S TOR Y

THE AWAKENINGOF ~1YINTEREST

IN ANNULAR SYSTEMS'*By David Foster Wallace

In the winter of 1963 Iremember I was eatinglunch and reading some-thing dull on temperaturereactivity coefficients whenmy father came into thekitchen and made himself atomato-juice beverage andsaid that as soon as I wasfinished he and my motherneeded my help in theirbedroom. My father hadspent the morning at thecommercial studio and wasstill all in white, with hiswig with its rigid whiteparted hair, and hadn't yetremoved the televisionmakeup that gave his facean orange cast in daylight.I hurried up and rinsed mydishes in the sink and pro-ceeded down the hall to themaster bedroom. My moth-er and father were both in there. Themaster bedroom'sdrapes and the heavylightproof curtain behind them werepulled back and the venetian blindswere up, and the daylight was verybright in the room, the decor of whichwas white and blue and powder blue.

My father was bent over my par-

into it. He bore down hardon one area of the mattressand then let up and pivot-ed slightly on his knees andbore down with equal vigoron a different area of themattress. He did this allover the bed, sometimes ac-tually walking around onhis knees to get at differentareas of the mattress, thenbearing down on them. I re-member thinking the bear-ing-down action lookedvery much like the emer-gency compression of aheart patient's chest. I re-member my father's tomatojuice had grains of pepper-ish material floating on thesurface. My mother wasstanding at the bedroomwindow, smoking a longcigarette and looking at the

lawn, which I had watered before Iate lunch. The uncovered windowfaced south. The room blazed withsunlight.

"Eureka," my father said, pressingdown several times on one particular

ems' large bed, which was stripped ofbedding all the way down to the mat-tress protector. He was bent over,pushing down on the bed's mattresswith the heels of his hands. The bed'ssheets and pillows and powder-bluecoverlet were all in a pile on the car-pet next to the bed. Then my fatherhanded me his tumbler of tomato juiceto hold for him and got all the wayantop of the bed and knelt on it, press-ing down vigorously on the mattresswith his hands, putting all his weight

David Foster Walloce's last contribution toHarper'sMagazine,"Tennis, Trigonometry,Tornadoes," a memoir, appeared in the De-cember 1991 issue. This story is excerptedfrom a longer work in progress.

60 HARPER'S MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER1993

*FrornThe ChiUof Inspiration: SpontaneousReminiscences by Seventeen Pioneers of DT-Cycle Lithiumized Annular Fusion, ed. Prof.Dr.GUntherSperber,Institut fur Neutro-nenphysik und Reaktortechnik, Kern-farschungszentrurnKarlsruhe,U.R.G., ©2002bySpringer-VerlagWien,NewYork.

Illustration by Caty Bartholomew

spot. There was a squeaking soundfrom the mattress.

I asked whether I could ask whatwas going on.

"Goddamn bed squeaks," my fathersaid. He stayed on his knees over theone particular spot, bearing down onit repeatedly. He looked up and overat my mother next to the bedroomwindow. "Do you or do you not hearthat?" he said. bearing down and let-ting up. My mother tapped her longcigarette into a shallow ashtray sheheld in her other hand. She watchedmy father press down on the squeak-ing spot.

Sweat was running in dark orangelines down my father's face from underhis rigid white professionalwig. My fa-ther served from 1963 to 1964 as theMan from Glad, representing what wasthen the Glad Flaccid Plastic Recep-tacle Co. of Zanesville, Ohio, via aCalifornia-based advertising agency.The tunic, tight' trousers,and boots theagencymade him wear were alsowhite.

My father pivoted on his knees andswunghis body around and got off themattress and put his hand at the smallof his back and straightened up, con-tinuing to look at the mattress.

"This miserable cock-sucking bedyour mother felt she needed to hangon to and bring with us out here forquote sentimental value has startedsqueaking," my father said. His say-ing "your mother" indicated that hewas addressing himself to me. He heldhis hand out for his tumbler of toma-to juice without having to look at me.He stared darkly down at the bed. "It'sdriving us fucking nuts."

My mother balanced her cigarettein her shallow ashtray and laid theashtray on the windowsill and bentover the foot of the bed, bearing downon the spot my father had isolated,and it squeaked again.

"And at night this one spot herewe've isolated and identified seems tospread and metastisate until thewhole goddamn bed's replete withsqueaks." He drank some of his toma-to juice. "Areas that gibber andsqueak," my father said, "until weboth feel as if we're being eaten byrats." He felt along the line of hisjaw. "Boiling hordes of gibberingsqueaking ravenous rats," he said, al-most trembling with irritation.

