The Dead Father by Donald Barthelme

  Fathers are teachers of the true and not-true, and no father ever knowingly teaches what is not true. In a cloud of unknowing, then, the father proceeds with his instruction. Tough meat should be hammered well between two stones before it is placed on the fire, and should be combed with a haircomb and brushed with a hairbrush before it is placed on the fire. Iron lungs and cyclotrons are also useful for the purpose. On arriving at night, with thirsty cattle, at a well of doubtful character, one deepens the well first with a rifle barrel, then with a pigsticker, then with a pencil, then with a ramrod, then with an ice pick, “bringing the well in” finally with needle and thread. Do not forget to clean your rifle barrel immediately. To find honey, tie a feather or straw to the leg of a bee, throw him into the air, and peer alertly after him as he flies slowly back to the hive. Nails, boiled for three hours, give off a rusty liquid that, when combined with oxtail soup, dries to a flame color, useful for warding off tuberculosis or attracting native women. Do not forget to hug the native women immediately. To prevent feet from blistering, soap the inside of the stocking with a lather of raw egg and steel wool, which together greatly soften the leather of the foot. Delicate instruments (such as surveying instruments) should be entrusted to a porter who is old and enfeebled; he will totter along most carefully. For a way of making an ass not to bray at night, lash a heavy child to his tail; it appears that when an ass wishes to bray he elevates his tail, and if the tail cannot be elevated, he has not the heart. Savages are easily satisfied with cheap beads in the following colors, dull white, dark blue, and vermilion red—expensive beads are often spurned by them. Non-savages should be given cheap books in the following colors, dead white, brown, and seaweed—books praising the sea are much sought after. Satanic operations should not be conducted without first consulting the Bibliothèque Nationale. When Satan at last appears to you, try not to act surprised. Then get down to hard bargaining. If he likes neither the beads nor the books, offer him a cold beer. Then—

  Fathers teach much that is of value. Much that is not. Fathers in some countries are like cotton bales; in others, like clay pots or jars; in others, like reading, in a newspaper, a long account of a film you have already seen and liked immensely but do not wish to see again, or read about. Some fathers have triangular eyes. Some fathers, if you ask them for the time of day, spit silver dollars. Some fathers live in old filthy cabins high in the mountains, and make murderous noises deep in their throats when their amazingly sharp ears detect, on the floor of the valley, an alien step. Some fathers piss either perfume or medicinal alcohol, distilled by powerful body processes from what they have been, all day long, drinking. Some fathers have only one arm. Others have an extra arm, in addition to the normal two, hidden inside their coats. On that arm’s fingers are elaborately wrought golden rings that, when a secret spring is pressed, dispense charity. Some fathers have made themselves over into convincing replicas of beautiful sea animals, and some into convincing replicas of people they hated as children. Some fathers are goats, some are milk, some teach Spanish in cloisters, some are exceptions, some are capable of attacking world economic problems and killing them, but have not yet done so, they are waiting for one last vital piece of data. Some fathers strut but most do not, except inside; some fathers pose on horseback but most do not, except in the eighteenth century; some fathers fall off the horses they mount but most do not; some fathers, after falling off the horse, shoot the horse, but most do not; some fathers fear horses, but most fear, instead, women; some fathers masturbate because they fear women; some fathers sleep with hired women because they fear women who are free; some fathers never sleep at all, but are endlessly awake, staring at their futures, which are behind them.

  The leaping father is not encountered often, but exists. Two leaping fathers together in a room can cause accidents. The best idea is to chain heavy-duty truck tires to them, one in front, one in back, so that their leaps become pathetic small hops. That is all their lives amount to anyhow, and it is good for them to be able to see, in the mirror, their whole life histories performed, in a sequence perhaps five minutes long, of upward movements which do not, really, get very far, or achieve very much. Without the tires, the leaping father has a nuisance value which may rapidly transform itself into a serious threat. Ambition is the core of this problem (it may even be ambition for you, in which case you are in even greater danger than had been supposed), and the core may be removed by open-liver surgery (the liver being the home of the humours, as we know). I saw a leaping father in the park, he was two feet off the ground and holding a one-foot-in-diameter, brown leather object that he was pushing away from himself—a sin of some sort, I judged. He was aiming it at a net supported by a steel ring but the net had no bottom, there was no way on earth that the net would retain the sin, even if the father had been able to place the sin safely in the net. The futility of his project saddened me, but this was an appropriate emotion. There is something very sad about all leaping fathers, about leaping itself. I prefer to keep my feet on the ground, in situations where the ground has not been cut out from under me, by the tunneling father. The latter is usually piebald in color, and supremely notable for his nonflogitiousness.

