Andrew Hilger

The Picture, or Fiction Makes Strange Bedfellows

I once attended a reading where the poet said he liked to start his poems with facts. There are twelve inches in a foot; that's a cold, hard fact. But who set this standard? My foot isn't twelve inches. And who decided how long an inch should be. If he had been less generously endowed, would inches be smaller to compensate? What if women had set such standards? Would length be such an important concept? Are these questions relevant or did Mr. Freud invent rather than discover them?

I like starting stories with questions.

Did Freud invent or discover sexual significance? That's what I'm thinking as I walk through the desolate city, imagining penis-shaped projectiles created and dropped by people who share my gender. No one has entered the danger zone since the bombing, but, driven by fear, I have decided to risk it.

That's not a bad opening; it fixes the reader to the "I" character, and provides some degree of mystery and ambiguity. Regardless of their origins, we embrace sexual significances, so, assuming narrative finds its roots in the sex act, these first few lines serve as the pick-up line.

"Read here often?"

If the pick-up line doesn't work, the reader won't be around for the orgasm. Anyone who's dealt with a publisher can tell you that.

The sight of cars frozen in the middle of intersections seems so peculiar, the city itself suffering from an arresting, debilitating affliction. And the silence gives me chills--no car horns or motors, no children playing, no vendors shouting. I find myself waiting for a light to change on the corner of 16th and Walnut; everything around me is frozen and I'm waiting for a light to change. Every so often, a breeze sends the smell of rotting flesh in my direction and I almost throw up. Whenever the nausea surfaces, I turn my head and walk more quickly. The Bellevue Strafford must have been near capacity the day of the bombing; I have to cross the street to get away from the stench. I look to the sky thankful to have been vacationing with my wife at the time of the blast.

After the pick-up line goes out, the hopeful pursuer tells his or her story. The situation needs to be set before any action can begin.

"Insurance is my line."

In certain encounters the dispersing of background information and the motions of the sex can be intertwined, but I'm presenting a more traditional view of the narrative act. The teller's past story needs to be interesting enough for the hearer to become complicit in the narrative to follow. The preceding description of the bombed-out city offers past narrative, the premise on which the story relies, the information that helps the reader decide whether to go to bed with the narrative.

My affair, if that's what people want to call it, hadn't lasted very long, but there was the business of the picture. I'm not the first to say it and I won't be the last, but love (or infatuation as I gaze in retrospect) makes a person do some crazy things. I should have been wary of anyone snapping our picture, yet I did it myself; I set the timer; I pulled Diana into me; I documented the adultery.

Seventy years ago, society would have frowned upon such subject matter. Ten years ago, we had a sexual revolution. Subtlety and decorum and rules went out the window. Men came on to women and women came on to men. The nature of the narratives changed. If Hemingway were writing today, we'd know about Jake Barnes' difficulties on the first page, maybe even earlier: The title might be The Sun Also Rises, But Jake's Organ Doesn't. Sex isn't shocking anymore; it's expected.

We can trace the transformation of popular fiction into the trash we see today to the trans-formation of how we view and do sex. In biblical times, no one uttered God's name. Moses scaled a mountain to meet "the one who is." Today, vagueness of speech surrounds sex, not God. Dick and Jane scale a mountain to do "you know what." One could argue that God is far from dead in mainstream society; sex has become our God. Whether its exaltations find their roots in sociological evolution or sociological creation, we embrace sex as a God.

Not only had I been blinded to the point of snapping the picture, I dropped a copy on her desk a few days later with some scribbles on the back: "I'll always love you! Bill."

Demonstrating a perfect flair for the dramatic, she had photocopied my writing and, the very next day, wrote, "Thanks so much for the sentiment, but I've come to realize what an egocentric, loathsome ass you are. If you come near me again, I'll personally deliver this picture to your wife. Diana." Needless to say, we were finished. Don't get me wrong; I'm not in love with my wife or anything, but let's just say her maiden name is "Doolcamp." Her father's that mean looking son-of-a-bitch who tells America, "I don't care who says what about the leading brand; we're the leading brand and we're softer. I wipe with Doolcamp's, so I know why we're America's favorite. Period." He also owns Shoeland and Vegi-Mart. When you add it up, he's worth over a billion dollars and my wife's his only child, so it's pretty important that we stay married. My fiscal future makes it worth braving the radiation levels and smelling a few fried corpses. Diana and the rest of the metropolitan area are dead, but the picture lives.

