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Selected Shorts
The Pursuit of Happiness with Death, Sex and Money
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In the second of two programs created with the po…
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- [00:08]
Meg Wolitzer
You know how money can't buy happiness, right? Oscar Wilde knew better and offers up a fable that pokes fun at money, marriage and identity. This week's selected shorts show is curated by Death, Sex and Money host Anna Sale. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Stay with us. You're listening to selected shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. The pursuit of happiness is the provocative concept at the heart of the Declaration of Independence. What exactly is happiness and how do we go about pursuing something so intangible? We've been offered a few interpretations over the years. Mahatma Gandhi believed that happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony. American singer songwriter Bobby McFerrin counseled, Don't worry, be happy. And of course, Peanuts creator Charles M. Schultz had the simplest solution. Happiness is a warm puppy. Still, there's clearly a lot more to say. And not long ago we partnered with Death, Sex and Money host Anna Sale for a live evening at Symphony Space. Her long running program, born of the realization that its three topics are ones we all spend a lot of time thinking about, also makes a perfect entree for fiction. This is the second of two shows featuring stories from that evening, and our selections are very different, which means we have even more to talk about. The first is a gently satirical tale of love and good fortune, the second a poignant and imaginative requiem. Our first story is by the brilliant and protean Oscar Wilde, best known for plays such as the Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere's Fan, but a gifted satirist in any mode. His gimlet, eye and ear for every sort of social folly made him a sensation. And although the world of his plays reflects 19th century social mores, they are produced frequently and still speak to us today. Wilde's story the Model Millionaire is performed by Peter Francis James, a Broadway regular in such shows as Present Laughter. Television credits include Godfather of Harlem and Boardwalk Empire. Now performing the Model Millionaire by Oscar Wilde, please welcome Peter Francis James,
- [02:49]
Peter Francis James
A model millionaire. Unless one is wealthy, there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. These are the great truths of modern life which Huey Erskine never realized. Poor Huey. Intellectually, we must admit, he was not of much importance. He never said a brilliant or even an ill natured thing in his life. But then he was wonderfully good looking with his Crisp brown hair, his clean cut profile and his gray eyes. He was as popular with men as he was with women, and he had every accomplishment except that of making money. His father had bequeathed him a cavalry sword and a history of the peninsular war in 15 volumes. Huey hung the first over his looking glass, put the second on a shelf between Ruff's Guide and Bailey's Magazine, and lived on 200 a year that an old aunt allowed him. He had tried everything. He had gone on the Stock exchange for six months, but what was a butterfly to do among bulls and bears? He had been a tea merchant for a little longer, but had soon tired of Picot and Souchon. Then he had tried selling dry sherry. That did not answer. The sherry was a little too dry. Ultimately, he became nothing, a delightful, ineffectual young man with a perfect profile and no profession. To make matters worse, he was in love. The girl he loved was Laura Merton, the daughter of a retired colonel who had lost his temper and his digestion in India and had never found either of them again. Laura adored him and he was ready to kiss her shoestrings. They were the handsomest couple London and had not a penny piece between them. The colonel was very fond of Huey, but would not hear of any engagement. Come to me, my boy, when you have got £10,000 of your own and we will see about it, he used to say. And Huey looked very glum on those days and had to go to Laura for consolation. One morning, as he was on his way to Holland park, where the Mertons live, he dropped in to see a great friend of his, Alan Trevor. Trevor was a painter. Indeed, few people escaped that nowadays. But he was also an artist, and artists are rather rare. Personally, he was a strange, rough fellow with a freckled face and a red, ragged beard. However, when he took up the brush, he was a real master and his pictures were eagerly sought after. He had been very much attracted by Huey at first, it must be acknowledged entirely on account of his personal charm. The only people a painter should know, he used to say, are people who are bet and beautiful, people who are an artistic pleasure to look at and an intellectual repose to talk to. Men who are dandies and women who are darlings rule the world. At least they should do