Milkbottle H, page 4
Ill be
I hope you will, Rachel heavily giggles, suddenly, I hope you will. Then, absolutely certain. Of course youll be back. But you get colds. You should keep your overcoat buttoned around your neck, you know you get colds.
Ill make sure.
You always forget. You got a habit of forgetting. Can you remember that?
Ill remember
Sure you dont want a cheese sandwich, it wont take me nothing to make.
Thank you, mother. No.
On the train youll get hungry.
Im sure they feed you.
Not like your mother.
Lee chuckles at last. No, not like Mrs Emanuel.
Whats so funny.
Oh, mother, sometimes youre very funny.
Was I funny? She laughs outright, hovering at his side, elbow over stove. You watch out for the girls, Lee. They like to rope you in.
I got Rena, remember,
Rachel makes a very mysterious shrug. Who knows. Things can change before you know it.
We wont change, mother.
Always youre so sure. Life plays funny tricks.
What funny tricks?
Who knows? Do I know? Im just saying.
So stop saying.
I was only talking. The white flawlessly clean crinkled cotton halfcurtain over the window blurs the sun, but the forms of the backyard can be made out. The bare vines, stripped of honeysuckle, frowning, backtracking, wavering, scraggling and climbing over the rear of the garage. The stubby black fences on either side. The red brick wall of the garage and its monklike single window. The untaut clotheslines whipping in the morning winds, ready for the wash. The grass behind the dark hedge brown and patched. The rose bramble and no roses. The snowball bush with no snowball floral bursts. The scar on the little finger of his right hand throbs from the slicecut made by the glass washboard splinter
Another cup of coffee, Lee?
No thanks, mother.
Lee I cant wait forever, his father appears in the breakfastroom doorway.
Im ready.
Theres time for another cup of coffee, Levi, Rachel reprimands her husband.
So give him another cup.
Lee stands. Ive had enough. Lets go.
His mother wipes her hands on her apron. You going out the back way, Rachel inquires.
Wouldnt it be foolish if I brought the car around front, Levi says, it only takes more time.
So dont get excited, Rachel says, Im just asking.
Im not excited. So lets go already, he tells Lee.
Put on your overcoat. Wait, Ill get it for you, Rachel scurries out of the kitchen.
Mom, mom, I can get it myself
Here, I already got it, no trouble, you take so long Lee, she raises her forearm and waves her hand at him in affectionate derogation.
Levi tacks the two, cysting his mouth. So say goodby already, Lee.
Yes, yes. Goodby, mom. Any moment his eyelids will float away on the original Noahflood. Take two of every kind, the Lord says, two of the bird, two of the reptile, two of the beasts of the field, and let them go into the ark. Take two handkerchiefs, Rachel says, you blow your nose so much he bends down, the tall Lee, to kiss his mother on her lips which are warm and dry, cool and moist, wrinkled and smooth, Levi has his back toward them, in the pantry, his hand on the doorknob, opening the door, out on the step, his heavy muscular figure stooping forth into the ark, two of every kind, one father and one mother, one son and one daughter, but there are no sisters in the Emanuel children, both boys, two hearts if you have them because you blow your heart so much, and two arks because one is already capsizing on the motherwaters, Rachels underlip gouging into her upper, her fists at her mouth fighting her mouth
Be a good boy.
Yes.
Theres nothing to be afraid of.
Yes. Blind. He cant see in the blind water that floods over his skull, two by two, take two thoughts, but only one scald enters, burns, burns, fire in the modem American freezer, FIRE, FIRE IN THE FREEZER ARK behind the eyelids noah noah noah ahno ahno ahno
ahno
go already, Lee, wiping her hands in her apron. A stiff board rams down his neck, youre a stiffnecked Jew
Ill see you as soon as I can, mother
Take care
Yes.
Write Dad and me the minute you can, hear? The mailman always stops to say hello.
Yes.
It doesnt have to be a long letter. A couple sentences. Put up your overcoat collar, and button it, she commands severely. Didnt I teach you anything?
Ill be in the car.
Never mind never mind, youll forget when you get out. You want to go to the Army sick?
All right. That better?
Yes.
Goodby, Mom.
