Scissors (13 page)
“The Sorrows of Gin.” A young girl watches her parents becoming alcoholics. She gets worried, feels powerless, decides to run away. She gets as far as the train station, but her escape is thwarted at the last minute. Her father comes to pick her up.
Have you all read this story? Uh … no, I don’t have the date in my head.
(Personally, the only date I remember is the day I turned twenty, the day when I started … what I started.)
What interests me—sorry, I’ll speak louder. What interests me in “The Sorrows of Gin” is the change in the point of view. The end of the story is narrated through the father’s consciousness, whereas we see the rest, from the beginning, through the little girl’s eyes. What shall I say? This story has always left me with a feeling of … Cheever’s a master, there’s no doubt about that. But this change of lens, so to speak … Was he right to end his story this way? In your opinion? Yes, Miss …
(My God, how can a girl
be
so pretty?)
What would I have done in his place? Well … I’m not John Cheever. Everyone has their own way of telling a story. That’s a very individual, personal matter, don’t you think? For example, I wrote a short story—it’s called “Petunias”—where something along the same lines happens. The reader sees the end of “Petunias” through the eyes of the wife, even though the story’s about her husband. I don’t know why I changed the point of view at the end, but the wife seemed the obvious choice at the moment I wrote it.
You can tell a story from as many points of view as there are characters. Don’t ask yourself which is the best, let it impose itself on you. In spite of you.
Sorry?
(If she doesn’t stop devouring me with those big eyes, I won’t be responsible for whatever I may do.)
You’d like to read “Petunias”? Well, it’s been published, but under a different title: “Compost.” The thing is, though, you won’t find the ending of “Petunias” in “Compost.”
Why did I cut the ending? It wasn’t me. How shall I put it? You’re not always the writer you’d like to be. Some things …
(There. If I stay close to the window, just in front of her, I don’t see her anymore. I can keep my cool.) Some things escape our control.
Raymond, my friend, I sympathize
.
Your letter made me howl with laughter. I can imagine the scene very clearly. You in your black sunglasses, half crocked, in front of twenty or so students, all of them raising their hands and saying, “Sir, what’s the magic formula?” Ah, if they knew that the only knowledge you can transmit to them—the only thing that writers can teach—is how to ruin your life in a few easy steps. Because ruining your life is the only way to wind up alone with yourself and start to write. That’s the price you have to pay, no matter what anyone says
.
As for the starstruck girl in the front row, I found your description of her positively mouthwatering. You should hang your scruples in the closet and get her into your bed. Especially if what you wrote me is true and she spends the breaks between classes flirting with you
.
Not to be outdone along those lines, I’m going to tell you what I did last night. I was in the big amphitheater. These days there are close to a hundred groupies in every one of my workshops. I trot out my spiel on writing and addiction, being careful to conclude with a few words on how the libido can detract from stylistic perfection. I
have to keep myself from laughing out loud, because at least thirty of them are taking down what I say word for word. And this is in one of the top three universities in the country. At the end of class, the choice morsel I mentioned to you the other day—Jessica Lange with even more curves—comes up to me and whispers, “I didn’t completely understand your theory of the libido. Can we discuss it over a drink?” Please note that it was already midnight. She took me to her place, amigo, and at 3 a.m. I was still there, making her climb the walls. I had to get up at 7 a.m. to go to work, but at noon we started in again. This time we both climbed the walls
.
But in the office I have to restrain myself. I’m having problems with Sibyll’s replacement. She went and told the boss I’ve been groping her. That could cost me my job, and if my wife gets wind of it, I’ll be going through my fourth divorce. I find the weaker sex more and more aggressive these days. It must be the zeitgeist
.
Let’s get back to the main point. If I should leave here—there’s an opening for a fiction editor in the publishing house across the street—I’d like it to be with your second collection of stories under my arm. To raise the bidding. As you see, our fates are intertwined. So stop fearing the worst. The critics aren’t going to devour you—I work on them every day of my life. Write those goddamn stories and get it over with! No excuses this time. You tell me Marianne and the kids aren’t around anymore, you’ve got that teaching job I found for you, and if you’re too scrupulous to treat yourself to the starstruck beauty in the front row who writes like Flannery O’Connor, make a story out of that
.
