The Fence

Beeble beeble beeble. Beeble beeble beeble.

It was my phone, at four in the morning, after a night of debauchery bidding adieu to those forced to leave the company I worked for because there wasn't money for them.

Hello?

Oi, mate! It's me, Jason!

Hello, Jason. How you doing? Still at it?

Wait, wait. Listen: I knew I'd seen you before. I knew I knew you!

It's ... four in the morning. I have to work in ... five hours.

Listen, listen. Don't you remember? When you were a kid, talking to a guy near a fence?

I don't know what you're talking about.

Near a fence! At your school! You were ten!

Did I?

Yes, you did! Yes, another, thanks. You talked to him, at Vincent Massey School!

How could you wind up there? You're Australian!

I don't know, but I was there! How could I know it was Vincent Massey then?

I don't remember talking to any Australian near a fence when I was ten at Vincent Massey. I think I would remember that.

You told me, you told me to straighten up!

But, did you?

No! Fuck no! Oi, chick wants my cock! Gotta go!

Conversation end.

 

*

 

Après Hugo

 

At four in the morning my cell phone rang. The telephone both connects and disconnects ourselves from others and furthermore it both connects and disconnects ourselves from ourselves.

I took it up and spoke to this other person, as of that point unknown. We never know who was are going to be talking to at any given moment. It could be a child, shivering, it could be an angel, singing; we don't know what the future will bring. Like in '93, who can know what is to come?

"Hello," I said, and though I was tired I was really ready for anything. So much depend on the responses sweet or bitter. I waited, blinded by Bacchus, to hear what the soul had to say.

"Oi, mate! It's me, Jason!" Often surprise is tempered by expectation. How could I be surprised when I had already picked up my cell phone! How had I seen him last? Before I had gotten lost getting home in the night? You can get lost when you know where you are, and you can be secure in your place, and in your station, and yet be to all essential facts in a sense lost.

 

*

 

Nach Kafka

 

I awoke at four this morning to find myself being a person who was answering the blue telephone my father had left me in his will.

"Hello?" I spoke into it.

"Hello," came a deep voice.

"Is this an intercontinental call? It is four in the morning here."

"That is the time it is here. Idiot."

"I beg your pardon?"

"We have received your notices."

"What notices?"

"Do you remember your childhood? Do you remember talking to a person named Jason? By a metal chain-link fence that marked the border of Vincent Massey Public School?"

A wave of guilt passed over me. "Why? What did I say? Did I do something to him?"

"Your file needs to be updated. Really, we at the office do not understand why you were not forthcoming about this incident. This does not look good at all. I will shoulder some of the blame for you."

"Thank you."

"There is a price to pay, of course. Come into personnel tomorrow morning at eight and we'll see what information we can gather."

"Information about what?"

"About the chain-link fence, you fool!" He shouted, "We do not like your attitude one bit! You complete fool!"

 

*

 

Nach Kafka After Future Shop

 

I awoke at four this morning to find myself being a person who was answering my new blue telephone.

"Hello?" I spoke into it.

There was not a sound on the line.

A fist then started banging loudly on my apartment door. I jumped up and darted to it. "Wh-who is it?" I cried in fear.

"I'm here to repossess your blue telephone!" yelled a deep voice. "Open up!"

I opened the door for the sake of the neighbours who had never liked me anyway.

The man before me was a mountain of a man, and smoking a huge cigar. "Where is it?" he shouted.

"Why do you want to take my telephone?" I stammered.

"You never paid for it!"

"Certainly I did; I have the receipt, from Future Shop."

He tilted back his head and laughed to shake the walls. "Future Shop is gone! Gone! Your receipt is no longer valid!"

"But I paid money for it. Your act of taking my telephone would be an act of robbery."

He lifted me to the ceiling. "Listen. Give me the telephone," and dropped me.

I got the telephone and handed it over.

"I'll be back!"

 

*

 

After Lovecraft

 

Once the celebrations had come to their just conclusion, Jeffries omnibussed himself to his sparse apartment on 6th street and there he lay down to peaceful rest, according to reliable sources. At four in the morning, according to his meticulously kept daybook, he was roused by the ring of the telephone, which he promptly answered, expecting the worst beyond all humanly possible cognition. He was not disappointed in this breathless expectation, for across the electric line of the telephone he heard a harsh breathing and a dread sighing never before heard across sweet Providence lines. He dared to call into the blue 'phone, demanding a proper and sensible response but received only a cold shudder from a distant place, somewhere behind himself, maybe a bit to the right. What had meant that slick look the character allegedly named Jason had given him earlier that fateful evening, upon the third toast of sweet brandy? Had Jeffries' visage changed so much during the sleepless times of his terrified investigations? Jeffries demanded an answer through the telephone, and in response he heard a wet and phlegmatic voice, occluded by multiple masks and multiple centuries, cry, "SHUG NAGGOTH! METAL FENCE! SHUG NAGGOTH!"

