Brief Interviews With Hideous Men: Stories by David Foster Wallace

  [FATHER’s weak pantomime of striking own chest]

  —in punishment of my wish, ashamed, such was my own thrall to him. He merely staring up slackly at my self-abuse with that red wet lip hanging wetly, rancid froth, lazar-like crust, chin’s spittle, chest’s unguent’s menthol reek, a creamy little gout of snot protruding, that blank eye sputtering like a bad bulb—put it out! put it out!

  [PAUSE for technician’s removal, cleaning, reinsertion of O2 feed into FATHER’s nostril]

  THE FATHER: That cramped on that fin and dabbing tender at his forehead and wiping away some of the chin’s sputum and sitting gazing at it on the handkerchief, trying to—and—yes at the pillow, looking at the pillow, gazing at and thought of it, how quickly it—how few movements required not just to wish but to will it, to impose my own will as he so blithely always did, lying there pretending to be too feverish to see my—but it was, it was pathetic, not even—I was thinking of my weight on the pillow as a man in arrears thinks of sudden fortune, sweepstakes, inheritance. Wishful thinking. I believed then that I was struggling with my will, but it was mere fantasy. Not will. Aquinas’s velleity. I lacked whatever it seems to take to be able to—or perhaps I failed to lack what must be lacking, yes? I could not have. Wishing it but not—both decency and weakness perhaps. Te judice, Father, yes? I know I was weak. But listen: I did wish it. That is no confession but just the truth. I did wish it. I did despise him. I did miss her and mourn. I did resent—I failed to see why his weakness should permit him to win. It was insane, made no sense—on the basis of what merit or capacity should he win? And she never knew. This was the worst, his lèse majesté, unforgivable: the chasm he opened between her and I. My unending pretense. My fear that she’d think me a monster, deficient. I pretended to love him as she did. This I confess. I subjected her to a—the last twenty-nine years of our life together were a lie. My lie. She never knew. I could pretend with the best of them. No adulterer was more careful a dissembler than I. I would help her off with her wrap and take the small sack from the druggist’s and whisper my earnest little report on the state of his breathing and temperature throughout her absence, she listening but looking past me, at him, not noting how perfectly my expression’s concern matched her own. I modeled my face on hers; she taught me to pretend. It never even occurred to her. Can you understand what this did to me? That she never for a moment doubted I felt the same, that I ceded myself as—that I too was under the sucking thing’s spell?

  [PAUSE for episode of severe dyspnea; R.N.’s application of tracheobronchial suction catheter]

  THE FATHER: That she never thenceforth knew me? That my wife had ceased to know me? That I let her go and pretended to join her? Might I hope that anyone could imagine the—

  [PAUSE for episode of ocular bobbing; technician’s flush/evacuation of ophthalmorrhagic residue; change of ocular bandage]