I looked down at the mattress, at mymother's hands, which tended to flakein dry climates. She carried a smallbottle of moisturizing lotion at alltimes.

My father said, "And I have per-sonally had it with the aggravation."He blotted his forehead on his whitesleeve.

I reminded my father that he'dmentioned needing my help withsomething. At that age I was alreadytaller than both my parents. My moth-er was taller than my father, even inhis boots, but much of her height wasin her legs. My father's body wasdenser and more substantial.

My mother came around to my fa-ther's side of the bed and picked bed-ding up off the floor. She startedfolding the sheets very precisely,usingboth her arms and her chin. Shestacked the folded bedding neatly on

top of her dresser, which I

M rememberwaswhite lacquer.

y father looked at me. "Whatwe need to do here, Jim, is take themattress and box spring off the bedframe, under here," my father said,"and expose the frame." He took timeout to explain that the bed's bottommattress was hard-framed and knownuniformly as a box spring. I was look-ing down at my sneakers and makingmy feet alternately pigeon-toed andthen penguin-toed on the bedroom'sblue carpet. My father drank some ofhis tomato juice and looked down atthe edge of the bed's metal frame andfelt along the outline of his jaw,wherehis commercial studio makeup endedabruptly at the turtleneck collar of hisprofessional white tunic.

"The frame on this bed is old," hetold me. "It's probably older than youare. Right now I'm thinking the thing'sbolts have maybe started coming loose,and that's what's gibbering and squeak-ing at night." He finished his tomatojuice and held the glass out for me totake and put somewhere. "So we wantto move all this top crap out of theway, entirely"-he gestured with onearm-"entirely out of the way, get itout of the room, and expose the frame,

-and see ifwe don't maybe just need totighten up the bolts."

I wasn't sure where to put my fa-ther's empty glass, which had juice

residue and grains of pepper along theinterior sides. I poked at the mattressand box spring a little bit with myfoot. "Are you sure it isn't just themattress?" I said. The bed frame's boltsstruck me as a rather exotic first-orderexplanation for the squeaking.

My father gestured broadly. "Syn-chronicity surrounds me. Concord,"he said. "Because that's what yourmother thinks it is, also." My motherwas using both hands to take the bluepillowcases off all five of their pillows,again using her chin as a clamp. Thepillows were all the over-plump poly-ester fiberfill kind, because of my fa-ther's allergies.

"Great minds think alike," my fathersaid.

Neither of my parents had any in-terest in hard science, though a greatuncle had accidentally electrocutedhimself with a field series generatorhe was seeking to patent.

My mother stacked the pillows ontop of the neatly folded bedding onher dresser. She had to get up on hertiptoes to put the folded pillowcasesontop of the pillows. I had started tomove to help her, but I couldn't decidewhere to put the empty tomato-juiceglass.

"But you just want to hope it isn'tthe mattress," my father said. "Or thebox spring."

My mother sat down on the foot ofthe bed arid got out another longcigarette and lit it. She carried a littleleatherette snap-case for both hercigarettes and .her lighter.

My father said, "Because a newframe, even if we can't get the boltssquared away on this one and I have togo get a new one. A new frame. Itwouldn't be too bad, see. Even top-shelf frames aren't that expensive. Butnew mattresses are outrageously ex-pensive." He looked at my mother."And I mean fucking outrageous." Hewas looking down at the back of mymother's head. "And we bought a newbox spring for this sad excuse for a bednot five years ago." He was looking atthe back of my mother's head as if hewanted to confirm that she was lis-tening. My mother had crossed herlegs and was looking with a certainconcentration either at or out the mas-ter bedroom window. Our home'swhole subdivision, Sepulveda Heights,

STORY 61

consisted of large prefabricated colo-nial homes ranged along the crest ofa severe hillside, which meant thatthe view from my parents' bedroomwas of just sky and sun and a fore-shortened declivity of lawn. The lawnsloped at an average angle of fifty-fivedegrees and had to be mowed hori-zontally. None of the subdivision'slawns had trees yet.

"Of course that was during a sel-dom-discussed point in time whenyour mother had to assume the burdenof assuming responsibility for financesin the household," my father said. Hewas now perspiring very heavily, butstill had his white professional toupeeon, and still looked at my mother.