 

*

 

Imitatione Christi

 

And he heard a call that came from the crowd. This was very early in the morning. And the call said, Reb, you must recall our meeting in past years, many years ago.

And he said, Yes, I recall you. We were children then, and we are adults now. Just as the swallow is always a swallow, we are who we were once, and who we will be later.

And the call from the crowd said, Be that as it may, we spoke near a chain link fence that was near a seminary. You spoke wise words to me, and I am here today to listen again to you.

And he said, Listen, and understand what I say. Wisdom comes not from seeds, but from buds. In growth, all is from beginning, and all is from the end.

And the call from the crowd said, You seem to be missing my point. This isn't a big deal. I just want to thank you for telling me to continue my studies.

And he said, Bless you, my good man; now, if you'll excuse me, I have a crowd to speak with. Oh, where are my manners? Walk with God.

 

*

 

I am not authorizing this parody. Ken Burns.

 

Very early one morning in April of 2015, a telephone rang at the bedside of a man who had been to a party the night before, and was still feeling the effects. He looked at the clock. It was four. The birds had yet to wake.

I picked up the phone and I was amazed to hear who it was. It was Jason whom I given up as lost forever. Why would he be calling me? He didn't sound especially drunk, and that made it all the more mysterious. John Skaife.

SHELBY FOOTE: Of course it was not necessarily the case that the phone call was meaningful. No one ever found out if what he heard over the phone was true or not. Just have to take his word for it, I guess.

Jason Wild told John Skaife that they had met, a long time before, when they'd been but children. Wild described a fence, and a life-changing moment. Skaife was listening very carefully.

I said to myself, How could it be? Jason's Australian. Did he spend a part of his youth in Canada? It didn't make sense to me. John Skaife.

 

*

 

After midnight but before one

 

Telephones, telephones. You ever get one of those three, four in the morning calls from someone you pretty much ... don't want to hear from? What are they thinking, huh? Hey, I'm sure she wants to know what I've been doing, grab another beer first.... (Slight laughter.)

So I get this call--I get woken up, in fact, it was four in the morning, man--from a guy I know from work--I'll leave out his name. Doesn't change anything. And he's calling to thank me for something that happened, according to him, like, forty years ago. I couldn't make much sense of it--your guesses would be as good as mine--but I didn't hang up on him. (Silence.)

That would have been rude. (Slight laughter.)

We're all people here. And people don't hang up on people.

Instead, I explained. (Silence.)

"Jesus Christ, you stupid motherfucker! It's four in the morning! You're calling to thank me for something! It's been forty years--couldn't it wait till the early afternoon maybe? I was sleeping! Soundly! This phone is my phone! I will get my revenge! I will burn your house down! You've ruined my sleep!

 

*

 

Après "Marcel"

 

Although, being of a sensitive temperament in which my heart would derange easily especially whenever my mother was involved, I used to go to bed early, the night before last, which was a Tuesday night, or Tuesday/Wednesday I should prefer to say to avoid ambiguity, the source of most of the misery of the world, I, instead of going to bed early, having stayed up until around one o'clock in the morning because I had attended a shall we say bon voyage to some work colleagues who were making their departure due to downsizing, slumbered peacefully and somewhat drunkenly until the hour of four, whereupon I was awakened by the modern telephone that I apparently had inherited from the previous tenant such that I could not really call myself its owner, which I answered with some concern, for four a.m. phone calls seldom mean anything other than trouble, only to hear the voice of one of my newly-departed co-workers telling me, in effect, that many years ago I had given him good advice, somewhere near a fence, that had set him on the straight and narrow, whereupon I informed him he was dead to me, and hung up.

 

*

 

Après Queneau, naturellement

 

Notation. I was awakened by a telephone call from a person who thanked me for something long ago.

Double entry. I awoke roused: telephone call. Human person thanking for a pep-talk or encouragement ages long ago.

Litotes. I wasn't unasleep when he called. He thanked me in a way I wouldn't call subtle or quiet.

Metaphorically. The call of the telephone penetrated the surface of my slumber. A gift of thanks was presented to me, and I opened it.