  THE FATHER: That we would make love and afterward lie curled together in our special position preparing to sleep and she’d not be still, whispering on and on about him, every conceivable ephemera about him, worries and wishes, a mother’s prattle—and took my silence for agreement. The chasm’s essence was that she believed there was no chasm. Our bed’s width grew day by day and she never—not once occurred to her. That I saw through and loathed him. That I not merely failed to share her bewitchment but was appalled by it. It was my fault, not hers. I tell you this: he was the only secret I had from her. She was the very sun in my sky. The loneliness of the secret was an agony past—oh I loved her so. My feelings for her never wavered. I loved her from the first. We were meant to be together. Joined, united. I knew it the moment—saw her there on the arm of that Bowdoin twit in his fur collar. Holding her pennant as one would a parasol. That I loved her on the spot. I had a bit of an accent then; she twitted me for it. She would impersonate me when I was cross—only your life’s one love could do this—the anger would vanish. The way she affected me. She followed American football and had a son who could not play and then later when he mysteriously ceased being sickly and grew sleek and vigorous would not play. She went instead to watch him swim. The nauseous diminutives, Wuggums, Tigerbear. He swam in public school. The stink of cheap bleach in the venues, barely breathe. Did she miss even one event? When did she stop following it, the football on the misaligned Zenith we would watch together—hold it still, the—making love and lying curled like twins in the womb, saying everything. I could tell her anything. When did that all go then. Just when did he take it from us. Why can’t I remember. I remember the day we met as if it were yesterday but I’m bollixed if I can remember yesterday. Pathetic, disgusting. They do not care but if they knew what it—felt to hurt to bloody breathe. Enwebbed in tubes. Bastards, bleeding out every—yes I saw her and she me, the demurely held pennant I was new over and could not parse—our eyes met, all the clichés came instantly true—I knew she was the one to have all of me. A spotlight followed her across the lawn. I simply knew. Father, this was the acme of my life. Watching—that ‘she was the girl for all of me/my unworthy life for thee’ [melody unfamiliar, discordant]. To stand before Church and man and pledge it. To unwrap one another like gifts from God. Conversation’s lifetime. If you could have seen her on our wedding—no of course not, that look as she—for me alone. To love at such depth. No better feeling in all creation. She would cock her head just so when amused. So much used to amuse her. We laughed at everything. We were our secret. She chose me. One another. I told her things I had not told my own brother. We belonged to one another. I felt chosen. Who chose him, pray? Who gave informed consent to everything hitherto’s loss? I despised him for forcing me to hide the fact that I despised him. The common run is one thing, with their judgments, the demand to see you dandle and coo and toss the ball. But her? That I must wear this mask for her? Sounds monstrous but it’s true: his fault. I simply couldn’t. Tell her. That I—that he was in truth loathsome. That I so bitterly regretted letting her conceive. That she did not truly see him. To trust me, that she was under a spell, lost to herself. That she must come back. That I missed her so. None. And not for my sake, believe—she could not have borne it. It would have destroyed her. She’d have been destroyed, and on his account. He did this. Twisted everything his own way. Bewitched her. Fear that she’d—‘Poor dear defenseless Wuggums your father has a monstrous uncaring inhuman side to him I never saw but we see it now don’t we but we don’t need him do we no now let me make it up to you until I drop from bloody trying.’ Missing something. ‘Don’t need him do we now there there.’ Orbited him. Thought first and last. She had ceased to be the girl I’d—she was now The Mother, playing a part, a fairy story, emptying everything out to—. No, not true that it would have destroyed her, there was nothing left in her which would even have understood it, could so much as have heard the—she’d have cocked just so and looked at me without any comprehension whatever. It would have amounted to telling her the sun did not rise each day. He had made himself her world. His was the real lie. She believed his lie. She believed it: the sun rose and fell only—

  [PAUSE for episode of dyspnea, visual evidence of erythruria; R.N.’s location and clearing of pyuric obstruction in urinary catheter; genital disinfection; technician’s reattachment of urinary catheter and gauge]

  THE FATHER: The crux. The rub. Omit all else. This is why. The great black enormous lie that I for some reason I alone seemed able to see through—through, as if in a nightmare.

  [PAUSE for episode of severe dyspnea; R.N.’s application of tracheo-bronchial suction catheter, pulmonary wedge pressure; technician (1)’s application of forcipital swabs; location and attempted removal of mucoidal obstruction in FATHER’s trachea; technician (2)’s administration of nebulized adrenaline; pertussive expulsion of mucoidal mass; technician (2)’s removal of mass in authorized Medical Waste Receptacle; technician (1)’s reinsertion of O2 feed into FATHER’s nostril]