Well, the swinging single has told his/her story. The situation is set.

"Do you want to go back to my place?"

Now, there's a natural pause before the present narrative commences. If the initial encounter happened in a bar, one or both of the participants are taking a break in the bath-room before they leave the bar and get down to the business of "you know what."

I stroll through the revolving doors of my building. I knew it would be desolate, but still, it's eerie, like walking into your grade school in mid-July. No one's on the way out for a smoke and the guard isn't at her desk. An empty building takes on such a different personality. I walk over to the elevators. Normally, since my office is on the top floor, I only take the express elevator, but that doesn't seem to matter with no one in the building. I push all of the "up" buttons, and a local dings almost instantly. I step on, reach over to press "22," then realize that all of the buttons are lit up. The doors close and I have to laugh; no one's in the building, I take the local and still I stop at every floor. Then I grow a little concerned. I think the level of radiation in the air might be affecting the heat-sensitive buttons. But it's too late to turn back, especially considering how close I am to the picture.

The action has begun. The past stories have made the present one a possibility. The couple has kissed or maybe rubbed up against each other. The wheels are in motion for an eventual climax/ orgasm. If the reader isn't satisfied, s/he will never engage in the act of reading this author again. Of course, the absolutes of sex aren't quite as absolute. Memory doesn't always tame urges; for example, I still "read" my husband once every few months despite countless forgettable past experiences.

The elevator stops at every floor and I grow more frustrated with each pause. I just want to get the picture, destroy it and move on. My wife is waiting at home. She had asked me where I was going, and I had just said, "I have things to do." She hadn't asked any other questions, so I simply left.

At the 21st floor, I start to get the queasy feeling that I've always felt when I've neared my office. Part of it would come from an aversion to work and part of it would come from knowing I'd have to see Diana, knowing I'd have to work for her. Now that she's dead, I thought I wouldn't feel that way, but I still do; the elevator ride evokes the queasiness like the salivation of Pavlov's dog. In a perverse way, I'm happy to be stopping at every floor, delaying the malaise of work, but I keep reminding myself that I won't be working. I just have to get that picture out of the building.

The queasiness/anxiety/anticipation that the narrator feels parallels the reader's expectations. When will things take off? What will happen on the 22nd floor? Meanwhile, the author calculates when she should initiate the sex. To wait too long is to bore the potential partner, causing him/her to go home. The reader fears the author's climax won't match expectations. To move too fast is the equivalent of getting fresh, insulting the reader; again, s/he goes home. In this case, characters are not fleshed out and action happens without motivation. Again the potential sex, the potential climax, goes unrealized.

Ding. The doors open to reveal an empty 22nd floor and I feel a great deal of relief. I should have expected the emptiness, but it feels good when it becomes more than theoretical. I step out of the elevator and hear some noises. A door slams shut and maybe some feet are shuffling, but that doesn't make any sense. I decide it must be the building settling, still shaken by the intensity of the blast. The gentle breeze outside could explain the door; an open or shattered window sucking it shut. Then I hear something high-pitched that I can't place or explain. The noise stops, so I walk down the hall. Out of a ten-year habit, I turn left into my office. I don't have any reason to go in there, but I open the door anyway. Inside, sitting at my desk, is the biggest, ugliest cockroach I've ever seen, rifling through my papers with one tentacle, holding a Twinkie with another. He looks at me and I slam the door as fast as I can, and I try to collect my thoughts. He looks just like I always have imagined Gregor to look in Metamorphosis.

Here, the pace of the encounter picks up. Figurative penetration has occurred. Still more things are happening; the mention of Kafka's story represents a trend in contemporary fiction: intertextuality. Critics like to know with whom authors sleep/read. Meanwhile, authors are growing more likely to kiss and tell. For me, the Kafka reference reveals more about character than author; at first glance, he might appear well-read, but, since scholars widely believe Gregor to have been a dung beetle rather than a cockroach, the character has undermined his own literacy.

