The Thing at 34-03-15N, 118-15-23W

 

The Colorado Quarterly (Spring, 1969)

 

Charles Deemer

 

 

Falling into the generation gap, I miss Willie Mays' home run

 

I CAN HEAR THEM out there. They are, to ignore the language's index of elasticity, dancing. And they are dancing with each other, I am asked to believe, although the fact of the matter is that when I left the patio they were exhibiting their individual spasms of ecstasy over a separation of six to twelve feet. Now I ask you: is that dancing together? I will admit that they are — for lack of a better word — involved. Yes, they are involved. They are so involved that they neglect to admire the new patio, the excuse for this party in the first place. I finished it last Wednesday, designing and building the whole thing myself, setting it into a three-colored form of a navigator's compass, at the center of which a brass plate marks the exact location of the patio: 34 degrees, 3 minutes, 15 seconds north, 118 degrees, 15 minutes, 23 seconds west. Having been a navigator in the Navy during the war, I made that measurement precisely. Myself.

I retreated thirty minutes ago. I did not leave for the specific purpose of watching the ballgame. This I would have sacrificed in order to be an attentive host, but frankly it is impossible to be any kind of host, attentive or indifferent, unless one has guests. Whatever these kids today may be, delinquents, revolutionaries, or spoiled nouveaux riches (Jim tends toward the latter), they certainly are not guests. They rather are like some of my bloodsucking relatives, who expect everything they ask for immediately and for nothing. No, they need no host out there. Whatever they need, they need no host.

You might say I retreated in self-defense. In time the eardrums begin to ache, no doubt in sympathetic vibration with the trembling sycamores and quivering rose bushes, which in turn get their motion from the vibrating phonograph. In the living room the music still can be heard but it is bearable. I cannot hear the ballgame, of course, but since Dizzy Dean left the air no announcer is worth listening to anyway. I used to sit through ballgames just to hear old Diz sing The Wabash Cannonball during the seventh inning stretch. Well, times have changed. Today I watch the Giants and Dodgers to the screeches of Bob Dylan, who has the honor (if it is that) of being Jim's and everyone else's favorite — I should say, thing — this afternoon. Over and over it's Dylan, Dylan, Dylan. Spasms, spasms, spasms. And Mary is out there with them, which must say something about the maternal instinct. She is fortunate to have the hearing aid, however: a flip of a switch brings silence, peace.

Willie McCovey is at the plate when Jim comes in. He asks, "Dad, has Frank called up?" I wave the question away until McCovey strikes out, stirring up a tornado with his last swing. Once I saw him swing, miss, and dislocate a shoulder. McCovey out, I reply to Jim's inquiry negatively.

"Let me know if he does, okay?"

I nod. Frank is Jim's best friend and is supposed to be here eventually, bringing over more records, I think. Frank was a pretty fair athlete (track, a quarter-mile man) until this, his senior, year when he gave it up to grow his hair long. Jim's hair remains respectably short, I would hope in deference to the wishes of his parents, although it seems to lengthen suspiciously between haircuts. Now what barber would cooperate in such a conspiracy?

I trail behind Jim to check on the progress of the party. Progress heads linearly to dinner, at which time I may have a brief opportunity to play host in my chef's apron. In an hour or so they'll be wanting hamburgers out there. A funny thing — they come close to using decent manners when they want something badly. Food.

But at the moment they are still doing their thing. Spasms. Mary is sitting at the picnic table, lost behind that sweet matronly smile of hers, lost as well in silence, I suspect. For me there is no switch to flip, and the racket is unbearable. From two six-inch speakers Bob Dylan is screeching garbled lyrics while electric guitars explode. The lyrics, could they be understood, would prove to be arrogant in the manner in which a young man dumps his girlfriend after getting from her what he was after. Wham, bam, thank you, mam. I read some of Dylan's lyrics once, in Life. You just sort of wasted my precious time, he tells his girl. He's as spoiled as the rest of his generation. At times I think another depression would be healthy for this country.

"Do you want to dance, Mr. Simpson?" Jim's girl, Sue, calls to me from across the patio. It is not unusual for her to flirt with me. Initially I am fooled into thinking she is being polite, being a guest. Initially I give her the benefit of the doubt, waving and grinning and yelling back, over the racket, "It's not my cup of tea!" She does a sexy little dancestep just for me and then joins whichever of the three near boys, none of whom is Jim, is her partner for the dance. Perhaps they all are.