  The best way to approach a father is from behind. Thus if he chooses to hurl his javelin at you, he will probably miss, For in the act of twisting his body around, and drawing back his hurling arm, and sighting along the shaft, he will give you time to run, to make reservations for a flight to another country. To Rukmini, there are no fathers there. In that country virgin corn gods huddle together under a blanket of ruby chips and flexible cement, through the long wet Rukminian winter, and in some way not known to us produce offspring. The new citizens are greeted with dwarf palms and certificates of worth, are led (or drawn on runnerless sleds) out into the zocalo, the main square of the country, and their augensheinlich parentages recorded upon a great silver bowl, and their fingerprints peeled away, so that nothing can ever be proved. Look! In the walnut paneling of the dining hall, a javelin! The paneling is wounded in a hundred places.

  I knew a father named Ys who had many many children and sold every one of them to the bone factories. The bone factories will not accept angry or sulking children, therefore Ys was, to his children, the kindest and most amiable father imaginable. He fed them huge amounts of calcium candy and the milk of minks, told them interesting and funny stories, and led them each day in their bone-building exercises. “Tall sons,” he said, “are best.” Once a year the bone factories sent a little blue van to Ys’s house.

  The names of fathers. Fathers are named:

  A‘albiel

  Aariel

  Aaron

  Aba

  Ababaloy

  Abaddon

  Aban

  Abathur

  Abbott

  Abdia

  Abel

  Abiou

  Achsah

  Adam

  Adeo

  Adityas

  Adlai

  Adnai

  Adoil

  Adossia

  Aeon

  Aeshma

  Af

  Afkiel

  Agason

  Agwend

  Albert

  Fathers have voices, and each voice has a terribilità of its own. The sound of a father’s voice is various: like film burning, like marble being pulled screaming from the face of a quarry, like the clash of paper clips by night, lime seething in a lime pit, or batsong. The voice of a father can shatter your glasses. Some fathers have tetchy voices, others tetched-in-the-head voices. It is understood that fathers, when not robed in the father-role, may be farmers, heldentenors, tinsmiths, racing drivers, fist-fighters, or salesmen. Most are salesmen. Many fathers did not wish, especially, to be fathers, the thing came upon them, seized them, by accident, or by someone else’s careful design, or by simple clumsiness on someone’s part. Nevertheless this class of father—the inadvertent—is often among the most tactful, light-handed, and beautiful of fathers. If
a father has fathered twelve or twenty-seven times, it is well to give him a curious look—this father does not loathe himself enough. This father frequently wears a blue wool watch cap, on stormy nights, to remind himself of a manly past—action in the North Atlantic. Many fathers are blameless in all ways, and these fathers are either sacred relics people are touched with to heal incurable illnesses, or texts to be studied, generation after generation, to determine how this idiosyncrasy may be maximized. Text-fathers are usually bound in blue.

  The father’s voice is an instrument of the most terrible pertinaciousness.

  Sample voice A:

  Son, I got bad news for you. You won’t understand the whole purport of it, ’cause you’re only six, a little soft in the head too, that fontanelle never did close properly, I wonder why. But I can’t delay it no longer, son, I got to tell you the news. There ain’t no malice in it, son, I hope you believe me. The thing is, you got to go to school, son, and get socialized. That’s the news. You’re turnin’ pale, son, I don’t blame you. It’s a terrible thing, but there it is. We’d socialize you here at home, your mother and I, except that we can’t stand to watch it, it’s that dreadful. And your mother and I who love you and always have and always will are a touch sensitive, son. We don’t want to hear your howls and screams. It’s going to be miserable, son, but you won’t hardly feel it. And I know you’ll do well and won’t do anything to make us sad, your mother and I who love you. I know you’ll do well and won’t run away or fall down in fits either. Son, your little face is pitiful. Son, we can’t just let you roam the streets like some kind of crazy animal. Son, you got to get your natural impulses curbed. You’ve got to get your corners knocked off, son, you got to get realistic. They going to vamp on you at that school, kid. They going to tear up your ass. They going to learn you how to think, you’ll get your letters there, your letters and your figures, your verbs and all that. Your mother and I could socialize you here at home but it would be too painful for your mother and I who love you. You’re going to meet the stick, son, the stick going to walk up to you and say howdy-do. You’re going to learn about your country at that school, son, oh beautiful for spacious skies. They going to lay just a raft of stuff on you at that school and I caution you not to resist, it ain’t appreciated. Just take it as it comes and you’ll be fine, son, just fine. You got to do right, son, you got to be realistic. They’ll be other kids in that school, kid, and ever’ last one of ’em will be after your lunch money. But don’t give ’em your lunch money, son, put it in your shoe. If they come up against you tell ’em the other kids already got it. That way you fool ’em, you see, son? What’s the matter with you? And watch out for the custodian, son, he’s mean. He don’t like his job. He wanted to be president of a bank. He’s not. It’s made him mean. Watch out for that sap he carries on his hip. Watch out for the teacher, son, she’s sour. Watch out for her tongue, it’ll cut you. She’s got a bad mouth on her, son, don’t balk her if you can help it. I got nothin’ against the schools, kid, they just doin’ their job. Hey kid what’s the matter with you kid? And if this school don’t do the job we’ll find one that can. We’re right behind you, son, your mother and I who love you. You’ll be gettin’ your sports there, your ball sports and your blood sports and watch out for the coach, he’s a disappointed man, some say a sadist but I don’t know about that. You got to develop your body, son. If they shove you, shove back. Don’t take nothin’ off nobody. Don’t show fear. Lay back and watch the guy next to you, do what he does. Except if he’s a damn fool. If he’s a damn fool you’ll know he’s a damn fool ’cause everybody’ll be hittin’ on him. Let me tell you ’bout that school, son. They do what they do ’cause I told them to do it. That’s why they do it. They didn’t think up those ideas their own selves. I told them to do it. Me and your mother who love you, we told them to do it. Behave yourself, kid! Do right! You’ll be fine there, kid, just fine. What’s the matter with you, kid? Don’t be that way. I hear the ice-cream man outside, son. You want to go and see the ice-cream man? Go get you an ice cream, son, and make sure you get your sprinkles. Go give the ice-cream man your quarter, son. And hurry back.

  B:

  Hey son. Hey boy. Let’s you and me go out and throw the ball around. Throw the ball around. You don’t want to go out and throw the ball around? How come you don’t want to go out and throw the ball around? I know why you don’t want to go out and throw the ball around. It’s ’cause you— Let’s don’t discuss it. It don’t bear thinkin’ about. Well let’s see, you don’t want to go out and throw the ball around, you can hep me work on the patio. You want to hep me work on the patio? Sure you do. Sure you do. We gonna have us a fine-lookin’ patio there, boy, when we get it finished. Them folks across the street are just about gonna fall out when they see it. C’mon kid, I’ll let you hold the level. And this time I want you to hold the fucking thing straight. I want you to hold it straight. It ain’t difficult, any idiot can do it. A nigger can do it. We’re gonna stick it to them mothers across the street, they think they’re so fine. Flee from the wrath to come, boy, that’s what I always say. Seen it on a sign one time, FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME. Crazy guy goin’ down the street holdin’ this sign, see, FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME, it tickled me. Went round for days sayin’ it out loud to myself, flee from the wrath to come, flee from the wrath to come. Couldn’t get it outa my head. See they’re talkin’ ’bout God there, that’s what that’s all about, God, see boy, God. It’s this God shit they try and hand you, see, they got a whole routine, see, let’s don’t talk about it, gets me all pissed off. It fries my ass. Your mother goes for all that shit, see, and of course your mother is a fine woman and a sensible woman but she’s just a little bit ape on this church thing we don’t discuss it. She has her way and I got mine, we don’t discuss it. She’s a little bit ape on this subject see, I don’t blame her it was the way she was raised. Her mother was ape on this subject. That’s how the churches make their money, see, they get the women. All these dumb-ass women. Hold it straight kid. That’s better. Now run me a line down that form with the pencil. I gave you the pencil. What’d you do with the fuckin’ pencil? Jesus Christ kid find the pencil. Okay go in the house and get me another pencil. Hurry up I can’t stand here holdin’ this all day. Wait a minute here’s the pencil. Okay I got it. Now hold it straight and run me a line down that form. Not that way dummy, on the horizontal. You think we’re buildin’ a barn? That’s right. Good. Now run the line. Good. Okay now go over there and fetch me the square. Square’s the flat one, looks like a L. Like this, look. Good. Thank you. Okay now hold that mother up against the form where you made the line. That’s so we get this side of it square, see? Okay now hold the board and lemme just put in the stakes. HOLD IT STILL DAMN IT. How you think I can put in the stakes with you wavin’ the damn thing around like that? Hold it still. Check it with the square again. Okay, is it square? Now hold it still. Still. Okay. That’s got it. How come you’re tremblin’? Nothin’ to it, all you got to do is hold one little bitty piece of one-by-six straight for two minutes and you go into a fit? Now stop that. Stop it. I said stop it. Now just take it easy. You like heppin’ me with the patio, don’tcha. Just think ’bout when it’s finished and we be sittin’ out here with our drinks drinkin’ our drinks and them jackasses ‘cross the street will be shittin’. From green envy. Flee from the wrath to come, boy, flee from the wrath to come. He he.