Retrograde. I hung up, having heard a distant thank-you after being awakened at four in the morning.

Surprises. Wow! So, I knew him way back then! How could he be lying?! The things you learn at 4 AM!

Dream. I saw myself answering a strange telephone. It was Jason, thanking me for something years ago. Then I woke up.

Prognostication. This will happen: I will be awakened: the voice will say: thank you for something: I see it now.

Synchysis. Awakened I was, a call telephonic by; thanking me was a person for long ago something I said.

The Rainbow. Red curtains and an orange telephone. Yellow light, blue voice over it, greenly speaking of a violet fence.

 

*

 

After Wolfe

 

Gangalanga gangalanga gangalanga slapped him from drunkenness ... the telephone.... 'Buzz' grabbed it and drooled into it, "Hello?" expecting some bill collector or a wrong-calling whuzzup?!?! to come across the electricity, but instead 'Buzz' heard a some, who, what, familiar voice saying something about--and here I hafta paraphrase--"I called to thank you for something a long time ago that you probably don't even remember because honestly I can't say I remembered it before just about ten minutes ago."

'Buzz' said--he wiped off some drool--what day is it?--what time is it?--"Well," and didn't make it further than that because the phone went on to say, "Don't you remember? At yer school, like, a thousand years ago! We spoke!"

'Buzz' felt like he was orbiting earth, looking for a nice soft place to land. "How.... You're Australian. What could you have been doing in ... Oshawa?"

These orbiting spheres, maaaaaaan, could they have been aligned, some time in the past? Whyever not? Could it have been, or was he just talking to some drunk fruitcake? There's questions without answers. Don't expect some ultimate explanation. 'Buzz' thought about it ... but never found an answer.

 

*

 

After W.W.

 

A bright and burly youth--in sprite if not in mien--awoke me from my slumber morning last,

As I lay stretched in manly nakedness, a seaworth salt companion by my side, and gave me blessèd thanks;

I asked him what he meant, and why, at such a time before the morning angel-birds could cheeply tweet;

He told me then of memories so long ago, when he was simply eight, and careless and in sin,

When he'd encountered me beside a wicked fence of steel.

 

I told him I had nothing in my feeble mind that referenced whate'er he said, so sorry,

I know of all the flowers in the fields, and all the tools for carpentry and woodwork,

Of earth and stars and moons and all the swimming particles in all the oceans everywhere,

Of children, men, women, lovers, poor sorts, wealthy sorts, all sorts, with broken limbs,

Hands, elbows, knuckles, germs and such;

 

But no, I told the youth who was I knew not where, I don't recall a gift of any wisdom

Bestowèd unto you so long ago; speechless I am and honoured, humbled really, if you are speaking true;

He said: it's all true.

 

*

 

Beeble beeble beeble. Beeble beeble beeble.

It was my Photius, at Fourier in the Morny, after a Nightingale of Debayle bidding Adler to those forced to leave the Compton I worked for because there wasn't Monge for them.

Hello?

Oi, Mather! It's me, Jaspers!

Hello, Jaspers. How you doing? Still at Itten?

Wait, wait. Listen: I knew I'd seen you before. I knew I knew you!

It's ... Fourier in the Morny. I have to Worlock in ... five Houses.

Listen, listen. Don't you remember? When you were a Kidd, talking to a Guyon near a Fénelon?

I don't know what you're talking about.

Near a Fénelon! At your Schoolcraft! You were Teniers!

Did I?

Yes, you did! Yes, another, thanks. You talked to him, at Vinci Massine Schoolcraft!

How could Young wind up there? You're Avedon!

I don't know, but I was Theresa! How could I know it was Vinci Massine then?

I don't remember talking to any Avedon near a Fénelon when I was Teniers at Vinci Massine. I think I would Rémi that.

You told me, you told me to Strand up!

But, did you?

No! Fuentes no! Oi, Chifley wants my Cockcroft! Gotta go!

Converse end.

 

*

 

After Stevens, and composed most fittingly to the accompaniment of the music of Leroy Anderson performed by the Eastman-Rochester "POPS" Orchestra

 

Let's not give up on our mythologies. For merely an entr'acte, at the least,

Let's let young Polynices believe that everything is actually okay between his folks,

Let the sea sleep through its unconscious geometries of azure inducements.

What can we expect to be gained by the abandonment of the photographs

Everyone with a dollar can see in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City?

The instruments we're so used to, like we don't think twice about flicking that bronze lampswitch

For example, may move us further, faster, into the unknown future before our hearts are really ready.