Dont say goodby, its unlucky
half out the door, Lee turns, grinning, Mom youre so superstitious sometime
Never mind never mind
LEE
Go already, your fathers so impatient, so thick with hydrants is Rachel that she appears chinless. Raises her apron to her face watching her son’s tall lean back bend through the garage door, watching from the pantry window over the gas refrigerator, through the small pane of glass, fitting her chinless face into the small pane, like a small animal in the glass underbrush peering out on enemy and lover. But she must call the butcher and the grocer, and wheres the colored girl, if only she didnt have to Gertrude Forsten on the upper level backyard pavement crunching her skinny redspeckled arms on the black iron fence Lissen Mrs Emanuel I have the same trouble
Im telling you Gertrude you always have to pick up after them
Aint that the truth Gertrude shrills Mrs Emanuel, her redhair wash in tiny wirered balls jiggling in the mondaymorning slaps of the white wash flipping corners and snapped unleashes in the slatecolored waspwind
No matter how you keep after them theres always something they dont do, theyre lazy goodfonothings but howm I going to get along without them
You cant. You just cant
You got to follow them around like they were babies, just like your children
I was telling my husband just the same thing the other day
How is he
Oh you know Mrs Emanuel, Gertrudes face shrinking, shagging, shelling, puttying, pressing, peeving, pewling, He works so hard
Yeh
So hard
Yeh
He comes home he dont want to do nothin
Yeh
But he does, Gertrude perks, packs a smile in swiftly, yes he does, he mends a screen, he waxes the floors, he
Hes a good man, Gertrude. Let me tell you hes a good
Dont I know it Gertrude scales highlow down at Rachel Emanuel, dont I know it
He certainly loves you, Gertrude.
Yeh.
Thats a man you dont have to worry about.
Well Mrs Emanuel hes not the only one. Now take your Levi
Yes hes a wonderful man, then giggles, only I dont tell him that too often
Well now, Mrs Emanuel, gee, Gertrude winds up her eyebrows, spreads her hands palms out, You just cant do that
You cant pamper them
Thats right
Once in a while I tell him, Rachel grins secretly.
You got to be careful
With everybody a persons got to be careful, Rachel says very seriously. The colored girls especially. You turn your back and they take advantage of you, Im telling you Gertrude you have to have eyes in the back of your head and you know, she frowns, I cant run up and down the stairs like I used to
I know I know Mrs Emanuel, Gertrude Forsten is very grave. You got to take care of yourself
But how much can you take care? Theres a limit Oh my goodness, Rachel huff puffs back to the pantry steps, My roast, my roast, I can smell it a mile away oh it mustve burned to a nothing. Not that Levi would know the difference by the time he gets home sometime the meat is shrunk away to practically nothing rolling over the as yet unpaved section of Ruscomb Street past the patchy farmhouse structure of the Chalks where on the steps their son Ernie is already out with his right hand plucking away at an invisible guitar and his left hand down at his side vibrating
But Levi isnt trying to hurt anyone, theres the difference. Perhaps Levis right hand is indeed plucking away at the parallel bars running the length of his sickbed, but he isnt bullying anybody Lee: Lee: Lee: he says in a strenuous tone, as if his entire chest is lodging in his nose, Lee you got to tell me
What do you want me to tell you, pop.
Tell me what you want. Tell me what you want, the once graygreen eyes opening darkly on his son, hard and dark, with no sheen and yet not dull, not sunk, not buried, but bold, his hands cupping his eyes in their sockets
the Ernie Chalk plucking at the invisible guitar, the Gus Nathanson strumming at a quite visible butterfly, the two of them fitted one into the other and lying on their side in the sickbed, the white butterfly circling the bed, the guitarbody of Levi Emanuel groanplucked and wanting to discover a small boy he can torture and diminish and utterly reduce. There is no stature in the dying, there must be somebody smaller than I, there must be somebody who can crouch in fear beside me, whom I can lean over, LEAN over
)Levi tries to raise himself, DO SOMETHING he renoseancestrains at Lee. Do something,
do
something,
What?
