The Twilight of the Bums Read online

  THE TWILIGHT OF THE BUMS

  George Chambers and Raymond Federman

  with cartoon accompaniment by T. Motley

  Contents

  ONCE UPON A TIME

  FOOLISH QUESTIONS

  AN AMAZING DISCOVERY

  THE MIRROR

  A LOVELY GLITTERY SUNNY DAY

  CONCERNING FRIENDSHIP

  THE BUMS ARE HAVING A DIALOGUE

  ON THE RIVER BANK (1)

  AN OLD FRIEND

  ANGELS

  ON THE RIVER BANK (2)

  ANOTHER DOZEN OF OUR BUMS’ REFLECTIONS ON FRIENDSHIP

  THE SCORPION & THE CROCODILE

  THE PITCHING WEDGE

  DESERT STORM

  SQUALL

  DARK SHADOWS

  AND ONE MORE DOZEN OF OUR BUMS’ REFLECTIONS ON FRIENDSHIP

  OLD POLISH PROVERB

  THE BIG SHOOT-OUT

  THE WOMAN OF GREAT RESISTANCE

  THE PRINCESS & THE FROG

  A LITTLE REQUEST

  EXCHANGING VIEWS

  THE SOCIOLOGY OF WIFEHOOD

  A DELICATE SITUATION

  THE AGING PROCESS

  PENNIES IN HEAVEN

  BOCCACCIO

  IN THE HOSPITAL

  THE SEX NURSE

  THE SKY BOX

  CHEZ MONETTE

  A SERIOUS DISCUSSION

  THE COSTUME BALL

  A CURIOUS ARRANGEMENT

  THE TURNCOATS

  STEP-MOTHERS

  WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

  REPROBATION

  THE LIFE OF THE ARTIST IN MONTPARNASSE

  TITLES

  POETICS

  DAS LEBEN IST EINE COLLAGE

  CLARIFYING THE FACTS

  LOVE GAMES

  COLONIAL HELMETS

  WINTER WHEAT

  THIS & THAT

  THE BEAUTY OF LONELINESS

  EXCHANGING GIFTS

  THE CREATURES OF CULTURE

  BIRTHDAY

  THE DEATH CERTIFICATE

  THE QUESTION

  THE FIGHT

  NIGHT BURIAL

  CERTIFICATION OF PURITY

  THE PEAR

  THE PRECIPICE OF HISTORY

  HOLOCAUST THEME PARK

  A FISH STORY

  HOT TEA IN GLASSES WITH LEMON

  DEUTSCH-LAND - DEUTSCH-LAND GERM-ANY - GERM-ANY

  SLOGANS

  SOLO

  SHARED FAMILIARITY

  QUESTIONING THE WOMAN OF GREAT RESISTANCE

  DEAR READERS

  AT THE BARBER SHOP

  A BIT OF HISTORY

  DUEL AT SEA

  THE FAILURE OF WORDS

  A NOTE ON “DUEL AT SEA”

  NUMEROLOGY

  NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

  THE BUMS WHO WOULD BE KINGS

  A STORY ABOUT A STORY WITHIN A STORY

  PLAYING THE NUMBERS

  A DOZEN BUMSAYINGS

  THE LIAR

  MICTURITION

  FELO DE SE

  FINAL SETTLEMENT

  TWO BUMS LAUGHING

  For all those who refused to grow up

  ONCE UPON A TIME

  Once upon a time, and what a screwed up time it was, two old bums met (midway between here and nowhere) and by chance discovered they had the same birth date and the same size shoes, so they decided to be friends. It was a strange encounter, one that seemed predetermined. And it became even stranger when they realized they shared the same shadow, even though one was huge with a Buddha belly, and the other small with an eagle face.

  Years went by and it came time for them to die, for as fate decreed, they both had something terminal, and both given at most six months to live. This the two bums accepted but what tormented them was the fact that they had only one pair of socks between them. And so, as friendship dictates, they spent the last six months of their lives each wearing only one sock.

