American Genius: A Comedy Read online

  My mother is very old, incontinent, and she doesn't remember that she had my dog and cat killed, though she often mentions the story she wrote about the family cat she loved but later had killed. It is laden with lovingly embroidered details about the antics of our remarkable cat, though she doesn't remember what I was like as a child, even before she had brain damage, except to say that I was fast at everything, that I rushed. I'm still rushing, because there's a lot to accomplish before death, which defeats accomplishment, and my mother often wants to know what I'm doing and why I'm away, not with her, though when I'm with her, she doesn't talk to me but watches television, with ardent attention. She doesn't know me, I don't know her, and each time she asks why I'm leaving or where I'm going, I tell her, but then she forgets. I tell her again and again, and then she says she misses and loves me, which she never said when I was young and she wasn't incontinent.

  There is an assortment of tables in the dining room of the main or big house where I have breakfast, along with the others, if they are able to wake up, without effort or by having set their alarm clock, as I have, for breakfast, often the best or only edible meal of the day. Many arrive bedraggled by sleep, talkative, or muted, and some arrive hungry, even starving, with a zest for the day ahead that overwhelms, stymies, or exhausts me, and everyone usually can find something they like to eat, if they are on time and the kitchen is still open. Sometimes there is a table for vegetarians, if their number is great and the head cook has become aggrieved by the volume or multitude of demands, including that of commingling us. But it is only at dinner that the vegetarians, when their number has swelled, are seated separately; smokers and nonsmokers had been regularly segregated, but now the smoker is simply banished, forced to smoke out of doors in the cold or heat or in a lobby that is perpetually foul-smelling so that the smokers also don't want to be in it. There are many more kinds of separations that are not as significant as those of religion, race, ethnicity, class, and these newer, odder discriminations may subtly cover more profound insensitivities, like flounces on a bad design. In all there are nine tables, unless there is a problem, and our number varies, while rumors circulate like the residents.

  Residents such as myself float from one to another, avoiding specific individuals, choosing a chair at the last minute, but others take the same position, table, and chair each meal, and if that seat is snagged by another, a new resident or a mischievous older resident, there are consequences. Some residents don't appear at breakfast, for instance, Gardner, or the Count, who is obsessed with time and antique timepieces; he never appears, as he sleeps during the day and wakes only for dinner, which serves as his breakfast. When I, nearly late this morning, rushed past the two young women into the kitchen, I didn't fail to notice that they were ensconced by themselves at a distant table near a window; that the young, clever, married man was at a table alone, reading the newspaper, which was his habit, because he doesn't want to speak to anyone during the first meal of his day, and no one dared speak to him, and that the rest of the group was settled around a third table and in various stages of eating. Everyone could have eggs for breakfast. But some wouldn't, since they refuse to eat what could become alive, an egg might become a chicken, but they could also, on different mornings, have a choice of oatmeal, fresh and canned fruit salad, dry cereal, pancakes, French toast, crepes, or whole wheat, rye and white toast with marmalade or grape jelly. There was coffee, with and without caffeine, tea, herbal and black, water, and orange juice, and, depending upon who was in charge of the kitchen, sometimes it was freshly squeezed juice, which was a treat residents appreciated, took for granted or didn't seem to notice, like the young married man, whose morning face was hidden behind a newspaper, and who, though often grumpy, liked all of the meals, adored his wife and his mother, and his occupation and obsession, ornithology. He writes prolifically about birds native to South and North America, and, while here, hopes to compile a comprehensive glossary of the local birds, particularly avid to discover rare ones, as he did in Mexico when he spotted the hard-to-see Pauraque, whose feathers and coloring match the ground to disguise it. His cheerful appetite sets him apart from many of the others, while his grumpiness, which may come from missing his home, since he receives many telephone calls from his wife and makes many to his mother, also distinguishes him. I'm not sure what I miss, I often think I miss nothing, that there is nothing to miss, and yet I'm aware that I do, since I am often missing to myself.

