It seemed pretty cut and dried, so I signed everything. There's not much to signing things.
The rest of my mail wasn't mail at all. That is, it was wrapped up, but it was from Ralph and there wasn't any postage. A get-well gift? A joke? A vicious symbol?
It was a kind of diploma.
ORDER OF THE GOLDEN PRICK
Greetings! Be It Known By These Present
That
FRED BOGUS TRUMPER
Having Demonstrated Exceptional Bravery, Valor, Gallantry And Phallic Phortitude, Through Having Dauntlessly Endured The Surgical Correction Of His Membrum Virile, And Having Successfully Survived A Fearsome Urethrectomy With Not Less Than Five [5] Sutures, Is Hereby Recognized As A Full Knight
In the Brotherhood Of The Order Of The
Golden Prick
And Is Entitled To All Privileges And Braggartry
Pertaining
Thereto.
It was actually signed, too, by Jean Claude Vigneron, Attending Surgeon, and by Ralph Packer, Chief Scribe & Prick. But where, I wondered, was the signature of Tulpen, Chief Mistress of Interest?
Trumper was still batty and paranoid when Vigneron came to release him.
'Well, it went very well,' Vigneron said. 'And you don't have too much pain urinating?'
'I'm just fine,' said Trumper.
'You should be careful not to catch the stitches on your underwear or bedclothes,' Vigneron said. 'In fact, you'll probably be most comfortable the next few days if you stay home and don't wear any clothes.'
'Just as I thought,' Trumper said.
'The stitches will fall out by themselves, but I'll want to see you in a week, just to make sure you're all right.'
'Any reason to suspect I won't be all right?'
'Of course not,' Vigneron said. 'But it's customary, after surgery, to have a checkup.'
'I may not be here,' Trumper told him.
Vigneron seemed bothered by his aloofness. 'Are you all right?' he asked. 'I mean, do you feel OK?'
'Just fine,' Trumper said. Conscious that he was making Vigneron uneasy, he tried to make amends. 'I've never felt better,' he lied. 'I'm a new man. I'm not the old prick I was.'
'Well,' Vigneron said, 'I'm not really in a position to vouch for that.'
Vigneron was right, of course; Vigneron was always right. It was most uncomfortable to wear any clothes.
Trumper eased himself into his underwear, a greased gauze pad stuck to the end of his penis. This kept the stitches from tangling in the weave of his clothes; they tangled in the gauze pad instead. Walking was a gingerly accomplished feat. He plucked the crotch of his pants away from himself and ambled bow-legged, like a man with live coals in the pouch of his jockstrap. People stared at him.
He took his mail and the odd gift from Ralph. On the subway he stared at an austere and formal couple who looked as if they had meant to take a cab. Would you like to see my diploma? he thought.
But when he reached the Village, nobody paid any attention to him. People down there were always walking in strange ways, and he looked no more odd than half the people he saw.
As he fumbled for his key on the landing outside Tulpen's door, he heard the splashy squeegee-sounds of Tulpen in the bathtub. She was talking to someone, and he froze.
'It's a very simplistic whitewash,' she was saying, 'to attempt to cover very deep and complicated people and things with very easy generalizations, superficialities - you know. But I think it's just as simplistic to assume that everyone is complex and deep. I mean, I think Trumper really does operate on the surface ... Maybe he is a surface, just a surface ...' She trailed off, and Trumper heard her sliding in the bathtub and saying, 'Come on, let's call it a night.'
He turned away from her door, hobbled down the landing to the elevator, out and on to the moving street, Let's call it a night, he thought.
If he'd waited, he would have heard the scene cut and finished, heard Ralph bawling out Kent and Tulpen asking them to leave.
But I went straight to the Christopher Street studio and let myself in through Ralph's elaborate devices and sequence of locks. I knew what I was looking for; I had some things I wanted to say.
I found the cut strips of what Ralph called 'fatty tissue'. These were bits of overlong footage, or scenes considered weak in some way. Tulpen had them hanging in the dust closet of her editing room.
