4. THE MOMENT
“Anselm!” The party volume was set to hubbub. “Anselm!!” But a summons sliced through the festive ferment. “Anselm!!!” A mistress was calling her dog to heel. “Anselm!!!!” She has her way, the stray will obey, but is also want to delay. Permit me a little digression.
Nothing stops the march of science. Legends lead the charge: Galileo in his tower, training a heretical telescope on the heavens; Darwin in his cabin, poring over the notes that will change the world; Curie in her laboratory, peering at the test tube radium that will send her to an early grave. No corner of the world escapes the investigation, from the galaxy at light-years’ distance to the amoeba on microscope slide. We read the works in wonder, marveling at the motion of the planets, complexity of the brain, origin of the species, structure of the atom. Yet the edification falls foul of the flesh; bodily functions also demand their reason. Serving the implacable god of knowledge our scientists must turn their inquiring eyes from the mountain to the dung heap, descend from celestial observatory to basement lavatory. Have you ever asked yourself, how exactly do we know? A dated edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica ($89.99, possibly open to negotiation) has long occupied a forlorn shelf in the store, where the prurient schoolboy can browse entries on fornication, feces and find the following under flatulence: “Intestinal gas comes from either swallowed air (nitrogen and oxygen) or the fermentation by bacteria of poorly digested carbohydrates in the colon, yielding a mixture of carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and methane.” Science demands deliberate experiment—imagine the necessary research! With what device did our diehard empiricists collect their material? A desperate professor up for tenure pressed his failing students into service, plying them with beans and beer and exposing their rears for the duration, securing a plastic bag around the orifice of inflation? Inquiring minds might further read, “All the common intestinal gases are odourless; about 1 percent of the flatus consists of a mixture of other gases that causes the distinctive odour.” Wait a minute now! Chemistry counsels careful consideration, cannot rest content with conjecture. There is no escaping the conclusion: the introduction of the nostrils of science into that plastic bag. Does a public sector salary offer adequate compensation?
Trust me here. Fine sensibilities may bristle at this levity, but the ambush serves a serious purpose. Let us pass from pure science to the application. First, I will confirm your suspicion: I am a proud old lion of tradition, though like others of crusty temperament, selective of review. The old guard looks fondly on the past but must grant some promise to the present. I revere the Brontës, consider their nineteenth-century acquaintances holders of the rarest privilege, yet the villagers of Haworth, West Yorkshire, the sisters’ home on the edge of the moor, suffered an open sewer to run down the main street, drank well water contaminated with human waste and lost appalling numbers of infants to disease. Genteel Charlotte had to squat over a hole in a freezing outhouse. Post-industrial man disowns his excrement, no sooner freed than flushed, and we charge our engineers, trustees of modernity, visionary designers of svelte airliners and luxury automobiles, with dispatching our effluvia to their final resting place. You take the works for granted, the accomplishment coming to the attention only in the breach, when swimming offshore you find yourself negotiating a raft of raw sewage. Spare a thought then for the sanitation professional, wallowing in the mire that you might forget your business. Imagine spending hours in the fumes, wading the sludge, showering with prophylactic soap. Does some psychological abnormality preclude more social career, do the public servants talk shop in euphemism, are their mothers still proud? Someone has to do it. Who are these curious individuals?—
I introduce my wife. All right, technically I should say ex-wife, but we still address him as Mr. President. Christine Caprese, she never took my name, earned her MS in Civil Engineering from Stanford in 1986. Adding further injury to a life of insult she shortens her first—Chris and Annie, I need not recount the innuendo. You might picture a Soviet-era athlete of dubious entitlement to the women’s squad, so I will immediately disappoint the presumption. Christine of my sorrows was strawberry blonde, soft of voice, comfortably curved, if her wardrobe did favor the practical over the preen. And the pragmatic woman knew no embarrassment. An enviable self-possession allowed her to publicly hold forth on her employment, in uncompromising vocabulary, without the slightest blockage. Was the sewage sweet! The proper matron nodded, the hipster canned his cool, the wag would never dream.
Walter Elliot, vain creature. You paraded in front of the mirror, condescended to the lower born industrialists eclipsing your landed gentry. What a particular individual you are! Little disposed to favour, you are not fond of the idea of your shrubberies being widely available. Dude, chill out! Even you would admire her gift. The sanitary engineer was not shy, pronouncing on her profession like a genteel visitor to Miss Elliot’s flower garden, praising the perfume of the roses.
Another knew her love. And he came first, getting her into bed—with one of his books! Though no longer of this world, the old school baseball coach never left her heart. The bereaved still saw his worn mitts on the bench, dusty volumes on the shelf, antique maps on the wall. And she married into a traditional bookstore. Though not the most avid reader, the practical woman rose to a challenge: straightening the merchandise, stopping the leak of patrons, preserving the memory of a father—the one man who could do no wrong.
I met an inspiring woman. I fell for a serious scientist. I married a dedicated professional. That was then. No stranger to emergency, the city engineer faced a crisis of no mechanical solution, the midlife examination: Anselm, you can’t complain, didn’t you change careers, before we met? All right, but a bookstore is a serious undertaking! You might hope that a steady New Englander would follow my example, investing her inheritance in some solid venture. You would be disappointed. Pulling up those roots, the transplant found her bliss, unhappily. In rank perversion, the same woman who had uncompromising expectations of a husband was fully forgiving of a friend. Melody hails from Marin, but that isn’t the worst of it. The deadbeat held me in contempt, helped herself to my liquor, introduced my wife to the Zen Center and before you could say Adbhutadharmaparyāyasūtra, Christine had converted a shuttered church of Christ the Redeemer into a wellness studio. Hatha Flow has unfortunately come to rest just down the street, and the yoga mats blocking our sidewalk incite the scorn of our more worthy customers. At least they should. We were divorced in less than a year.
“I was hoping you’d be here.” She could never take a hint. “I hear your mother was in the hospital. I do miss Betty. How is she?”
“The poor woman has no private life, apparently. I’m well, thank you for asking.”
“The lowest form of wit.” No sad piano accompanied her reproach. “I do care, you know.”
I introduce my wife. All right, technically I should say ex-wife, but we still address him as Mr. President. Christine Caprese, she never took my name, earned her MS in Civil Engineering from Stanford in 1986. Adding further injury to a life of insult she shortens her first—Chris and Annie, I need not recount the innuendo. You might picture a Soviet-era athlete of dubious entitlement to the women’s squad, so I will immediately disappoint the presumption. Christine of my sorrows was strawberry blonde, soft of voice, comfortably curved, if her wardrobe did favor the practical over the preen. And the pragmatic woman knew no embarrassment. An enviable self-possession allowed her to publicly hold forth on her employment, in uncompromising vocabulary, without the slightest blockage. Was the sewage sweet! The proper matron nodded, the hipster canned his cool, the wag would never dream.
Walter Elliot, vain creature. You paraded in front of the mirror, condescended to the lower born industrialists eclipsing your landed gentry. What a particular individual you are! Little disposed to favour, you are not fond of the idea of your shrubberies being widely available. Dude, chill out! Even you would admire her gift. The sanitary engineer was not shy, pronouncing on her profession like a genteel visitor to Miss Elliot’s flower garden, praising the perfume of the roses.