so. However, after he got to know Huey better, he liked him quite as much for his bright, buoyant spirits and his generous, reckless nature, and had given him permanent entree to his studio. When Huey came in, he found Trevor putting the finishing touches to a wonderful life size. Picture of a beggar man. The beggar himself was standing on a raised platform in a corner of the studio. He was a wizened old man with a face like wrinkled parchment and a most piteous expression. Over his shoulders was flung a coarse brown cloak, all tears and tatters. His thick boots were patched and cobbled, and with one hand he leant on a rough stick, while with the other he held out his battered hat for alms. What an amazing model. Whispered Huey as he shook hands with his friend. An amazing model. Shouted Trevor at the top of his voice. I should think so. Such beggars as he are not to be met with every day. Mortshre a living. Velasquez. My stars. What an etching Rembrandt would have made of him. Poor old chap, said Hughie. How miserable he looks. But I suppose to you painters his face is his fortune. Certainly, trevor replied. You don't want a beggar to look happy, do you? How much does a model get for sitting? Asked Huey as he found himself to a comfortable seat on a divan. A shilling an hour. And how much do you get for your picture, Alan? For this I get £2,000. Guineas. Painters, poets, and physicians always get guineas. Well, I think the model should have a percentage. Cried Huey, laughing. They work quite as hard as you do. Nonsense, nonsense. Why, look at the trouble of laying on the paint alone and standing all day long at one's easel. It's all very well, Huey, for you to talk, but I assure you that there are moments when art almost attains to the dignity of manual labor. But you mustn't chatter. I'm very busy. Smoke a cigarette. Keep quiet. After some time the servant came in and told Trevor that the frame maker wanted to speak to him. Don't run away, Huey, he said as he went out. I will be back in a moment. The old beggar man took advantage of Trevor's absence to rest for a moment on the wooden bench that was behind him. He looked so forlorn and wretched that Hughie could not help pitying him and felt in his pockets to see what money he had. All he could find was a sovereign and some coppers. Poor old fellow, he thought to himself. He wants it more than I do, but it means no hansoms for a fortnight. And he walked across the studio and slipped the sovereign into the beggar's hand. The old man started, and a faint smile flitted across his withered lips. Thank you, sir, he said. Thank you. Then Trevor arrived, and Huey took his Leave. Blushing a little at what he had done. He spent the day with Laura, got a charming scolding for his extravagance, and had to walk home that night. He strolled into the pallet club about 11 o' clock and found Trevor sitting by himself in the smoking room, drinking hock and seltzer. Well, Alan, did you get the picture? Finished all right, he said as he lit his cigarette. Finished and framed, my boy, answered Trevor. And by the by, you have made a conquest. That old model you saw is quite devoted to you. I had to tell them all about you, who you are, where you live, what your income is, what prospects you have. My dear Alan, cried Huey, I shall probably find him waiting for me when I go home. But of course, you're only joking. Poor old wretch. I wish I could do something for him. I think it is dreadful that anyone should be so miserable. I've got heaps of old clothes at home. Do you think he would care for any of them? Why, his rags were falling to bits. But he looks splendid in them, said Trevor. I wouldn't paint him in a frock coat for anything. What you call rags I call romance. What seems poverty to you is picturesqueness to me. However, I'll tell him of your offer, Alan, said Huey seriously. You painters are a heartless lot. An artist's heart is his head, replied Trevor. And besides, our business is to realize the world as we see it, not to reform it as we know it. A Chacon son metier. And now tell me, how is Laura? The old model was quite interested in her. You don't mean to say you talked to him about her? Said Hughie. Certainly I did. He knows all about the relentless colonel, the lovely Laura, and the £10,000. You told that old beggar all my private affairs. Cried Huey, looking very red and angry. My dear boy, said Trevor, smiling, that old beggar, as you call him, is one of the richest men in Europe. He could buy all London tomorrow without overdrawing his account. He has a house in every capital, dines off gold plate, and can prevent Russia going to war when he chooses. What on earth do you mean? Exclaimed Huey. What I say, Said Trevor. That old man you saw today in the studio was Baron Osberg. He's a great friend of mine, buys all my pictures and that sort of thing. And gave me a commission a month ago to paint him as a beggar. Que voulez vous la fantasie du millionaire. And I must say he made a magnificent figure in his rags. Or perhaps I should say in My rags. They're an old suit I got in Spain. Baron Hosberg. Cried