Earlier, I talked about the changing nature of sex and fiction. Both can be described as "Kafka-esque"-- a term thrown loosely at almost any experiment. As authors play with narrative techniques and levels of realism, lovers role-play and tie each other up and swap with or include other couples. I'll spare you the details, but I find that as my writing becomes more experimental, my sex-life grows increasingly "Kafka-esque." Based on that revelation, I suspect that potential partners will read this text with an odd mixture of fear and arousal.

I tiptoe down the hall, listening for my office door to creak open, but it doesn't happen and I am gradually relieved of some of the tension. As I near Diana's office, though, the queasiness returns, but it's juxtaposed with excitement; in a few moments, I will break free from my past.

I reach her office and open the door. A terrible stench blasts from the room and I hardly have time to turn my head before throwing up. Since the bomb had been dropped a few minutes past midnight, I had assumed the building would be empty, but there, on the floor, is a rotting, naked Diana. When I look closer, I can see that she is on top of someone-- the glasses remind me of Fred from Accounting, but he has decayed more than his lover has.

I sprint to a window, push it open and stick my head out, sucking in the fresh air. After a few minutes, I gather myself enough to pull my head in and look around the office. Things are not as neat as I am accustomed to seeing them. I look at her desk where she keeps the picture. The drawers are pulled slightly open, so I know that they aren't locked. I pull each of them open and find papers scattered everywhere-- something Diana never would have tolerated. The picture isn't there. I see a small red light out of the corner of my eye and realize the copy machine is on. There's a trash can next to it, and from there I pull out two pieces of paper with photocopies of the picture, my arm around Diana, both of us smiling, "I'll always love you" photocopied on the bottom half of the paper. I lift the top of the copier, but find no picture; then I rip up the pieces of paper and shove the scraps into my pocket. I look down at Diana, as repulsed by her nakedness as I am by her rotting flesh, then walk out of the office slamming the door behind me.

We've reached a climax. Since the narrative embodies what we want real life to be, we give the climax a great deal of time and attention. Prior to the orgasm, a day of action can be described in a minute. During the climax, one minute of description equals one minute of action.

In the sports we watch, we've discovered ways to lengthen this time period. In the narrative of a professional basketball game, the last two minutes can last for twenty-five minutes. Many fans claim that they only have to watch these last two minutes. Football's orgasm stretches out in similar ways. Effective quarterbacks and coaches find creative ways to "stop the clock." It's no wonder these sports are so popular--they boast long, intense, orgasms.

Another way in which stories derive their form from the sex act involves the post-climactic, post-orgasm time of resolution. After sex, do the lovers embrace? Who lets go first? Do they talk about the future? How has the sex changed their relationship? Narrative must answer these questions as well. Does the villain meet with justice? Do the characters live happily ever after? Specifically, how will Huck Finn deal with a restrictive society? Narrative solves, or at least suggests a solution to these questions. Huck "lights out for the territory ahead of the rest." Not coincidentally, many traditional comedies end with weddings, an implied conclusion for the characters. Resolutions are often implied rather than shown. In this story, I devote little time to the resolution, but when you come to the end, you have a sense of the narrator's future.

As I walk to the elevators, I taste the vomit in my mouth. I stop at the water fountain and swish water around, then spit it out. Without thinking, I push the button for the local elevators. One comes and I step on. This time only a few of the buttons are lit up and I wonder if the lights might be out on the other ones, but we don't stop at 21 or 20 or 19. I breathe a sigh of relief, anxious to leave the building, but still haunted by my failure to destroy the picture.

I feel the elevators stopping at 16, and, when the doors open, two giant cockroaches step on, sending a shot of cold up and down my spine. They glance at me, then look at each other with sly smiles that disarm me. I feel myself shaking, but try to look straight ahead as if they are having no effect. Out of the corner of my eye, I see that the one closest to me, the bigger one, holds a stack of paper and I hear them both whispering. I watch the numbers above the door--13, 12, 11.

At ten, the doors open again, but no one steps on. I feel the bigger of the roaches step closer to me and I think about running through the doors, but, before I can act, they press shut. Nine. I feel a tap on my shoulder and my head jerks to look at the roach. It jumps back then puts its armish tentacle around the other roach.

"I'll always love you," it says in a squeaky, inhuman voice, then both of the roaches look at me and laugh.

Enjoy your cigarette!