The pain. In my back
im
a
small
b
o
y
(BULLY BASTARD ROOM ITSELF TOWERING OVER LEVI CHALK THE VAST NIGHTSKY OF THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TOWERING OVER LEE IN HIS SEAT FORWARD OF THE WING IN THE CONSTELLATION THE CHALKDOTS OF LOS ANGELES RECEDING)
Uncle Ben on the phone in his muted boulevardier voice Lee.
Yes.
Norma sits on the bed, her body chinning itself without motion, focussed on Lee
I think you can guess why Im calling you
Theres an itching in Lees throat. It needs to be scrubbed with soap and water. The ringworm has got to his throat, the fungus is slowly mapping out his swallowsystem. Soap and hotwater, then iodine painted inside his throat, to be then liberally coated with cigarette smoke, one after the other, he scratches at his neck, lamentation as iodine deep red, staining the inside slowly, biting slowly, lamentation is not black, it is a deep ruddy winecolor, that itches, burns, stings
Yon promised me you werent going to fly. Not ever, Norma wrenches her lips to form the words
I said only in an
emergency the vertical boy springs up and down in the continental hoop of the United States of America, the engines move slowly into a slideup revving leviathanic roar
Everything slides. The hand from the other hand. Mrs Sherman reads a book in her bed, smokes a cigarette. She drowses, her fingers unshrug, her housecoat humps at her breast, her arm slides from the book, the book to the floor, the cigarette to the sheet, the burning tip the color of her dyed orange hair itll be nice if he calls me Ill be at home her son with the sliding dark planes of faces one over the other like palisades sliding onto the darkening highway as Rachel Emanuel playing an old Indian woman peeps over the top of the palisade to keep a sharp lookout for the unwary pioneer urging the weary covered wagon down the Roosevelt Boulevard Mrs Sherman still one of the snappiest drivers well wed better go now if Im to see him alive at all, Lee tells
Norma. Ill call the Union Pacific for rates.
Well mother told me she and dad would pay the fare for Stefanie and me
The foetus rides free, Lee says from one side of his teeth. Did the doctor say itd be all right? he touches Norma’s bucking blond curls,
if we go now, she says. Another month and itll be too late.
I hate to go at all, he says.
Yes, I know.
I do and I dont
I know
But Ive got to
I know. Norma spells out his whole body with gravity, grace, hunger. I love you, Lee
And I you, very
I told Uncle Ben I just had absolutely no more money to come in for to the comer of B Street and Ruscomb where Brith Mikveh synagogue begins, now once again an empty lot I guess somebodyll be building on it soon, he remarks to Levi.
Yes. Somebody. Tear down and build up, build up and tear down, Levi says heavily, as if the very banality of the process, as an overladen overweighted species, must suddenly crumble; himself an overweighted banal crawl behind the wheel of the Buick. I guess down B to Wyoming will be quickest, he intones to Lee. Where is the draft office?
Its the basement of the Wyoming Bank and Trust Company, Lee nibbles at his own short smile
and the paintbrush nibbling at his eyes:
the paintbrushes are faucets, hot and cold: Lee in heavy black curls with Sy Tarrassoff’s receding chin rides in the front seat of the Buick. A son, who washes his hands under the hot and cold running water faucets, graygreen waters. A father doesnt quite understand why his sons chin should be receding, seventyfive thousand dollars worth of David Emanuel
$75, 000
riding on the horses. Got one thing paid for, nevertheless. Got away over the state line, nevertheless. Dave makes certain. Coaled
$75, 000
closer,
COLD
is a bankruptcy, Shun and Gadstreet, whats my credit fleeting? Credit is a receding chin sitting beside him, heavy black curls, the younger son a fffffirile stroking moilmale washing his hands under hot and cold, the hot water in the Emanuel bathroom steamingly hot, dazzleicing down a vertical scald, the quick wash with the soap and rinse under the hot, such a scald that he shifts to the cold stream to reestablish toleration, then back to the hot for the balance of the clean, Lees face can be seen longoblong, blackcurled, heavy tho Syrecedingchinned through the great Egyptian pillars of hot and cold running water,
the very sparrow of a
sphinx,
small sphinx at the florists shop. Hothouse greens. The double line of Wyoming Avenue cartracks compose the Lee torso down which Levis Buick runs, fitted for flame, morning category, graygreen. He washes his hands of Dave, Lee’s brother. Only theres an old older brother in Levis manifold with Levis tough heavychin, greenbearded, he will shave the greengray stubble later. The hot is very hot. LETS CHANGE PARTYFAUCETS, Ninas hot and cold monkey and greasegreeneyed mother, but Lees mothers plump, rosyrose where do they take you down to broad street station
at the bottom it is
dusty brown the sunlight
is dusty brown falling
from tawny skylights ten
thousand
$75000
feet above the pale lavender
flame scallops from the
Constellation
cold now. Make Levis run. Lee caught threequarter canted, mothwingfold in the Buick against the winterscreen, fire fire, how can Levi turn on both at the same time for at the top of the blind boy is 5th Street, where the morning sun is so blinding that the whole top of the canvas hurts the eye one son in the Texas League, nothing holding Lee back, my loins itch, he wants to take his foot off the accelerator. Size of Levis shoe: 7 1/2. Quite small for a man five feet ten inches in height. The size of Lees shoe is 11 3/4, D width.