Huey. Good heavens. I gave him a sovereign and he sank into an armchair. The picture of dismay gave him a sovereign. Shouted Trevor, and he burst into a roar of laughter. My dear boy, you'll never see it again, son. Affaire cestle argent, deserture. I think you might have told me, Alan, said sulkily, and not to have let me make such a fool of myself. Well, to begin with, Hughie, said Trevor, it never entered my mind that you went about distributing alms in that reckless way. I can understand your kissing a pretty model, but you're giving a sovereign to an ugly one. Badge. Oh, no. Besides, fact is that I really was not at Elm today to anyone. And when you came in, I didn't know whether Alsberg would like his name mentioned. You know, he wasn't in full dress. What a duffer he must think me, said Huey. Not at all. He was in the highest spirits after you left. Kept chuckling to himself and rubbing his old wrinkled hands together. I couldn't make out why he was so interested to know all about you, but I see it all now. He'll invest your sovereign for you, Huey, pay you the interest every six months, and have a capital story to tell at dinner. I am an unlucky devil, growled Huey. The best thing I can do is go to bed. And my dear Alan, you mustn't tell anyone. I shouldn't dare show my face in the robe. Nonsense. It reflects the highest credit on your philanthropic spirit, Huey. And don't run away. Have another cigarette and. And you can talk about Laura as much as you like. However, Huey wouldn't stop, but walked home feeling very unhappy and leaving Alan Trevor in fits of laughter. The next morning, as he was at breakfast, the servant brought him up a card on which was written Monsieur Gustave Nodin de la Parde de Monsieur le Baron Osberg. I suppose he's come for an apology, said Huey to himself, and he told the servant to show the visitor up. An old gentleman with gold spectacles and gray hair came into the room and said in a slight French accent, have I the honor of addressing Monsieur Erskine? Huey bowed. I have come from Baron Augsburg, he continued the baron. I beg, sir, that you will offer him my sincerest apologies, stammered Huey. The Baron, said, the old gentleman with a smile, has commissioned me to bring you this letter. And he extended a sealed envelope. On the outside was written a wedding presentation to Hugh Erskine and Laura Merton from an old beggar, and inside was a check for £10,000. When they were married, Alan Trevor was the best man, and the Baron made a speech at the wedding breakfast. Millionaire models, remarked Alan, are rare enough, but by Jove, model millionaires are rarer still.
- [17:25]
Meg Wolitzer
Peter Francis James performed the Model Millionaire by Oscar Wilde. I'm Meg Wolitzer. We spoke with Peter Francis James backstage at Symphony Space. What makes Oscar Wilde so delicious to read?
- [17:39]
Peter Francis James
Well, he has an absolute zest, an obsessive delight with the English language, as the best of the writers do. It's not just his imagination, it's his whimsy, of course, his unbelievable dexterity with an aphorism, but you can just detect the man loves writing the next word.
- [18:01]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Peter Francis James backstage at Symphony Space. In much of his work, Wilde peels away the veneer of gentility to expose greed and ambition. But here he reverses our expectations. His hero's only flaw is that he is unworldly. He lacks those killer social instincts and the only happiness he pursues is love. He clearly needs rescuing and is rewarded for his innocence by his creator. I couldn't help but think about how this story has a painting at its center, just like that other Oscar Wilde work. You know, the Picture of Dorian Gray. But if the painting in the Model Millionaire changed, it would have shown a strapping and well dressed Baron Hausburg. Come to think of it, Oscar Wilde paints a somewhat different portrait of himself as a writer here, doesn't he? Wilde could be as sentimental as he was acerbic, and here he's both. When we return, what we can see when the lights go out. You're listening to selected shorts recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide. Welcome back. This is selected Shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. I'm Meg Wolitzer. On this week's program, we are listening to stories about the pursuit of happiness. That can be an intangible idea, but one sure way to get at least a little happier is to pursue good fiction. On our website, selectedshorts.org, you'll find past episodes and information about our performances both at home at Symphony Space and on tour. Our second work is Kevin Brockmire's Space. We've featured Brockmire's unsettling works before. He's the author of a memoir, A Few Seconds of Radiant Film strip novels, including the Brief History of the Dead and three story collections, including Things that Fall from the Sky. Space is performed by Michael Stuhlbarg, whose work across genres includes the Invention of Love on Broadway, television series including Transparent, and films including A Serious Man.
