WESTERN EYES-Joseph Conrad; THE SECRET AGENT-Joseph Conrad; THE ROCK 'N' ROLL BOOK OF THE DEAD (I can't remember who wrote it, but I'll try to find out); BRING ON THE EMPTY HORSES-David Niven; THE AMERICAN-Henry James; WASHINGTON SQUARE-Henry James; THE SWIMMING-POOL LIBRARY-Allen Hollinghurst; A BOY'S OWN STORY-Edmund White; MYSTERIOUS SKIN-Scott Heim; PRIDE AND PREJUDICE-Jane Austen; PIERRE, OR, THE AMBIGUITIES-Herman Melville; THE CONFIDENCE-MAN--Herman Melville; ISRAEL POTTER--HIS FIFTY YEARS OF EXILE---Herman Melville; PUDDN'HEAD WILSON-Mark Twain; THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN-Mark Twain; THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER-Mark Twain (audio); THE ABOLITION OF MAN-C. S. Lewis; THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS-C. S. Lewis; THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV-Fyodor Dostoevsky in the Garnett translation (audio); Thomas Mann's DOCTOR FAUSTUS in the H.T. Lowe-Porter translation; ALL WE HAVE IS NOW (I'll supply the author's name soon); AVOIDANCE-Michael Lowenthal; IN AWE-Scott Heim; GIOVANNI'S ROOM-James Baldwin; THE LOST LANGUAGE OF CRANES-David Leavitt; THE PAGE-TURNER--David Leavitt; A MARRIAGE BELOW ZERO-Alan Dale; THE AWAKENING-Kate Chopin; SOUTHERN LADIES AND GENTLEMEN-Florence King, who wrote the next seven titles as well; WASP, WHERE IS THY STING?; REFLECTIONS IN A JAUNDICED EYE; WITH CHARITY TOWARD NONE; LEAVE IT OR LUMP IT; WHEN SISTERHOOD WAS IN FLOWER; WITH CHARITY TOWARD NONE; HE; NOSTROMO-Joseph Conrad; THE LAST ADAM-James Gould Cozzens; BY LOVE POSSESSED-James Gould Cozzens; MEN AND BRETHREN-James Gould Cozzens; ASK ME TOMORROW-James Gould Cozzens; VIRTUALLY NORMAL-Andrew Sullivan; SS SAN PEDRO-James Gould Cozzens; WHAT'S BRED IN THE BONE-Robertson Davies; FOOLS OF FORTUNE (I can't believe I've forgotten this author's name); BOON (by two authors, neither of whose names I can remember); THE CLOCKS OF COLUMBUS-Robert M. Coates; ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE-Robert M. Pirsig; MEN OF HONOR-Louis Auchincloss; DOCTOR FISCHER OF GENEVA, OR, THE BOMB PARTY-Graham Greene; CAT'S CRADLE-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS-Kurt Vonnegut (Who dropped the "Junior" with this book); THE FRIENDLY DICKENS-Norrie Epstein; MISS LONELYHEARTS-Nathaniel West; SLEEPLESS NIGHTS-Elizabeth Hardwick; A MIND TO MURDER-P. D. James; DUBLINERS-James Joyce; A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN-James Joyce; THE SUFFERINGS OF YOUNG WERTHER-Goethe (Was he Johanne Von? I can't remember, but it's, well, Goethe, of course); THE FIRM-John Grisham (audio); THE CATCHER IN THE RYE-J. D. Salinger; NINE STORIES-J. D. Salinger; INTRUDER IN THE DUST-William Faulkner; GOD BLESS YOU, MISTER ROSEWATER-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS-James Hilton; LINCOLN'S DREAMS-Connie Willis; PERE GORIOT-Honore de Balzac; WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR-(I think Stephen Runciman wrote this); DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON-George Orwell; ANIMAL FARM-George Orwell; 1984-George Orwell; I LOVED LUCY (I'll find out the author's name and include it sometime soon); HAROLD LLOYD (I'll try to find out this author's name, too); SCARLET AND BLACK-Stendahl; HARD LUCK MONEY-Giles Tippette; ANDORRA-Peter Cameron; THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER-Mark Twain; BARABBAS-Par Lagerkvist; GROWING UP BRADY (by the grown-up version of the kid who played Greg Brady; STRAITJACKET & TIE-Eugene Stein; WHY ORWELL MATTERS-Christopher Hitchens; THE TWENTY-ONE BALLOONS-William Pene duBois; CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN-Galbraith and Cary; THE CIRCUS OF DR. LAO-Charles G. Finney; THE EXORCIST-William Peter Blatty; JAWS-Peter Benchley; THE ENCHANTED FOREST-Christopher Milne; THE BODY SNATCHERS-Jack Finny; RALPH THE HEIR-Anthony Trollope; THE WARDEN-Anthony Trollope; RACHEL RAY-Anthony Trollope; THE WORLD OF NORMAL BOYS-A. M. Sohnlein; THE AGE OF INNOCENCE-Edith Wharton; SUMMER-Edith Wharton; ETHAN FROME-Edith Wharton; LAST STAND AT PAPAGO WELLS-Louis L'Amour; MAURICE-E. M. Forster; BRAVE NEW WORLD-Aldous Huxley; ALL THE ADVANTAGES-Sam Toperoff; THE DEMOCRAT-Sam Toperoff; THE GREAT GATSBY-F. Scott Fitzgerald; O PIONEERS-Willa Cather; WONDER BOYS-Michael Chabon; THE CITY AND THE PILLAR (revised edition)-Gore Vidal; A BETTER ANGEL-Foreman Brown; FATHER OF FRANKENSTEIN-Christopher Bram; THE EVENING CROWD AT KIRMSER'S-[I've momentarily forgotten the author's name]; THE BEAUTY OF MEN-Andrew Holleran; FUNNY BOY-Shyam Selvadurai; DRACULA-Bram Stoker; THE WEEKEND-Peter Cameron; THE SAME EMBRACE-Michael Lowenthal; WINESBURG, OHIO-Sherwood Anderson; THE RIDERS-Tim Winton; EATERS OF THE DEAD-Michael Crichton; CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY-W. Somerset Maugham; PIZZA FACE-Ken Siman; FATHERS AND SONS-Ivan Turgenev; THE HAPPY VALLEY-Eric Berne; I HAD TROUBLE IN GETTING TO SOLLA-SOLLOO--Dr. Seuss; THE LAST FLOWER-James Thurber; ALICE IN WONDERLAND-Lewis Carroll; THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN-John Fowles; TOO LONG A SACRIFICE-Jack Holland; LENNON IN AMERICA-Geoffrey Giuliano; RUNNING WITH SCISSORS (I've forgotten the name of the author; a collection of stories, the title of which I cannot remember, by Bernard Cooper; and THE SONG OF ROLAND (I've forgotten the name of the translator.)