Sue's offer is the sole gesture made in recognition of my presence. Mary dreams away, a nursing mother's smile on her lips, ignoring me. I quickly tire of so much self-centered behavior and again retreat to the living room. I enter just in time to see "Say Hey!" Willie Mays round third after hitting a home run which, typically, I missed.

 

 

I quote Marshall McLuhan and keep cool

 

BEER ON THE ROCKS is my drink, and soon I am sipping my fourth glass. I have acquaintances who frown at the idea of drinking beer over ice — it's unusual enough a practice to demand an explicit spelling out when ordering the drink in a bar — but my motives are simple, honorable and certainly not eccentric. I drink beer for the taste and, unlike Europeans, I find the flavor heightened by cooling. In addition, I prefer not to get drunk when I drink, and ice cubes dilute beer enough to make possible a certain length of sober indulgence. I've started drinking late today, as Saturday beer drinking goes, but I make up for lost time with three quick glasses and then pour a fourth, which presently I sip. I keep my wits about me. I still have them when Sue enters the house.

Now have no doubt about it, Nabokov was right. If anything, he understated the facts of the matter. The nymphets are everywhere and my patio is no exception. Yet I am no Humbert and pay no attention to Sue's entrance, which at first I presume is for the use of the toilet. Instead of turning into the hallway, however, she comes directly into the living room and, so help me Nabokov, joins me on the divan.

"Is the game almost over?" she asks.

She smiles more broadly than necessary for such an inquiry, showing off her good teeth. She is thin and slight-breasted, as this Nymphetic Age demands, but her hair, instead of being blonde, is a very ordinary brownish "hair color," though typically it also is straight and drops past her shoulders. Sue always works very hard at being charming.

When I reply that it is the seventh inning, Sue says, "I like your patio. You did a beautiful job."

Aware of this thrust at my weakness, I finish my glass of beer quickly and move unannounced into the kitchen for another. When I return, Sue is gone. I have a brief moment of regret until Jim's entrance returns me to more sober reflections.

"How long are you going to watch TV?" he wants to know.

"Depends on the ballgame." I catch myself sounding grouchy. Keep cool, I am alerted.

"I thought you volunteered to be the chef."

"Is everybody ready?"

"Well, no. I just thought maybe you were going to spend the day in here. Hey, you don't think we're putting you down or something, do you? Everybody really digs the patio. But, I mean, just because we do our thing doesn't mean you are banished from society or anything. Everybody really digs the compass bit."

"I'm glad you like it."

"You're sure you're not put off?"

"Put off?" I have to laugh. "My friend, I happen to be participating in the electric environment as much as the rest of you. A phonograph, a television set, what's the difference? Marshall McLuhan would be happy with us both."

"If you say so," Jim shrugs. "No big thing."

As he starts away, I swallow a more aggressive reply to say, "Let me know when you kids are hungry."

"Yeah," Jim yells back and the screen door slams. It has never been clearer to me that his generation is characterized by arrogance.

 

 

Mary turns on.

 

NO DREAMS are quite like dreams that originate in front of a television set and that are nurtured on beer. Frequently these dreams take place with a slight awareness: the eyes are open if heavy, the hands are numb but function well enough to grasp a glass, the mind is listless yet omnipresent. Thoughts, the dream content of this state, are never remembered in context but their existence is profoundly impressed upon every breath, every yawn. Who cares what the thoughts are? They are there, thought-dreams, and they are more relaxing than a snooze in the country. Cogito, ergo sum, as the philosopher said. An interruption, therefore, is an intrusion into existential bliss and when it takes for form of, "A penny for your thoughts," it is presumptuous as well since it intimates that such private euphoria can be shared.

Although my eyes have not been closed, it takes me a moment to focus on Mary in the room. Her silhouette comes in first, by the sheer bulk of it, and then slowly her smile, matronly and inquisitive. I expect her to ask me if I would like lunch — cookies and Kool-aid — but the fantasy is temporary. She asks, "Why don't you go out and join the fun? They love the patio. You should be out there."

Mary is forty-five and admits to thirty-five. Like Sue, she has "hair color" hair; unlike a nymphet's, her hair drops nowhere but rather just seems to be there, short and plain and ordinary. A mother's hair. She is wearing shorts and the veins run up her legs like water lines.