- [20:26]
Michael Stuhlbarg
Here to perform Kevin Brockmire's Space, please welcome Michael Stuhlbarg. Space. A tall white candlestick burns beside me, its wick an orange comma in the pivot of its flame. The light fades into darkness by slow degrees, and beyond it I see almost nothing. Not the styles of the fence, not the spines of nearby rooftops, not power lines roping to the ground, only headlights swaying on far roadways and barbed white stars hovering in the sky. It is as if the city itself has wandered into sleep, fastening its lids over windows and street lamps and neon signs. The candle flame slants in the breeze with a muffled flutter, the sound of an old film strip as its tail slips from the projector. Eric, our son, 15 now Della, reaches to settle it and presses a finger to the rim of his wristwatch. He crooks his arm, exposing the lucent blue pool of a face plate. Two hours, he complains, filling each word with breath. He reclines into the straps of his porch chair. There is the light of the stars, the light of the candle, and between them the steady arctic glow of his watch, dimmer than the others, less hungry, more remote. The insects are circling in specks around the candle. The stars are wavering in the sky. Two hours ago I lay in the bathtub, submerging my hands in the bubbles and watching them poke like little buoys to the surface. The water dimpled at my chest each time they rose and then flattened again as they fell. I was searching for a word. What is it? The name of that force which holds a curve of water above a glass. When the lights went out with a soft, abrupt tick, I stood and reached blindly for the towel rod. I could hear a skin of bath water trickling from my body into the towel tub, though I could not hear much else. The refrigerator humming in the kitchen, the mutter and throb of the television, the sigh of cool air through the ceiling vents, the purr of electricity beneath our floorboards and carpets and walls. Fastening the towel around my waist, I stepped from the bathroom and into the hallway, where the ceiling fan was languishing to a halt. In the living room, Eric sat in an armchair before the blank face of the television, pecking at the buttons of a remote control. Damn, he kept whispering. Damn, damn, damn.
- [24:01]
Peter Francis James
What?
- [24:01]
Michael Stuhlbarg
What happened? I asked. He tapped once more at the keypad of the remote before placing it on the table, and I heard sipping, swallowing, click of ice cubes in a glass. Power's down, he said. Where? I said. Just here. Well, how should I know? Bit into an ice cube, punctuating the thought. Look outside. I was standing in the doorway. I gazed out at the stars, and they were everywhere, dangling from the arm of the Milky Way in dense silver clusters and floating at the far rim of the sky. The moon was invisible, couched perhaps behind trees and high buildings or hidden in the earth's shadow, and the lights of the city had been entirely extinguished. I looked from one star to the next. Each seemed to flare brighter and larger, dilating like a bud into flower. A broad winged katydid gave a whiri leap onto the screen of a nearby window, and the night air resounded with a rich lyric churn. I could not have told you which I was listening to, the voice of the katydids or the stars. You would have loved this sound, Della. Now I sit on the back porch, my hands knit together in my lap, drawing in the scent of the grass and the dark summer soil. Either the main wire's down, Eric says, or there was an overload at the power station. He brushes his fingers along his jawline, scratching at a patch of stubble. A satellite sweeps through the Northern Cross. I monitor the sky for shooting stars. Weather seems fine, I say. Eric stifles a yawn as he answers. Well, maybe somebody fell into the generator, he says, touching his lips. Some bum or something. I listen for a whiff of laughter, but there is nothing. Maybe, I say. Is this what I should say? Probably not. Three months ago, Della, the city lay hidden beneath a jacket of snow. A flat, glacial light was gathered inside the trees and billboards and houses and heavy clouds slumbered in the gray air. At your funeral, a man with wire rimmed spectacles and a black cassock recited a series of verses. Matthew 28, 20 John 3:16, Genesis 49:33. The glare of a suspended lamp shone from his lenses, transforming his eyes into vacant white plates. He spoke in a voice like the rustling of leaves, and when he was finished he cleared his throat with a cough. He stepped from the rostrum, fingered his cross. We filed past you in mute farewell. In the vestibule, voices hummed and whispered in my ears, and slow, willowy hands brushed my arm and my shoulder. I could feel the weight and stillness of the cool, quiet space beneath the ceiling. I could see the dim mosaic of the high windows. Our son stood in a side doorway, his head bowed, his chest and stomach giving a few rough heaves. He pressed his hand to his eyes, blotting them dry, and gazed at his fingers. He watched them as if they had returned suddenly from somewhere far away. When I found myself at his side, meeting his eyes through the gaps between his fingers, I did not know what to say. She, I began. No, she was very. But I couldn't finish. He touched my coat sleeve and told me not to worry. In the car, he rested his temple against the window and his breath made little clouds on the glass. I wondered whether he was watching this or the flow of the asphalt, or his own reflection. A skin of sleet and snow thaw coated the roadway. Arcs of it spurted from beneath spinning tires, spattered from lane to lane and burst. A spine of it, gone gray with exhaust, wound down the center of the road between streams of traffic. Eric unhitched his seatbelt, and its blue sash drew taut beside him. Are you all right? I asked. My breath hovered for a few white seconds in the car, then thinned and passed. I'm okay, he said, his voice slow and milky. When I placed my hand on his shoulder, he jerked involuntarily, it seemed to me, and I drew it away. You know, Eric, if you need to. And suddenly he was yelling at me. Didn't I tell you I would be okay? Didn't I just say that? He gathered his breath into a long sigh, then said, please, dad. Please. Can't we just stop poking at it
- [30:02]
Peter Francis James
for a little while?
