The Early Posthumous Work

You Easterners Aren’t Bad at All

70 You Easterners Aren’t Bad at All They said, Go East. See the glittering cities, the towering intellects , the tony sophisticates. So we did. It was easy. Most of the traffic was going the other way. We left friends and furniture behind and stuffed the rest of what we owned into the heaviest Oldsmobile ever to leave Texas. Hit a rat in Louisiana and beer cans in Alabama and left them all flatter than Kleenex. Cut a corner off Tennessee, got well lost in Virginia, found Maryland. We ate NoDoz and chocolate bars and noticed how empty and beautiful the country is. The cat, a good cat, slept the whole time in a cardboard box. On the fourth day we discovered Baltimore. We are still discovering Baltimore. How stylish, how chic, not to put up street signs. Or put them up crooked so a poor boy can’t tell which street is which. Or to bring nine streets together in the Ballmer version of an “intersection.” Let’s not forget streets which go from four lanes to one to six in the space of three blocks. A French philosopher did the city plan, right? We fled to Washington, an island of Eastern sanity, we thought. Erroneously, as it turned out. While laid out by a Frenchman, the place is now obviously controlled by lawyers. How else explain the hundreds of instructions, prohibitions, bills of particular and Steven Barthelme 71 technological advice to the lovelorn displayed at every corner on D. C. street signs? “Face Out Parking/Red Cars Only.” And, “Tall Women 3:30 – 4:00 p.m. Use Reverse Gear.” Now back in Baltimore, I’m getting used to it, and I must admit, the locals really know how to give directions. “Take Maryland Avenue to Fayette Street, hang a right, and pull into the used car lot. Your suspension is shot. Buy another car.” In Ballmer, we get about twelve miles to the gallon and several hundred yards per shock absorber. Where exactly did you all learn to pave? At first I was surprised by the free and easy way the descendants of Poe and Mencken use their horns. At the slightest provocation , Baltimore’s Buick’s honk and Mazda’s tweet. It’s nice actually, but at first I didn’t understand. Then I remembered Houston, where if you honk at someone you better be sure and have the .38 out of the glove compartment. Just in case. Random notes. The print in the local newspaper is a trifle dark, it’s almost art deco. While we tone down the paper, could we also tone up the city wardrobe? Balto-style—brown meets gray. We could siphon off for the wardrobe some of the stunning imagination used in creating the local liquor laws. We buy by the case now. Who knows? Beer may be illegal in December. The people of Baltimore are agreeable, but not carelessly friendly. Smiling’s not real big here. It’s all that sophistication and refinement. Life’s grim business all right. At the grocery store, a big thinker in a housedress dashes into the eighteen inches I foolishly leave between my basket and the checkout counter, and I think, Yes, every second counts in Ballmer. To one coming from a primitive culture, the sophisticated East can be bewildering. What, for instance, is the correct length of time to wait while a salesclerk, secretary, or sandwich-slinger yaks with his or her boyfriend, girlfriend, regular customer or dope dealer? Back home, all our dope dealers always stop and say, “Can I help you?” I know, I know, it’s old-fashioned. An equally old-fashioned sense of fair play prompts me to record those 72 The Early Posthumous Work things about Baltimore a stranger notices and likes. Maybe even loves. It’s a seductive town, everything else notwithstanding. There are roofs and sometimes whole buildings the likes of which I’ve never seen. It’s great to be in a part of the country where the tacky has had a hundred or two hundred years to age into the charming. We walk the streets, gazing up. The pizza is superb, even richer than the architecture. There are other things. Every other street corner has a bench, every bench the melodious legend: “William Donald Schaefer and the Citizens of Baltimore.” Sounds like a country song. And one morning, downtown, I saw...