I Think You're Totally Wrong (16 page)

CALEB:
Keep talking. I'll take pictures.

DAVID:
I don't think the book will include pictures.

CALEB:
It should.

DAVID:
Laurie reminded me: if I'm hiking in the woods, pay attention. Otherwise, I might slip. This is a solid walk. Coming back will be easier. I wonder how far we are.

CALEB:
The fallacy of contradictory authority is when two “experts” contradict each other: Keynes vs. Friedman. Michael Medved is certain that conservative economics fuel the economy. Norman Goldman is certain that conservative economics are harmful.

DAVID:
I like Goldman, actually.

CALEB:
He's too certain. Both he and Rush are absolutists convinced that their opposition is brainwashed. They field too many calls from sycophants. Medved's not so bad.

DAVID:
Does Medved ever marshal a coherent argument?

CALEB:
He attacks conservatives, calls Ron Paul a “Losertarian.” Medved's a reasonable right-wing talk show host.

DAVID:
In what sense?

CALEB:
He takes calls from people who disagree, lets them talk. He calls out the fringe, anyone who's a 9/11 Truther or in the Birther movement. He'll ridicule, say, Donald Trump.

DAVID:
I do think there were some very odd things about 9/11.

CALEB:
Don't tell me you're a Truther.

DAVID:
I'm not, but still, Osama's family being allowed to leave the U.S.? Someone gave Bush a memo in early 2001: Osama is going to attack the U.S. with hijacked planes on U.S. soil. Bush thanks the CIA person, says, “You can now consider your ass covered. Thanks. I'll file it under ‘W.' ”

CALEB:
Osama, or Al-Qaeda, had already attacked U.S. embassies in Africa. Newspapers regularly published stuff like “Al-Qaeda promises attacks on U.S. soil.” They still do. There probably have been thousands of threats made in 2011 alone that intelligence has picked up, and one of them
might happen, and when it does, there will be a conspiracy that “we knew and let it happen.”

DAVID:
I still think it's amazing how Bush avoided all blame for 9/11, whereas if it had happened on Obama's watch, I don't want to even contemplate what would have happened to him. The left never really attacked Bush, specifically, about 9/11. How'd he escape that?

CALEB:
Escape? The left shredded Bush nonstop. They still are.

CALEB:
The hot tub sounds nice. I'm glad you wanted to do this. I was wondering—soft city slicker?

DAVID:
City slicker?

CALEB:
You ever change a flat tire?

DAVID:
No.

CALEB:
I told Terry, “I bet he's never changed a flat tire.” She says, “You're not going to ask him that, are you?”

DAVID:
You can ask me anything. Laurie does everything. She's Ms. Mechanical.

CALEB:
So you're in the middle of nowhere, you get a flat, and she changes it?

DAVID:
Well, we've never had that happen, but if it did, we'd call AAA.

CALEB:
Ai-yai-yai.

DAVID:
Is that horrible? You do construction, and that's the
last thing I could do. I married my polar opposite. Laurie's handy and reasonable in ways I'm not. I'm like Bertrand Russell, who didn't know how to boil water. She's incredibly practical. You do all the handyman work?

CALEB:
Pretty much. Terry gardens. I dig the holes. Even changing lightbulbs—stuff she could do—she'll have me do.

DAVID:
So she's not handy at all?

CALEB:
She's self-reliant. If I'm not around, she'll take out the trash, but she works, and these things become my responsibility. She supports the family.

DAVID:
I'm like Terry. In a good year, between the UW and all my other teaching gigs and publishing stuff, I make two hundred grand.

CALEB:
Damn.

DAVID:
What would we do if we saw a bear? What are you supposed to do? I forget.

CALEB:
It depends: grizzly, black, brown bear. Actually, I don't know—run, punch 'im in the nose, create a diversion, play dead?

DAVID:
That would be scary. You play dead, he might come and bite you.

CALEB:
Mainly, if it's a mother protecting her cubs: danger.

DAVID:
Wow, that's quite a waterfall. It's beautiful. Just beautiful.

CALEB:
Funny, how useful that word is in life. Just look and marvel: the lake. We made it!

DAVID:
I'm glad we made it.

DAVID:
Going back, downhill, do you make sure your speed doesn't build up?

CALEB:
It's hard on the knees. I climbed Huayna Picchu, almost straight up and down, 800 meters. (I'm “life-dropping,” subtly inserting how I went to Machu Picchu.) It's cake compared to K2, but it was hard.

DAVID:
How's your Spanish?

CALEB:
No es malo
. It has problems. I'm functional, conversational, but when it's fast I miss a lot.

CALEB:
There's something appealing in an artist who turns toward contradictions, a troubled and tormented artist who seeks pain. There's mystique, validity, even credibility. You may disagree, but one thing I've observed in your writing is that you seem like you almost wish you had suffered more than you actually have.

DAVID:
Then you're a really bad reader and know nothing about my life.

CALEB:
Whoa. Whoa. I wasn't saying that as a criticism.

DAVID:
You don't think my work turns toward contradictions?

CALEB:
Sure, but—

DAVID:
You don't think anyone who lives an ordinary life has plenty of trouble and torment to write about? You don't seek out pain; pain—

CALEB:
Maybe that's it. Maybe you're interested in ordinary life and I'm interested in extremities of life.

DAVID:
I mean, we're all going to die.

CALEB:
We all die differently. You're interested in “mortality.” I'm interested in murder.

DAVID:
We all suffer as human beings.

CALEB:
“Pain is mandatory. Suffering is optional.”

DAVID:
You're quoting my back doctor quoting the—

CALEB:
From
Thing About Life
. And then there's Bukowski: “All this writing about pain and suffering is bullshit.” For the most part, we're responsible for our own suffering. I realize there are victims of trauma coming from external forces, but for you and me and your students and peers, suffering is different. The widow of Kabul's suffering isn't David Shields's suffering. You say literature saved your life? Really? Really? Your life was in jeopardy? You're not politically or socially oppressed.

DAVID:
Wow. That's an incredibly banal and Maoist view of what constitutes suffering. If only the widow of Kabul's suffering counts, why read
Hamlet
? I love the Yeats line that goes, “Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.”

CALEB:
Yeats is an artist, he explores his abyss, and then says that takes more courage than facing a bullet?

DAVID:
He says as much courage.

CALEB:
Whatever.

DAVID:
If you take art seriously, it's true.

CALEB:
You linger on pain, yours and others. I get the sense that you're exaggerating your own—

DAVID:
Agony.

CALEB:
Sure, that. Perhaps, when you were younger, your suffering might have been more genuine. Stuttering must have had a tremendous impact. You could function one-on-one, but in groups you must have been terribly introverted. It would have made it difficult to “hang out with the guys.”

DAVID:
That's right: ever since I gained a little more control of my speech, I've stopped suffering.