  C:

  Hey son come here a minute. I want you and me to have a little talk. You’re turnin’ pale. How come you always turn pale when we have a little talk? You delicate? Pore delicate little flower? Naw you ain’t, you’re a man, son, or will be someday the good Lord willin’. But you got to do right. That’s what I want to talk to you about. Now put down that comic book and come on over here and sit by me. Sit right there. Make yourself comfortable. Now, you comfortable? Good. Son, I want to talk to you about your personal habits. Your personal habits. We ain’t never talked about your personal habits and now it’s
time. I been watchin’ you, kid. Your personal habits are admirable. Yes they are. They are flat admirable. I like the way you pick up your room. You run a clean room, son, I got to hand it to you. And I like the way you clean your teeth. You brush right, in the right direction, and you brush a lot. You’re goin’ to have good gums, kid, good healthy gums. We ain’t gonna have to lay out no money to get your teeth fixed, your mother and I, and that’s a blessing and we thank you. And you keep yourself clean, kid, clothes neat, hands clean, face clean, knees clean, that’s the way to hop, way to hop. There’s just one little thing, son, one little thing that puzzles me. I been studyin’ ’bout it and I flat don’t understand it. How come you spend so much time washin’ your hands, kid? I been watchin’ you. You spend an hour after breakfast washin’ your hands. Then you go wash ’em again ’bout ten-thirty, ten-forty, ’nother fifteen minutes washin’ your hands. Then just before lunch, maybe a half hour, washin’ your hands. Then after lunch, sometimes an hour, sometimes less, it varies. I been noticin’. Then in the middle of the afternoon back in there washin’ your hands. Then before supper and after supper and before you go to bed and sometimes you get up in the middle of the night and go on in there and wash your hands. Now I’d think you were in there playin’ with your little prick, your little prick, ’cept you a shade young for playin’ with your little prick and besides you leave the door open, most kids close the door when they go in there to play with their little pricks but you leave it open. So I see you in there and I see what you’re doin’, you’re washin’ your hands. And I been keepin’ track of it and son, you spend ’bout three quarters of your wakin’ hours washin’ your hands. And I think there’s somethin’ a little bit strange about that, son. It ain’t natural. So what I want to know is, how come you spend so much time washin’ your hands, son? Can you tell me? Huh? Can you give me a rational explanation? Well, can you? Huh? You got anything to say on this subject? Well, what’s the matter? You’re just sittin’ there. Well come on, son, what you got to say for yourself? What’s the explanation? Now it won’t do you no good to start cryin’, son, that don’t help anything. Okay kid stop crying. I said stop it! I’m goin’ to whack you, kid, you don’t stop cryin’. Now cut that out. This minute. Now cut it out. Goddamn baby. Come on now kid, get ahold of yourself. Now go wash your face and come on back in here. I want to talk to you some more. Wash your face, but don’t do that other. Now go on in there and get back in here right quick. I want to talk to you ’bout bumpin’ your head. You’re still bumpin’ your head, son, against the wall, ’fore you go to sleep. I don’t like it. You’re too old to do that. It disturbs me. I can hear you in there, when you go to bed, bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump. It’s disturbing. It’s monotonous. It’s a very disturbing sound. I don’t like it. I don’t like listenin’ to it. I want you to stop it. I want you to get ahold of yourself. I don’t like to hear that noise when I’m sittin’ in here tryin’ to read the paper or whatever I’m doin’, I don’t like to hear it and it bothers your mother. It gets her all upset and I don’t like your mother to be all upset, just on accounta you. Bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump bump, what are you, kid, some kind of animal? I cain’t figure you out, kid. I just flat cain’t understand it, bump bump bump bump bump bump bump. Dudden’t hurtcha? Dudden’t hurtcha head? Well, never mind about that right now. Go on in there and wash your face, and then come on back in here and we’ll talk some more. And don’t do none of that other, just wash your face. You got three minutes.