The list of books I've started is longer. I've read many short stories and novellas, but very rarely have I read an entire volume of them. I haven't included plays in book form; such as HAMLET.

Cruel Things I've Seen People Do
All of these things were done by people I love:

About twenty years ago, when we were in our mid-twenties, a friend of mine and I were in his car. He was driving. All his life, even before he learned to drive, my friend would say, "Why don't they signal?" whenever he saw a car turning without the signal going. He also really hated drivers who sped up after you passed them. "I'm passing them!" he'd say. "Why are they speeding up?"
Anyway, he was behind the wheel, preparing to cross an intersection. I think I remember the very one. He was about to cross when a car waiting on the road perpendicular to the one we were on turned left, cutting him off. "Can't use your signal, can you, old man?" my friend shouted.
Indeed, the driver was geriatric.

Another friend and I were in the parking lot at Waldbaum's. He worked in a store in the same shopping center, so he was intimately familiar with the geography of the parking lot. He was driving between rows of parked cars. Another car came along and he had to move a little to make way. "Cunt!" my friend cried. "Drive the right direction!" There were no arrows pointing any direction.

A friend of mine once bragged to me of the time he delivered something to the Huntington Town House. Before going in, he'd noticed a car parked with its flashers on at the side of the road. It wasn't all the way to the side. Part of the car was jutting into the right lane of Jericho Turnpike. My friend went into the lobby and said, "Is somebody's car in the road there?"
A man looked up and said, "That's my car."
"Well, somebody hit it," said my friend.
"Oh, my God!" said the man. "My daughter's in there." He started running out the door.
"She's dead!" my friend shouted.

One time, the friend of the Waldbaum's parking lot was behind the wheel in bumper-to-bumper traffic coming out of Robert Moses. My other two friends from the above paragraphs were in the car, too. We were all sunburned, tired and dehydrated. We'd been in the car tweny minutes and had gone half a mile. Kids in the back seat of the car in front of us were waving at us. They took their fingers and pressed their noses to make pig faces. My friend behind the wheel waved back and signalled them to make piggy noses again. When they did that, his front bumper tapped the back bumper of the car the kids were in. My friend laughed as the kids fell into the back dash. He made a piggy nose himself. The driver door of the other car opened. A short, huge-breasted woman in sunglasses and spandex trotted toward us. "You wanna play little games with the kids, do you? You wanna bam your car into my car with them in the back, huh? You wanna play a goddamn fucking game with their lives?"

The rest of the ride home was polite. Women, children and old people were able to relax for a while, even though we were on the road.

The year before he died, Louis Armstrong made a surprise appearance at a jazz concert at Walt Whitman High School here in Huntington, New York. I was ten and got to see him. This was 1970.
My mother was a speech teacher at BOCES. A friend of hers who taught at Walt Whitman High told her about a charity event for autistic children. It was going to be a concert featuring Arvell Shaw, a bass player. She gave my mother secret information. Louis Armstrong was going to appear at the end. This was very much on the Q. T.
I was just old enough to remember "Hello, Dolly" as a hit single. My brother Bob, who was two years older, and I used to imitate Louis Armstrong's raspy voice whenever the song came on. We loved the song. When my mother told us we might have a chance to see Louis Armstrong we were very happy. We kept imitating "Hello, Dolly" for two days. I was in my school band and played the cornet. I was always listening to the Tijuana Brass, so I related to the trumpet (and, hence, the cornet.)
Twnety-five years later, when I had become a collector of Louis Armstrong music, I learned that Arvell Shaw was the bassist in Louis Armstrong's All-Stars, the small combo which began in the mid-1940s.
I liked the concert, but, child that I was, I was distracted, waiting for a surprise appearance by Louis Armstrong. If there was an intermission, I'm sure I began thinking he wasn't really going to show. Word was he was ill. Putting it together, I imagine he came in from Corona, Queens, where he lived. This was an hour away and is now the Louis Armstrong Museum. I imagine most of the audience did expect him. It was not a capacity crowd. It was, if I remember, an afternoon concert. There was a teenager in the audience with a huge scrapbook.

