THE RELENTLESS APPROXIMATION OF FEELING

by Sam Lipsyte

 

Take this damn tube out of my arm and maybe we can get started. Hell, I’ll do it myself. Holy crapola, is that my blood? Is that my blood or the blood from the bag? Or I guess it’s all the same now, right? Holy mother of crapola. This is what it comes to, right? Que sera, screw you, right? Okay. Let’s talk. Let’s talk straight up. We’ve had a lot of back and forth for a while, but now it’s pay-or-play time. Nut-cutting time. I’m giving you one more shot to get in on the ground floor. Love the lobby, buddy.

I’ve made a lot of headway since we last met. Locations, schedules. Here’s the deal: We do it small. We do it ourselves. No bulldinky. No bang-bang. No lights, no cameras, nothing. I’m done with that song, that song-and-dance. No medium, I’m done with mediums. I’m talking just some kids, some boys and girls, a day by the lake. Box lunches, blankets. The way it felt when we were still innocent. The way it felt when we were still alive. Hopscotch, Hide-and-Go-Seek, Steal-the-Bacon. Do you remember that feeling? Keep-Away, Tag, Red Rover. That’s what I’m after. I have names attached. The names of children. There is interest from the children. I admit I haven’t spoken to most of them in forty plus years but interest will not be an obstacle. These are good, clean, simple kids. Like I’d like to think I was once. Was I? I don’t know. Certainly I was clean. Can’t say for sure if I was ever simple and good. But that’s what I’m shooting for now. Check your ego at the ego check, get your ticket from the girl. Comprende? Alopecia?

So listen: there’s going to be a ball involved. There were some arguments for a handkerchief, or a stick, or pieces of chocolate buried by the lake, but now we’re all saying ball. We’re all aboard the ball train now. It’s kind of obvious, but we had to get there the hard way. That’s how it is, I guess. The obvious thing is the last thing to go. Or come, rather. A ball, I might add, solves a lot of the other problems we were looking at. It’s kind of perfect, really. Now, of course, the question is what kind of ball. I mean, round, sure, but circumference? Weight? You see what I’m saying? I hope you do because opening now before your very eyes is a tremendous portal of opportunity for you to get yourself in through before, well, dilutions occur, as they are wont to do. Dilutions, unwanted, yet wont to occur. Strange, language. Jumbly, no? At any rate, or, rather, at this rate, because things are moving, there is a rate of movement associated with this particular project, you are cordially invited to contemplate involvement with the ball idea. Don’t worry yourself about the children. They’re lined up, they’re biting at the bit, chomping on it, in fact. The legal situation is covered. I’m not a lawyer for nothing. Which is to say I’m not a lawyer, but there’s no need to get your panties in a twist.

If I don’t bleed to death first from massive bleeding we’re going to have a major success on our hands. Yes, I understand I’m not well. Truth is, they really don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. There’s something in me that doesn’t like me is the best they can explain it. There’s something in me that lacks respect for life. But mark my words, before I go I will lock up this lake thing. This one’s the one. It makes up for everything else. More importantly, people will appreciate what we’ve done. We’ll be legends.

Okay, maybe it’s not so original, the lake. Kind of maybe even hack. Trust me, life is hack. Pray tell, I mean tell me, what are the ideas people admire you for? Fine, I’ll tell you. The ones they’ve already had. Who hasn’t thought ball? Everybody’s thought ball. There’s a big difference, though, between thinking ball and doing ball. You know this better than anyone. That’s why I’m talking to you.

So, say something. You’re not saying anything. I’m lying here with blood all over the sheets I don’t even know if it’s mine and you’re not saying anything. I’ve got enough on my plate without your not bringing anything to the table. What, you don’t like the ball? Listen, the ball is everything. Honestly, to be frank, I don’t even know why we’re still talking if you’re not just blown away in a whirlwind of bliss and frenzy by the ball idea. This is terrible. This is truly terrible. Here I was, up front on every score, held nothing back, gave the project everything I had, and now look where we are: Nowhere. And why is that? Fear, precisely. That old bugbear. That old bugaboo.

