Read Online Notable American Women by Ben Marcus - Free Book Online Page B

the author, cited as: impatient, distracted, selfish, self-centered, dull. The other two women were similar in using nearly no vocabulary at all in describing the author, refraining almost entirely from the rhetoric of description or from any language that might have indicated any insight or interest in things involving either the author or otherwise, if indeed those are the only two choices of speech topics—the author or otherwise—since dichotomies such as that one still tend to present too complete a picture, and thus invite the worst kind of disappointment, that of knowing all of one’s options. In short, the other two women refrained from language or excessive gesture or anything thought to pass for communication before, during, or after intercourse (the only three possible descriptions of time), though it is admitted that the absence of all communicative actions becomes, in itself, a rather forceful and unambiguous communication itself, interpreted by the author as: Get off of me, Get away, Don’t touch me, Leave me alone, Stop, you’re hurting me. The author has thus come to interpret silence, even his own, as a directive to cease and desist, to apologize, to enter the opening moments of behavior known as regret and shame. The author concluded that silence was a green light for shame.
    As to the doubts the author experienced while writing this book, they were characterized variously as suspicions, regrets, and certainties. The phrase “known failure” was used most often in the early evening, generally muttered “under his breath,” a technical impossibility, since at the time of this writing spoken language has yet to occur without breath, or under it or on top of it, despite the efforts of the female Silentists to deploy “words without wind.” (The author concluded that for breath to occur without a word attached was a violation of what breath was for—namely and exclusively as a transportation vehicle for language, a small car meant to compete in the space normally reserved for birds and wind; thus breathing itself was considered the first language, and if the author breathed at all, he should always, at the least, be sure to layer a word into the breath, so as not to be wasteful with the vehicles he dispatched into the air, often choosing the word “help,” for its simplicity and accuracy and full-time relevance.) He was openly admired for admitting his doubts, when confessions of weakness briefly passed for bravery, when certain persons in his life responded favorably to what the Ohio Pillow Talk Council calls “Fallibility Narratives”: pre- or postcoital speeches that prove the superiority of someone other than the speaker and instill respect and empathy in the listener, thus possibly creating the desire for sex, when humility and self-deprecation are seen as a covert kind of strength, best responded to by a submissive presentation of an orifice (SPO).
    Last Wishes
    When the time comes, and the day has failed, and this book is finished or tossed away in disgust or quietly put aside after being just casually scanned and dismissed; when this moment arrives, if I should exit this place heading north, please let no one care to follow me or even watch my last body as it falls from sight over the hill. I prefer not to be seen or known or discussed. I should be given a head start of a ten-count. My enemies should be blindfolded and spun in place. There should be no wolves. When my execution is planned by the people assigned to kill me, wolves should be left out of it. Let no grief circles form related to my demise.
    At the end of this book, the characters should stand in a line and bow. All the places and names should fade to powder. My father should walk across the stage and make a short ceremony of blowing the powder out into the faces of the audience, raising a chalky dust that clouds the air and settles like flour onto the audience. There should be no