"We'll be ready to eat in an hour," she goes on. "It takes that long to get the coals going, doesn't it?"

On television a movie has replaced the ballgame. Who won? I recognize the scene in On the Waterfront in which the priest asks Brando, Why do you do these things? Mary says, "I'll make a salad and lemonade." She wanders into the kitchen.

I am taking a beer from the refrigerator when she asks, "Will a big salad be enough? Should we have pork and beans, too?"

"They'll eat anything. We might as well make it as least damaging to the cupboards as possible."

"Frank is due yet," Mary says. "I'd better have beans, too."

"You spoil them." I pour, and over ice cubes the head rises like lather.

"I made up the hamburgers this morning," she says. "Do you think thirty will be enough? Everything's on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator when you need it. I sliced the tomatoes and onions."

"I'm going to have them shut that music off for a while. You can't expect a guy to cook if he can't hear himself think. They've been playing that brat Dylan all afternoon."

"Do you think anyone will want milk?" Mary has moved to the refrigerator and stands gazing into it. In the silence lyrics enter intelligibly from the patio, Do you, Mr. Jones? Mary says, "I didn't think to get any more. There's only a half-gallon left. Roger —" She considers the request and changes her mind. "Oh, lemonade ought to be enough to hold them." She laughs as though amused that for a moment she could have considered any beverage other than lemonade.

"I suggest straight whiskey. It might untangle their nerve ends and put them into a quiet, peaceful stupor." I have to laugh aloud.

"If Frank hasn't arrived by the time you put the meat on, save three patties for him in the refrigerator. He has a big appetite. And don't forget to save him some trimmings." Mary fetches three heads of lettuce and a handful of tomatoes, which she takes to the sink.

"You spoil them," I say. When Mary ignores me, I repeat more loudly, "You wait on them hand and foot. You spoil them. Make Jim slice the tomatoes. Or at least Sue. How's she going to learn to cook?"

I count to ten, finish off the beer, and move to the sink, standing just behind Mary. Into her left ear I say firmly, "You haven't heard a word I've said. Turn your cheater on.”

Grinning with some embarrassment, Mary flips the switch.

 

 

Can Bob Dylan feel pity?

 

WHEN FRANK ARRIVES, it is to a fanfare deserving of General MacArthur. With typical arrogance he anticipated no less enthusiastic a welcome, having waited at the edge of the patio until he was noticed. I saw him first from the barbecue spit but said nothing. Soon, over the electric screeches, the greetings thundered, "Frank!" "Where have you been?" "Hey, man!" "You bring the record?"

The odor of glowing charcoal, which twists visibly to the sycamore branches, is ignored by these teenagers; they are insensitive. How much of the beauty of growing up has been lost! The family picnics, the golden evening's trout, the barn dances, the seasons as they ... Well, it's too late for them. Their habits are formed and inflexible, the habits of the nouveaux riches, which presently gather them into a circle around Frank, asking, "Can I see the record?," demanding, "Come on, let's put it on."

Bob Dylan has come out with a new record, and Frank possesses it. He is the first of Jim's friends to get it, the reason being that he works in the album department at Martin's Music downtown. No one has heard the album yet and all demand to. Bob Dylan has a new record! The first one since the motorcycle accident, Sue informs me. The first in over a year.

A solemn moment. Sue leaves me to join the others, strutting away with an anatomical rustle. I am taken aback, expecting her to begin the dance spasms of before, seeing her turn solemn. Frank handles the album as though it was his first rosary, and everyone watches silently as he places the record on the turntable. I catch Sue's eye — with tongue and lip she sultrily twists the moment into something heinous. Then she is solemn again. I feel smoke rising into my face, stinging my eyes.

I make a special point of ignoring both the record and its mesmerized audience. I prod the coals, poking them into a little pyramid to burn faster. I am hungry. The kids, however, have only one appetite, which surprisingly is not gluttonous: they huddle around the phonograph and strain their collective expressions for deeper meanings whenever Frank raises an index finger, nods his head, brushes aside a strand of hair that has reached his nose, or says, just above a whisper, "Catch this part."

I bet Mary is fixing pork and beans after all. Holding onto the thought, I can ignore the music. It is important that I will the music out of existence: an honest opinion on my part could ruin the afternoon. We must have peaceful coexistence here. Here, at 34-03-15N, 118-15-23W, peace at all costs!