 

So when we're faced with something simple, a galvanized aluminium chain-link fence,

We refuse to see it clearly, this miracle, this blackbird

Stretched across a thousand yards, because we believe there's always something else

To be considered. I'm as bad as you, Ramon, with your paintings and advertisements;

I would want it to be otherwise, sure. Imagine it, don't get rhetorical to avoid it.

We can find that fence, somewhere, because it's always there, just waiting for bending fingers.

 

*

 

After Linklater

 

He's near a fence, talking to a boy six years younger. The younger boy had acted bad.

He's in a house being built, with a girl. A make-out session.

He's making a special presentation, on a stage, to a teacher. He says something embarrassing.

He's gone to the prom, alone. He dances with the girl he made out with so long ago.

He's got a job, in his field. He quits in order to go to Mexico with a pretty girl. (They don't go.)

He's working in a bookstore, living with five other people in a house.

He's gone back to school to meet a girl, any girl, and he meets the right one on the second day.

He's moved into her place, a building slated for the wrecking ball.

He's moved across town with her, into a smaller place that's more structurally sound.

He's using all his education in a dying industry. There's no future in what he's doing, but he's doing it anyway.

He's seeing off some downsized workers, in a bar, getting drunk.

He's received a phone call from the boy way back when. He can't remember ever speaking to the boy, way back when.

 

*

 

After Gaddis

 

-Yes, what, hello?

-John? Is.... it's you.

-Yes hello what's the deal?

-It's Jason here.

-Jason ... what ... what time is it?

-I don't know. Don't you want to know why I'm calling?

-Yes, of course, why, what?

-Just now, last night in a way, not many hours ago, I remembered something.

-So you're calling me about it?

-Yes, you're intrinsic to it. It was when you were talking about what about Schopenhauer and his what lectures on mass media, mass reproduction, all that stuff all made alike and seen alike and how he would have what he would have thought of the Internet, those university lectures of his, and it was then I remembered something.

-Jesus, it's three a.m....

-Yes that's when I remembered, that's when I put you into place. I met you a long time ago. We were kids, you were older than me.

-What's all that got to do with Schopenhauer?

-You repeated yourself, you understand? You duplicated a phrase you used with me with your Schopenhauer stuff. You carbon copied yourself.

-No.

-Interesting, because, you know, player pianos have these rolls. You replayed one of your rolls. That's how I knew you.

 

*

 

Nach Kafka After Future Shop After Hitchcock

 

Blackness. CLOCK TICKING.

PHONE RINGS. GRUNTS AS PHONE PICKED UP.

Bedside table light switches on, a cone of light, all else black, illuminating just the phone and its cord going into the darkness.

CHARACTER: Yes, hello. [sniffs.] Jason. What time is it? Don't I remember what.

LOUD BANGING AT DOOR.

CHARACTER: Wait, someone's banging at my door.

A hand with phone handset enters the light and sets the handset down beside the phone.

SOUNDS OF CHARACTER GETTING OUT OF BED.

cut to

long hallway, door at end, dimly lit window in the door, head with hat silhouetted in window. All else is dark. The door opens. CHARACTER is facing the door--two men are outside.

HAT: [says name of CHARACTER.]

CHARACTER: Yes.

HAT and other move in quickly, past CHARACTER. Other lights a cigarette. HAT and CIGARETTE are looking CHARACTER over; CHARACTER is looking from HAT to CIGARETTE.

CHARACTER: (finally) What is it?

HAT: Your phone rang.

CHARACTER: So?

cut to

cone of light over the phone. Handset gets taken up.

HAT: You got it right. Yes. Yes, sir. Okay. We'll bring him to you. Goodbye, sir.

Phone gets hung up.

cut to

 

*

 

After Rolling Stone

 

The telephone rings. It's three in the morning. 'Paul' rolls over, reaches out, grasps it, and pulls it to his ear and mouth. "Hello," he drools.

"'Paul,'" says the masculine voice, "You need to admit your guilt."

"Who is this?" asks 'Paul'.

"It's 'Jason,'" says the masculine voice. "I had a repressed memory jump out at me last night--six hours ago--and I now know why I'm such a failure. It's all your fault."

'Paul' sits up. "My fault?" he says.

'Jason' continues. "When I was five, and you were ten, you raped me beside a fence, in broad daylight, during recess."

"Huh?" says 'Paul'. "You were in Australia then, weren't you?"

"I guess not," says 'Jason'. "Anyway, how dare you throw facts at me? Yours is not the only narrative."