My father acted, throughout ourtime in California, as both symbol andspokesman for the Glad EP.R. Co.'sIndividual Sandwich BagDivision. Hewasthe firstof two actors to portray theMan from Glad. He was inserted sev-eral times a month into a mock-up ofa car interior,where he would be filmedin a tight trans-windshield shot re-ceiving an emergency radio summonsto some household that was having aportable-food-storageproblem. He wasthen placed opposite an actress in ageneric kitchen-interior set, where hewould explain how a particular speciesof Glad Sandwich Bag was preciselywhat the doctor ordered for the par-ticular portable-food-storage problemat issue. In his vaguely medical uni-form of all white, he carried an air ofauthority and great evident convic-tion, and earned what I always gath-ered was an impressive salary, andreceived, for the first time in his career,fan mail, some of which bordered onthe disturbing, and which he some-times liked to read out loud at night inthe living room, loudly and dramati-cally, sitting up with nightcaps andthe letters long after my mother and Ihad gone to bed.

I asked whether I could excuse my-self for a moment to take my father'sempty tomato-juice glass out to thekitchen sink. I was worried that theresidue along the interior sides of thetumbler would harden into the kind ofprecipitate that would be hard to washoff.

"For Christ's sake Jim just put thatthing down," my father said.

I put the tumbler down over next to

62 HARPER'S MAGAZINE / SEPTEMBER 1993

the base of my mother's dresser, press-ing down hard to create a kind of cir-cular receptacle for it in the carpet. Mymother stood up and went back overby the bedroom window with her ash-tray. We could tell she was getting outof our way.

My father cracked his knuckles andstudied the path between the bed andthe bedroom door.

I said I understood my part here tobe to help my father move the mattress

. and box spring off the suspect bedframe and well out of the way.My fa-ther cracked his knuckles and repliedthat I was becoming almost frighten-ingly quick and perceptive. He wentaround between the foot of the bedand my mother at the window. Hesaid, "I want to let's just stack it all outin the hall, to get it the hell out ofhere and give us some room to ma-neuver."

"Right," I said.My father and I were now on op-

posite sides of my parents' bed. My fa-ther rubbed his hands together andbent and worked them between themattress and box spring and beganto lift the mattress up from his side ofthe bed. When his side of the mat-tress had risen to the height of hisshoulders, he somehow inverted hishands and began pushing his side uprather than lifting it. The top of hiswig disappeared behind the risingmattress, his side of which rose in anarc to almost the height of the whiteceiling, exceeded ninety degrees, top-pled over, and began to fall over downtoward me. The mattress's overallmovement was like the crest of abreaking wave, I remember. I"spreadmy arms and took the impact withmy chest and face. All I could seewas an extreme close-up of the wood-land floral pattern of the mattressprotector.

The mattress, a Simmons Beauty-rest whose tag said that it could not bylaw be removed, now formed the hy-potenuse of a right dihedral trianglewhose legs were myself and the bed'sbox spring. I remember visualizingandconsidering this triangle. My legsweretrembling under the mattress's cantedweight. My father was exhorting me tohold and support the mattress. Therespectively sharp plastic and meatyhuman smells of the mattress and pro-

tector were very distinct because mynose was mashed up against them.

My father came around to my sideof the bed, and together we pushedthe mattress back up until it stood atninety degrees again. We edged care-fully apart and each took one end ofthe upright mattress and began jock-eying it off the bed and out the bed-room door into the uncarpetedhallway.

This was a king-size SimmonsBeautyrest mattress. It was massivebut had very little structural integrity.It kept curving and curling and wob-bling. My father exhorted both meand the mattress. It was flaccid andfloppy as we tried to maneuver it. Myfather had an especially hard timewith his half of the mattress's uprightweight because of an old tennis in-jury.

While we were jockeying it on itsside off the bed, part of the mattress onmy father's end slipped and floppedover and down onto a pair of steelreading lamps, adjustable cubes ofbrushed steel attached by toggle boltsto the white wall over the head of thebed. The lamps took a solid hit fromthe mattress, and one cube was rotat-ed all the way around on its toggle sothat its open side and bulb now point-ed at the ceiling. The joint and togglemade a painful squeaking sound as thecube was wrenched around upward.This was also when I became awarethat even the reading lamps were onin the davlit room, because a faintsquare of direct lamplight, its four sidesmade slightly concave by the distor-tion of projection, appeared on thewhite ceiling above the skewed cube.The lamps didn't fall off. They re-mained attached to the wall.