  My parents sent me to a sleepaway summer camp when I was six. I didn't understand where I was, I had no idea what I was doing there, like my dog, who didn't understand why she was suddenly unable to walk the city's streets without her paws hurting. I couldn't understand why I was thrust into a gray bunk, constructed of wood, somewhere in the country, sitting on a cot covered by a rough wool blanket, which tortured my sensitive skin, with seven other little girls I didn't know, who were not my brother, who, like him, didn't pay much attention to me when I was that age or any other. He disappeared when I was eight. I didn't know these strange little girls, I didn't know what strangers were, and the little girls in my gray bunk were not sensitive to me. But strangers have potential. I didn't know the two women who were our counselors, I didn't know what a counselor was, and, melancholy, I sat on the bed, observing this unfamiliar place, and miserably awaited letters from my mother who never wrote, because, she told me later, I didn't write her.

  I don't remember the food at camp, but I remember walking to the cafeteria every day, passing the infirmary whose name was frightening, where I was told a girl of eight was being kept because she was very, very sick and wasn't allowed medicine by her parents, who were Christian Scientists. She might die without the medicine her parents refused her. All summer long, every day for eight weeks, we seven little girls walked in a straggling line past the infirmary to the cafeteria to eat our meals. I was the youngest, no one else was turning six at the end of that summer, so I was five, the youngest child in camp, where another little girl was very ill and might die because her parents did not believe in medicine, though it might cure her. I disdain religion, which some sensitive people believe can heal and redeem them, but I have no faith, though I was born into one, which I abandoned, although people can't abandon and he entirely through with anything into which they were born.

  I didn't write my mother when I was away, because I didn't know what away was, I had only recently learned to print, and I didn't know I was supposed to write her since she was supposed to be with me. I also wasn't supposed to be in a gray hunk with small strangers and larger ones, counselors, who asked me to do incomprehensible things, like steal the pin from the other team in Color War. I didn't understand what Color War was, I had no idea what it was, and even though my older cousin was also in the same camp, but we were not in the same bunk, she never spoke to me about it, no one explained it. I didn't know Color War wasn't real, just as I didn't know that I wouldn't have to live in a gray bunk for the rest of my life, sent there by my parents who believed I should be there, the way the sick girl's parents believed she shouldn't take medicine and die instead.

  I was afraid of dying and had many fears, like my father, but he never appeared afraid. He and my mother visited me once during the eight weeks, a visit I hardly remember, but there were photographs of the event in one of several shopping bags kept in a closet in the house where I grew up and which I loved but that was sold by my parents against my youthful protests. The photographs were meant to be pasted neatly into albums; for all those years, my parents said they should be pasted into albums, but they weren't and still aren't, though my father is long dead and my mother is old. My parents arrived at the camp with my fathers brother, my favorite uncle, and his wife, whom he divorced shortly afterward, to visit their daughter, my older cousin, who was supposed to be looking after me, but whom I rarely saw. Ever since her father died, I have not seen her; I never saw her again after my favorite uncle's funeral. My uncle's psychiatrist told him that the chest pains he complained
of in the last week of his life were neurotic symptoms. Later, her family accused my father of not handing over all the money my uncle had in the business, owned by the two brothers. There was no other money in their textile business, none that was my uncle's, who liked to gamble, knew gangsters and fast women, and who had spent all of his own money, as well as money that was not his, since my father, incapable of denying his adored, neurotic younger brother anything, had lent him money from the business. My favorite uncle's family, only weeks after he was buried, turned against my father and treated him like a thief, but some years later, when my father was in Penn Station, his dead brother's son spotted him walking to the train, went over and offered an apology, which would never have been given if they hadn't been in Penn Station, by chance, at the same time near the same track. Penn Station may have been in the process of being destroyed then, to clear way for an ugly building that will also he temporary, and, unlike the previous building, it has nothing of beauty, grandeur, history, or maybe hope, and while the significant station, with its history, was obliterated and lost, my father and his nephew were likely oblivious to its demise, especially in that instance, when something of grave and appalling dimensions transpired between them. My father was being apologized to by his nephew, the son of his beloved brother, for something he had never done but of which he had been accused and that had caused him great distress, even despair, in the months and years following his brother's death. Without this accidental meeting, there would have been no letter or telephone call, no genuine consideration of my father who loved his brother and who was blameless in this situation, but not in all others. His brother's family, like most, believed they were right, sensitive, and caring, because of their religion and skin, and their need to feed, clothe, shelter and protect themselves.