'Paul' takes a moment to think. It didn't make any sense--to him. "I think you're making a mistake."

This comment made 'Jason''s spittle fly freely. "Don't you know what's going on? Can't you read the zeitgeist? Rolling Stone says that if I think it's true, it's true! I'm a Victim, and Victims don't lie!"

'Paul' agrees with this logic.

He once had a subscription.

 

*

 

After the Arabian Nights' Entertainments

 

"But this story of Rolling Stone magazine is not half as wonderful as the story of Iqbal Salaam and his brother." AND SHE CONTINUED:

In the days of Al-Amin, a merchant slept soundly after a banquet held to honour one of his fellow merchants who was about to depart on a perilous journey. At the time of the first cock's crow, a djinn visited his bedside, saying, "I am an agent of your departing friend, condemned to obey his wishes because of a curious incident some dozen years ago that took place in a lake of rocks."

"What incident was that?" asked the merchant.

THE DJINN SAID:

Thousands of years ago, I displeased Iblis in a certain way--the details are not significant--whereupon he imprisoned me in a jeweled box and threw me into the sea. Some time later a whale swallowed the box I was in, and the whale was caught by the fishermen of Alexandria who sold the box to a jeweler. The box was stolen by a Bedouin infidel who took it to a lovely woman. The lovely woman said, "This box reminds me of a story."

THE LOVELY WOMAN SAID:

 

*

 

n’okpuru Kuti

 

The night na light i Lagos night

The night na light i dey Lagos night

The night na light i Lagos night

Wella wella wella wella, wella

Wella wella wella wella, wella wella

 

The telephone ring, telephone, telephone

It am barry barry friend, barry, barry

 

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

 

E say friend you on phone

E say liss friend, I got tale

E say long long ago, long long ago

You do for me something good

Something good

 

An pepeye khaki trouser above dey knee

Bang dey door

An pepeye khaki trouser above dey knee

Bang dey door

 

1974

 

E say ne lady ne man do what dey Fela do

Nay nay nay nay

 

Oh oh oh oh

Oh oh oh oh

 

Na light plenty black for Afrika

E say England day ay atta fence

Tole e be cool, be black like Afrika

Be black like Afrika

 

Night na light

Night na light

 

O Shakara man oloje ni

Governmental man

Generariss man

Dictatorer man

Nigeria man

 

Oh oh oh oh

Oh oh oh oh

 

Me brother past me brother now

Soldier come an go

Soldier come an go

 

*

 

arter Jorse o corse

 

What was the only notable event to take place at 3:02 AM on the seventeenth of June 2014 Anno Domini on Eccles Street in Dublin?

 

The telephone in the domicile at number 7 rang.

 

What were the results of the ringing of the telephone at 7 Eccles Street?

 

The cat looked up from her wicker basket; Bloom halted his progress of undressing to go to the phone and put his hand on the receiver and paused.

 

Describe the contents of the pause.

 

Mullingar, Milly. Could be. Death.

 

After the pause, what?

 

Bloom took the receiver from its cradle and put it to his left ear. Into the mouth piece he said Hello with high rising terminal. Through the receiver came a waveform with a frequency range approximate to 130-500 Hz which had been encoded an unknown distance away, presumably by an adult human male, into an electronic circuit carried by copper wire.

 

Was it possible to convert the waveform into intelligibility?

 

Yes.

 

Free me from the suspense. What was the content or purpose of the electronic signal?

 

Nostalgia, connection, reverie, surprise, noetics, patrimony, education, Socrates and Plato, alcohol, labour, history, geography, and freestanding structures delineating boundaries.

 

*

 

Coda

 

I woke up this morning.

I'd had a dream about Jason Wild. I'd had a slightly unusual dream in that I dreamed I woke up, in the dream, from a sleep.

I suppose it's not so improbable to dream one is waking up. Not statistically, anyway. Dreams have to start somewhere.

I vow here that I've had very few dreams wherein I've been asleep and I've woken up.

Since I can't say this was the only time I've ever dreamt such a dream, I'd say I've dreamed such a dream twice or maybe three times in my life.

I dreamed I woke up because the telephone rang. I found the telephone--right beside my bed, unrealistically--and I picked it up and I said, "Hello?"

Jason said, "'Ello, John. It's Jason 'ere. I'm calling to tell you I knew I'd met you before, and it was when we were children."

I said, "When we met? When did we meet?"

"I talked to you at your school. We talked at the fence. You were very nice to me. And it affected me forever."

"Did I?"

"You changed my life. I think I was almost ruined.

"I want to thank you."