"Goddamn it to hell," my fathersaid as he regained control of his endof the mattress.

When the mattress's thickness madeit difficult for him to squeeze throughthe doorwaywhile holding his end, myfather also said, "Fucking son of a ... "

In time we were able to get my par-ents' giant mattress out into the nar-row hallway that ran between themaster bedroom and the kitchen. Icould hear another terrific squeak ftomthe bedroom as my mother tried torealign the reading lamp whose cubehad been inverted. Drops of sweat

were falling from my father's face on-to his side of the mattress, darkeningpart of the protector's fabric. My fatherand I tried to lean the mattress at aslight supporting angle against onewall of the hallway, but because thefloor of the hallway was uncarpetedand didn't provide sufficient resistancethe mattress wouldn't stay upright. Itsbottom edge slid out from the wall allthe way across the width of the hall-way until it met the baseboard of theopposite wall, and the upright mat-tress's top edge slid down the wall un-til the whole mattress sagged at anextremely concave slumped angle, adry section of the woodland floral mat-tress protector stretched drum-tightover the slumped crease and thesprings possibly damaged by the de-forming concavity.

My father looked at the canted con-cave mattress saggingacross the widthof the hall and moved one end of it alittle with the toe of his boot andlooked at me and said, "Fuck it."

My bow tie was rumpled and at anangle.

My father had to walk unsteadilyacross the mattress in his white bootsto get back to my side of the mattressand the bedroom behind me. On hisway across he stopped and felt specu-latively at his jaw, his boots sunk deepin woodland floral cotton. He said"Fuck it" again, and I remember notbeing clear about what he was referringto. Then my father turned and start-ed unsteadily back the way he hadcome across the mattress, one handagainst the wall for support. He in-structed me to wait right there in thehallway for one moment while he dart-ed into the kitchen at the other endof the hall on a very brief errand. Hissteadying hand left four faint smearedprints on the wall's white paint.

My parents' bed's box spring,though also king-size and heavy, hadjust below its synthetic covering awooden frame that gave the box springstructural integriry, and it didn't flopor alter its shape. After another bit ofdifficulty for my father-who was toothick through the middle, even withthe professional girdle beneath hisGlad costume, to squeeze easily withhis end of the box spring through thebedroom doorway-we were able toget the thing into the hall and lean it

vertically at something just over sev-enty degrees against the wall, where itstayed upright with no problem.

"That's the way she wants doing,jim," my father said, clapping me onthe back in exactly the ebullient waythat had prompted me to have mymother buy an elastic athletic cranialstrap for my glasses. I had told mymother I needed the strap for com-petitive sports, and she had not askedany questions.

My father's hand was still on my

back as we returned to the master bed-room. "Right, then!" my father said.His mood was now elevated. Therewas a brief second of confusion at thedoorway as each of us tried to stepback to let the other through first.

There wasnow nothing but the sus-pect frame left where the bed hadbeen. There was something exo-skeletal and frail-looking about thebed frame, a plain low-ratio rectangleof black steel. At each corner of therectangle was a caster. The casters'

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64 HARPER'S MAGAZINE / SEPTEMBER 1993

wheels had sunk into the pile carpetunder the weight of the bed and myparents and were almost completelysubmerged in the carpet's fibers. Eachof the frame's sides had a flat steelprotrusion welded at ninety degrees toits interior's base, so that a single rect-angular narrow shelf perpendicular tothe frame's rectangle ran all aroundthe frame's interior. This little shelfwas obviously there to support thebed's occupants and king-size boxspring and mattress.

My father seemed frozen in place.I cannot remember what my motherwas doing. There seemed to be a longsilent interval of my father lookingclosely at the exposed frame. The in-terval had the silence and stillness ofdusty rooms immersed in sunlight. Ibriefly imagined every piece of furni-ture in the master bedroom coveredwith sheets and the room unoccupiedfor years as the sun rose and crossedand fell outside the window, theroom's daylight becoming staler andstaler. I could hear two power lawnmowers of slightly different pitch fromsomewhere down our subdivision'sstreet. The direct light through themaster bedroom's window swam withrotating columns of raised dust. I re-member it seemed the ideal momentfor a sneeze.

Dust lay thick on the frame andeven hung from the frame's interiorsupport-shelf in tiny gray beards. Itwas impossible to see any bolts any-where on the frame.

