Authors: David Shields,Matthew Vollmer
C. Rare, Highly Valuable Antique Ouija Board: The undersigned owns one antique Ouija board, reportedly used by his great-grandmother Elsie to contact the spirit of Miles Whitcomb Gardner, an eighteenth-century blacksmith to whom she claimed to have been married in a previous life. Though the undersigned, despite multiple attempts, has yet to receive a response to what he believes are the simplest questions,
14
the aforementioned Mr. Charles Christopher seems to believe he can make the board come alive. Should he fulfill his part of the bargain (see section III), the board is his. If not, the board should be, as stated earlier, ceremoniously set aflame.
D. Food: All leftover food should either be consumed by the executor, slowly and solemnly, in the light of one of the aforementioned candles, or, if the executor feels uneasy about consuming the food of a strange dead man, be broken up into pieces and used to feed seagulls, pigeons, or the executor’s favorite bird. Although the undersigned prefers a winged creature, any living creature in need of nourishment is acceptable.
;E. LPs: The undersigned’s record collection, albeit quite insignificant, should be delivered to Ms. Lydia Gonzalez, with whom the undersigned spent one afternoon working at www.bigdongs.com, the headquarters of which were composed of a gray, vaulted office space filled with a maze of cubicles, all of which appeared to have been vacated except for the undersigned’s, whose job it was to divert the phone calls of hostile “big dong” customers, and Lydia’s, whose job it was, as far as the undersigned could tell, to answer a deluge of email while simultaneously providing a series of directives, via telephone, in Spanish. Though the undersigned was too timid to strike up a conversation, the rhythms of Ms. Gonzalez’s fingers upon her keyboard and the untranslatable cadences that streamed, unbroken, from her mouth, formed a kind of music, and thus the undersigned feels, why not, she is entitled to his meager collection.
15
F. Photographs: Self-portraits of the undersigned should be either a) burned in one of the lamps whose fuel is his fat,
16
or b) sent to people who share the same name,
17
with a note explaining the following:
Dear Andrew Walter: We have spent a lifetime sharing the same name. People have shouted out our names and our heads have turned. Certainly, we would like to think, that there is something to this. Only we probably realize this is not the case. Please bask in the undeniable meaninglessness of this coincidence, and enjoy the picture. Sincerely, Andrew Walter
.
Photographs of the undersigned’s acquaintances, though few and far between, should be sent to those friends,
18
with this note attached:
A hypothesis:
if one is forgotten enough times, one ceases to exist. Forgive me if my failure to remember your face contributed to your gradual and inevitable annihilation. Yours, AW
.
G. “Faceless Man” painting: An oil-painting of a man, minus face, sitting in a chair, reading a book beneath a willow tree, was composed by the undersigned’s mother before he was born,
19
and now hangs above the undersigned’s sleeping mat in his apartment. The painting, as the executor will discover, appears at first glance to be unfinished. However, the undersigned likes to think of the painting as a completed work, and, more specifically, a portrait of the undersigned himself. Though the man in the painting is obviously in much better physical condition than the undersigned, the undersigned feels they have something in common, perhaps because the undersigned’s older sister used to tell him that their mother had intended it to be a portrait of the undersigned himself—a kind of prediction of what he would look like once he grew up: someday, his face would simply disappear.
The painting should be delivered to a Ms. Penelope Jones, originally from Tallahassee, Florida, who works as a receptionist for Jacob and Jacob at 115 Houston Street. The undersigned spent two weeks under the tutelage of Ms. Jones, who, though six months pregnant, did an unparalleled job of showing the undersigned, who would perform all of Ms. Jones’ secretarial duties during her maternity leave, the ropes.
As a way of explanation, a note might be delivered with the painting:
Dear Ms. Jones: I would probably never admit this if I didn’t know you would never see me again. I have always felt, since the day you explained how to use the dictation machine, that in another life I would have liked to have been your baby, your son. I am not ashamed to say that I have imagined a life in which you were my mother: that you cradled me, packed my lunches, scrubbed my bloody elbows with hydrogen peroxide, picked me up in the van from my music lessons. Therefore, it is my wish that you would accept this painting, which was made by my own actual mother, whom I never knew. Yours sincerely, AW
.
H. Apartment: The undersigned hereby declares that, assuming that the executor has completed the tasks described in this document, the apartment
20
shall become the sole property of the executor.
34
Letter to a Funeral Parlor
Lydia Davis
Dear Sir,
I am writing to you to object to the word
cremains
, which was used by your representative when he met with my mother and me two days after my father’s death.
