Well, it seemed to the man it must have had.
One wanted a radiance either to ignite the ceiling or, otherwise, set fire to the floor.
Make much of what was above.
Make no less of that below.
You choose.
They chose.
Or, rather to say, one of them chose and the other, in a word, unchose. Oh, and speaking of which, never a word was spoken on this score. Sentiments inspiring the impasse dividing him from her and her from him never acquired the status of speech.
Mm, the aphonia of matrimony.
Compromise between the combatants was as impossible as was acknowledgment that each was pledged to oppose the other in a style of disputation unique in the common experience. Any reference to their differences not carried out in silence, would it not prove — talk, talk — the reigning feature in the loser's defeat? Well, there was no backing down, and the man never backed down. Not that the woman ever did, either — there looking him now full in the face, her furious countenance singling out the father of her children as with all his might the man pushed the pillow from the bed so that, in the morning, he would not have to come fighting his way up from the waters of the night with what was left of him — his neck, Christ, the neck — more punished than he deserved.
Wait again, wait!
Was there to be this remembrance of the grandmother and none of the grandfather? Among all these damn pictures, was there honor being paid to the woman and none, by thunder, to the man!
He got to his feet.
It made him dizzy for him to do it.
And his knees, Jesus!
The pill — good, good — soon, soon — another minute or so and he will have searched the room and determined the worst and then come back to this device to be just in time for the blessing of good old-fashioned oblivion.
Nothing, he found nothing, not a hint of himself was there anywhere to be found, not even in settings where a family grouping constituted the topic to be developed within the frame.
Where was he?
Was the man nowhere at all?
He staggered from footing to footing, very nearly falling into things a time or two, before finding — the thing exhibited well back on a tabletop so that evidence of the man's existence might have very nearly persisted in keeping itself hidden from all — before coming across the boy sitting astride the door-to-door photographer's droopy-looking, ruined-looking, condemned-looking pony, naked leg, pale anklet, toe of the dark shoe visible from within the enormous-looking stirrup it was, on this side of the animal, possible for the observer to see.
Oh, what a child!
The child smiled genuinely, genuinely, wonderfully, wonderfully, and the man, feeling himself summoned as all the day long he had not once been, smiled with all his heart right back.
Genuinely, genuinely, except, one supposes, not so wonderfully, wonderfully, the man smiling back at himself.
But all right, then!
Then here he was, then, wasn't he!
Wasn't this, then, he, him, the boy who was the man?
The man tried sliding his feet along the floor in order that he might get himself safely home to bed — and there to narratives his nature would hasten to confect for him once the sedative had delivered him all to sleep.
To dreams.
Well, in one there was the woman.
She shrieked at him and shrieked, "Yes, yes, but which way, which? Can't you tell me which?"
In another there was the woman.
But it was not the woman who kept screaming in it at him, "Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo, thief! — the uses you make of everything and of all the different things!"
Then there was the dream without people.
It was made all of words.
The thing to do in it was to contrive irritating alliterations — yet there was no agency in it doing it.
No woman, no man.
Deficit notwithstanding — no, despite the deficit! — the work was done indeed.
THE POSITIONS FORGET YOUR DRUGGING
Forget your fucking.
Forget your fancy foods and your ham and eggs and your bacon and eggs and your, you know, your eggs with sausages with on the side your home fries on the side and it's when the eggs are fried and they're fried in the style of frying which is referred to as your eggs fried eggs over easy and they're dished up to you, the eggs are dished up to you with this whole extra treat of extra bacon on the plate and on a plate next to the plate there's these slices of toast buttered with butter on the plate and there's also on the side a milk shake on the side or, okay, let's not say there's a milk shake on the side but just a glass of just milk on the side and the milk's made up of the creamy part of the milk which got itself poured off from the neck of the bottle before anybody could get to the neck of the bottle before it was you who you got to the neck of the bottle and got it all poured off-the creamy part — all for yourself. So go ahead and forget all that.
So are you listening?
Because I am telling you what the best thing in my life has been to me. You want to know what the best thing in my life has been to me? Because I am telling you, because I am going to tell you what the best thing in my life has been to me.
But before I go ahead and tell you, guess what.
Because no, because what it has not been to me is, no, it has not been fucking to me and it has not been drugs to me and it has not been going to the movies or been eating franks or been eating franks with sauerkraut on them or with the mustard they used to give you for you to put on the plate next to the franks or for you to put between the franks and beans back when I was a kid.
Nor been having kids.
Nor been playing with the kids I had.
Nor with the kids which anybody had.
Plus neither shortstop nor pitcher.
It's not been playing the positions of either of them when I played the positions of either of shortstop or of pitcher and was always eating my eggs and franks as described.
Or when you got good wood on the ball.
It's not been when you got good wood on the ball.
Nor been looking like you were coming close to getting any kind of wood on the ball when it was your mother and your father who were there for them to see you looking like it. No, not been when your mother and father were there when it would have looked to anybody like you were getting all set for you to get some good wood on the ball — or get any kind of quality of anything on anything and then of them seeing you look like you were doing it, or were going to do it, or did it, just did.
Because I said, because I am saying forget all that, forget all of these things like things like that. Such as please go ahead and forget things like me reading things or like me sitting in the chair I used to squunch all around in for me to sit in the chair and read things in it the best way anybody could sit in that chair and read things in it or sit in any other chair for me to sit and read anything in it.
Or things like me fucking in a chair.
Forget things like me fucking in a chair.
Like me sitting fucking Helen in the chair which, you know, which, okay, which Helen had.
Like sitting fucking Helen in the chair with us the both of us sitting facing the mirror facing the chair that Helen, which Helen had.
Or even fucking Helen's sister like this.
With Helen facing Helen's sister and me and with me fucking Helen's sister like this.
Well, with the mirror facing all of us sitting and fucking and looking and facing the mirror like this.
And it was everything to me, everything.
But even if it was everything to me, was it the best thing of all of the everythings in my life to me?
Because it wasn't, it wasn't.
Or weren't you paying attention when I said none of these things were any of them anywhere close to their being the best thing in my life to me?