  Textiles is an ancient craft and one of the earliest manufacturing industries, and, in America, in the 19th century and later, many of the mills were situated in the North, in New England, especially Connecticut and Massachusetts, notably the city of Lowell. Cotton was shipped from the South to Lowell and other Northern cities, but in the mid-to-late 20th century the mills began to disappear, many small manufacturers disappeared, and textiles again came from the East, where they had originally come from and where now labor was much cheaper. My father often drove his gray Buick far away or traveled by train to the mills to speak to other men, other owners, about the material he and his brother designed, whose threads they selected, whose weight they decided, which would be transported to their office by truck, many bolts, all smelling of dyes and other natural and unnatural substances. My father loved his brother.

  At breakfast, like the young married man, I would prefer not to talk, to ignore people, sit quietly, and eat my fried eggs, which are sometimes prepared over easy when I asked for medium, but I don't say anything. I would like to be still, or just quiet, and chew the eggs without a sound, because I dislike many sounds associated with eating, and sop up the toorunny part of the yolk with dark, dry wheat toast. Then I would prefer to sip my coffee and look out of the generous window and contemplate a spacious field where deer might be grazing. Seeing deer is always a happy surprise, though they usually run away, especially when you approach them, but if they feel safe and are in the distance, they might continue to eat grass or stand dumbly, with dark brown eyes, limpid and soulful as pathetic fallacies. Sometimes they leap across the field and over paths into the woods, their bushy white tails quickly disappearing into foliage, and the deer are always a welcome surprise. I have also, in that same field or near it, spied a mole, entirely unexpectedly, it was pointed out by another resident, who stood still and motioned me over to her, to witness this exceptionally rare sight. A mole has a tiny, well-articulated face, a longish snout, thick fur, like mink, that covers its small body, and it's not supposed to be walking on paths, but was lost or confused by an unseasonably mild winter, until finally it found its way back to its hole, though sometimes it scuttled around in circles. The hole was covered by earth, bits of wire, and a piece of thick, black denim, and I wondered where the moles had found it. Denim is often close to an American's skin, and once I wore it, but these days, unless pressed and unable to think of anything else, I don't, because it's heavy, and only the oldest jeans are soft and wearable, and I no longer have the pair I wore for years, which finally felt good. Many people around the world wear denim jeans, maybe because they're durable and also because they constitute a uniform, a classic, which has stood the test of time, though one day it may fail that. Denim is a stout, serviceable, twilled fabric made from coarse singles yarns. The standard denim is made with indigo blue dyed warp yarn and gray filling yarn, and denim is the most important fabric of the work clothing group, extensively used for overalls, coats, caps, but sports denim, also called faded denim, is lighter weight, made also in pastels and white and colored stripings, used for leisure wear, which is how most people wear it, though its association with work remains, since supposedly Americans play and work hard and have marketed this idea to the world. There is also upholstery and furniture denim.

  I join the conversation at breakfast, especially when it's entertaining, distracting, provocative, or annoying, and, afterwards, I might feel soiled and wish for night, the end of any long day, when nothing is expected from me and I expect nothing and can lie in bed, on top of or under the sheets, surrounded by books and magazines, and ugly brown furniture, which I didn't choose, but which has become a sort of friend, or at least harmless, though I'm aware that some people couldn't tolerate this furniture and would request or demand another room or buy themselves other furniture, rather than adjust to its design and atmosphere, since an adjustment to these objects might impugn or indict them to themselves or in the eyes of others. The man who has a sodden smell, whose source I don't want to identify, especially when eating breakfast, though I believe it's vodka, and whose skin has large pores, usually wears jeans and a T-shirt, whatever the weather, though this morning his T-shirt is wordless, the way I wish he were. Gesticulating and scowling, he demands attention every morning and begins conversations from which I leave the breakfast room sullied, smelling sour to myself the way he does to me, and longing for night, that near future, which is one I can easily imagine.