My father blotted sweat and wetmakeup from his forehead with theback of his sleeve, which was nowdark orange with makeup. "Jesus willyou look at that mess," he said. Helooked at my mother. "Jesus."

The carpeting in my parents' bed-room was deep-pile and a darker bluethan the pale blue of the rest of thebedroom's color scheme. I rememberthe carpet as more a royal blue, witha saturation level somewhere betweenmoderate and strong. The rectangu-lar expanse of royal-blue carpet thathad been hidden under the bed was it-self carpeted with a thick layer of clot-ted dust. The rectangle of dust wasgray-white and thick and unevenlylayered, and the only evidence of theroom's carpet below was a faint sickbluish cast to the dust layer. It looked

as if dust had not drifted under the bedand settled on the carpet inside theframe but rather had somehow takenroot and grown on it, upon it, theway a mold will take root and gradu-ally cover an expanse of spoiled food.The layer of dust irself looked a littlelike bad cottage cheese. It was nau-seous. Some of the dust layer's un-even topography was caused bycertain lost and litterish objects thathad found their way under the bed-a flyswatter, a roughly Variety-sizemagazine, some bottle tops, threewadded Kleenex, and what was prob-ably a sock-and gotten covered andtextured in dust.

There was also a faint odor, sourand fungal, like the smell of anoverused bath mat.

"Jesus, there's even a smell," my fa-ther said. He made a show of inhalingthrough his nose and screwing up hisface. "There's even a smell." He blot-ted his forehead and felt his jaw andlooked hard at my mother. His moodwas no longer elevated. My father'smood surrounded him like a field andaffecred any room he occupied, like anodor or a certain cast to the light.

"When was the last time this gotcleaned under here?" my father askedmy mother.

My mother didn't sayanything. Shelooked at my father as he moved thesteel frame around a little with hisboot, which raised even more dust in-to the window's sunlight. The bedframe seemed very lightweight, mov-ing back and forth noiselessly on itscasters' submerged wheels. My fatheroften moved lightweight objectsaround absently with his foot, the wayother men doodle or examine theircuticles. Rugs, magazines, telephoneand electrical cords, his own removedshoe. It was one of my father's waysofgathering his thoughts or trying tocontrol his mood.

"Under what presidential adminis-tration was this room last deep-cleaned, I'm standing here promptedto fucking muse out loud," my fathersaid.

I looked at my mother to seewhether she wasgoing to sayanythingin reply.

I said to my father, "Youknow, sincewe're discussing squeaking beds, mybed squeaks, too."

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My father was trying to squat downto see whether he could locate anybolts on the frame, saying somethingto himself under his breath. He puthis hands on the frame for balanceand almost fell forward when theframe rolled slightly under his weight.

"But I don't think I even really no-ticed it until we began to discuss it,"I said. I looked at my mother. "I don'tthink it bothers me," I said. "Actual-ly, I think I kind of like it. I think I'vegradually gotten so used to it that it'sbecome almost comforting. At thisjuncture," I said.

My ~other looked at me."I'm not complaining about it," I

said. "The discussion just made methink of it."

"Oh, we hear your bed, don't youworry," my father said. He was stilltrying to squat, which drew his corsetand the hem of his tunic up and al-lowed the top of his bottom's crackto appear above the waist of his whitepants. He shifted slightly to point upat the master bedroom's ceiling. "Youso much as turn over in bed up there?Down here we hear it." He took onesteel side of the rectangle and shookthe frame vigorously, sending up ashroud of dust. The bed frame seemedto weigh next to nothing under hishands. My mother made a mustache ofher finger to hold back a sneeze.

"But it doesn't aggravate us the waythis rodential son of a whore righthere does." He shook the frame again.

I remarked that I didn't think I'd ev-er once heard their bed squeak, fromupstairs. My father twisted his headaround to try to look up at me as Istood there behind him. But I said I'ddefinitely heard and could confirmthe presence of a squeak when he'dpressed on the mattress, and couldverify that the squeak was no one'simagination.

