Dawn Jawn

JOHN RIDDELL

Another autobiography of early youth in the glacial style of Theodore Dreiser's recently published "Dawn"

AUTHOR'S APOLOCY: At the outset, Mr. Riddell craves the indulgence of the reader in the following parody of Mr. Theodore Dreiser's latest book, entitled Dawn. Owing to the natural exigencies of space imposed by a monthly magazine,* as well as one or two lamentable lapses into correct English which have crept into his parody unawares, Mr. Riddell realizes that he has failed utterly to capture the full effect of Mr. Dreiser's style. A certain manner reminiscent of the Master, however, may be achieved if the reader will proceed as follows:

1. In reading the following parody, repeat each successive sentence very slowly four times, the last two times preferably backwards. The effect of Dreiser will also be heightened by taking a nap between each paragraph. The longer the nap, the better the effect.

2. For "which" read "which same" and for "invariably to find" read "to invariably find", etc.

3. For "I" read "myself" throughout.

Myself as a tot have always been interested in order to if possible discover the meaning of it all. It, which I mean of course life, makes no sense; yet during my childhood and early boyhood I was always groping for an answer to it all, like whomever should reach his hand into an empty pocket, in hopes to find something there, if only his own hand. The answer? Tra la, tra la.

To be sure, I will not say that the following, or ensuing, is a complete, or final, record. Naturally, in only 589 pages, one must leave out a few debaucheries or maybe a murder here and there. But at least I have not been so fearful of life or so poorly grounded in an understanding of things that I have concealed the fact if my uncle was a horse-thief and seduced little girls, or if my sister had an affair with McKinley. Tush. What has that to do with me, an individual has a right to ask? That is up to my uncle and my sister to worry about. Art first, and the hell with the rest of the family.

What a family! I smile now when I think of those early Riddells, with their little illusions, notions, vanities, ideals—some of them fearful of what the world might think, others innocent, childlike, impractical. My father, as I have hinted, was hanged for murdering my grandmother, two years before I was born. Three of my brothers died at an early age when my mother poisoned their oatmeal, but I had an older brother, Claude, who lived long enough to rob three banks before he was shot while setting fire to an orphanage. My sister Kittie was not quite bright, and took delight in pulling the wings off blue-bottle flies until she drank herself into failure if not death; but my twin sisters, Chloe and Rose, both entered the narcotic traffic in Terre Haute and made quite a go of it, I am told. I had several other brothers and sisters, said to be illegitimate, but I never saw them (save when they dropped in now and then to beat my mother and take the few pennies she had picked up by shoplifting) except once a year, when we held a sort of family reunion at Christmas with my mother's folks, the Kallikaks. We also had an old cook, Typhoid Mary, but she couldn't stand it and left.

*For a full-length and definitive parody of Mr. Dreiser's style, see Dawn, the recent autobiography, by Theodore Dreiser, published by Horace Liveright, Inc.

I would not go so minutely into this record of my brothers and sisters save that they undoubtedly influenced the earliest days of my unfolding sensory facilities. Life! What is it but form, sound, color, smell? All feed this strange cement mixer of existence, in which same our bodies are ground—wheels turning, gaskets whirling, a whistle blowing, toot, toot, cement mixer about to start, here we come shooting out of the back of the cement mixer, all our impressions jumbled together and ready to harden and make a concrete pathway for new lives to travel. Yet we speak of a "soul". And for what? Let whom can answer, do so.

My most remote memories—or so they seem—take me back to pur house in Cincinnati, on Thirteenth Street, on the northeast corner of Maple and Fifth Street, three doors from Grauber's butcher shop. Here I spent my early days searching here and there, high and low, always groping on my hands and knees for the eternal truth—in the drippan under the sink, behind the bed, in the pile of dirty laundry at the bottom of the closet—seeking to discover the key to the mystery of things, why this was that, what made thus and so, the why and the whenceness of this, that and the other. Sometimes I would pull out the top drawer of my mother's bureau, bringing it down smartly onto my left temple and spilling the contents onto the floor—a pink chemise, some lace petticoats, perhaps a few letters from the ice-man. Sometimes I would crawl under the bath-tub and take the drain pipe apart and peer at the contents within, ever seeking, never finding the well-spring of life.

As I grew older, I spent a lot of time tiptoeing around in tennis sneakers and peeking over transoms, in hopes that sooner or later I might stumble on some explanation so that it would all make sense. My sisters, especially Greta, always described me to myself as a most curious-minded child, hanging about and listening even when I was not wanted. All of my sisters were great ones for the boys, and they used to bring home a new beau every night from the tannery or wherever they worked. There was always a shooting or stabbing going on somewhere in the house in East Orange. It was a great big house, and a lot of things happened. I was kept pretty busy until I was fourteen, just creeping from one keyhole to another.