But in time I sneak a listen. Not to do so is impossible since I have no switch to turn off. Listening, I am again astonished by the unexpected: Bob Dylan is not accompanied by electric screeches. No charged guitars, ionized organs, the electric bombardment of violated musical scales. I catch a line, I pity the poor immigrant ... Pity? No wham, bam, thank you, mam? Does Bob Dylan have a new thing? Well, there also is a verb of the times, which stretches out beyond the language's elastic limit — to put on.

By the third playing of the album, the congregation loosens up enough to sway gently, like a sapling. A few begin to dance. The rest impress each other arrogantly.

"Man, that album's weird," says Jim. "You know what I mean?"

Frank does. He nods superciliously, a gesture which suddenly is more than I can stand. The coals glow, waiting to prepare meat for these aristocrats democratically, without preferring one man's patty to another's. These kids are spoiled. I intrude, asking, "What happened to the electric environment? Marshall McLuhan would have a fit."

"It's the electricity in the phonograph that counts," Franks says. He has that self-righteous attitude of a few of my Basic Government students at the high school, the ones who bring to my office their rehearsed diatribe about the sanctity of dialectical materialism. I grant that a teacher's job in part is to elicit open discussion, but this is easier to do in the classroom than on the patio, standing over the twisting odor of charcoal, a mere compass's length from the sultry Sue. Dylan interrupts, ... and turns his back on me. I step up the attack with, "But the electric dimension is singular there, whereas with electric guitars and organs ..."

"You're not in the classroom, Dad!" Jim intrudes, feigning amusement. He immediately continues, "Frank, did you notice the compass? It gives our exact location. Dad figured it out with the sextant and some math tables." They move in one motion and kneel before the brass plate.

"You figured this out yourself?" Frank asks, pointing at the inscription on the plate.

"It's not as difficult as you may think to determine the coordinates of your location," I admit. "The sextant measures the angle of elevation of the North Star, for example, which is not really at the celestial pole, and from there you ..."

"Hey, let's eat!" Jim exclaims.

Mary exits from the house with salad and, of course, pork and beans, and I am submerged in a roaring ocean of hunger tantrums.

 

 

Doing my thing

 

REMEMBER THE HAYRIDES? Or the campfires, roasting wieners and marshmallows, and later singing, The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see? Sneaking a kiss in the shadows of the night? The autumn moon, as large as a grapefruit? The leaves whispering before the thunderstorm and the special smell of morning the next day? Today such pleasures are buried treasure, and we have only a few maps by which to remember them. After dinner the kids listen to Bob Dylan some more, and in the misty twilight they huddle around the phonograph trying to decide which drive-in movie to go to. I discover that Jim and Sue are holding hands.

Mary gathers the plates, silverware, and glasses, cleans up the patio without assistance, and returns in time to learn that the kids have decided to see Beach Blanket Bingo, although it is a rerun that they've seen before. I toss the keys to the T-bird to Jim, who one-hands them silently. Tonight he gets to leave his '65 Chevy in the garage.

Naturally they offer little thanks. Sue tells me, "The hamburgers were swell," and the others nod like a chorus of school children. They are off soon. Mary, who spoils them, volunteers to put away Jim's phonograph and records so the kids will be sure to get to the theater on time. Frank picks up his new Bob Dylan album and guards it. Then they are off. The sun is sinking rapidly; perhaps they are late already.

Leaving Mary to her devices, I go to the den, where I have my work desk. I try to grade Friday's test, one hundred true-false questions on the Constitution, but my interest soon fades. The arrogant mood of the evening returns, creeping up on me like indigestion. Bob Dylan's voice echoes like a bad dream, neither wholly remembered nor forgotten. A mood torments me. Listlessly I move to the living room, where Mary is watching television.

She turns, presents a short welcome, and returns her attention to the tube. The Saturday Night Movie. I don't recognize it.

When is the last time Mary and I made love before sunset? The question erupts without prelude. I consider leading her into the bedroom right now, while the twilight lingers and we can see without lights. Does Mary read my mind? Before I reach a decision she gets up and turns on the television lamp. It is official now — the night has begun.

In the kitchen I pour beer on the rocks. I sit alone in the near darkness, sipping. Mary comes in during a commercial. Switching on the light, she asks, "What are you doing in here? Aren't you going to come watch the movie?"