  THE FATHER: Thrall. Listen. My son is evil. I know too well how this might sound, Father. Te
judice. I am well beyond your judgment as you see. The word is ‘evil.’ I do not exaggerate. He sucked something from her. Some discriminatory function. She lost her sense of humor, that was a clear sign I clung to. He cast some uncanny haze. Maddening to see through it and be unable—and not just her, Father, either. Everyone. Subtle at first but by oh shall we say middle school it was manifest: the wider world’s bewitchment. No one seemed able to see him. Began then in blank shock at her side to endure the surreal enraptured soliloquies of instructors and headmasters, coaches and committees and deacons and even clergy which sent her into maternal raptures as I stood chewing my tongue in disbelief. It was as if they had all become his mother. She and they would enter into this complicity of bliss about my son as I beside her nodding with the careful, dutifully pleased expression I’d fashioned through years of practice, out of it as they went on. Then when we’d off to home and I would contrive some excuse and go sit alone in the den with my head in my hands. He seemed able to do it at will. Everyone around us. The great lie. He’s taken in the bloody world. I do not exaggerate. You were not there to listen, drop-jawed: oh so brilliant, so sensitive, such discernment, precocity without vaunt, such a joy to know, so full of promise, such limitless gifts. On and on. Such an unqualified asset, such a joy to have on our roll, our team, our list, our staff, our dramaturgid panel, our minds. Such limitless gifts unquote. You cannot imagine the sensation of hearing that: ‘gifts.’ As if freely given, as if not—had I even once had the backbone to seize one of them by the knot of his cravat and pull him to me and howl the truth in his face. Those glazed smiles. Thrall. If only I myself could have been taken in. My son. Oh and I did, prayed for it, pondered and sought, examined and studied him and prayed and sought without cease, praying to be taken in and bewitched and allow their scales to cover mine as well. I examined him from every angle. I sought diligently for what they all believed they saw, natus ad glo—headmaster pulling us aside at that function to take us aside and breathe gin that this was the single finest and most promising student he’d seen in his tenure at middle school, behind him a tweedy defile of instructors bearing down and leaning in to—such a joy, every so often the job worthwhile with one such as—limitless gifts. The sustained wince I’d molded into what appeared a grin while she with her hands clasped before her thanking them, thank—understand, I’d read with the boy. At length. I’d probed him. I’d sat trying to teach him sums. As he picked at his impetigo and stared vacantly at the page. I had circumspectly watched as he labored to read things and afterward searched him out thoroughly. I’d engaged him, examined, subtly and thoroughly and without prejudice. Please believe me. There was not one spark of brilliance in my son. I swear it. This was a child whose intellectual acme was a reasonable competence at sums acquired through endless grinding efforts at grasping the most elementary operations. Whose printed S’s remained reversed until age eight despite—who pronounced ‘epitome’ as dactylic. A youth whose social persona was a blank affability and in whom a ready wit or appreciation for the nuances of accomplished English prose was wholly absent. No sin in that of course, a mediocre boy, ordinary—mediocrity is no sin. Nay but whence all this high estimate? What gifts? I went over his themes, every one, without fail, before they were passed in. I made it a policy to give my time. To this study of him. Willed myself to withhold prejudice. I lurked in doorways and watched. Even at university this was a boy for whom Sophocles’ Oresteia was weeks of slack-jawed labor. I crept into doorways, alcoves, stacks. Observed him when no one’s about. The Oresteia is not a difficult or inaccessible work. I searched without cease, in secret, for what they all seemed to see. And a translation. Weeks of grinding effort and not even Sophocles’ Greek, some pablumesque adaptation, standing there unseen and appalled. Yet managed—he fooled them all. All of them, one great audience. Pulitzer indeed. Oh and all too well I know how this sounds; te jude, Father. But know the truth: I knew him, inside and out, and this was his one only true gift: this: a capacity for somehow seeming brilliant, seeming exceptional, precocious, gifted, promising. Yes to be promising, they all of them said it eventually, ‘limitless promise,’ for this was his gift, and do you see the dark art here, the genius for manipulating his audience? His gift was for somehow arousing admiration and raising everyone’s estimate of him and everyone’s expectations of him and so forcing you to pray for him to triumph and live up to and justify those expectations in order to spare not just her but everyone who had been duped into believing in his limitless promise the crushing disappointment of seeing the truth of his essential mediocrity. Do you see the perverse genius of this? The exquisite torment? Of forcing me to pray for his triumph? To desire the maintenance of his lie? And not for his sake but others’? Hers? This is brilliance of a certain very particular and perverse and despicable sort, yes? The Attics called one’s particular gift or genius his techno. Was it techno? Odd for ‘gift.’ Do you decline it in the genitive? That he draws all into his web this way, limitless gifts, expectations of brilliant success. They come thus not only to believe the lie but to depend upon it. Whole rows of them in evening dress rising, applauding the lie. My dutifully proud—wear a mask and your face grows to fit it. Avoid all mirrors as though—and no, worst, the black irony: now his wife and girls are bewitched this way now as well you see. As his mother—the art he perfected upon her. I see it in their faces, the heartbreaking way they look at him, holding him whole in their eyes. Their perfect trusting innocent children’s eyes, adoring. And he then in receipt, casually, passively, never—as if he actually deserved this sort of—as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Oh how I have longed to shout the truth and expose and break this spell he’s cast over all who—this spell he’s not even aware of, not even conscious of what he’s about, what he so effortlessly casts over his—as if this sort of love were due him, itself of nature, inevitable as the sunrise, never a thought, never a moment’s doubt that he deserves it all and more. The very thought of it chokes me. How many years he took from us. Our gift. Genitive, ablative, nominative—the accidence of ‘gift.’ He wept at her deathbed. Wept. Can you imagine? That he had the right to weep at her loss. That he had that right. I stood in abject shock beside him. The arrogance. And she in that bed suffering so. Her last conscious word—to him. His weeping. This was the closest I ever came. Pervigilium. To speaking it. The truth. Weeping, that soft slack face red and eyes squeezed tight like a child whose sweets are all gone, gobbled up, like some obscene pink—mouth open and lip wet and a snot-string hanging untended and his wife—his wife—lovely arm around, to comfort him, comforting him, his loss—imagine. That now even my loss, my shameless tears, the loss of the only—that even my grief must be usurped, without one thought, not once acknowledged, as if it were his right to weep. To weep for her. Who told him he had that right? Why was I alone undeluded? What had—what sins in my sad small life merited this curse, to see the truth and be impotent to speak it? What was I guilty of that this should visit upon me? Why did no one ever ask? What acuity were they absent and I cursed with, to ask why was he born? oh why was he born? The truth would have killed her. To realize her own life had been given for—ceded to a lie. It would have killed her where she stood. I tried. Came close once or twice, once at his wed—not in me to do it. I searched within and it was not there. That certain sliver of steel one requires to do what must be done come what may. And she did die happy, believing the lie.

