Well, I didn't, did I?
Speaking of this, look at this—"Janet: 431-4909."
Never followed up on this one, either.
Neither did I ever do anything about "Dad."
Impulse, was it, to sit here and type up something about some kids who are all of the time going around in the ordinary course of things all of the time bearing around with them this like little teeny tiny father of theirs up under their arms with them, like all of the time up under their arms in a grip with them, or shifting him from grip to grip with them, the old boy sometimes getting himself hiked up over onto a shoulder with them, hefted over from child to child with them, him not dead yet but just all of the time logy and dozy and woozy and indefinite, but not at all unthrilled for him in the meanwhile to be borne forth on the bodies of his own.
Then there's — or here's there — this one.
"Brown barn."
What it has to do with — or what it had to do with — didn't it have to do with me and with her? — with wanting to memorialize the way it once was with us once — the two of us passing past a barn while driving along?
Her saying, "Oh, how brown I am."
Her saying, "Oh, so brown," in this, you know, in this barn-style of a voice she said it in.
I thought, "It's her to a T."
I thought, "That's her to a T."
What's next?
Uh-oh.
Here's one I don't know what to say about it.
It's, yikes, it's the look they give you, the wasting-away ones — the ones who are sitting there where they're sitting and wasting away from it ones.
Ever notice it?
This is how it looks as an entry written not to you but to myself.
"How they look — or don't."
But, okay, put it off for later — and, besides, who isn't, who doesn't, is there anybody who doesn't look like this to somebody else? But please, please — too distressing for me to sit here and just this minute let myself get into it.
Oh gosh, talk about a change of pace — this one, oh boy, this one'll slay you.
Get this.
Amsterdam.
Judson.
Stuyvesant.
Trafalgar.
Longacre.
Lackawanna.
Circle.
Oregon.
Sacramento.
Pennsylvania.
Chelsea.
Butterfield.
Atwater.
Gramercy.
Algonquin.
Rhinelander.
Murray Hill.
Chickering.
Bryant.
Rector.
Ingersoll.
Plaza.
Lexington.
Canal.
Terrific, yes?
Terrific or terrific?
But some clog down there, I mean it.
Anyway, it's like her — it's like it's in like in a class by itself.
Also: Regent — or was it Regency?
Not to mention, I think, a Merrian or maybe it was, you know, Meridian.
I don't know.
Do you know? — Regent or Regency, etc. etc.?
Here's another one — notation of most blemishless-looking ladies guess who once had himself something to do with once.
Ann Marvel.
Norma Sinclaire.
Grace Pantano.
Christine Hasborough.
Valerie Morse.
Barbara Lish.
Plus two whose names it's too dangerous for them for me to list for you.
Plus too dangerous for me.
But, swell, one we'll call her the "the knee one," or "knees," and one "heels."
So they'll know.
Because then they'll know.
"Call the Chemique Company."
Which was for me to call to order some more KRC-7, which I am here to testify to is the most powerful brass cleaner, or cleaner of brass, you will ever get your hands on.
But better wear gloves.
Copper cleaner — cleaner of copper, too.
But the heck with it.
Never called.
Maybe the heck with ever having brass anymore — and copper, copper — ever as clean as that anymore.
Does Digby sound like one of them to anybody?
Digby 5 or Digby 7?
Except didn't they used to put them in the book like this? — D-I, not D-i.
God, am I ever going to ever anymore run into anybody anymore who could confirm for me Regent versus Regency, Merrian versus Meridian?
Or put for me into perspective for me the whole pointless glut of it for me?
Because bet you she could have.
Called her Boody.
Or she me.
Beats me from whence the practice cameth.
Or the note about Roxie Raye — as in "Roxie Raye."
Hey, what's this—"Zig-Sauer?"
So what's this Zig-Sauer doing down there?
This is the name of somebody or what?
2026 Bay State Road, Boston, which is the address of The Partisan Review, isn't it?
Ethan—"money for Ethan" — my son.
Check AARP for medical, dental rates — Metropolitan for senior-citizen ditto.
Metaleptic.
Sorry, already took care of "metaleptic," didn't I?
"Artaud's Power of Sickness."
"Huizinga, Merleau-Ponty, Husserl, Saussure."
"Redetzky's March," except I think it should have been Redetzkys' probably.
Ochlocratic.
Soteriological.
Lacustral.
Conatus.
Nimiety.
Mantic.
Limpet.
Sedge.
"Math afterward," say math afterward instead of saying aftermath.
Or at least math after.
Prelude, interlude, postlude.
It's really nice.
Don't you think it's really nice?
Prelude, interlude, postlude.
But what can compete with Amsterdam, Judson, Stuyvesant, Trafalgar, Oregon, Circle, Lackawanna, Longacre, Sacramento, Pennsylvania, Chelsea, Butterfield, Atwater, Gramercy, Algonquin, Rhinelander, Murray Hill, Chickering, Bryant, Lexington, Plaza, Rector, Ingersoll, Canal? Hey, you can't compete with that.
Oh, and "renew copyrights."
Anyway, it's a look.
They can't look — but they are trying to look — but the head, the head, they cannot get the head lifted up enough for them to look up enough for them to see you in your eyes — but they try, they are trying, and this is what it is which gives the look to have that look of it — the trying but they can't.
Too weary, too weak, too broken.
But if you never noticed it, fuck it.
Okay, am calling 431-4909.
Instant I quit this, am, okay, calling 431-4909.
Telling her just thought of Lehigh, of Hamilton, of Melrose, of Cypress, of Eldorado, of Yukon, of Oxford.
Am telling her am adding them and then am adding on top of them Schuyler and Susquehanna and Wisconsin and Talmadge.
Then Templeton and Twining.
Then Twining and Esplanade.
Telling her this is the thing of it for you to do — for you to add, to add, to always add! — not for you ever to ever, not for you anybody ever, for you ever to take anything, even one thing, away.
Like Benveniste, like Bleuler, like Watkins.
And how about Humboldt, Hamann, Herder, and — wait a minute, wait a minute! — Spring?
But maybe some of these, maybe I said — I don't know — maybe I said some of them already.
Did I already say some of them already?
Or say any of them twice?
Because I'd look back up to see if I did, but then you'd have to have to see me try.
Too weary, too weak, too broken.
Even for all of the quotation marks owed.
NIGHT OF THE HARNESS, DAY OF THE TRUSS
STORY I AM GOING TO TELL YOU is going to — had better, had better! — form itself out of the business of my telling you what I am telling you, which is forming itself — which is to say the act of telling is — out of the act of not going to bed, which is probably really a react, not an act — but go fight City Hall, wrong word, word made of noun not, you know, in form of noun!