Westbury said to me. We were talking on one occasion, I made a
foolish little joke about ducks, a silly pun — this is it, you see, exactly,
a pun is no more or less than an irreconcilable tension and really we
were talking at some metaphorical remove about the American Civil
War.
He said to me: “Lear, I abominate the forcible introduction of
ridiculous images, calculated to distract the mind from what it is
contemplating.”
LEAR laughs, though his distress is evident.
At the time I thought he was being an old stuffed buzzard, but now,
God damn it to hell, you come around here and ask if I want your
company and what am I to say?
Everything I can possibly ever say to you, including this, and this, and
this, and this, I write it all on your mind. Do you see? I speak, or I
gesture, or I whistle a tune or blow my nose, and whatever it is, if
you’re here to see it, it’s something I’m doing to you, that gets inside
you. I get inside you and scribble on the inside of your brain. My silly
little cartoon men with broken arms and jutting beards. I forcibly
introduce images into your contemplation. I have only to lift a finger
and my finger’s inside you. Yes?
It used to be my heart’s delight to see you in the afternoons, and talk
about my travels, and sound off about painting, and blow words at
you and enjoy your pleasure. But ever since I killed those innocent
animals — those sixty-three creatures that need never have existed,
and I brought them into the world simply for the pleasure of
destroying them... Like some blind stumbling God. You see? I killed
them for my sport...
And now I’m all but paralysed by my capacity for violence, which
exceeds all else. I may love you, Johnny. But what a thing to say to
someone! Surely I haven’t the right to commit such a horribly
disruptive act? It’s like shouting ‘fire!’ in a theatre! It’s too
irresponsible.
-Chris Goode
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