At about this time, the chronicler would often put himself to sleep by imagining himself to be a woman. What was it they said, at least most of the time? How would it feel — that was it — to have a vagina? How would it feel to slip a lemon in there? Or would it be “up” there? And can one actually slip a lemon into such a space? Would it be correct to do so, or would such an act be demeaning? And if so, to whom? Thus did he muse on the politics of his era, complex, certainly, but succinct!
The sea would claw gently at the shore, slowly moving the beach to, say, Spain. In years to come, vacationers would be hard-pressed to lark about here! And yet, “Tod” thought, he and his pals took it all for granted. Science was funny that way, although science had invented the lemon and sent, as well, our eager astronauts to their hard-earned deaths. Science!
The lemon is native to India, to the Punjab, to be precise, and has quite extraordinarily lovely, though not showy, purple-edged white blossoms. The skin of the fruit grows slowly yellow and pliable, except, of course, in actual life, that is, when the fruit is permitted to ripen on the tree. Fruit thus ripened is called mague verde. The juice of the mature lemon is high in Vitamin c, and is thought, by Lutheran ministers, to be an aphrodisiac, hence the plethora of summer picnics. In hot climates, the lemon is called l’amour jaune, perhaps a reference to its amorous properties.
All citrus growers agree that the fruit should be cut from the tree while green and at “standard” or “normal” size, then allowed to ripen in “chill sheds” or “chill shanties” in order to attain its maximum heft and astringent flavor. The problem here suggested, of course, is: What is standard or “normal” size? (See “Cantaloupe, representations of.”)
As Berrigan would make for one “chiller” or another along the line of march through the desolate steppe, his constant refrain was “Etonnez-moi!” He may well have been exhorting his weary followers. On the other hand, he may have been commenting on one of the various optical illusions that the wasteland was noted for, e.g., the williwaw and the fairy morning.
Florida
Florida, to this day, is much like Corsica, even to its genial and plentiful whores. This coincidence was not lost on “Tod,” grown by now into a wonderful person, and an even more omnivorous reader. “Another Corsica, man,” he’d assure admiring guests, with the superb touch of false humility he’d recently cultivated as an adjunct. Josephine’s (q.v.) healthy bosom quickened with a kind of oddly bourgeois pride, and heavily came her breath. It had been worth it, she knew, to give up her legal work in order to become the wife of this extraordinary man, even though a career was becoming extremely important amid the “new plangency,” as the era was being arrogantly called. There were, it should go without saying, optical illusions everywhere.
Years later, bitterly alone and quarreling constantly with rude hosts on St. Helena, “Tod” regretted not having victimized Florida in the “Sonnet Days,” so-called when the fabled bateaux à noyer were available to him by the thousands.
Florida! he would think ruefully.
Vive Coral Gables! Vive Miami Beach! Vive Biscayne Bay!
He collapsed in tears onto the bezique.
How he had wished to experience, and absorb, golden sands, pavilion music, swamps, fens, bogs, fevers, malaria, gators, and ringworm.
The Trocadero! The Gold Coast! Malibu! Little Havana!
Berrigan did not, of course, give a thought to the fire ants, skeeters, or raccoons. In his mind was the image of the deathless pantoum, one of the more elusive optical illusions. It always seemed about the size of a very large lemon. So “Tod” startled himself needlessly.
Oscaloosa! Osceola! San Fernando! Dixie, Dade, and DeSoto! Broward and Hernando!
Too late, perhaps, Berrigan realized that it was his artistic destiny to realize the futility of optical illusions — in his life as well as in his work! — for the pleasure and instruction of others. There were plenty of them!
The bezique floated away on a zephyr, followed by cards, tiles, and dice. But the sand, he knew, was forever, if not here, then in, say, Spain or Massachusetts.
California
History suggests that “Tod” was often effervescent at parties, to which he was rather disconcertingly drawn. His notebook was always in evidence, and yet.… He would, more often than not, assume the persona of a football player or ironworker, a sign of the subverted signifier.
Defeat seemed almost sweet to him. He remembered Waterloo and the thrill of surrender. And to Wellington, a covert practitioner of the unnatural! As a contemporary quipped, “You should take a look already at the tight pants he wears by the dragoons!” Was defeat but another optical illusion?
Soon, he was in California, where he spent several months dreaming of a great shining railroad that would connect the stunning beauty of the North with the breathtaking beauty of the South. And over the projected scene there projectively hung the scent of projected lemons, long present in this paradise before the advent of wheat, the advent of the avocado, the advent of the radish and the pear and the apricot! Long before the advent of the guava! The scarlet tomato! the latter a gift from our proud Mexican “amigos,” happy to have been born to the honest hoe, the honest shovel, the honest broom. Not for such the corrupting dreams of wealth!
The Dream Is Over
Yet official business, in the guise of the Code St. Mark’s, the School Cabal, and the Troublin’ Mind Committee, forced the restless innovator back to New York. From there, he was dispatched to Elba for the ordeal of the Hundred Days for “extraneous ibitas,” a charge that whipped him into a cold fury of nonchalance.
Waking one morning in a lather of sweat, he noticed, at the door of his bedroom, two of the largest lemons he had ever seen. Although conventional wisdom scoffed and snickered, they were quite big!
“Josephine,” he called quietly into the melancholy darkness. The lemons rustled in the corridor. He felt as if he had lost his mind, or as if he was about to be compromised by radical groups he’d somehow offended by a thought he’d entertained. Now Florida seemed to be no more than the optical illusion he had always suspected it to be even when good friends had assured him of its actual size, more or less. Where now the quiet breeze?
“Josephine,” he called again, but the lady was not there. No more would she assure “Tod” that he was of average height and average build, of, in fact, a decent size, much larger, in fact, than any lemon she had ever seen. And no more would she explain to him that everything in life is but an optical illusion, or something like it, no more remind him that somebody had once said that a hero removes all fruits from their places.
ALLEGORY OF INNOCENCE
They discovered a cache of old books, replications, wooden fences, a spangled gypon, assorted spheroids, and many other items, as yet unidentified. The Director, despite his unnerving obsession with luminous white dresses — and their ever-varying representations in his collection of Christian Fundamentalist pamphlets — was lucid enough to assert that some of the more common fabrics would forever remain mysterious as to their composition. “Dried grit,” “Leaves,” “Pebbles,” “Rifle,” “Fishing rod,” were but some of the names they tried attaching to some of the things, although it was clear that nothing quite fit. One of the group of assistants — actually, more than one — thought that certain of the larger umbrellas looked like navy-blue melton overcoats, admittedly an eccentric notion. Hub shards were quickly identified, as were metal brassiere caps, and, though grotesque enough, they were not as grotesque as many of the other “discoveries.” At about this time, the Director took to covering himself with mounds of his cherished gossamer evening gowns, the color of new snow, and neglecting, for days, his investigation of the woody perennials that were doubtlessly clues to the identification of the least familiar clumps.