  FOOLISH QUESTIONS

  How did the bums meet? Dear Reader, you are of a rather cumbersome curiosity. By the Devil what does it matter how the bums met? But if you insist we will tell you that they met by chance, like everyone else.

  What are their names? What do you care? Does it matter if their names are Sam & Ace or Um & Laut or Blank & Blank or F & C or Bum One & Bum Two or B Plus or B Minus? They are bums, and that’s what they should be called.

  Where do they come from? The nearest place. No, that’s wrong! The farthest place.

  Where are they going? Does one really know where one is going?

  What are they saying? Bum One is saying nothing. He is listening to Bum Two who is saying that everything that happens to them here on earth, good or bad, is written above.

  AN AMAZING DISCOVERY

  Walking westward down the road one afternoon under a bright blue sky the sun at two o’clock the two bums noticed that only one shadow was cast on the ground for both of them.

  How strange! The shadow they flung to the ground with a certain disdain was of one man only though certainly they were two here.

  One of the friends (no need to specify which) said to the other: Please, forgive the audacity of such a bold presumption, but I believe we share the same shadow.

  Does that mean that I could be you? the other asked, for it was his turn to speak.

  The one who spoke first did not reply, but to himself he thought: That depends on your birth date, the size of your feet, and your willingness to share.

  THE MIRROR

  The old guys are making faces in an old mirror that one of their wives has tossed out. (You understand these guys have wives kids houses mortgages debts careers and so on but that they are bored silly). They are performing heroic busts of military heroes, heroic profiles of the victors, and so forth. Then, at the same moment, they pause, for they have realized that they are looking at each other’s reflection. The fat one says, Do you see what I see? The thin one says, Do you see what I see? (You understand these guys are, except in point of birth and sock size, completely different in every regard regarding ethnicity culturicity gonadicity, historicity structuralicity theologicity etcticity). Nonetheless, they continue to stare at each other in the mirror thus exchanging images when all of a sudden the fat one cries out, Sonofabitch, you’re starting to look like me!

  A LOVELY GLITTERY SUNNY DAY

  A lovely glittery sunny day ice in the boughs a special glare the old friends sitting on the porch wrapped in blankets are thinking of nothing except the bright sea that bore them to this foreign country.

  They are not thinking of all the lovely women they did not fuck nor of all the bucks they did not make nor of all the sausage & pickle kraut they did not eat in their salad days nor are they thinking much of the big smokes they used to smoke nor of those dangerous but exciting days on the front line getting shot at.

  No, none of the above. What they are thinking about each in a separate private way, is how much time and energy how much affection and even money they could have saved and stored away had they not wasted all that time energy affection and money on each other.

  But then would this be a lovely glittery sunny day?

  CONCERNING FRIENDSHIP

  The Bums have been friends for so long they have totally forgotten how they became friends, but now that they are approaching the moment when they will have to change tense (this is unavoidable), they often ponder, separately or in unison, this matter of friendship, sometimes in the form of sentences or statements, other times as maxims, or adages, or aphorisms, or proverbs, or pensées, or philosophical propositions, and at other times just words without any form.

  We are delighted to be able to present here a dozen of our bums’ reflections on the subject of friendship:


  1. Do not become friendly with a person inferior to you.

  2. To have too many friends is to have none.

  3. Friendship is never profitable.

  4. A friend must learn to endure his friend’s successes as well as his failures.

  5. Friends are thieves of time.

  6. It is more shameful to mistrust a friend than to be betrayed by a friend.

  7. Women may go further in matters of love than most men, but men are way ahead in matters of friendship.

  8. A friend is someone with whom you want to do something bad.

  9. A friend is there to be abused.

  10. When a friend pays you a compliment you can be sure it’s bullshit.

  11. There are three types of friends: those who love you, those who worry about you, and those who hate you.

  12. If a friend can only see with one eye, and as a result wears a patch on the other, always look at him from the good side.

