THEBARBER OFPERU (a draft of a
O
ne of my earliest memories is of the bookcasein the second floor hallway of my grandparen t’s house falling on top of me. I had been climbing it trying to reach a book on the top shelf when it toppled. I remember lying there, stunned, the weight of the books, their cold, sharp corners digging into my chest and sides. I didn’t panic, instead I recall
feeling a strange comfort having my shoulders pinned to the floor by so many books. Years later, as a sophomore in college, I wrote my first short story in the guest bedroom of my grandparen t’s house during a thundersto rm. This was a different house, just outside the central Indiana town of Peru, where my grandfathe r had grown up and where he had moved
memo on writing while working) when he was diagnosed with cancer, to be closer to family and friends. By the time of this visit, my grandfathe r had been dead six years.
I
wrote while lying across the twin bed, a stiffbacked, cadet blue compositio n notebook cracked open on the comforter. The story was autobiogra phical and coming-ofage about two brothers visiting their dying
BY DAVE GRIFFITH grandfathe r. The youngest brother reads in a book of “101 Fascinating Facts” that if you dug a deep hole and stood at the bottom of it, you could see he stars even during the day, and so throughout the story he attempts to dig a hole in his grandparen t’s backyard. The storm was spectacular and romantic. Every time lightening flashed I could see the
furrowed field outside the window and the dark windbreak beyond. In this memory, two ancient images of leisure and work meet: writing and farming.
I
n The Eternal Trail ,
M.G. Lockley makes this observatio n: “To record the bounty of the field and farm, the cuneiform table was devised. Made from the same clay as the
substrate itself, these tablets were laid out like tiny plots of land with rectilinear boundaries and lines of script, like maps or plans of the very fields their informatio n pertained to. In essence, these tablets were symbolic miniatures of the agricultura l landscape, just as tracks were symbolic representat ions of the animal landscape in a previous era. The tablet and the field coevolved as manifestati ons of an emerging cartographi
c consciousn ess.”
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his was the first time I had ever visited my grandmoth er alone, so I was able to spend long stretches alone sitting in my grandfathe r’s vacant recliner next to his small library, reading. I knew that grandfathe r had wanted to be a writer, but that was all—I was only twelve when he died and so never had a chance to discuss writing or writers. As far as I knew, my grandfathe r went
from the Navy straight to working on the railroad, no break to seek his fortune or write verse. The income he earned helped him raise a family of seven children, and later give him the disposal income to subscribe to the Book of the Month Club, and even take a mail correspond ence course on how to become a writer. So all I really had to go on, the only trail he left, was his modest library— two low bookcases —and the occasional
underlined phrase or starred passage.
G
asto n Bac
helard writes that libraries used to feel like forests to him, impersonal ly “before me, beforeus.” I know (and like) the feeling of being lost in the impersonal forest of a library. Though “impersona l” isn’t quite it. To me, the shelved books in the libraries of my youth were indifferent, perfectly content to stay closed. But the books in my
grandfathe r’s library were burning to be opened. An open book is a lovely thing. Whereas the library and the shelves of closed books stand impersonal “beforeme, beforeus,” the open book, like the furrowed fields and meadows, is inviting, intimate, communal —“withme, withus,” says Bachelard.
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o me, like Bachelard, who wrote “[my] dreams and recollectio ns accompany all the different
phasesof tilling and harvesting, ” the splayed pagesof an open book, the straight rows of black text curving away from the spine, remind me of that thundersto rm, my first serious attempts at fiction, the bare furrowed fields, my grandfathe r’s life and death, his unrealized dream to be a writer. Then, recently, my grandmoth er found among some of his things, a handwritte n manuscript written in pencil on canary yellow
legal ruled paper titled “An Evening in Geneva, Indiana.” Well, it isn’t exactly a story, it’s more like a memo; in fact, he says as much in the last sentence, but there are aspects of the style, of observatio ns that he makes, and questions he asks that are for lack of a better word ‘literary’ in intent.
A
man had been in an accident and my grandfathe r’s job was to go to his home and interview him, see if
his injury claim held water. In a caselike this, a standard memo would detail his attempts to interview the man, ending with a plan of action. According to one authoritati ve writing guide: memos pose problems and offer solutions. Additionall y, a memo writer must bear in mind his audience, who will determine the style, as well as the kind and level of detail. A memo can also be a directive, a nowhear-this
from the top brass, but it is also an aid to memory, something written during and/or immediatel y after an event in order to help clarify what happened for later reference and reflection. ‘It is to be remembere d (that)’; placed at the head of a note of something to be remembere d or a record (for future reference) of something that has been done [OED]. It can likewise be a “mark or sign serving to identify something:
1766 H. BROOKE Fool of Quality II.
xi. 186 Had you any particular memorand um or mark whereby you would know him to be your child? [OED]
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y g r andfather’s memo intersects with all of these definitions, and in so doing it helps me to begin developing a theory of the memo. The memo, like the novel, can contain anything and everything. What ever falls within the field of the page is the memo —this is
what you must remember —take note. And yet there are aspects of my grandfathe r’s memo that are deepen even these definitions by the inclusion of mystery and reflection.
Sitting in his car in the man’s driveway, rain streaking the windshield, the bell in the nearby church steeple tolls 36 times—it is 7 pm and there is no herse out front or invading horde to attribute. He
wonders aloud if he is the only one that notices. Eating lunch at a diner he eavesdrops on postal workers having coffee. After, he notices a teenage boy and girl— sweetheart s?—rocking on a porch
and is intrigued that they don’t stop to notice him. In fact, there is the feeling that he wanted them to notice him noticing them. Who is his audience here, this writing that is so alive with self-
awarenessa nd selfconsciousn ess(I wonder if that’s where I get it from?). I argue that he is the audience. I argue that my grandfathe r was an essayist.