You can’t give up on me, Ray. For seven years, I’ve been moving heaven and earth to get you some recognition, and I need that
second story collection more than ever. And don’t worry, I’ll firm up your work wherever necessary
.
Douglas
My father was a good man.
A good man and an alcoholic. I believe his legacy to me included more alcoholism than goodness, but I keep hoping to reverse the trend.
He used to take me fishing. But now, if someone should show me a map of the region where I grew up, I wouldn’t be able to say where the fish are. I wouldn’t even have the slightest idea. I couldn’t point out the good fishing spots to anybody.
That’s my current motto. I repeat it to my students:
Nobody can do your searching for you; it’s up to you to find the way
. When they hear that, they seem disappointed.
Can it be that I’m not made for teaching?
The ticking of the clock fills the room. For the last five minutes, I’ve been one year older. I would have liked to give up alcohol. Too bad. Maybe next time.
Marianne, if you only knew …
I’m sorry, I woke you up. No, I was talking to myself. You can use my glass, I’ll drink straight from the bottle. Has anyone ever told you you write like Flannery O’Connor? Tender to begin with, and cruel in the end. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” made a big impression on you, too?
A good man is hard to find, but alcohol’s easy.
Alcohol and pretty girls.
If Raymond could see us now! We’re totally loaded. He’d call us a pair of drunks. Stop, Claire, stop, you’re killing me.
You’re such a good mimic, you’ve really got him down. It’s like you’re the one who lived with him for twenty years and put up with his … No, finish it. Finish it yourself. Okay, we’ll split the dregs. Stop. You’re killing me.
I almost did it, you know. I almost went to see him. I was going to take the car, drive all the way there, and surprise him on his birthday.
But what would have been the point? To put the pieces back together? We’ve tried that a thousand times.
I had a dream the other night. I was holding a piggy bank in my hands. I put it up to my ear and shook it. No jingling, not the slightest sound. I looked at the piggy bank. It had a crack in it, such a big crack I wondered how the thing could stay in one piece. At that moment, I realized it looked just like our house. The one that was repossessed.
And here’s how the dream ended. I pressed the piggy bank against my ear and listened again. It was like listening to a conch shell, that whistling sound. The buried murmur of the ocean, coming from our completely cracked house. Then it broke into pieces.
Suppose I took your car? I could get there by dawn. Do
you think he thinks about me? Do you think he’s thinking about me right now?
Me, too. I borrowed other voices, too. Hemingway’s, Chekhov’s … I took myself for a ventriloquist. And now I’ve turned into a puppet. My editor’s puppet. He speaks through me. He swallows my words and spits them out in another form. The result is I’ve become very cautious. I have to start writing again, but I don’t want to end up in his hands. I feel blocked. I don’t dare put a single word on paper for fear he’ll grab hold of it.
Why are you getting dressed? Why don’t you stay?
You’ve got “a story to write”? That’s funny. I feel as though I’ve lived through this scene before. With the roles reversed.
I’d rather not wind up in somebody else’s fiction—I’d prefer to remain my own character.
Good thing she beat it. A little while longer and she would’ve drunk up all my bourbon.
This is just the beginning, you know, Claire. I feel it’s going to catch on, it’s going to grow and spread. No, not like mold. I’m serious. Listen.
Edgar says, “We’re in the avant-garde, we’re pathfinders.”
He repeats that all day long. People don’t know what they’re missing. Or rather, they feel something’s missing, but they don’t have the words to express what it is. That’s where we come in. We invite them to connect with themselves. And eventually with other people. First with themselves, then with others. The process has to start in the body. Not in the head. Thanks to us, people learn to distrust their head. Edgar and I are writing pamphlets about this. People are reluctant in the beginning. But that reluctance is a symptom of what they’re missing. We don’t tell them that, of course. We make them feel this need, this necessity of connecting. The first pamphlet’s free. Edgar thinks it’s bound to catch on and spread.