In Which We Would Have Saved Them If We Could

from Journal

by LEONARD MICHAELS

Jimmy sits at his typewriter high on cocaine, smiling, shaking his head. He says, "I'm so good I don't even have to write." He's six foot three and charcoal brown, the color of a Burmese cat. His chest is high and wide. From neck to belt he is a hard, flat wall. No hips. Apple ass. Long legs. Long hands and feet. He looks as good in clothes as he looks naked. In two senses, clothes become his body. A woman said he is so clearly a man he could wear a dress. He sits at his typewriter, smiling, shaking his head, his long beautiful hands turned up, lying open and loose in his lap. There is nothing wrong with him. He doesn't even have to write.

Boris tells me he really loves Y and he REALLY wants to fuck X. Montaigne says there is more wildness in thinking than in lust.

I tell Boris my grief. He says, "I know I'm supposed to have a human response, but I'm hungry."

Kafka imagines a man who has a hole in the back of his head. The sun shines into this hole. the man himself is denied a glimpse of it. Kafka might as well be talking about the man's face. Others "look into it." The most public, promiscuous part of his body is invisible to himself. How obvious. Still, it takes a genius to say that the face, the thing that kisses, sneezes, whistles, and moans is a hole mor eprivate than our privates. You retreat from this dreadful hole into quotidian blindness, the blindness of your face to itself. You want to light a cigarette or fix yourself a drink. You want to make a phone call. To whom? You don't know. Of course you don't. You want to phone your face. The one you've never met. Who you are.

In the American South, it's said of a medical student, "He is going to make a doctor." For writers there is no comparable expression, no diploma, no conclusive evidence that anything real has been made of himself or herself.

I phoned Boris. He's sick. He gets tired quickly, can't think, can't work. I asked if he'd like to take a walk in the sun. He cries, "It's a nice day out there. I know it, believe me."

Feelings come for no reason. I'm tyrannized by them. I see in terms of them until they go away. Also for no reason.

They say "Hi" and kiss my cheek as if nothing terrible happened yesterday. Perhaps they have no memory of anything besides money or sex, so they harbor no grudges and live only for action. "What's up?" Just pleasure, distraction from anxiety and boredom. Impossible to sustain conversation with them for more than forty seconds. The attention span of dogs. Everything must be up. They say you look great when you look near death. They laugh at jokes you didn't make. They say you're brilliant when you're confused and stupid.

Henry comes to my office. "Free for lunch?" I jump up and say, "Give me a minute." He glances at his watch. I run to the men's room, start pissing, want to hurry. The door opens. It's Henry. Also wants to piss. He begins. I finish. Seconds go by and then a whole minute as he pisses with the force of a horse. He would have gone to lunch with me, carrying that pressure.

Self-pity is a corrupt version of honesty.

Boris asks my opinion of a certain movie that has been highly praised. I know it isn't any good, but I'm unwilling to say so. He'll ask why I think it isn't any good. I'd have to tell him, which would mean telling him about myself, becoming another object of endless, skeptical examination. I prefer to disappoint him immediately and not wait for the negative judgment, the disapproval and rejection, like one of his women who never know, from day to day, whether they are adored or despised. I confess, finally, that I disliked the movie, but I understand why many others loved it. The woman I live with has seen it several times. He laughs. He approves. I feel a rush of anxiety, as though I've said too much. I'll be haunted later by my remark, wondering what I told him inadvertently.

The pain you inflict merely trying to get through the day. Pavese talks about this great problem. He had a woman in mind. Pavese does his work he kills her...Pavese reads a newspaper he kills her...Pavese makes an appointment to see an old friend...Finally, he killed himself. Sartre says to kill another is to kill yourself. He spent hours in coffee shops and bars. He liked to carry money in his pocket, lots of money. He compared it to his glasses and cigarette lighter. So many companions. He'd never have killed himself.

Women are tough. They know what they want. Men know more or less what they need, which is only what they like, not even what they need. King Lear wails, "But, for true need..." then can't define it. That's a real man.

Boris said that his first wife was a virgin. She came the first time they had sex. Worse, he says, she came every time after that. He watches my eyes to see if I understand why he had to divorce her.

The secretary said a long goodbye. A minscule flake of mucus, like a fish scale, trembled in her right nostril. Her face shone with cosmetic oils, as in feverish sweating. I thought she loved me, and I was reluctant to meet her eyes. I could have kissed her, perhaps changed her life, made her a great pianist, or poet, or tennis star, kissing her every day.

I phoned my mother. She said, "You sound happy. What's the matter?"

Leonard Michaels is the senior contributor to This Recording. He died in 2003.

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