Tate - Dreams of a robot dancing bee : 44 stories

44 STORIES BY

JAMES TATE

WAVE BOOKS

SEATTLE / NEW YORK

I m sitting there in my den reading an article about the devastating effects of cyberphilia on the contemporary American family, or whats left of it. Cyberphilia, in case you dont know by now, is the compulsion to program and operate a computer, in preference to all other activities (I dont own a computer, I am a cyberphobiac). Anyway, I am still interested in this article, I am gloating away at the verification of my original predictions, when in comes Eileen barking at me: Paul, would you please get off your duff and go out to the driveway and cut down that damned thistle. If Ive asked you once Ive asked you a dozen times to cut it down.

Whats that thistle done to you? I reply, as I have probably replied at each of her requests all week. I am not allowed to read an article in peace in my study. I have worked for years so that I might be allowed to read an article all the way through to the end on a hot and muggy Saturday afternoon. But no, when Eileen wants a thistle removed from the driveway, then all else must be foresworn and her command obeyed or I will get no peace, the pleasure of reading about the domestic tragedies of the cyberphiliacs has been shattered. Eileen does not take my pleasure very seriously. She doesnt understand my admittedly rather desperate need to be right about something. Eileen, I said, in one last doomed attempt to defeat the General, its not as though that thistles going to tear the fender off the car... Alright, alright, Im going...

So I put down my magazine, deprived of even getting to the juicy statistics and a few sample horror stories of children who have not spoken to their parents for years, husbands who have lost all sex drive, etc. The kind of stories that make me feel good about myself, that tell me I was right to never learn what that particular revolution was all about. No, instead I must go out into the sweltering, stifling shed; hunt around among oily rags and hyperactive wasps and hornets for the hedge-clippersall this so that I can destroy the national emblem of Scotland. But I am by now something of an obedient cur. Oh, its a well-enough adjusted thralldom I endure.

So I locate the clippers, beneath, as I predicted, the mountain of oily rags, and I am buzzed and tormented by every known species of wasp and hornet, and, since I am allergic to all of their venoms, I am justified in calling this a life-threatening tour of duty. One sting and its all yours, Eileen: years of National Geographics, all yours, a treasure. The six boxes of travel brochures, all yours. So much rubbish to prove ones been here, been around. And all of it undoubtedly in the dust-bin before my bones have stopped shaking. All the beloved rubbish, inter-changeable with the next guys. Why the hell not leave well-enough alone, let me go on reading about the smart guy who starved to death in front of his microelectric doo-da. No, no, no, never could it be so.

On Saturdays, Eileen likes nothing better than to issue orders for me to kill things, or be killed: Those wasp nests on the shutters, kill them. The skunk got in the garbage again last night: find him and kill him (or get sprayed by him). Or better yet, get bitten by him, undergo a series of hideous rabies shotssince you mortally fear needlesGet up Paul, put down your beloved magazine, Paul, get out there on the frontline, Paul. Risk your life, Paul. Whatever you do, Paul, dont let yourself get caught in a situation where you might feel comfortable, safe, or even right in one of your predictions.

So now, here at last, I stand before this stately, decorous Ono-pordum acanthium. It is approximately three-and-a-half feet in height and, I regret to report, in magnificent bloom. This is, I realize even more emphatically, a totally senseless execution. I would have preferred she had ordered me to cross the street and cut the throat of the neighbors dog. Yes, I could have accepted that order since the creature has an apparently incurable tendency to howl at the moon and kept us awake most of last night (most of the past six years is more accurate). But this thistle is a thing of almost breathtaking beauty, given to us by chance, and since Chance seems to be our new God, why am I now ordered to risk incurring the wrath of our newand, most likely, extremely terrible and cruel when irritatedGod? Eileens whim. Paul, go cut down that thistle by the driveway. Why, my dear? Why should I cut down the thistle? Because I said so, Paul. Now, do it before I get mad!

It is beginning to rain. As I stand here before this delicate, purple flower with orders to kill, storm clouds are moiling up out of the hills. I can feel the barometric pressure dropping by the minute, and it is beginning to make me feel light-headed. These summer electric storms have been having this effect on me the past couple of years. I have never actually fainted, but I feel as if I am going to, and it is quite unpleasant. Perhaps I shall faint and never wake up again. Then Eileen would have to do all the murdering herself. Would she feel differently then? Perhaps that would be good for her. After her first bloodshed, say, pouring snail-poison down a mole-hole, and all the little blind star-nosed babies emerge gasping for air, perhaps, shed give it up and become the patron saint of pests and varmints and thistles.

Now lightning is flashing and there is that deep rumbling that always precedes a real bang-up summer fury. I enjoyed them as a child, felt brave as I comforted my mother, who was terrified out of her mind by lightning. (Thats where my childs imagination came up short: I thought it wouldnt strike me.) But now, add another entry to my slowly growing list of... well, I wont call them phobias, but things-that-fail-to-please-me. At the moment, I feel I may just keel over and be done with it, not have the slain thistle on my list of crimes when I show up at Chanceville.

However, if I make it back to the house and report to the General that her bidding had not been done, she may very well kill me, or at least make certain I never again pick up that magazine and find out just how awful other, more modern peoples lives have become. Ill take my chances. Ill tell her it had to stop somewhere, all this killing. And Ive taken my stand, finally, with this thistle.

I was going to cry so I left the room and hid myself. A butterfly had let itself into the house and was breathing all the air fit to breathe. Janis was knitting me a sweater so I wouldnt freeze. Polly had just dismembered her anatomically correct doll. The dog was thinking about last summer, alternately bitter and amused.

I said to myself, So what have you got to be happy about? I was in the attic with a 3000 year old Etruscan coin. At least you didnt wholly reveal yourself, I said. I didnt have the slightest idea what I meant when I said that. So I repeated it in a slightly revised version: At least you didnt totally reveal yourself, I said, still perplexed, but also fascinated. I was arriving at a language that was really my own; that is, it no longer concerned others, it no longer sought common ground. I was cutting the anchor.

Polly walked in without knocking: Theres a package from UPS, she announced.

Well, Im not expecting anything, I replied.

She stood there frowning. And then, uninvited, she sat down on a little rug. That rug had always been a mystery to me. No one knew where it came from and yet it had always been there. We never talked of moving it or throwing it out. I dont think it had ever been washed. Someone should at least shake it from time to time, expose it to some air.