  THE BUMS ARE HAVING A DIALOGUE

  B 1: I mistrust people who say they have a good memory.

  B 2: Did I say that?

  B 1: No, you didn’t, I’m just speaking in general.

  B 2: I prefer when you’re specific.

  B 1 Okay, but still I mistrust people who …

  B 2: I heard you the first time.

  B 1: Alright, alright! You don’t have to get up on your high horse.

  B 2: And why, may I ask, Mon Cher Ami, do you mistrust those who …

  B 1: It’s obvious. A guy with a good memory does not remember anything because he never forgets anything.

  B 2: I never thought of that.

  B 1: You see what I mean. That’s why I do all the thinking and all the remembering for both of us.

  B 2: I wouldn’t go that far.

  B 1: I’ll go as far as I want, and if Monsieur doesn’t like it he can shove it.

  B 2: Now look who is getting pissed.

  B 1: You made me forget what I wanted to say.

  B 2: You were saying that people with a good memory cannot …

  B 1: Oh yes. Well …

  B 2: But suppose, somehow, the guy who has such a great memory suddenly forgets something, or for that matter everything he knows.

  B 1: That’s not possible because his great memory would not let him forget.

  B 2: Suppose he gets hit on the head by a mugger, or has a car accident and bangs his head on the dashboard, or he falls off a tree and hits his head on a rock, or his wife hits him on the head with a pot because she found out he was screwing around, I don’t know,there are so many ways you can get hit on the head.

  B 1: Still, it’s impossible …

  B 2: Let’s say he suffers total amnesia.

  B 1: Why do you always have to contradict me.

  B 2: Because I’m smarter than you.

  B 1: Go to hell!

  ON THE RIVER BANK (1)

  One day the two old friends were sitting on a river bank each lost in his own thoughts. Friend Number One was thinking about the water in the river rushing playfully before him.

  Suddenly he turned to Friend Two and said: Isn’t it interesting, mon ami, how one can dip a pail in the river just about anywhere and it will always come up full of the same water, and yet each time the nature of the water is different according to the circumstance of the moment?

  Friend Number Two looked at his old buddy and said: Unglaublich, but what you just said is exactly what I was thinking myself.

  AN OLD FRIEND

  Old age was sitting beside the bums long before they knew him.

  Well, you bums, he asked, who’s going to get up first?

  ANGELS

  One snowy day the bums went out rabbit hunting with their friends. A fresh fall of snow on the already snowy icy ground being perfect for tracking the little hoppers, wild game makes a delicious winter stew.

  Having, at their age, seen quite enough of hunting and killing, but still feeling sociable, the bums went happily along, but soon fell so far behind the main hunting party as to lose sight of the pertinacious hunters, their only evidence being the tracks the bums followed, tracks quickly disappearing in the fresh fall.

  From time to time they could hear far ahead the blast of shotguns, but these reports were muffled by the distance and the snowfall. The two old men trudged on silently, each absorbed in his own reflections, disturbed only by the blasts of the 12 gauges.

  Bum one quietly asked the other: Do you suppose we are in any jeopardy? The main party might circle back and in this low visibility mistake us for hares?

  The other considered this, then responded by taking off one glove and creating the image of a rabbit with his fingers, of the sort one made shadow figures on a wall, way back in childhood.

  Then they trudged on, the snow now at a full, deliberate, serious fall, and a wind beginning to herd the snow into drifts. Suddenly a blast sounded, too close for comfort, and one of the bums dropped to the snow -- I am shot shot, he shouted.

  Prostrate on his back, in the attitude of death, the one who fell extended his arms sideways in the snow and began to plow it back and forth. With his legs he did likewise.

  Are you dying? asked the other, kneeling by his side.

  Not yet, was the reply.

  What are you doing then?

  I am making angels. Go ahead, you too.

  The other bum followed suit. He dropped on his back and began to plow the snow back and forth, his arms stiff, his legs stiff, to make a deep secure impression on the snowpack.