My father held a hand up to signalme to please stop talking. He remainedin a squat, rocking slightly on the ballsof his feet, using the rolling frame tokeep his balance. The flesh of the topof his bottom and crack-area protrud-ed over the waist of his pants. Therewere also deep red folds in the back ofhis neck, below the blunt cut of thewig, because he was looking up andover at my mother, who was restingher tailbone on the sill of the win-

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Buried Alive assembles the best of Walter Karp'sessayson American politics. This volume featuresessayson the presidency, the press, censorship,education, and the sanctity of constitutionalfreedoms. Also included is an excerpt from LibertyUnder Siege and a previously unpublished essaycalled "The Cold War Decoded." The preface is byLewis Lapham, editor of Harper's Magazine.You'llfind Buried Alive: Essays on Our Endangered Republic

at bookstores everywhere. Or order at the special price of $20 through theadvertisement for "Harper's Magazine Bookshelf' elsewhere in this issue.

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dow, still holding her shallow ashtray."Maybe you'd like to go get the vac-

uum," he said. My mother put the ash-tray down on the sill and -exited themaster bedroom, passing between meand the dresser piled with bedding."If you can remember where it is!"myfather called after her.

I could hear my mother trying to getpast the king-size mattress sagging di-agonally across the hall.

My father was rocking more vio-lently on the balls of his feet, and nowthe rocking had the sort of rolling,side-to-side quality of a ship in highseas. He came very close to losing hisbalance as he leaned to his right toget a handkerchief from his hip pock-et and began using it to reach out andflick dust off something at one comerof the bed frame. After a moment hepointed down next toa caster.

"Bolt," he said, pointing at the sideof a caster. "Right there's a bolt." Ileaned in over him. Drops of my fa-ther's perspiration made dark coins inthe dust of the frame. There wasnoth-ing but smooth lightweight black steelsurface where he was pointing, butjust to the left of where he was point-ing I could see what might have beena bolt, a little stalactite of clotted dusthanging from some slight protrusion.My father's hands were broad and hisfinger blunt. Another possible boltlay several inches to the right of wherehe pointed. His finger trembled bad-ly, and I believe the trembling mighthave been from the muscular strainon his bad knees, trying to hold somuch new weight in a squat for anextended period. I heard the telephonering twice. There had been an ex-tended silence, with my father point-ing at neither protrusion and me tryingto lean in over him.

Then, still squatting on the balls ofhis feet, my father placed both handson the side of the frame and leanedout over the side into the rectangle ofdust and had what at first sounded likea bad coughing fit. His hunched backand risingbottom kept me from watch-ing him cough. I remember decidingthat the reason the frame was notrolling under his hands' pressure wasthat my father now had so much ofhis weight on it, and that maybe my fa-ther's nervous system's response toheavy dust was a cough-signal instead

,

'.

of a sneeze-signal. It was the wet soundof material hitting the dust inside therectangle. plus the rising odor, thatsignified to me that, rather than cough-ing, my father had been taken ill. Thespasms involved made his back riseand fall and his bottom ttemble underhis white commercial slacks. It wasnot too uncommon for my father to betaken ill shortly after coming homefrom work to relax, but now he seemedto have been taken really ill. To givehim some privacy, I went around theframe to the side closest to the window,where there was direct light and lessodor, and examined another of theframe's casters. My father was whis-pering to himself in brief expletivephrases between the spasms of his ill-ness. I squatted and rubbed dust froma small area of the frame and wipedthe dust on the carpet by my feet.There was a small carriage-head bolton either side of the plating that at-tached the caster to the bed frame. Iknelt and felt one of the bolts. Itsround smooth head made it impossibleeither to tighten or loosen. Putting mycheek to the carpet and examiningthe bottom of the little horizontal shelfwelded to the frame's side, I observedthat the bolt seemed threaded tightlyand completely through its hole, andI decided it was doubtful that any ofthe casters' platings' bolts were pro-ducing the sounds that reminded myfather of rodents.

Just at this time, I remember, therewas a loud cracking sound and myarea of the frame jumped violently asmy father's sudden illness caused himto faint and he lost his balance andpitched forward and lay prone andasleep over his side of the bed frame,which, as I rolled away from the frameand rose to my knees, I saw was noweither broken or very badly bent. Myfather lay facedown in a mixture ofthe rectangle's thick dust and the ma-terial he'd brought up from his upsetstomach. The dust his collapse raisedwas awful, and as the new dust roseand spread it attenuated the masterbedroom's daylight as decisively as ifa cloud had moved over the sun inthe window. My father's professionalwig had detached and lay scalp-up inthe mixture of dust and stomach ma-terial. The stomach material appearedto be mostly gastric blood until I re-

You deserve a factual look at. ..