It was so simple. So perfect. The kids, the ball, I guess it never occurred to me you wouldn’t be on board. I thought we were suspended in a state of mutual enthusiasm. I thought we were going to do something here. But now I guess it’s just business as usual. For you, anyway. Not for me. Because, truthfully, to raise candor to new levels of brutality, I have nothing more to say to people like you. You disgust me. It’s a matter of pure, unadulterated disgust. That said, I’d like to run one more version of the idea by you. If you can grant me that indulgence. If you can find it in your shriveled little turnip of a heart to hear me out one last time.

Whoa, I’m sorry. Let’s rewind. I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot. Not at this late date. I know you have your reasons, and, ultimately, it’s none of my beeswax. My beeswax is to win you back to my vision of things. My beeswax is to seduce you with my dream. Always has been, always will be. But still, you’re just being so knee-jerk about everything, so defensive, so preconceived. We have no dialogue. It reminds me of a joke, something my wife’s father told me in jest before he was unfairly executed for espionage. It’s a cold war joke. Historical. Hysterical. Historical. An American official goes to Moscow on a state visit. His host, the Soviet official says, “You must come see our new train station. Our new people’s train station is the envy of the world.” So they go down the station and it’s a beautiful station. Really a top-notch station with all those colonnades and big beautiful clocks and wonderful windows and benches. And the Soviet official says, “Well, what do you think?” And the American says, “It’s a beautiful train station, Comrade, but where are the trains?” And the Soviet official, scowling, retorts, “Do they not still lynch the Black man in your American South?”

Don’t care for the joke? The punchline? That’s your prerogative, but answer me this: how much was the ball going to cost you, anyway? You left a lot of people in the lurch. Forget about me, I’m talking about the kids. The kids believed in the ball idea. They believed in me. A day by the lake, did I mention the lake? A day of play, a day outside of days. Don’t pity them, though. Pity us, you puny-souled fuck. Sorry. No, really. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It must be the blood. It gets all over the sheets and not in me. I’m dying, you know. In case you hadn’t noticed. Do you know what I’m talking about? Has it ever been this way for you? Well, it doesn’t matter. Or it shouldn’t matter.

Okay, here it is, one more idea. Take it or leave it. No hard feelings, no mind games. What I offer you now, it’s a yes-or-no proposition. Either way I walk away a human being. Not an animal. Not like the fucking animals. It’s not a thing, this thing, okay, it’s not a project, really, it’s not an action, or a movement, or an arrangement of people or things. Forget the children, the lake, the lunches. This version here, it requires no locations. It just is what it is. Nod your head and we’re off and running. I don’t even want your backing this time. I don’t need a deal memo, even.

All I demand is your understanding of who I am and what I tried to do. My last wish is to have you look at me and say there went a man who was bleeding everywhere, just bleeding out of every fucking orifice, and all he wanted was something for the kids. Some kind of feeling or approximation thereof. That’s all. Bestow that benison and I will be on my way. I’ll do the old coil shuffle and from here on out there will only be whispers of me, rumors of me, mythology. And you, having known me, will have understood what I was about. What the whole thing was about. That’s all I want. No conference calls, no marketing meetings. Just say yes or no. In or out. Either way I walk out over the plains of the shadowy valley and whatnot.

It’s your call. But you better make it quick, pal. I’ve been talking to some other people. Don’t look at me that way. Why wouldn’t I talk to other people? Why wouldn’t there be other people with whom it is possible to talk? People, I might add, who maybe see my wisdom vis-à-vis the ball idea. You know who I mean, don’t you? Yes, you know exactly who I mean. Oh, a prick, is he? That very well could be the case. I couldn’t say for certain but given what I’ve heard I have no reason to doubt you on that being the case. Nonetheless, he’s a prick with a hard-on for my dream. Do you get my drift? I’m not playing games here. I’m bleeding all over the place. I don’t have time for lollygagging. My tarrying days are long gone. Entiende? Cabriolet? I’d love this to work but I’ll go where I’m wanted. If I’ve learned one thing in this life that will soon be over it’s to go where I’m wanted. So it should be different when I’m dead?