  This is the sight the hunting party came upon shortly thereafter, their bloodied kill dripping from the baggy game pockets of their shooting jackets.

  What a fine rabbit stew to eat that night around the fresh fire in the hunting lodge, and what great stories to tell about the brave hunters, about the game missed, and the game found, and about the two old guys making angels in the snow.

  The two angels … no, the two old bums -- what are we thinking about -- seated side by side, at the head of the table befitting their status, made the first toast, as was their right and privilege: May this day remind us forever of that which passes. May it remind us, as long as it needs to, of angels, and rabbits.

  ON THE RIVER BANK (2)

  One day the two old friends were sitting on a river bank lost in thought in the muddy flow. Friend One was thinking about the water rushing so playfully before him. Plötzlich he turned to Friend Two and said: Isn’t it interesting how one can dip a pail in the river just anywhere and it will always come up full of the same water and yet each time the nature of the water is different according to the circumstance of the moment?

  Two gazed at his old Kumpel, considered him up and down minutely, as a tailor measures one for a suit, then plötzlich, with no warning, he tossed One in the river, clothes and all, shoes and all, and started shouting obscure slogans by a Marxist philosopher. Whereupon, plötzlich, Two grabbed One’s ankle and flipped him into the drink, shouting antisemitic curses he learned in school as part of his cultural heritage.

  ANOTHER DOZEN OF OUR BUMS’ REFLECTIONS ON FRIENDSHIP

  1. Friendship knows no gender.

  2. One can go fucking with a friend, but friends do not fuck.

  3. One cannot fuck a friend, but one can fuck around with a friend.

  4. Marriages are established on the basis of similarities, friendships on the basis of differences.

  5. Love dies; friendship begins.

  6. On sait jamais, say the French, but two do.

  7. Friends never tango together.

  8. Absence, the mother of most inventions, preserves friendship also.

  9. Thirteen? The lucky number of friendship.

  10. A friend will put you out of your misery.

  11. A friend will remind you that you said that yesterday.

  12. Friends do not wait.

  THE SCORPION & THE CROCODILE

  A scorpion wanted to get to the other side of a river. He asked a big crocodile to take him across on his back.
The crocodile said to the scorpion, if I take you across on my back how do I know you will not sting me to death? I will not, said the scorpion, because then both of us would sink and drown. The crocodile understood the logic of the scorpion, and so he told the scorpion to climb on his back. While the crocodile swam across the river with the scorpion piggyback, the scorpion stung him. As the crocodile began to sink he asked, why did you do that? Now we’re both going to drown and die. I could not help it, replied the scorpion, you see, my friend, it is in my nature to sting, and besides, we are in the Middle East, here life is cheap.

  The bums often tell each other symbolic stories. This one was told to Bum One by Bum Two to illustrate a point he was trying to make about friendship and co-existence.

  THE PITCHING WEDGE

  The two old friends have lost everything except a golf club, a pitching wedge they both use on approach shots, everything else is gone, houses, wives, kids, possessions, golf shoes, golf bag, poof, and since they have only one ball left they take turns shooting. One ball, one club, two men.

  Each of these old guys knows that the other likes the approach shot best of all the shots in the game, so there they are staring down at the little ball nicely set up on a nest of strong palmerized fairway special Kentucky mix grass, the ball all white except for the crude red stripe indicating you know what.

  One of the friends hands the club to the other saying, Go ahead, you’re better at the pitching shot than I am, but his friend shakes his head and says, No, you are, you go ahead, and so friend number one takes the pitching wedge and addresses the ball, but suddenly he gets nervous, he who is known as one of the best pitchers in the county, he is tense because he doesn’t want to fuck up the shot and disappoint his friend, so he concentrates on the ball, takes a slow deliberate back swing, but on the way down he shanks the shot, and the ball hops to the right, into the little pond next to the green, plop, and is lost forever.