Israel's "Right to Exist"Is it important that the Arabs acknowledge it!In the on-again/off again Mid-EastPeace Conference, the Arabs, insist that meetings takeplace in Madrid, in Washington or some other locale far from the area of conflict. TheIsraelis wanted to convene in the respective capitals of the involved parties. It seemedlike a reasonable suggestion. After all, Jerusalem is only 150 miles from Damascus, Syria,and only 80 miles from Amman, Jordan. But the Arabs did not accept that suggestionand insisted on a site as far away from home as possible. Why would they wish to imposesuch inconvenience on themselves? They believed that meeting with Israel in theirrespectivecapitalsmight by inference be considered as their recognition of Israel'sexistence.

Israel Exists because it Exists: Asan inducement to Israel for yielding

A Denial of Reality: Despite decisive lands that are absolutely indispensablemilitary defeats in the wars that they have for the country's defense, the "Westlaunched against the Jewish state, the Bank" and the Golan Heights, the ArabsArabs deny the existence of the country now and then offer the possibility of thethat has inflicted such severe and repeated "recognition" of Israel's existence. Thepunishment on them. When it becomes sad and almost incomprehensible aspectinevitable to mention the Jewish state at all of that is that many well-meaning peo-it is insolently referred to only as "the Zion- pie in the U.S.,and in other countriesist entity". This non-acknowledgement of believe that this might be an acceptableIsrael's existence is not simply a matter of bargain for Israel. But it's a self-defeat-semantics. Arab maps do not show Israel, ing exercise. Israel's existence is in nobut a vast area way dependentI abe led a s on the recogni-"Palestine". "Israel'sexistenceisinnowaydependent tion of anyCities such as on the recognition of any Arab state. It's Arab state. It'sTel Aviv and simple: Israel exists because it exists." simple: IsraelHaifa simply exists becausedon't exist. Arab it exists. There-school children have no "official" knowl- fore, suppose that meaningful meetingsedge of the existence of Israel. Schedules of came about between Israel and an Arabforeign airlines that show Israel on their country, and suppose that an Arab diplo-route maps or that list Israeli destinations mat would ask what Israel would beare not allowed in most Arab countries. prepared to "give" if that Arab countryForeign publications print special editions would consider acknowledging Israel'sfor the Arab countries, since no publication existence. Israel should reply that it incarrying advertising of Israeli firms may turn would consider acknowledging that.appear in those countries. And, of course, Arab country's existence. Or, Israeltourists of any nationality may not enter could declare a boycott of the Arabmost Arab countries if their passports show world and could offer to relax or toevidence that the holders have eyer visited rescind such boycott in consideration ofIsrael, the "non-existent country". parallel gestures by that Arab country.

What are the facts?

The bizarre concept of. Israel's "non-existence" has been around for over fortyyears. Many have been led to believe that Israel should bring substantial sacri-fices, so as to get the Arabs to acknowledge Israel's existence. It is often said thatIsrael needs to be "recognized" by the Arabs in order to "normalize her condition".But need not the Arabs, too, live in "normalized conditions"? And Israel is oftenpromised that, in return for yielding vital strategic territory to the Arabs, shewould be assured of "safe and secure borders". But don't the Arabs also need bor-ders that are safe and secure? The Arab countries have come to believe that peaceis only good and desirable for Israel. But it is surely at least as important for theArabs, who have lived through five wars with Israel-the "non-existent country".Peace and prosperity can and will come to this troubled region only when theArabs accept the reality of Israel's existence and negotiate with her in good faith.

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called the tomato-juice beverages myfather had been drinking. He lay face-down, with his bottom high in theair, over the side of the bed frame,which his weight had broken almostin half. This was how I accounted forthe loud cracking sound.

I stood out of the way of the dustand the window's dusty light, feelingmy jaw and examining my prone fa-ther from a distance. I remember thathis breathing was regular and wet, andthat the dust mixture bubbled some-what. It was then that it occurred tome that when I'd been supporting thebed's raised mattress with my face andchest preparatory to its removal fromthe room, the dihedral triangle I'dimagined the mattress forming withthe box spring and my body had notin fact even been a closed polygon:the box spring and the floor I hadstood on did not constitute a contin-uous surface.

Then I could hear my mother tryingto get the heavy canister vacuumcleaner past the angled SimmonsBeautyrest in the hall, and I went tohelp her. My father's legs werestretched out across the clean royal-blue carpet between his side of theframe and my mother's white dresser.His feet's boots were at a pigeon-toedangle, and his bottom's crack all theway down to the anus itself was nowvisible because the force of his fall hadpulled his white slacks down even far-ther. I stepped carefully between hislegs.