- [30:05]
Michael Stuhlbarg
Above the houses and the thin, swooping power lines, a flock of birds dropped silently into the arms of a single bare oak tree. They seemed like a sudden dense foliage, and as they lifted again, I thought of autumn leaves snapping their bulbs and whirling into the sky. If that's what you want, I said. I won't say another word. That night I woke from an oppressive dream. Our bedroom was thick with silence, thick with shadows. I decided to pour myself a glass of water. In the hallway, a cord of light shone from beneath Eric's door. I could hear him behind it. He was sobbing convulsively gulping for air, and I rested my hand on his door jamb. A slat of white light covered my socks. Eric, I said. He didn't answer as I stood in the dark, feeling my heart bat at its cage, wondering if he'd heard me. He slowly seemed to comfort himself. Spasms of his voice began to ease, and his breathing began to soften. The silence over the next few minutes grew broken only now and again by a quick, constricted pant. I listened and brooded and cared, but I found myself unable to knock. In the kitchen, water dribbled from a silver faucet into the sink. The glow of a street light hazed in through the window. I stood there wondering what I should have done, my night shirt lifting with each breath. Outside, the streetlight flickered above the snow. A strong wind piped between the trees, rattling through their dry web like branches. It had blown the sky clear while I slept, and I could see the stars pulsing in the night, the eye of the moon rising above the earth. The candle flame shifts from side to side like a flower petal spun between two fingers. It is yellow from peak to tail and black at its focus, with a horseshoe curve of blue dwindling along its sides. Peering into the dark central pinch of flame, I can see an image of Eric's shoulder and the rim of his chair. When I turn to him, he is leaning in on himself, plucking at his lower lip and staring into the grass. A machine or an animal is making a knocking noise somewhere. It sounds like a woodpecker hammering holes into a tree, louder than the catadids, louder than the cars. Do you remember the day we heard the woodpecker rapping on the oak tree of our driveway, Della? It was our first morning in this house together, our first morning away from the city, and neither of us recognized the sound. You thought it was somebody pounding nails into a board, and I thought it was somebody banging on the front door. You remember what you said when our next door neighbor told us what it really was? You said, if we have to have holes in our trees, I guess there might as well be birds nesting in them. I think about that all the time. Jesus, eric says. That's one noisy damn bird. I doubt it's a bird. Woodpeckers aren't nocturnal. Well, whatever it is, I feel like it's knocking inside my own head. He mimes firing a shot from a rifle. What I wouldn't give for a gun right now. A katydid springs into the candlelight, landing on a yellow dandelion head. Your mother, I say, and Eric twitches out, leaning toward me. I can feel something inside him, something dense and wary, hidden, becoming quite hot with brief attention, but it falters before I can speak. When she was a little girl, I say, well, she kept a flashlight by her bed. She told me that she would stand by her window and point it into the sky at night. She would find a spot without stars and shine it there until she went to sleep and she thought that the light would reach a planet one day, someplace without a sun, and the people there wouldn't be able to see where they were going and suddenly light. She wanted to help. She told me that wisps of grass cast twitching black shadows in the candlelight. Where? Said Eric. What? Where? Where were you when she told you that? The punctilio of a headlamp swerves at the horizon. I can't remember. It's been a long time, I say. I'm sorry. I can't remember. Right, says Eric, loosening another broad yawn. Okay, he says. He turns away, pinches to a center, draws in on himself like a tight, snarled not I am afraid, Della, that as I climb from the well of this time into days of habit and quiet persistence, into weekends and birthdays and sudden new seasons, the things that I know of you will slip quietly away from me. I'm afraid that