I didn't want to destroy anything valuable; I wanted to use footage I knew was second-rate. I looked through a lot of stuff. The parts with me and Colm and Tulpen on the subway were interesting. Also, there was a long shot of me, alone, coming out of a pet shop in the Village with a fishbowl sloshing under each arm - presents for Tulpen, one day when I was in the mood. The pet-shop proprietor, who comes to the doorway to wave goodbye to me, looks like a German shepherd in a Hawaiian sport shirt. He continues to wave long after I've left the frame.
I did a little rough splicing; I knew that I didn't have much time, and I wanted to do a good job of laying the sound strip over the footage.
My cock hurt so much that I took off my pants and underwear and walked around bare-ass, being careful to avoid the edges of tables and the backs of chairs. Then I took my shirt off, too, because it brushed against me, especially when I sat down. So then I was naked except for my socks. The floor was cold.
It was getting light out when I finished; I moved the projector into its place in the viewing room and dropped the screen down so that they'd know right away that something had been set up for them. Then I ran through the footage once, just to check.
It was a short reel. I marked the can with adhesive tape; THE END OF THE MOVIE, it said. Then I rethreaded the projector, advanced the film to just the right place, and adjusted the focal length; all they had to do was switch on, and this is what they would see:
Bogus Trumper with his son, Colm, riding on a subway. The pretty girl with the nice breasts, the one who can make Colm laugh and Trumper touch her, is Tulpen. They are sharing a secret, but there's no sound. Then my voice-over says, 'Tulpen, I am sorry. But I do not want a child.'
CUT.
Bogus Trumper is leaving the pet shop, the fishbowls under his arms, and the German shepherd in a Hawaiian sport shirt waves goodbye to him. Trumper never looks back, but his voice-over says, 'Goodbye, Ralph. I don't want to be in your movie any more.'
It was a pretty short reel, and I remember thinking that they could probably stay awake through it.
I was looking around for my clothes when Kent let himself into the studio. A girl was with him; Kent was always bringing girls into the studio when he was sure we weren't going to be there. That way, he could show them around as if he owned the place, or was responsible for all that machinery in some grand way.
He was pretty surprised to see me, all right. He noticed I was wearing green socks. And I don't think Kent's girl ever knew that a person's pecker could look like mine. 'Hello, Kent,' I said. 'Have you seen my clothes?'
They discussed the operation while Kent tried to reassure his girl and Trumper agonizingly put on his gauze pad and underwear. Then Bogus told Kent that under no circumstances was he to preview the little reel that lay in wait on the projector; it was meant for Ralph and Tulpen to watch together, and would Kent be so kind, please, as not to touch anything until they were all there to watch it together.
Kent read the adhesive tape on the reel can. 'The end of the movie?' he asked.
'You bet your ass, Kent,' Trumper said. Then he walked out holding his crotch out in front of himself.
He might have waited. If he had, Kent might have told him about the bathtub scene they'd shot. If he'd waited longer, he might have noticed that Ralph and Tulpen didn't come to the studio together, or even from the same direction.
But he didn't wait. Later he thought about how he had this infuriating habit of leaving too soon. Later, after Tulpen had straightened him out about her non-relationship with Ralph, he had been forced to confess that he'd never even had a good reason for leaving at al
l. In fact, Tulpen pointed out, he had simply made up his mind to go some time before, and that anyone looking for excuses to leave can always find them. He didn't argue.
But now, with his raw new prick, he let a little of the morning pass, then went to Tulpen's apartment when he was sure that she'd be at the studio. There he picked up some of his things, and a few things that weren't his; he stole a cereal bowl and a bright orange fish for Colm.
It was a long bus ride to Maine. The pit-stops were endless, and in Massachusetts it was discovered that a man in the rear of the bus had died; a sort of quiet heart attack, the other passengers assumed. The man had meant to get off in Providence, Rhode Island.
Everyone seemed afraid to touch the dead man, so Bogus volunteered to lug him off the bus, though it nearly cost him his prick. Perhaps all the others were afraid of catching something, but Bogus was more appalled at the fact that the man was unknown to everyone around him. The driver looked in the man's wallet and discovered that he lived in Providence. The general reaction was that it was more bothersome to have missed your stop than to have died.