"Excuse me," I said.I was able to help my mother by

telling her to detach the vacuumcleaner's attachments and hand themone at a time to me over the width ofthe slumped mattress, where I heldthem. The vacuum cleaner was man-ufactured by Regina, and its canister,which contained the engine, bag, andevacuating fan, was very heavy. I re-assembled the vacuum and held itwhile my mother made her way to meacross the mattress, then handed thevacuum cleaner back to her, flatteningmyself against the wall to let her passby on her way into the master bed-room.

"Thanks," my mother said as shepassed.

I stood there by the slumped mat-tress for several moments of a silence

so complete that I could hear thestreet's lawn mowers all the way outthere in the hall, then heard thesound of my mother pulling out thevacuum cleaner's retractable cord andplugging it into the same bedside out-let the steel reading lamps were at-tached to.

I made my way over the angled mat-tress and quickly down the hall, madea sharp right just before the entranceto the kitchen, crossed the foyer tothe staircase, and ran up to my room,taking several stairs at a time, hurry-ing to get some distance between my-self and the vacuum cleaner, becausethe sound of vacuuming has alwaystroubled me in the same irrationalway it seemed a bed's squeak troubledmy father.

I ran upstairs and pivoted left atthe upstairs landihg and went into myroom. In my room was my bed. It wasnarrow, a twin bed, with a headboardof wood and frame and slats of wood.I didn't know where it had come from,originally. The frame held the narrowbox spring and mattress much higheroff the floor than my parents' bed. Itwas an old-fashioned bed, so high offthe floor that you had to put one kneeup on the mattress and clamber uponto it, or else jump.

That is what I did. For the firsttime since I had become taller thanmy parents, I took several runningstrides in from the doorway, past myshelves' collection of prisms and lens-es and tennis trophies and the scale-model magneto, past my bookcaseand the closet door and my bedside'shigh-intensity standing lamp, andjumped, doing a full swan dive up on-to my bed. I landed with my weighton my chest and my arms and legsout from my body on the indigo com-forter on my bed, squashing my tieand bending my glasses' templatesslightly. I was trying to make my bedproduce a loud squeak, which in thecase of my bed I knew was caused byany lateral friction between the wood-en slats and the frame's interior'sshelflike support.

But in the course of the leap andthe dive, my overlong arm hit theheavy iron pole of the high-intensitystanding lamp that stood next to thebed. The lamp teetered violently andbegan to fall over sideways,away from

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the bed. It fell with a kind of majes-tic slowness, resembling a felled tree.As the lamp fell, its heavy iron polestruck the brass knob on the door tomy closet, shearing the knob off com-pletely. The round knob and half.itsinterior hex bolt fell off and hit myroom's wood floor with a loud noiseand began to roll around in a re-markable way, the sheared end of thehex bolt stationary and the roundknob, rolling on its circumference,circling it in a trans-dimensional or-bit, describing two perfectly circularmotions on two distinct axes, whichput the figure in a kind of crude n-space, a non-Euclidean figure on aplanar surface:

z

.~,

The closest conventional analogueI could derive for this figure was a cy-cloid, L'Hopital's solution to Bernoul-li's famous brachistochrone problem,the curve traced by a fixed point onthe circumference of a circle rollingalong a straight line. But since here, onmy bedroom's floor,a circle was rollingaround what was itself the circumfer-ence of a circle, the cycloid's standardparametric equations were no longerapplicable, those equations' trigono-metric expressions here becomingthemselves First-order differentialequations.

Because of the lack of resistanceor friction against the bare floor, theshorn knob rolled in its description ofthis figure for a long time as I watchedover the edges of my comforter andmattress, holding my glasses in place,completely distracted from the trou-bling minor-key scream of the vacuumbelow. It occurred to me that the hy-percycloidic movement of the ampu-tated knob schematized perfectly whatit would look like if someone were forsome reason trying to tum somersaultswith one hand nailed to the floor.This, as I recall, was when I first be-came interested in the possibilities ofannulation. _

TurningToward Home

Reflections on the Familyfrom Harper's Magazine.

In powerful memoirs, originallypublished in Harper's, about

fathers, mothers, grandparents,and siblings, writers including

David Mamet, Donna Tartt,Bemard Cooper, and others

evoke the complex dynamics

that pervade family life.

Introduction by Verlyn Klinkenborg.

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