We had no objection to your representative, personally, who was respectful and friendly and dealt with us in a sensitive way. He did not try to sell us an expensive urn, for instance.
What startled and disturbed us was the word
cremains
. You in the business must have invented this word and are used to it. We the public do not hear it very often. We don’t lose a close friend or a family member very many times in our life, and years pass in between, if we are lucky. Even less often do we have to discuss what is to be done with a family member or a close friend after their death.
We noticed that before the death of my father you and your representative used the words
loved one
to refer to him. That was comfortable for us, even if the ways in which we loved him were complicated.
Then we were sitting there in our chairs in the living room trying not to weep in front of your representative, who was opposite us on the sofa, and we were very tired first from sitting up with my father, and then from worrying about whether he was comfortable as he was dying, and then from worrying about where he might be now that he was dead, and your representative referred to him as “the cremains.”
At first we did not even know what he meant. Then, when we realized, we were frankly upset.
Cremains
sounds like something invented as a milk substitute in coffee, like Cremora, or Coffee-mate. Or it sounds like some kind of a chipped beef dish.
As one who works with words for a living, I must say that any invented word, like
Porta Potti
or
p
ooper-scooper
, has a cheerful or even jovial ring to it that I don’t think you really intended when you invented the word cremains. In fact, my father himself, who was a professor of English and is now being called the
cremains
, would have pointed out to you the alliteration in
Porta Potti
and the rhyme in
pooper-scooper
. Then he would have told you that
cremains
falls into the same category as
brunch
and is known as a portmanteau word.
There is nothing wrong with inventing words, especially in a business. But a grieving family is not prepared for this one. We are not even used to our loved one being gone. You could very well continue to employ the term
ashes
. We are used to it from the Bible, and are even comforted by it. We would not misunderstand. We would know that these ashes are not like the ashes in a fireplace.
Yours sincerely.
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Acknowledgments
Paul Theroux
Thanks are due to Dr. Milton Rumbellow, Chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature, Yourgrou College (Wyola Campus), for generously allowing me first a small course load and then an indefinite leave of absence from my duties; to Mrs. Edith Rumbellow for many kindnesses, not the least of which was her interceding on my behalf; to the trustees of Yourgrou College for a grant-in-aid, to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for extending my fellowship for two years, and to the National Endowment for the Arts, without whose help this book could not have been written; to Miss Sally-Ann Fletcher, of Wyolatours, for ably ticketing and cross-checking a varied itinerary, and to Miss Denise Humpherson, of the British Tourist Authority, who provided me with a map of the cycling paths in the areas of England lived in by Matthew Casket; to Mrs. Mabel Nittish for arranging the sublet of my Wyola apartment and providing me a folding bike.
As with many other biographers of minor West Country dialect poets, Casket’s output was so small that he could feed himself only by securing remunerative employment in unrelated fields. I am grateful for the cooperation of his former employers—in particular to Bewlence & Sons (Solid Fuels), Ltd., Western Feeds, Yeovil Rubber Goods, and Raybold & Squarey (Drugs Division) Ltd., for allowing me access to their in-house files and providing me with hospitality over a period of weeks; and especially to Mrs. Ronald Bewlence for endlessly informative chats and helping me dispose of a bike, and Mrs. Margaret Squarey, F.P.S., for placing herself entirely at my disposal and sharing with me her wide knowledge of poisons and toxic weeds.
At a crucial stage in my ongoing research, I was privileged to meet Mrs. Daphne Casket Hebblewhite, who, at sixty-two, still remembered her father’s run of bad luck. For three months of hospitality at “Limpet” and many hours of tirelessly answering my questions, I must express my thanks and, with them, my sorrow that the late Mrs. Hebblewhite was not alive to read this memorial to her father, which she and I both felt was scandalously overdue. It was Mrs. Hebblewhite who, by willing them to me, gave me access to what few Casket papers exist, and who graciously provided me with introductions to Casket’s surviving relations—Miss Fiona Slaughter, Miss Gloria Wyngard, and Miss Tracy Champneys: I am happy to record here my debt for their warmth and openness to a stranger to their shores. Miss Slaughter acceded to all my requests, as well as taking on some extensive chauffeuring; Miss Wyngard unearthed for me a second copy of Casket’s only book, but annotated in his own hand, enabling me to speculate on what he might have attempted in revised form had he had the means to do so, and allowing me the treasured memento of another warm friendship and our weeks in Swanage; Miss Champneys made herself available to me in many ways, giving me her constant attention, and it is to her efforts, as well as those of Ruck & Grutchfield, Barristers-at-Law, that I owe the speedy end of what could have been a piece of protracted litigation. To Señorita Luisa Alfardo Lizardi, who kept Mrs. Hebblewhite’s house open to me after her late mistress’s tragic passing and was on call twenty-four hours a day, I am more grateful than I can sufficiently express here.