In New Hampshire Trumper felt compelled to introduce himself to someone and struck up a conversation with a grandmother who was on her way home from a visit with her daughter and son-in-law. 'I guess I just can't understand the way they live,' she told Bogus. She didn't elaborate, and he told her not to worry.
He showed her the fish he was bringing to Colm. He'd refilled the cereal bowl with fresh water at every pit-stop along the way. At least the fish was going to make it. Then he fell asleep and the bus driver had to wake him up.
'We're in Bath,' the driver told him, but Trumper knew he was in limbo. What's worse, he thought, I've been here before.
What had made this leaving different from the first leaving was not necessarily a sign of health. That is, it was easier this time, and yet he hadn't really wanted to go. All he knew was that he had never finished anything, and he felt a need, almost as basic as survival, to find something he could finish.
Which made him remember Dr Wolfram Holster's letter, flushed down a hospital toilet with a bloody pee, and that was when he decided to finish Akthelt and Gunnel.
Somehow the decision was uplifting, but he was aware that it was a queer thing to feel positive about. It was as if a man, whose family had for years assailed him about finding something to do, had sat down one night to read a book, only to be interrupted by a disturbance in the kitchen. It was just his family, laughing about something, but the man flung himself upon them, throwing chairs, punches and vile language until they all lay bruised and cringing under the kitchen table. Then the man turned to his horrified wife and said to her encouragingly, 'I'm going to finish reading this book now.'
One mauled member of his family might have dared to whisper, 'Big deal.'
Still, the decision was enough to give Trumper a sort of frail courage. He dared to call up Couth and Biggie and ask if one of them would pick him up at the bus station.
Colm answered the phone, and the pain when Trumper heard his voice seemed greater than if he'd tried to pass a peach pit through his sutured prick. But he was able to say, 'I have something for you, Colm.'
'Another fish?' Colm asked.
'A live one,' Trumper said, and looked at it again to make sure. It was doing fine, it was probably seasick from the sloshing in the cereal bowl, and it certainly looked small and delicate, but it was still swimming around, by Christ.
'Colm?' Trumper said. 'Let me speak to Couth or Mommy. Someone's got to come get me at the bus station.'
'Did the lady come with you?' Colm asked. 'What's her name?'
'Tulpen,' Trumper said, passing another peach pit through his prick.
'Oh, yeah, Tulpen!' Colm said. He obviously liked her a lot.
'No, she didn't come with me,' Trumper told him. 'Not this time.'
34
Into a Life of Art: Prelude to a Tank on
the Bottom of the Danube
YOU ASSHOLE, MERRILL! You were always hanging around American Express, waiting for lost little girls. I guess you found one, and she lost you, Merrill.
Arnold Mulcahy told me it happened in the fall. A restless time, eh, Merrill? That old feeling of needing to find someone to spend the winter with.
I know how it must have been; I was familiar with your American Express approach. I'll hand it to you, Merrill; you could cultivate a marvelous look. It was the former fighter-pilot look; the ex-Grand Prix racer who'd lost his nerve, and perhaps his wife too; the former novelist with a writer's block; the ex-painter, out of oil. I never knew what it was you really were. The unemployed actor? But you had a great look; you had the aura of an ex-hero, a former somebody. Biggie said it right: women liked to think they could bring you back to life.
I remember the tour buses from Italy unloading in front of American Express, and the collection of sneering onlookers watching the clothes, imagining the money. A mixed group would leave the bus. Older ladies, unselfconsciously speaking English, expecting to be taken advantage of, wise enough not to mind looking foreign and perhaps stupid. Then a younger crowd - embarrassed even by being associated with such a crowd. They would try to set themselves apart and to look fluent in four languages. They wore a cool disdain for their fellow tourists, their cameras inconspicuous, their luggage not excessive. You would always pick the prettiest one of these, Merrill. This time her name was Polly Crenner.
