WILLIAM GASS
353
Visions of what, though? Never of gods and goddesses , never any
angels, scarcely a cupid, not a single streak of light like the sperm of a
star to pierce some window
to
where she was sitting, not Fate or a Fury
or a vampirish mouse with a flat furry face like Bela Lugosi . . .
nobodies, everyone, not a name among them, not an old demon even,
our of work or with an odd hour off and able to visit. No. Faugh.
Nooooh-bodies. The walls stood up around him, tan as a turkey, and
the ceiling smirched along overhead as though in a day it might rain . It
must be tiring to stay that stiff, he thought, for she wasn't dead, that
would be restful, the stiffness, the silence, of death . This was tense,
this was a bellow, a hugh howl which steadily grew and now contained
the room which contained them. Father, she's all right. I mean, she's
sick , and her soul is like a Cape Cod shingle, but she's all right.
Never could detect a pulse. That's normal. Arm like a dry vine
climbing her trunk. Normal. Chest as still as a stove top. Fire's out.
Sick, then . Normal. She's all right. Voices, she said. Messages . All
right , messages: blah , what were they? what did they come to? sniffles
and yipes from
Little Orphan Annie,
whining about lost dogs , weep–
ing because there were boys away in the war, anxieties about men :
boorish insensitive husbands like himself, brutal brothers, inconstant
companions, faithless friends, lying lovers-bitching, bemoaning–
nothing that came out of the great gentle richness and happiness of
life, nothing abour the sweet thunder of the pins or the excitement of a
homer, the comforting closure of a jaw in a bun-so-so much for the
spiritual telegraph, for ESP, because only diseases sent messages of any
length and complexity-moment by moment readings, hourly
bulletins, daily summaries, weekly releases-every sickness seemed to
be somehow a triumph of the spirit, especially stopped-up sinuses, and
migraines , like static on the radio, headaches so electric they halo' d
your hair , and it completely flummoxed Mr. Hess who held his own
head and groaned, even whimpered, while his missus felt giddy, had a
spell of dizziness , or fell softly to the floor in a faint the way clothes
slide sometimes from a hanger. Then there were discharges , menstrual
moans, and the whites like a fog of sound. Mr. Hess hated to think
about the others and couldn't-didn't dare-ask , nevertheless what
he gathered was that the ethereal world his wife loved was nothing but
the loathsomely oozy body done into jiggles and jogs like the huff and
puff of someone running . The books he consulted agreed in substance,