Finally, an announcement was made and suddenly Louis Armstrong came out between two curtains. I can't remember if he had his trumpet with him, but, whether he did or not, I am quite certain he didn't play it. He sang "Hello, Dolly." The audience clapped along. I can't remember if he sang anything else. I feel he only sang that. Then he walked into the audience and sat down next to the kid with the scrapbook. The kid showed him every page in it. It had pictures of Louis Armstrong, newspaper clippings about him, placards and index cards, 8 by 10 glossies and Louis Armstronmg signed every picture on every page, talking to his fan in a quiet voice. My brother and I saw this from a few seats away.

"I want to get his autograph," I said.

"I told you not to bother him," my mother said.

"I want his autograph, too," said my brother.

We took our flyers and ran to him.

We watched him sign a few pages of the fan's scrapbook. "Can I have your autograph?" said my brother. Louis Armstrong looked up, quietly took the flyer, wrote a giant signature and handed back the flyer.
My brother walked a little away and I walked up to Louis Armstrong. "Can I have your autograph, too?" I said. Louis Armstrong signed the book a little more and looked up at me the way he'd looked up at my brother. He signed the flyer.
I think I said "Thank you."

I had that flyer, with the giant "L" at the start and the giant "A" for "Armstrong," for twenty years. I moved from one room in my house to another and, somehow, couldn't find the flyer when I'd finished moving. I used to open it up and look at it. It was next to the mute for my cornet, an instrument I abandoned at the age of thirteen.

The Christmas after he died, a 45 of his reading of THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS appeared at our supermarket. My mother bought it. Each Christmas Eve since then, we play that record. It was one of the last things he ever recorded, There's no music on it, just the voice of Louis Armstrong, giving the poem a charm and drama no one else had ever given it. I wonder if there had been a plan to put music behind it. It's great the way it is.

About ten years ago I dreamed there was a knock at my old bedroom door. It was the room I'd lived in when I still had the autograph. I opened the door and Louis Armstrong was there. He held out his hand and whispered something. I took the flyer from its place next to my mute and handed it to him. He looked at it, folded it up and put it in his shirt pocket. He turned and walked downstairs.

I can hear his autograph, however, on those signature licks waxed during the lifetime of the great jazz pioneer.

Here's an excerpt from it. I was talking about the time I met What's-His-Face:

...I met Paul McCartney in the most unbelieveable way imaginable. What are the odds that someone who listens to almost nothing but Beatles music would be handed a postcard at work which said "Help launch PAUL MCCARTNEY PAINTINGS, the new book from Chronicle Books. 4:00 P. M., Such-and-such a date, such-and-such-a-place. Meet the artist. RSVP." I was working at an independent book store on Long Island in the summer of 2000, when my boss handed me that card, saying, "I didn't know there was a book of Paul McCartney's paintings coming out." She handed me the card and I looked at it. Then I noticed that it said "Meet the artist." We RSVP'd, and, about two weeks later, I heard that I was going to meet Paul. The event was at a little gallery/bar in Manhattan in October. It was an extremely low-key event. There were about five people standing outside the bar when I got there. They were all booksellers. Most book store people I knew simply threw out the card, not realizing it was an offer to meet Paul McCartney. They thought it was just promoting a book party. I met some high rollers of the publishing world at the party (including one of the owners of the really quite humongous entity for which I began working five years later.) Anyway, I got to talk to Paul about one of his paintings. I felt like Charlie Bucket, getting the golden ticket in the chocolate bar. I'm still really amazed this happened.

While I have nothing to say, there is something to be said for something or other.

More Spam! (Sender's name at left, title of message at right.) Sometimes the names are more interesting than the message. You may wonder why I've included the pitch for the Roger Waters concert. I included it for verisimilitude. One weeds through these things.

BackStage Access "Great seats just released: Roger Waters at Madison Square Garden" Essie Chandler "desolation"
conceit "Your home credit"
Pip Bergeron "corporal punishment"
Amelia Burris "disoriented tugboat"
Dolores Tapia "exclamation point speechless"
coverlet "for you to have it"
Lowery "Hey, buddy, you must be very disappointed of it!"
Kate Mahoney "unwieldy garish"
Christina Rios "dislike autonomous"
Priklyparamite1 "kewadin casino"
Lily Cole "purge"
barb "proceed to watching"
Hereward Westlake "Re: PHitARMACY"