as the glass of my life falls away, I will forget you and what I believed of you and what I loved of you. I will sit on the porch steps one brisk fall morning, watching the scissoring legs of the dawn joggers, listening to the warble and peck of the birds, and I will try to call you to mind, and I will fail. I will walk into the living room and find that your face has become just a photograph on the mantel, your name, a signature on a yellowed envelope. I will sweep my fingers along the hallway walls and feel them skip against a lappet in the wallpaper, and I will sit at the foot of my bed and gaze into the carpet. I will not remember the timbre of your voice or the cast of your body. I will not remember the breadth and measure of your stride. I will not remember the hunch of your shoulders as you walked against the wind, or the set of your elbows as you knotted a scarf that one smoky winter day you sat in an armchair and leaned into the heat swell of the fire, unbuckling the buckles of your boots, and afterward you stood with a foot raised to the hearthstone and drew back the mesh of the fire screen and spurred the fire, then settled in beside me as the sparks raged white and yellow up the chimney. That's a small thing, deleb, but this too I will not remember. I will not remember the disposition of your mind and heart toward myself or the world or any one thing. I will forget it all, everything that matters, your laughter, the contour of your face, the tuck of your lip as you arrested a yawn, the triple drum rhythm of your hand and wrist, 1, 2, pause, 3. As you rapped on a door or sounded a car horn. I will forget that you browsed at corner newsstands and answered jingling payphones. That you counted during storms the seconds between lightning flash and thunder crack, that you held our son to your chest and let him cry the day a circus clown fuzzed him with blue confetti. The manner in which I knew you, the moment of our acquaintance, whether you were gracious or severe, soulful or sharp, hopeful or frail with regret, all these things I will not remember. What I will remember is this, that there was Adela, that in a place now gone dark, within some veil or crimp of lost time, I knew her, and that something of her life passed into and through my own, effecting a conversion. My memory of you will be like the envelope of a bubble rising out of sight from the collar of its wand, transporting the breath of me to some far place. My memory of you, Della, will be like the last quiet pulse of an echo. Were I to follow it, I could not say what towards I took our son last week. But you know this. To see the fireworks. From the shelf of a low hill, we watch people stroll from the car park and settle in beside us. Families clustered around ice chests and blankets, around collapsible chairs and cool orange grills. Wiry adolescents threw frisbees and packed foam footballs. At night the heat that billowed from the ground made a chain of lens shaped clouds over the lake. The first two fireworks were launched from their cannons with a deep bass woomph erupting above us in showers of red and white. The next one descended in shimmering blue scarves and another sprayed out from its axis like the leaves of a green palm tree. Eric sat beside me, teasing a blade of grass into dozens of separate fibers. I keep thinking, he said, about that time when the spark almost hit me for the first time in weeks. He was volunteering to talk, and I almost couldn't believe it. I swallowed before I spoke. I'm surprised you remember that, I said. You couldn't have been older than three or four. I do, though, he said. He let the grass fall to the ground. You were holding me on your shoulders. We were watching the fireworks and something went wrong with one of them. But he exploded too soon, right? Right. What I remember is the sparks. They were raining down into the trees in the lake, and then one must have caught the wind. It fell right beside us. Then I looked down and the grass was on fire. Just a tuft, I said. I smiled and found myself laughing. Eric's lips spread into a thin smile. I was terrified. I didn't calm down till you poured Your drink on the fire. I remember, I said. The grass had been brown and withered, and the fire had gone out with a sound like the flurry of a cymbal. Oh, that wasn't