Special thanks must go to the staff of Broomhill Hospital, Old Sarum, and particularly to Miss Francine Kelversedge, S.R.N., for encouraging me in my project during a needed rest from exhausting weeks of research. Colonel and Mrs. Hapgood Chalke came to my rescue at a turning point in my Broomhill sojourn; to them I owe more than I can adequately convey, and to their dear daughter, Tamsin, my keenest thanks for guiding my hand and for her resourcefulness in providing explanations when they were in short supply. To Dr. Winifred Sparrow, Director of Broomhill, I can only state my gratitude for waiving payment for my five months of convalescence; and to Stones & Sons, Tobacconists, Worsfold’s Wine Merchants, and Hine’s Distilleries, all of Old Sarum, my deepest thanks for understanding, prompt delivery, and good will in circumstances that would have had lesser tradesmen seeking legal redress.
I am grateful for the hospitality I received during the weeks I spent at the homes of Mr. and Mrs. Warner Ditchley, Mrs. R. B. Ollenshaw, Dr. and Mrs. F. G. Cockburn, Major and Mrs. B. P. Birdsmoor, and the late Mrs. J. R. W. Gatacre, all of Devizes, as well as for the timely intervention of Miss Helena Binchey, of Devizes, who, on short notice, placed a car at my disposal in order that I could visit the distant places Casket had known as a child. The Rev. John Punnel, of St. Alban’s Primary School, Nether Wallop, provided me with safe harbor as well as a detailed record of Casket’s meager education; he kindly returned Miss Binchey’s car to Devizes, and it was Mrs. Dorothy Punnel who took me on a delightfully informal tour of the attic bedroom in the dorm, which cannot be very different today from what it was in 1892, when, just prior to his expulsion on an unproved charge of lewdness, Casket was a boarder.
I feel lucky in being able to record my appreciation to Pamela, Lady Grapethorpe, of Nether Wallop Manor, for admitting a footsore traveler and allowing him unlimited use of her house; for her introducing him to the Nether Wallop Flying Club and Aerodrome and to Miss Florence Fettering, who expertly piloted him to Nettlebed, in West Dorset, and accompanied him throughout his visit in the village where Casket was employed as a twister and ropeworker at the Gundry. I am obliged also to Miss Vanessa Liphook, and her indefatigable Riley, that I was able to tour the South Coast resorts where Casket, in his eighties and down on his luck, found seasonal employment as a scullion and kitchen hand; for their faith in my project and their sumptuous hospitality, I am indebted to the proprietors of The Frog and Nightgown, Bognor Regis; The Raven, Weymouth; The Kings Arms, Bridport; Sprackling House, Eype; and The Grand Hotel, Charmouth. To Miss Josephine Slape, of Charmouth, I owe the deepest of bows for the loan of a bicycle when it was desperately needed; and to the staff of the Goods Shed, Axminster, I am grateful for their speeding the bicycle back to its owner.
And to Mrs. Annabel Frampton, of the British Rail ticket office, Axminster, my sincere thanks for being so generous with a temporarily embarrassed researcher; and to Dame Marina Pensel-Cripps, casually met on the 10:24 to London, but fondly remembered, I am grateful for an introduction to the late Sir Ronald and to Lady Mary Bassetlaw, of Bassetlaw Castle, at which the greater part of this book was written over an eventful period of months as tragic as they were blissful. It is impossible for me adequately to describe the many ways in which Lady Mary aided me in the preparation of this work; she met every need, overcame every obstacle, and replied to every question, the last of which replies, and by far the hardest, was her affirmative when I asked her to be my wife. So, to my dear Mary, the profoundest of thank yous: this book should have been a sonnet.
Lastly, to Miss Ramona Slupski, Miss Heidi Lim Choo Tan, Miss Piper Vathek, and Miss Joylene Aguilar Garcia Rosario, all of the Graduate Section of British Studies, Yourgrou College, my thanks for collating material and answering swiftly my transatlantic demands; to Miss Gudrun Naismith, for immaculately typing many drafts of this work and deciphering my nearly illegible and at times tormented handwriting, my deepest thanks. And to all my former colleagues at Yourgrou (Wyola Campus), who, by urging me forward in my work, reversed my fortunes, my grateful thanks for assisting me in this undertaking.