A Catalogue of Everything in the World

Splendid, Silent Sun

11/6

Claudette—

You’ll never believe where I am—or rather, you’ve already surmised from the picture on the reverse of this postcard. Yes, Nebraska. You know, that state in the middle somewhere, just another corn-filled patch in the quilt of indistinguishable states that make up the interior. You see that farmhouse and the gently rolling fields of corn in the picture? That’s why I’m here. To find that. Not that particular house, per se, but what it stands for: that open and uncomplicated life that’s vanished in LA. Nebraska. Just the sound of the word conjures up images of corn and wholesome tow-headed children and the 4th of July. It’s more American than apple pie, right? Of course you’ve never thought about it. You’ve never been here. It’s the coasts for you. Fine. But for me, this bland Midwestern Americana is the exotic. I’m here to see it all.

Brian

11/7

Claudette—

I went on a little stroll today around Dudley’s neighborhood and had the scare of my life. I was maybe three blocks from Dudley’s house, just walking along, looking up at all these grand old houses with big porches and porch swings, as Midwestern as you please. And then, out of nowhere, came this awful buzz like an air-raid siren—or at least what I imagine an air-raid siren would sound like. The noise was all around me, coming from every direction, and for a minute I thought: Holy Jesus, the Soviets have launched their nuclear weapons at last, and here I am stuck in Nebraska! Nonsense, of course—how long has the Cold War been over now? When did the Soviet Union fall? I guess it was some vestigial fear from childhood, when the commies were the bad guys. Who are the bad guys now? I couldn’t remember, as I stood there paralyzed, listening to that awful wail, waiting for the big old planes swollen up with bombs in their bellies to come roaring overhead. Would they be painted with swastikas, Muslim moons?

B

11/8 (#1 of 2)

Claudette—

I went back to Dudley’s and waited for the sky to fall, but nothing happened. When he came home for lunch, I told him about the siren, and he just said, Yeah, it’s the first Wednesday of the month. And I said, What’s that supposed to mean? And he said, 10:15, they test the tornado sirens, that’s all. So I had to let this sink in, and then I said, What if there’s a tornado at 10:15 on the first Wednesday of the month, and everyone ignores the siren because they think it’s just a drill? And Dudley just looked at me for a long time, and then he said, Man, you really need to chill, you never used to be wound so tight. Do I need to chill, Claudette? You tell me.

It’s cold and gray here compared to back home. Compared to where you are. Compared to our LA-blue sky. That should be a Crayola color. The most beautiful blue in the box.

Brian

11/8 (#2 of 2)

Claudette—

Dudley lives in a neighborhood called the Near South. Go figure. He’s bought this monstrous old drafty box of a house that he’s fixing up. A prairie foursquare, he calls it. Built in 1922. The wood floors and the stairs are cold and creaky as hell. There’s a giant porch on the front with the obligatory porch swing. He says in the summer months people sit out on their porches. He knows his neighbors and his neighbors’ kids and his neighbors’ dogs. It’s all very Midwestern and homey. The porch is sagging and the steps are crooked. It’s a very old house. You would hate it.

So I’m here for two weeks. Did I mention that? For better or for worse, I plan to spend precisely two weeks here so I’ll have time for nothing else. You know why, babe.

Brian

11/9 (#1 of 3)

Claudette—

I rode the bus all over town today. It’s funny because I’d never ride public transportation in LA. There was this old guy on the bus, wearing farmer overalls with no shirt underneath, hauling a giant bag of ancient jumper cables—there had to be thirty of them in there, all wound up like a nest of snakes, their ends all corroded. And he kept talking about the weather, to no one in particular. We’ll have snow before Thanksgiving, he kept muttering, looking out at the sky, which was blue today—not LA blue, but a pale, tranquil blue. I couldn’t gather whether snow before Thanksgiving was unusual here or not. I will have to ask Dudley. It was warmer and sunny—not a hint of impending winter weather. This city is full of parks which are full of kids. I don’t remember the last time I saw so many kids out playing on the playgrounds. Maybe because it was a nice day. In LA every day is nice. No reason to go out and play. I kept waiting for someone to ask me where I’m from, but no one seems to notice me.

B

11/9 (#2 of 3)

Claudette—

Another thing happened today. The bus was going past this magnificent building, so I leaned over to the guy across the aisle and asked him what it was. He looked at me like I was crazy for a minute, then snorted and said, What? The penis of the Plains? And then he laughed. And he was right, it is pretty phallic. See the picture on the reverse? And suddenly I pictured it rising up off the center of this nation, this great bold protuberance on a vast body, and it was like I could almost see where I was on the continent. Almost, but not quite. And it was like I could understand why, if you’re stuck here in the middle of the Plains, you’d want to build such a thing. And I know it’s hard to see in the picture, but at the very top of the building, there’s a statue of this sower who is sowing his seed all over the Plains out of a great big pouch at crotch level. I am not kidding. You would have laughed your head off, C.

B

11/9 (#3 of 3)

Claudette—

I got off the bus at the next stop and walked to the building, which of course turned out to be the capitol. Duh. I wandered in and somehow got myself attached to a school tour with all these rowdy fourth graders. It was actually fun. I learned about this big blizzard they had here back in 1888 when a bunch of schoolchildren got lost. I learned that Nebraska is the only state with a unicameral legislature. Bet you didn’t know that, babe. And they have a law that no one can build anything taller than the capitol. So it will always be the biggest cock on the block. There was this little Asian girl on the tour who kept wandering off and looking at things on her own. You could just tell she had her own agenda, wasn’t interested in the party line being dished out by the tour guide. You could see she was a bright kid. Sometimes we ended up looking at the same things, me and her, like these mammoth marble columns. Just touching them with our hands. All these people live here, and they don’t think about LA or people like me. Like you.

