Posted by NL on March 10, 2008 at 12:20:15:
The Civil War-- Part 3
Norville only regreted that he had no balm of yellow sulfur, lard, and gunpowder with him, since that concoction, based on what his granddad had told him years ago on that creek bank, greatly expedited one's groping in the Ganglion. He would smear the smelly stuff all over his hands. In fact, he ought to have taken some to the party! If he'd daubed even the tiniest bit on Miss Soup's slender neck, it would be that much easier to locate the girl and work his wicked will upon her. For that matter, he could have daubed a tiny bit on his boss, old Mr. Krecker! Then he could have perhaps murdered Mr. Krecker. That would get the bastard off of Miss Soup, at least. Then Norville could have a turn at her and strangle her so hard her head might even swell up and explode, like his late and much lamented inflatable doll. All these things Norville thought as he swirled back into the abyss where dwelt the Mysterious Sympathetic Ganglion. Any one of the drunks still circulating in Mr. Krecker's grotesque imitation of a rich playboy's pad would have thought that Norville passed out...
Norville could actually see, a little, in a tiny illuminated zone right in front of his face. What he saw resembled a mass of soggy toilet paper, like something a plumber might fish out of a septic tank, and it was pulsating. Tentatively, he reached into the mass. Dry lentils slipped through his fingers. Good lentils! Whenever he was sick, or hungry, or hungry and sick, he filled his old coffee pot with hot tap water, poured in a cup of honest lentils, and set them to boil furiously. Good food, at honest prices! Lentils! The kind of food that made good use of the land's few resources; not like sinful beef or, god forbid, pork. The most beautiful thing about a lentil, apart from the fact that they were all shaped like flying saucers, was that the lentil actually aged. He'd eaten lentils that were many years old, having been in storage in some obscure nook of his cupboard, and though they were sour when he cooked them, and though he had to cook them for several days before they were tender, and though they ultimately gave him explosive shits composed of amazingly resistent rock-like fecal lumps propelled by supersonic gusts of intestinal gas, still, he pronounced them good. GOOD! Sour, yes, foul, yes but also earthy and rich after many hours of boiling in saltwater. It was almost worth it, to double over in dire pain with a distended gut, and then to blast fecal projectiles through the sheetrock walls of his tiny apartment, to be able to eat something so ultimately and purely GOOD. Ahhhhh. Never clutter the humble lentil with onions or any herb or any spice other than pure and honest salt. Never defile the creatures! He was sure he would live for a thousand years, or even four thousand years, on such a diet! On such a diet he would become like the old man he saw once, eating a bowl of lentils in front of his kitchen window, hunched over a spotless white table cloth. He spied on the old man, when he was young. The old man fascinated him! He peered at the old man through the odd, low, window in the man's kitchen. He had strange thoughts about the old man. He thought he might someday bring his .22 to the old man's house, and shoot him. Yes, he would put a small bullet in the old man's brain while the gentleman slurped up his soup. But then, suddenly, the old man squinched up his face, looking directly at the window, and one of the man's eyes bulged and bulged until it popped out, wobbling at the end of a thick stalk of ruddy flesh. It wobbled and regarded him with an aspect of metaphysical hatred. The memory brought chuckles. Such a pup! Such a whelp! He'd run all the way home, sobbing, remembering all the warnings: Don't you peep in at windows! You will see something evil! Sure enough, he did.
I am Irving Dingblatt, he thought, and I have looked upon the world's evils. But then he thought: I lie! I won't tell you my name! Why did you bring me here? All day I lie awake, and then at night I hear the wind and the rain, the trees like monsters go scratch scratch at my roof, because they want in! First, I was going to learn how they think and spell because I wanted to fit in. For I am a man with no country and no language. Then I threw the book away. Fuck them! When it hit the wall I heard the vermin scuffle and I was sorry to bother them. They have to live too. They have to live like the rest of us. Then, then, I was going to make a cup of tea, and I got out of bed, quietly, because the springs creak and I must not give the neighbors ideas. There's a hot plate on a wooden stand, a little sauce pan that's been mine since the world was born, and a coffee pot full of dried lentils. I must clean it someday. I bless my wash stand and my cold water. First I must clean my saucepan. I musn't let it bump on the sink because it gives people ideas. I want to hold it under the running water and scrub it with my hands, and scrape out the corruption with my fingernails, taking care not to making screeeking noises because it gives people ideas. They must not be allowed to have ideas about me! And skreeeking noises would give them the worst possible ideas! This will take an hour, maybe two.
Irving Dingblatt sighed. All that was yesterday! All that was yesterday made him sad. But he hoped things would be better. He had a little wooden stand with a drawer in the bottom. Under the drawer was a little space where he kept his shoes. He took his drinking cup out of the drawer and rinsed it under running water, scrubbing it with his hands and scraping it with his fingernails, but carefully, carefully, lest he be overheard, lest his neighbors get ideas. The he took a teabag out of the box where he kept his tea and put the bag in his cup, letting the little string hang over the side of the cup. So far so good. He breathed deeply. He concentrated so much, sometimes he forgot to take a breath. But if he breathed too deeply he would be panting. If someone heard him panting, god knows what they would think of him! They would think he sinned! He thought he would sit and wait while water boiled for tea. He thought he would pick up his book of grammer, the grammer of the language everyone spoke except him. But just then they kicked down his door. Yes, they stormed in and took him under his arms and he failed to understand anything they were saying except that clearly he was being arrested at last. Someone, despite his best efforts, had heard him, and had gotten ideas. While two uniformed men took him outside, two more kicked over his stand with the hotplate, stamped upon his saucepan and coffee pot, kicked his book of grammer under the bed and spat on the bed. Outside, there was a single gunshot, and a great deal of laughter.