7 1/2. Accelerator. 11 1/4. We miss the brake. I omit it from the canvas. I do not have seventyfivethousand dollars in the Wyoming Bank and Trust Company Levi knows, thats how sons are. I trusted him. I trust Lee. Insist on the canvas that both sons enter underneath the vaults, I have a hoop of a wheel between my hands, I give it advice on turning, in Hebrew letters. Dave runs in a new car, paid for, thats all thats paid for. Theres a sleek sprint offcanvas. Turn on the cold, the cold. Quartzhot crystals babble through Levis blood, spray Lees skin; son hunches, the cartracks converge abruptly into pointed pyramids, the hose at Lees groin squirting cold water over the tops of the pyramids. Diamonds of pinheaded men in ticktacktoe cravats are disposed in crannies of goggles, staring through blackly curled goggles at a rising sun, a scald of orange, cold water on the eye, sir, cold water on, ice the heat on the retina Levi never calls Lee son, nor David does he call son, each has a specific name he must drive down to Run and Hadstreet, rankbrupt, to labor into his seventies to pay every goddamned cent he owes on his son David, Clancy Mann, ho, Clancy yet the sardonic snoirl, Lee separates his feelings on his thighs, one hand on each, steel cartracks plunging into his legs: one line backtracks, pushes against an absolute perpendicular, then we: absolutely make no relation between one line and another, paralleling, a horizontal that may connote an automobile bumper rams its elbow into the diamonds of pinheads before granitegreen bulge of a structure
ASSETS $1,548,492
LIABILITIES $1,548,492
MEMBER FEDERAL RESERVE I assure you, insured up to, interest compounded at the rate of five minutes early:
Gruff Jove: I can wait five minutes.
Sure.
They got a lot this time. JoveGruff.
Pretty much, pop.
They all look so healthy. In Lithuania flakeccent.
1A. He dares a look at his father’s hands, on the hoopwheel. Greengray hairs on ruddy handbacks. Intolerable, than he can but spring up and down within the carwheel. Intolerable, that, Lee, has his hands fixed under both hot and cold running water. One side of his body flaming; one side in a freeze; and a block of continental territory to his left, dark under the Constellation, his father is named Los Angeles, then Omaha, then Chicago, then Pittsburgh, then Harrisburg, then. And all the land between his father is: heavy, bulging, continental, mountainous, ravined, valleyed, laked, rivered; is alkalid and sagebrushed, is forested and forestfired; his father is a globe, a capitol, a hemisphere ruddy and graygreen, heavychinned in the nightsky, revolving, and revolving, and revolving beside him in the Buick while he sits in the middle of the hoop watching for the chance to spring out without the sides of his father’s body touching him, avoid the revolving and the revolving and the revolving for he your father may spin you into spumeflake and spiculespray, hurtle you beyond
ASSETS
and
LIABILITIES
IS
he worth more than seventyfivethousand dollars Levi grunts. The dollars have pain. The dollars have chunks. The dollars have charcoal bags. The dollars have great loads of crap he has to get rid of nightly in the Emanuel toilet on the Roosevelt Boulevard my son. Dollars are my Lee, whom he does not look at in the front seat, fearful he may hurl his entire dollarbody upon him, bellysmothering the young dollars, hold him down for gods sake the