  When there are no sounds in the house where I sleep, except for the toilet flushing and the heat rising in the old pipes, I know I should apply cream to my face, but I usually don't, even though the polish woman will admonish me when I return to the cramped, dingy salon and will be disappointed in me because I have not listened to her. But I'm stubborn, my mother is stubborn, many people are, no one likes to apologize, no one likes to listen, no one wants to be wrong, yet everyone is and has been, but few people will admit they are wrong and will rarely admit their errors or their farts, in public or in private. People need to be protected from others, who may hurt them, as I need to he protected, but I don't listen to everyone, though I'm a good listener, and I'm curious, though curiosity killed the cat, my mother would say, but she had the cat killed. I listen to others more than most people, sometimes at my peril, though I hope to learn something, but often I don't or what I learn is of no consequence, though it might be to the person who spoke, yet many people tell the same stories again and again, which represent them best or are in some way significant and come to define them, but if they didn't repeat them, they wouldn't in any way define them, or matter, or be of any discernible consequence, since often it is what is not said that is of consequence. I try not to repeat myself, I attempt to be cognizant, not retell stories, I refrain often, but sometimes, when I'm bored by others' stories, I tell an old one, or if I feel I must enter the conversation, rather than withdraw from it or betray my impatience or brusqueness, my lack of concern for others, I trot out a tried but not necessarily true talc, sometimes just to entertain myself, and I don't care which it is. Many people think they are good listeners, many more than who actually listen, since someone has to be doing the talking, and most people will say they're good liste
ners before they'll say they're good talkers, though most aren't good talkers or listeners, but persons who tell stories that fill time, and many explain how they were hurt by others, because they are sensitive, but never admit they hurt others. People tell stories, often indignantly and without discrimination, including others' secrets, sometimes in minute detail, and then, later, when they have finished their orations, they admit, occasionally cross or with astonishment, that they don't understand why they went on like that. When it happens in my presence, even before those precise words are spoken, I see the formulation of the sentence and nearly say it too, but resist, guarding my tongue where words are dry and glued to the mucous membrane lining of my mouth, otherwise it would appear that I was mimicking or in some way trivializing their discovery. In this instance, as in others, I was merely being quiet, paying attention in an undivided manner, looking into their eyes, never wavering in my belief that she or he could tell me something I'd never heard before; because when a person really tells the story, the one he or she must tell, even to a stranger, and usually I am a stranger, then no matter what that story is, it is generally interesting if not illuminating or unique, though its manner of expression could be unique, and the story in some way special or different; for it must have been lived differently to have been articulated unusually or inventively, or that is my hope. On many occasions the story is dull and flat, and, like reading a bad book, since listening is similar to reading, you want to stop listening, especially if it is about a career failure or for that matter success or a monotonous love life, or the monotonous lack of a love life, or a deficient one, when the speaker is obsessed by a particular man or woman and needs to recite every pain or insult that person has inflicted, so then 1, and many others, become bored, almost outraged at the wanton disregard of themselves, the speaker's dinner companions. One night at dinner, a woman whom I had just met talked incessantly about a man she loved who had mistreated her repeatedly, and though I had just that night met her, a recent arrival who fortunately became another, quick departee, she consumed all of the dinner-table time, at which I usually hope to be drawn away from myself in an arresting manner, with ideas that quicken the mind or provide solace because they spring from mindful solitaries. Instead, she regaled me with episodes of unrelenting romantic agonies and expected instant counsel, which, to be polite, since for all I knew she night also turn out to be interested in someone other than herself, I reluctantly gave, until I couldn't, and reaching my limit, I rose from the table, after she thanked me for listening, and said, too evenly, I suppose you needed to talk. Then the stranger closed her mouth tightly, even murderously, and glared at me with the ferocity of my mad cat who had stalked and attacked me, and I was sorry not to have left the table sooner and wished I hadn't said a word, since it's often better not to say anything. The stranger metamorphosed into an insignificant enemy, when moments before she'd been revealing the most intimate parts of her life to me, also a stranger, but one she needed to listen to her. I wondered at her sanity. I wondered about the man she loved, whose every sentence to do with her she could recite, with his inflections, and whose every touch still scalded her like a hot stove, those were her words, and into whose hands she was only too happy to offer her febrile body, but he might have been the victim of her murderous glances, too, often enough that he needed to escape her as much as I did my deranged cat. I was also insensitive to her.