Erasure (48 page)

Call it expediently located irony, or convenient rationalization, but I was keeping the money.

New York. Lunch with my fellow judges was had in a little, but expensive, Italian restaurant not far from the hotel where the awards ceremony would be held later that evening. I hardly ate, having left my appetite behind some months earlier, but the others seemed particularly grateful for free meal and drink. We made small talk and I came to understand that they all had been accompanied to the event by their wives, girlfriend and husband and so I felt even more conspicuously alone.

I listened at first rather patiently to their dismissal of the four finalists that were not
Fuck.
I became more disheartened as it became clear that their pathetic discussion was ranking that most disgusting of novels as clearly superior to its opponents. I began by mentioning the strength of one or another of the other books, but soon I had turned to a pointed attack against
Fuck.

“It’s not that it’s a bad novel,” I said, sipping wine, then placing down my glass. “It’s no novel at all. It is a failed conception, an unformed fetus, seed cast into the sand, a hand without fingers, a word with no vowels. It is offensive, poorly written, racist and mindless.”

Wilson Harnet, Ailene Hoover, Thomas Tomad and Jon Paul Sigmarsen just looked at me, none of them speaking.

“It’s not art,” I said.

Ailene Hoover said, “I should think as an African American you’d be happy to see one of your own people get an award like this.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “Are you nuts?”

“I don’t think we have to resort to name calling,” Wilson Harnet said.

“I would think you’d be happy to have the story of your people so vividly portrayed,” Hoover said.

“These are no more my people than Abbot and Costello are your people,” I said, considering that I had perhaps offered a flawed analogy.

“I learned a lot reading that book,” Jon Paul Sigmarsen said. “I haven’t had a lot of experience with color—black people—and so
Fuck
was a great thing for me.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” I said. “People will read this shit and believe that there is truth to it.”

Thomas Tomad laughed. “This is the truest novel I’ve ever read. It could only have been written by someone who has done hard time. It’s the real thing.”

“I agree,” said Harnet.

“Oh, my god,” I said. I leaned back and looked out at the day.

“I say we vote,” Sigmarsen said.

“I second,” from Hoover.

“I don’t want to vote,” I said.

“I’m afraid we have a second,” Harnet said. “All in favor of
Fuck
as our winner for this year’s Book Award, raise a hand.”

Of course, all four of them did.

“I believe we have a winner.”

“That’s democracy,” I said and offered what might have been construed as a smile.

They smiled back, then ordered dessert.

In my room, I stretched out on the bed and contemplated my course of action. Stagg Leigh would in fact be awarded the Book Award. I considered my motivation in creating Stagg in the first place, felt again my anger and dissatisfaction with my world and my course of action became clear to me. I dressed and as I did I hummed. I had not hummed in a very long time; music had left me. I felt the spirit of Mother in my humming. I felt the spirit of my sister in my pithiness and that of my father in my playful arrogance. I even felt something of my brother and I knew that tonight I would be exposed.

Tarski: Don’t I know you?

Carnap: You might.

The Ceremony

We judges, not only of fiction but of poetry, nonfiction and children’s literature, were all seated at tables with
important
guests. It was a good thing, because I could no longer stand the sight of my
colleagues.
I was seated with the Director of the Board of Boston General Hospital, the CEO of General Mills, a vice president from General Motors and head of marketing from General Electric, all with their spouses.

After introductions, I said, “I feel generally out of place.”

This made them laugh.

I was sitting between the wife of General Motors and the husband of General Electric and to my dismay, they wanted to talk to me. Finally, General Mills looked across the table and in a stage whisper said, “So, are you going to tell us who wins the big prize?”

“I do,” I said.

They laughed again.

“The process wasn’t all that grueling, was it?”

“Nearly four hundred books to read,” I said.

“Whew. I don’t think I’ve read half that many in my life.”

“Sure you have, dear.”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it a tough decision?”

“It was quite easy actually,” I said. “I’d say it was decided over a month ago.”

“I know which one it is.”

I look at the wife of Boston General.

“Will you tell me if I’m right?”

“No, I won’t,” I said. “This has to be done correctly.”

“Oh, you artists and your integrity.”

That made me burst out with a short laugh which caused them to look at me.

“It’s the word
integrity,”
I said. “It always tickles me.”

They all nodded, as if to say, “A writer.” Then they shared glances and seemed more soothed as they perhaps shared the thought, “A
black
writer.” But that observation was no doubt my anxiety getting the better of me.

The awards were given for the other categories and people applauded, but as always they waited for the fiction. Wilson Harnet stepped from his table to the front of the room and smiled. He said, “I know something you don’t know.”

The audience roared.

I looked across the room and saw my agent, Yul. He spotted me and with his eyes asked me what was up. With mine, I told him to stick around.

“It was an onerous task,” Harnet said. “I’m told that we received more submissions this year than ever before. I can believe it. We read over five hundred novels and collections of short stories.”

The audience let go a gasp,
tutti.

“But it was a labor of love. Our decision was a difficult one, but one I believe will meet with much approval. The finalists of course are the cream of the crop in our eyes. Each of these books is remarkable in its own way. Sadly, however, four of them came up against a monster of a work, a real beauty, we writers like to say.”

“Do you say that?” Mrs. General Mills asked.

“All the time.”

Harnet laughed for no apparent reason. “I’m sure I could bore you by going on, but I will simply tell you the name of the winner. This year’s committee for the Book Award in fiction has chosen
Fuck
by Stagg R. Leigh.”

Whistling, cheering, applauding. “Here, here!”

“I hope Mr. Leigh was able to make it,” Harnet said.

I stood and began to approach the front of the room.

But somehow the floor had now turned to sand …

My steps were difficult and my head was spinning as if I had been drugged. Cameras flashed and people murmured and I couldn’t believe that I was walking through sand, through dream sand. Off to the right were members of the
Noveau Roman
Society along with Linda Mallory and perhaps my high school librarian. To my left were my father, my mother and the woman I knew to be Fiona on either side of him and behind them my brother, sister and half-sister. There were others I knew but failed to recognize and they all pressed around me, urging me forward and the camera flashes blinded me and made the room black during their moments of absence.

“Ah, here comes one of my fellow judges,” Harnet said. “Perhaps Mr. Ellison has heard something about the whereabouts of our winner.”

I was halfway there.

“It’s a black thang maybe,” Harnet said.

Laughter.

The faces of my life, of my past, of my world became as real as the unreal Harnet and the corporations and their wives and they were all talking to me, saying lines from novels that I loved, but when I tried to repeat them to myself, I faltered, unable to recall them. Then there was a small boy, perhaps me as boy, and he held up a mirror so that I could see my face and it was the face of Stagg Leigh.

“Now you’re free of illusion,” Stagg said. “How does it feel to be free of one’s illusions?”

“I know those lines,” I said aloud, knowing I was saying them to no one.

Harnet covered the microphone when I was next to him and asked me what I thought I was doing.

“The answer is
Painful and empty,”
I said.

“This man needs help,” Harnet said.

I looked at the faces, all of them, from time and out of time, but it was my mother to whom I spoke most directly. “The roses will forever smell beautiful,” I said. Then the lights were brighter than ever, not flashes but constant, flooding light. I looked at the television cameras looking at me.

I looked at the mirror, still held by the boy. He held it by his thigh and I could only imagine the image the glass held.

I chose one of the
TV
cameras and stared into it. I said, “Egads, I’m on television.”