Naturally all this peeking around had aroused my curiosity about myself; but for years and years I did not know anything about sex (life?), even whether I was a little boy baby or a little girl baby, or what made the dew. It was not until I was fifteen years of age, a scrawny youth in the first year of the Kansas City High School of that city, that sex came to me in the form of a comely, meaty girl named Gussie M—. (Messersmith). All the girls I have ever known have been either comely or meaty, but Gussie was comely and meaty, and, in addition, could make pinnochio fudge, a rare thing in Council Bluffs, Iowa, or wherever this all took place.

I met Gussie at a Hallowe'en party (it was Hallowe'en) whilst we were bobbing for apples and other games. Finally, about ten o'clock, when the trepidation of the majority —if it had ever existed—had almost completely worn off, a new game was proposed, called "post-office". This lewd game was nothing more than a temporary license to kiss and embrace. Someone, a boy or girl, would go into a dark room and call for a favourite, of the opposite sex, to come and get his, or her, mail, or female. The only rule was: no two persons could call each other back and forth, thus monopolizing the situation, where others, no doubt, were awaiting his, or her, turn, the bolder spirits, anyhow. As the game was played here in New Orleans, a call to come and receive stamps, a post-card, or a letter (any number of one variety or all three at once, according to the wish of the acting postmaster, or mistress) meant, in the case of a stamp, a stamp on the toe, and a post-card or letter a kiss or a "hair-pull", according to his, or her, mood. In the main, kisses and hugs were exchanged between the girls and boys, or boys and girls, in the darkened chamber.

I could only suggest the perturbation of spirit which seized upon me, therefore, as in the course of this sensual pastime I saw Gussie, my dream-girl, enter the room. What doubts assailed me as I waited with the rest, trembling alike lest she call my name and lest she pass me by for another. But at last, to my terror, mingled with a strange thrill of anticipation, I heard my name called. "Something for Theo Riddell!" giggled the little girl next me. I rose blushing and entered the darkened room.

Within the door I saw Gussie's meaty form outlined against the shadow, and the next moment with a "Theo, dear!" she put her arms around me and led me to a sofa. In the dark, she leaned her head on my shoulder. I licked my lips nervously.

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"Wh—what is it, Gussie?" I managed to inquire at length. "A stamp?"

"No," she murmured, her cheek against mine; and she commenced to stroke my arm gently.

"Well, then," I said, trembling with eagerness, "is it—a postcard?"

"No," murmured Gussie, as she slid into my lap. Her breath was hot against my cheek, and I loosened my collar as I put the final question.

"Is it—a letter?"

By way of answer Gussie let down her hair all over me, and loosened a silken shoulder strap as she pressed her lips close to mine. "No . . . Theo . . ." she whispered passionately.

"Well," I said, sitting up indignantly and removing her arms, "if it isn't a stamp, and it isn't a post-card, and it isn't a letter, Gussie, I don't see why you could have possibly brought me into this darkened room." And I rose, disappointed, and straightened my tie, while Gussie put up her hair again wearily; and that was the first and last time that I ever played "postoffice". The meaning? Phfooey. The answer to it? Lordy, who can tell? Not myself, that's a cinch.

Yet, as I grew older, I often pondered—whilst life went on—where lay the key to the mystery of things, hidden deep, but lurking. In the course of time I began setting down words and phrases, sentences and paragraphs that I had heard or read in the papers or even thought up myself, and reading them over later in hopes I might find the eternal truth there. I collected long and very dull court-records, statistics on Russia, neighborhood gossip, scientific data, the records of my early love-affairs like with Gussie, and I issued them all one by one in bookform—always hoping that if I got together enough words and set down enough facts, sooner or later I might find the truth somewhere amongst them, like the pearl in the haystack. (It is a funny thing incidentally that about this time, shortly after I first began to write books, I noticed one member of my family after another changing his surname to Biddell or Diddell or other disguised name.) Still I wrote more and more books, each one longer and heavier and thicker than the last; and still I seemed no nearer the truth than I had been at the beginning. If anything, I was losing ground a little.

At last I decided upon a desperate course. Perhaps in my effort to collect everything I saw, regardless, like a garbage-man picking up all the cans along the curb no matter what they contained, I had in some way missed the eternal truth as I went. For this reason, therefore, I decided to reread my own books. Others less stolid and patient than myself might have faltered; but I was determined to find the truth, no matter what it cost in wear and tear on my forearm. With a sigh, I piled my massive volumes about me, lit a cigarette, and began to go through the solid mass of words that I had written.

That was years ago; and to date I am not more than halfway through. And, day after day, as I wade backward slowly through my own works, the fatal truth becomes ever more clear. There is no answer to it all. No eternal truth; no key to the mystery of existence; no explanation of life. Nothing.

Just words.