I go to her. The light makes me squint for a moment. Mary draws a glass of water, and I reach from behind her, my hand grazing one breast as I reach for her stomach. She is too big down there.

"Is something bothering you?" she asks, taking my hand and turning. I step back.

"Those kids wore me out," I say. The remark is exhaled like a sigh. "That music drives me nuts."

"Well, we were as bad, if you remember." She smiles at this reminiscence. "Remember when Dad broke your Tommy Dorsey records and you challenged him to a duel?" She giggles. "Maybe we were worse."

"It's not the same. We didn't drive a T-bird somewhere to be entertained. We didn't have to be entertained. We amused ourselves. We ..."

"Thank God kids today don't have to go through everything we went through, though." She turns and starts toward the living room. Habitually I follow.

At the next commercial I say, "I'm going to Sammy's. You want to come?"

"I'll be along after the movie."

Sammy's Tavern is only two blocks from the house. I walk over, enter, take an end stool. John, the bartender, draws me a beer over ice, and I slap a quarter onto the bar.

Pleasantries are exchanged with the regulars: Eddie and Judy, who are playing pool with Ralph and a girl I don't know, who's stacked; old Joe, who watches them; the Nelsons, dancing to the juke box. It's a busy night, with a couple dozen customers I've never seen before. Some are good lookers. The two best, one a blonde, don't look like they could be twenty-one.

"Where's Mary?" old Joe asks me from down the bar. He's retired and always high. I point to the television screen on the wall, on which the scenes of the Saturday Night Movie pass silently, noticed only by a few men along the bar. Joe chuckles and coughs, then buys me a beer.

"Where's Mary?" It's Ralph, who introduces me to his latest, Betty somebody. I lose the last name in the perusal of her anatomy, which is no less than staggering. Ralph really picks them.

I explain to Eddie and Judy, who come over next, that Mary will be along as soon as the movie ends at eleven, about an hour from now. "I expected you'd drop by earlier," Eddie says. "We needed you. That Betty is hotter than blazes with a cue stick." He laughs uproariously, winking to make sure I catch the dirty suggestion. Judy joins in.

I tell them about the barbecue and the kids. "I went crazy listening to that music they play."

"We know what you mean," says Judy. "Who was it? The Rolling Stones or the Beatles?"

"They're both out this year," Eddie informs us. "It's the — what is it? The Drawers? The Doors?" He laughs.

"It was Bob Dylan at the house."

Judy admits that she can't tell one group from another.

Ralph and Betty are dancing now and we watch, particularly noticing how Betty presses herself against him. "That's indecent," Eddie happily notes. "Why don't you dance like that?" he kids his wife.

"Well, one thing about those new dances the kids do, you don't see them crawling all over each other," Judy says. Then she drags Eddie onto the dancefloor.

Ann Nelson asks me to dance and I accept. She is blonde, bleached I think, and trim for her age. She hinted at a proposition once, cornering me in the kitchen at a New Year's Eve party. I hinted back at a raincheck, and we've been close ever since. I enjoy the dance for several reasons, not the least of which is the close range it brings me to the young, the authentic, blonde. I predict she's not a day over twenty.

After the dance I concentrate on drinking. For a change I feel like getting smashed. Although I drink constantly, I am seldom drunk. I stick to beer on the rocks and a sipping pace. I feel a constant glow, usually euphoric but tonight dismal, depressing, dreadful for some reason. One of my occasional philosophical moments, I decide. Another beer and I'll be spouting epigrams. The gang will laugh and jokingly call me The Professor. I don't mind — I have a sense of humor and can laugh even at myself. I'm over thirty, so you can't call me arrogant. My dad, in fact, would take a belt to me at the slightest hint of arrogance; he beat it out of me early, I tell you. He was a good fellow, too, though with his faults. So who's perfect? But he taught me responsibility and proper humility. Will Jim ever learn the same? I hope to Christ he does. I can't understand today's kids. How do you communicate with them? If you're over thirty, they clam up or suspect you. They’re spoiled, is the thing. They have whatever they want. They know nothing about suffering, struggling, striving. They are spoiled. The nouveaux riches.

I spin to the pool table. Betty is leaning forward, leaning toward me for a shot, and the position swells up her blouse. My stare is interrupted when the authentic young blonde passes by on her way to the restroom. Her perfume stays behind her, caressing me like skin.

A chorus of greeting rises, "Mary, Mary." Slowly, I turn toward the doorway.