Flying to America by Donald Barthelme

The master bedroom requires just touches, short bursts in her closet which must avoid the two dozen pairs of shoes there and in his closet which contains six to eight long guns in canvas cases. Finally I spray the laundry room with its big white washer and dryer, and behind the folding table stacked with sheets and towels already folded. Who folds? I surmise that she folds. Unless one of the older children, pressed into service, folds. In my experience they are unlikely to fold. Maybe the au pair. Finished, I tear a properly made out receipt from my receipt book and present it to the young wife. She scribbles her name in the appropriate space and hands it back to me. The house now stinks quite palpably but I know and she knows that the stench will dissipate in two to four hours. The young wife escorts me to the door, and, in parting, pins a silver medal on my chest and kisses me on both cheeks. Pest Control!
    A : Yes, one could fit in in that way. It’s finally a matter, perhaps, of fit. Appropriateness. Fit in a stately or sometimes hectic dance with nonfit. What we have to worry about.
    Q : It seems to me that we have quite a great deal to worry about. Does the radish worry about itself in this way? Yet the radish is a living thing. Until it’s cooked.
    A : Grete is mad for radishes, can’t get enough. I like frozen Mexican dinners, Patio, I have them for breakfast, the freezer is stacked with them —
    Q : Transcendence is possible.
    A : Yes.
    Q : Is it possible?
    A : Not out of the question.
    Q : Is it really possible?
    A : Yes. Believe me.

Paradise Before the Egg
    H e’s not potent more than forty-two percent of the time.”
    “Maybe we could feed him nourishing broths.”
    “They say that vitamin E is good for that.”
    “That’s what I hear too.”
    “I don’t think you can give somebody too much of any particular vitamin. The body takes what it needs and rejects the rest. I read about it.”
    “It’s because he’s so old.”
    “I don’t think so. I read about this guy who was ninety-three and still was fathering children when he was ninety-three.”
    “Perhaps at long intervals after he had been carefully fed with vitamin E and nourishing broths.”
    “Maybe we should offer stimulating photographs.”
    “Of what?”
    “Potentially arousing scenes.”
    “You mean the photographs would be more arousing than we are?”
    “Well I don’t know how their minds work.”
    “Maybe we should offer him potentially arousing scenes that are not photographs.”
    “You mean like real life.”
    “That’s what I mean.”
    “Consisting of what?”
    “I don’t know. I’d have to look in some books.”
    “He’s doing the best he can.”
    “That’s your opinion.”
    “I think he works quite hard at it, spends hours and hours.”
    “I just think we’ve gotten ourselves into a fundamentally false position here, I don’t blame the poor bastard, it’s just more than the male mechanism is equipped to do.”
    “I saw this guy in a movie once. I couldn’t believe it.”
    “They have these special guys they use for those movies, they’re not what you usually run into. They’re specialists.”
    “We don’t want to stress him beyond his capacity or have him go mad or something.”
    “He shows no signs of going mad.”
    “He’s raveling his clothes. Plucking at threads.”
    “I just think that means he doesn’t have very good clothes. His clothes have a lot of loose ends and it’s natural, I think, when you see a loose end to pluck at it.”
    “Has he made a will?”
    “That’s an evil thought, has he anything to will?”
    “Beats me. I wouldn’t take it if he did.”
    “Sure you would.”
    “How old is he actually?”
    “He says he’s fifty-three.”
    “He does appreciate what he’s given.”
    “As well he should; he’s in hog heaven, objectively speaking.”
    Veronica is bouncing on her trampoline. Dore is reading Flowers for Algernon. Simon is in bed with Anne.
    “How does it make