  [PAUSE for technician’s change of ileostomy pouch and skin barrier; examination of stoma; partial sponge bath]

  THE FATHER: Oh but he knew. He knew. That behind my face I despised him. My son alone knew. He alone saw me. From those I loved I hid it—at what cost, what life and love sacrificed for the need to spare them all, hide the truth—but he alone saw through. I could not hide it from him whom I despised. That fluttered thrusting eye would fall upon me and read my hatred of the living lie I’d wrought and borne. That ghastly extrusive right eye divined the secret repulsion its own repulsiveness caused
in me. Father, you see this irony. She herself was blind to me, lost. He alone saw that I alone saw him for what he was. Ours was a black intimacy forged around that secret knowledge, for I knew that he knew I knew, and he that I knew he knew I knew. The profundity of our shared knowledge and complicity in that knowledge flew between us—‘I know you’; ‘Yes and I you’—a terrible voltage charged the air when—if we two were alone, out of her sight, which was rare; she rarely left us alone together. Sometimes—rarely—once—it was at his first girl’s birth, as my wife was leaning over the bed embracing his and I behind her facing him and he made as if to hold the infant out to me, his eyes on me, holding my eyes whole with his and the truth arcing back and forth between us over the lolling head of that beautiful child as he held it out as if his to give, and I could not then refrain from letting escape the briefest flicker of acknowledgment of the truth with the twist of my mouth’s right side, a dark little half-smile, ‘I know what you are,’ which he met with that baggy half-smile of his own, what doubtless all in the room perceived as filial thanks for my smile and the blessing it appeared to imply and—do you now see why I loathed him? The ultimate insult? That he alone knew my heart, knew the truth, which from those I loved I died inside from hiding? A terrible charge, my hatred of him and his blithe delight at my secret pain oscillating between us and deforming the very air of any shared space commencing around shall we say just after his Confirmation, adolescence, when he stopped coughing and grew sleek. Though it’s become ever worse as he’s aged and consolidated his powers and more and more of the world has fallen under the—taken in.