me. Though actually with the soda it was a man with a ball cap and a mustache. I didn't know him. Oh, said Eric. His voice died a little. He lifted a finger to his temple. It's strange. I thought it was you. Firework leaped from the shaft of a cannon with a lurid shriek, and he gave a start. A shiver snaked its way along his shoulders. The sky shone green for a moment. I could see it flashing from his cheek, and behind us a small girl began to clap. Eric pressed a hand to his chest. Where was Mom? He asked after a moment. When the grass caught fire. Well, she was sitting on top of the ice chest, I said. The spark couldn't have fallen more than a few feet behind her, but she didn't notice. When I tried to tell her about it afterwards, she wouldn't believe me. You'd fallen asleep by the time we packed the car and she carried you home in her lap. Hmm. Eric eased himself into the grass and propped his head on his transposed wrist. A firework burst above us, and I watched its flares reflect from the surface of the lake, cascading through the water like a school of luminescent fish. Another shattered into sharp blue lines that gleamed from the bellies of two low clouds. It looks like lightning, eric said. He lay gazing into the night, his free hand twisting the wing of his shirt. What do you call it? You know, the kind that doesn't strike ground. Don't search me, I said. Well, we've been studying it in science class. He closed his eyes for a minute. Cloud to cloud. That's it. There's cloud to cloud and cloud to ground. What's the difference? I could see him frowning in the yellow light of a firework. Well, what do you think? He said. Cloud to ground's a kind that sets trees and houses on fire. You know that zigzag shape. Cloud to cloud is just flash in the sky. Interesting, I said. He sighed. But to you it's interesting. To me it's just work. We really have to talk about science class. We can talk about anything you want. Good, he said. What I want is not to talk at all. Dad, can we do that? He lifted himself onto his elbows. Let's just watch the explosions for a while. It is a week later now and all the lights are out. Eric sits in his porch chair, pivots his head to follow something above me, the wind or the stars or the stray smoke of some inward vision. An expression slips into his eyes, timid and wistful, like a fish or a turtle come to surface in a well.48, he says, skittering a hand through his hair. I turned toward him. 48? I asked. I don't understand the katydids, he says. You count the times they shrill in 20 seconds. 48. Then you add 39, and it gives you the temperature. He taps his finger on his wrist, calculating which would be 87, I think. Like lightning, I say, trying to listen. You count the seconds between the lightning and thunder, then divide by five. That's how far away it is. The candlestick burns quietly above a pool of setting wax. I am speaking for a moment as if I were elsewhere, without weight, form, or presence. The lightning, I say. In miles, I say. Your mom taught me that. Then I attempt a joke. But you don't like to talk about lightning, do you? I forget. Eric shuts his eyes. He doesn't laugh, but I can tell he's listening. Dad? He says. Yeah? He twiddles at the ruptured plastic tag of his shoelace and scratches his cheek. A moment later he says it again. Dad? What is it, Eric? It is then that the power flickers on and we notice at first from a distance. All of a sudden we can see the shape of the city on the land, all the street lamps and buildings and windows. It is as if the earth and the sky are reaching into one another, exchanging their lights like clasped hands inter threading fingers. I can hear a rattling sound coming from the air conditioner and from the living room of the voice of a television commercial. Isn't it, Tom? You considered training for a career as a medical assistant? Yes, says Eric as he hops up to his feet and claps his hands. I have not seen such a clear display display of emotion from him in months. Thank you, God, he says. Finally. A light from inside the house sends the shadow of his body slanting in a long line over the lawn, and just as suddenly as it returned, the current shuts down and the million lights of the city vanish. A fan in the air conditioner whirrs to a slow start.
- [48:32]
Peter Francis James
Stop.