I can visualize it. The girl at the information counter, perhaps with a copy of Europe on $5 a Day, reading through a furnished list of the pensions she can afford. You would come up to the counter briskly and speak a rapid German to the information man - some pointless question, like asking if anyone's left a message for you. But the German would impress Polly Crenner; she'd at least look at you, then turn away when you glanced at her and pretend to be reading something interesting.
Then, casually, you would say in English - the language making her aware that you and nobody else can tell she's American - 'Try the Pension Dobler. A nice spot, on Plankengasse. Or the Weisses Huf, on Engelstrasse; the woman there speaks English. You can walk to them both. Do you have much luggage?'
Reading this as a pickup, she would only indicate her luggage with a nod; then she'd wait, ready to refuse your gentlemanly offer to carry her bags for her.
But you never offered, did you, Merrill? You'd have said, 'Oh, that's not much to carry,' and thanked the information man in your polished German when he returned to tell you there were no messages for you. 'Auf Wiedersehen,' you'd say, and then walk out - if she'd let you get away. Polly Crenner must not have let you go, Merrill.
What then? Your usual comic tour of Old Vienna? 'What's your interest, Polly? The Roman or the Nazi period?'
And some of your invented history, Merrill? 'You see that window, the third one from the corner, fourth floor up?'
'Yes.'
'Well, that's where he hid when they were all looking for him.'
'Who?'
'The great Weber.'
'Oh ...'
'Every night he'd cross this square. Friends left food for him in this fountain.'
And Polly Crenner would feel the old suspense and romance settle on her like dust from the Holy Land. The great Weber! Who was he?
'The assassin took a room in the opposite building - just there.'
'The assassin?'
'Dietrich, the miserable bastard.' And you'd glare at the assassin's window, Merrill, like a raging poet. 'It cost just one bullet, and all Europe felt the loss.'
Polly Crenner would stare at the fountain where food for the great Weber had been stashed. But who was the great Weber?
The dull old city glowing like a live coal all around her, Polly Crenner would ask, 'What are you doing in Vienna?' And which mystery would you have used on her, Merrill?
'For the music, Polly. I used to play, before ...'
Or, more enigmatically, 'Well, Polly, I had to get away ...'
Or, more daringly, 'When my wife died,
I wanted nothing more to do with the opera. But somehow I haven't been able to break completely clean ...'
Then what, Merrill? Perhaps your Erotic Art Tour (EAT, INC.)? And if the weather was nice, surely you would have taken Polly Crenner to the Zoo. A heavy walk through the Schonbrunn Gardens. You used to tell me, Merrill, that the animals inspired sexual notions. A sip of wine on the terrace, watching the giraffes rub necks? Then into the tried-and-true patter: 'Of course, this was all bombed ...'
'The zoo?'
'In the war, yes ...'
'How awful for the animals!'
'Oh, no. Most of them were eaten before the bombing.'
'People ate them?'
'Hungry people, yes ...' Here you would look worldly-sad as you reflectively extended a peanut to an elephant. 'Well, it's natural, isn't it?' you'd ask Polly Crenner. 'When we were hungry, we ate them. Now we feed them ...' I imagine, Merrill, that you would have made that sound profound.
And then?
Maybe there was urgent mail you were waiting for, and would Polly mind stopping by your apartment for a minute so that you could check? Doubtless she didn't mind.
Somewhere along here there would be talk of swimming while the nights were still warm - which would prompt that nice awkwardness of having to go to your place so you could put on your bathing suit, and having to go to her place so she could slip into hers. Oh, you were smooth, Merrill.
But you blew it! You just had to bring up that one about the tank in the Danube, didn't you? True or not, you had to mention the story.
'Die Blutige Donau,' you would say. 'The Bloody Danube. Have you read it?'
'It's a book?'
'Yes, by Goldschmied. But of course it hasn't been translated.'
Then you would drive her out past the Prater.
'What do you call this car?'
'A Zorn-Witwer, 'fifty-four. Quite rare.'
Crossing the old canal, you'd pour on the chilly mystique of Goldschmied's prolific river history. 'How many men at the bottom of the Danube? How many spears and shields and horses, how much iron and steel and debris of thousands of years of war? "Read the river!" writes Goldschmied. "That's your history. Read the river!"'