B

11/10 (#1 of 2)

C—

What is near? Near to what? Near to whom? To some vague, unidentifiable, unknowable, inscrutable presence, some central beating heart or intelligence of this city? What does it mean to live in the Near South? Is there a far south? Is there a near north? The Near South is meaningless unless it’s in relation to something else. I said these things to Dudley today.

And what about the Midwest? Can one ever be in the middle of the West? Isn’t something west only in relation to something else? Why not the Middle East or even Middle North or Middle South? Why not just Middle, Mid for short? Aren’t we practically smack dab in the middle? We could call this place anything. This is where the action should be, not on the coasts, the boundaries, the peripheries, the margins. I said these things to Dudley too.

Dudley said: Did you come out here just to make fun of people? And I said: Who am I making fun of? I have not made fun of a single person.

Have I mentioned that Dudley is a native?

B

11/10 (#2 of 2)

C—

All I ever knew about Nebraska I learned from reading Willa Cather’s My Antonia some dozen years or more ago in a class on regional writers. Cather being representative of the entire amorphous middle region, of course. And actually, I don’t remember anything about the book. So, one can deduce, I know nothing about Nebraska. Except for one thing. There’s that image in the book of a plow emblazoned across the red face of the setting sun, and I remember that my prof talked about it forever. Why it’s significant I can’t remember now—only that it symbolized absolutely everything in the book, and a few other things besides. It was so saturated with portent it positively dripped. A man could spend his life studying that plow-sun hieroglyph and still not get to the bottom of it. Oh, and I think Antonia was pretty hot, back before she had all those kids. You think she’s around? Instead of sitting on an Italian beach with you, I am here. Maybe I should look for my Antonia. I doubt you’ve read the book, so this all means nothing to you.

B

11/11

C—

Yesterday Dudley and I went down to the Haymarket for what is known as game day. You can see what the Haymarket looks like for yourself on the reverse—old downtown, shops, brick streets. Now imagine the streets swarming with bodies dressed in red. No, that does not do justice. I don’t think anyone can really understand who didn’t grow up in a football-crazy town. Everyone is together for the same reason, dressed in the same color. It’s almost worth it to wear red just to be a part of that. Dudley and I sat on the dock at the main intersection, drinking lattes and just watching it all. Uncharacteristically, Dudley is not much of a football fan. He told me a story about someone who came through here on the train, stepped off onto the platform on a game day, saw all the lunatics in red shirts, and promptly got back on the train, believing he had stepped into the middle of some communist rally. He couldn’t remember who it was. Happened years ago. I even saw a big group of fans from California with matching shirts. Traveled all the way here for the game. Amazing, all the stuff that goes on that you never knew about.

B

11/12 (#1 of 2)

C—

My problem is that I cannot see the place I am from, the place I’ve lived my entire life. I can’t see myself in that place. I am too big and too small. I am everything. My head is filled with myself. So I am not part of anything. I thought I would be able to see this place clearly, distinctly, because it was not part of me, but most days it’s just another city. I see bits and pieces, faces, trees, buildings, patches of sky, but I cannot see the whole. Same problem.

I have this whole stack of postcards I’ve written you here. I haven’t mailed a single one yet. Do you think I will? Ha, ha. Maybe I should give this series a title. Maybe A Tourist in Nebraska. My seventh day here. And to quote an old song from our youth, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. Whatever that is. (You.)

B

11/12 (#2 of 2)

C—

I want to tell you a secret: corn fields are terrifying. All dead and dry now, rustling, whispering. Dudley took me a ways out of town to a corn maze yesterday. A maize maze. Ha, ha. They were getting ready to shut down for the year and there wasn’t anyone else there. Dudley and I went off in different directions, and as I started walking through that moving, shifting, dead corn, higher than my head, I can’t tell you how scared shitless I became. I can’t explain it. Just think of Children of the Corn. Think of those other movies with cornfields. Someone lost in the corn. Something coming out of the corn. Someone being chased by something through the corn. UFOs in the corn. Why? Why does this most wholesome thing terrify us? But no. High fructose corn syrup. That is not wholesome. Ethanol in our gasoline. Corn in our whiskey. Corn in our cows. Government crop subsidies. Not wholesome. There is too much corn. That is why we fear it.

B

11/13

C—

I went with Dudley to a reception for his boss tonight. He had won some local leadership award. So the boss gets up and makes a little speech. Talks about how he moved to Nebraska ten years ago to work for this start-up computer company. Says when he was offered a job in Nebraska, he had to pause a moment to figure out where the hell that was. From Boston originally. Says now he’ll never leave. Says Nebraska’s the best kept secret in America. Says he doesn’t want the word getting out, or else everyone will move here, ruin the place. Says we’re safe as long as we stay part of flyover country. Har, har. The crowd laughed at all his jokes, his put-downs. I didn’t get it. How is it funny to put yourself down? I thought about it. And I think I understand. They only pretend to make fun of themselves, but actually they’re showcasing, in their secret code, their superiority. Their Midwestern modesty is a type of smugness.

B

11/14 (#1 of 2)

C—

Here is what Dudley said to me last night, almost verbatim: There is no such thing as a Nebraskan, OK? Not the way you’re thinking of it, not as some unified honky white force, not as an identity that we all share, not as some secret society you can figure out, you with your LA sophistication, your cleverness. These are people. They live here. That’s it.

We stayed up late on Dudley’s porch, drinking Fat Tires. You never met Dudley. We were buddies at UCLA. My bud Dud. Both studied computer science. He went away to school,