- [48:33]
Michael Stuhlbarg
I shrug and clap my leg. Looks like a false alarm. Eric gives a soft God damn it,
- [48:42]
Peter Francis James
I'm so sick of all this, he
- [48:45]
Michael Stuhlbarg
says, and he sits down again, shifting in his chair, and the candlestick hides his face from my view. Eric? I prompt. Why can't I just watch tv? He says. Is that too much to ask? He leans forward and jerks his head, then punches himself in the arm. Tiny thudding sound, muffled by his T shirt. It rises in me, the instinct to say, don't hit yourself, but I know better. He would squeeze shut like a snare. Instead I ask, are you okay? And he gives a strangled laugh. I'm okay when I don't have to think about it, he says. I know, I say. God, I know. Sometimes I wake up at night and I feel peaceful. I feel peaceful and so I think that it must not have happened yet. Isn't that crazy? Not crazy, he says, shaking his head. Same thing happened to me the first few weeks. But then it stopped all of a sudden. It won't last forever, he sighs. But to tell you the truth, I liked it better before it stopped. I just want something to be easy for a change. One star, more brilliant than all the others, hangs like an ornament in the horizon, swelling brighter then dimming, swelling brighter, then dimming. And it's easy to watch tv, I say. It's easy to watch tv, he agrees. The katydids are out there, calling their names. A tiny red light of an airplane passes through the sky. It soars past a low cloud, the North Star, the bold white W of Cassiopeia, vanishing and reappearing, winking in a long ellipsis. Inside, its passengers read glossy periodicals, summon flight attendants, and unhitch the frames of their safety belts. They gaze from the panes of double windows and float away in a tight red arc. Two hours, 20 minutes, says Eric, illuminating his watch face. He stretches, gives a deep yawn and throws back his head, tightens his lips, and another shudders through him like a ripple through a pond. Look, I'm gonna turn in, he says, standing. Nothing to do out here anyway. He excavates a particle of dirt from beneath his thumbnail. I watch him tuck his hands into the big loose bowls of his pockets. They swallow him up to the forearms and dig soil from the lawn with the toe of his boot, and after a while he stops short. Well, he says. His chin gives a little jerk. Night. Good night, I respond. He steps to the door and it whispers, open. Do you need the candle? I think. Can you see your way? The door slides shut behind him. A katydid is perched at the edge of the porch, shrilling its drums and fanning its wings, mirroring the candle in its small black eyes. The wind is shivering through the grass and the stars are guttering in the sky. Sometimes, Della, it feels as if I am living inside a mirage. Sometimes it feels as if I myself am the illusion wavering in the air, an apparition in a weave of bodies. The pulse of your flashlight is 30 years gone. Such a long time. It's been sailing past moons and planets, past stars and dark matter and stray comets. It's been coursing through the gulf of space, its beam like a long silver road. It passed Alpha Centauri as you dressed for your first dance, Sirius as you left home for college. It passed the faint white globe of Tao Seti as you lifted your veil to touched me with a kiss and braided your fingers through mine. It's going, Della. It's on its way. One fine day it will burst through the sky of a black world, flashing from trees and houses and lakes. Doorknobs and fence posts will cast thin, sharp shadows. Turtles will poke from their shells, and bears will stumble from the mouths of caves. Men and women will throw open their windows, trembling and blinking as they step through their doors. On that day, there will be banquets and celebrations. The people will dress in their finest robes. The feast will be grand, the conversation merry. And everyone will will watch the sky.
- [55:00]
Meg Wolitzer
Michael Stuhlbarg performed Space by Kevin Brockmire. I'm Meg Wolitzer. We spoke with Stuhlbarg backstage at Symphony Space.
- [55:09]
Michael Stuhlbarg
You are reading a Kevin Brockenbauer piece called Space. What did you think about the way it was constructed? Narratively, it has been a challenge to work on in that its location changes backwards and forwards, different places at different times, and I'll be curious to hear how an audience responds in the process to see if they follow along with those particular jumps. I enjoy it very much. I think it's beautiful. And it's funny. When you get inside of something and you start working on it, it's hard to get a sense of it from the outside.
- [55:50]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Michael Stuhlbarg backstage at Symphony Space. There is nothing in this story that is not intentional. Every task, every small exchange seems to be a way to navigate back from grief to a negotiated happiness. This story had me in tears, and I think part of that is because of what is left unsaid. There's very little description of the wife and mother who's been lost to this father and son pair, her absence in the story, the way Brockmire elects not to dutifully fill in the details for the reader, is in keeping with, well, death, which over time can separate us from the specifics but leave us with the essence. So, happiness. Are we any clearer about what it means or could mean after these two very different stories, I think we are even though Oscar Wilde delivered a satirical fairy tale and Kevin Brockmire led us on a journey through time, space, and grief. In each, lives are reshaped by possibility, and possibility is one of the central drivers of the the pursuit of happiness. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Thanks for joining me for Selected Shorts. Selected Shorts is produced by Jennifer Brennan and Sarah Montague. Our team includes Matthew Love, Drew Richardson, Mary Shimkin, Vivienne Woodward, and Magdalene Robleski. The readings are recorded by my. Our programs, presented at the Getty center in Los Angeles, are recorded by Phil Richards. Our theme music is David Peterson's that's the Deal, performed by the Deardorf Petersen Group. Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation. This program is also made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Selected Shorts is produced and distributed by Symphony Space.
- [57:47]
Peter Francis James
Sam.