I Egress
The lack of oxygen is just about to get to me when, finally, we’re led deeper into the haze of flowers and body heat to the most uncomfortable benches in the world. These pews are covered in ancient, faded, threadbare green velvet, worn deep into the wood by the same asses for the past century. I can’t see over the purple, red, black, hats with gaudy feathers, the bald heads, and silver combovers, but eventually, I catch a glimpse of the man up front. He’s old and white, with even whiter hair wispy over his shiny head, standing in front of a glossy, open, casket. Nestled deep into the white, pillowy interior, lies my grandfather. He’s pale and wrinkled, dressed in his best church attire. His stiffest black suit. The man, who seems to be in his element, talks for what seems like years, barely acknowledging the corpse’s presence. When he does deign to mention the cold thing that used to be a man he does it as if he’s Vanna White, gesturing majestically to the letter blocks appearing magically on the screen. Like a pearl refusing to leave its oyster or a rejected engagement ring in a dainty ring box, my grandfather lies there, his obstinacy revealed to us all.
I glance around the room, sneaking peeks at the sniveling old ladies I’ve never met and I don’t recognize a single person. If I’m honest, I don’t even recognize the stiff one resting peacefully up front. I feel it slowly at first. By the time I identify the feeling, I’ve already imagined the worse. I’ve already thought of how awful it would be if it happened here, of all places, of all times. But it’s too late to stop it, and that thought only brings it faster, stronger, harder. It tickles my throat and gently begins to punch the inside of my mouth. My entire body tenses. Not here. And it retreats, for a second, deep inside of me, only to retrieve the dynamite it had stored away. Climbing quickly back up my throat with a vengeance, it lines the explosives up behind my lips and I squeeze my eyes tight. There’s really no stopping it now. The laughter explodes from me like a gunshot, a terrorist attack. I clamp my hands over my mouth, shoulders shaking, blood rushing to my cheeks, tears rising in my eyes. I glance up at my parents, my brother, over to my sisters, the panic in my eyes reflected back at me through theirs. Someone, please stop this!
Brian Blanchfield in Proxies draws an interesting line from reflection on the past to the idea of withdrawal. “When I can, on a commuter rail line, I sit in a rear-facing seat. I like the illusion of being drawn from the present into the future. To sit there is to withdraw. I have my eyes on what I’ve left” (p.31). At first, it appears that he is being withdrawn from the present into the future, but instead, he seems to be withdrawn from the present with his focus, his gaze lingering upon the past. It feels almost unwilling, his progression into the future, as his eyes are locked on what he has left. He writes for a moment on a passage from Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in which she sits on a footbridge over a stream. “She asks what sort of idiot would rather look downstream from that bridge, at what’s already passing beneath you rather than upstream toward what’s coming” (p. 31). Blanchfield is that idiot, and maybe I am as well. He claims that this fascination or desire to dwell on the past dictates within him a withdrawn sense of self. He wonders if Annie Dillard is more “take charge” while he simply allows the future to impend and she runs towards it, embracing what has yet to come. Blanchfield seems to actively dive into the space of withdrawal instead of proceeding.
“You’re new,” I threw the smile I saw lingering in his eyes back through my own. I felt the burning desire to mirror every detail I saw in him.
“Yeah,” he gave me next to nothing. He had watched me walk over, stiffened as I knelt beside him.
“I’m Stewart,” I held out my hand to shake his. I felt mature but also awkward like a child playing at house, pretending sophistication, responsibility. Pretending to be cool while embarrassingly, in that moment, I only had the urge to make him hot chocolate and give him hallmark-perfect forehead kisses on a cold winter’s night.
“Robert.” At least he shook back. I’ll always remember staring at our hands, thinking, well at least my palms aren’t sweaty. Probably. I couldn’t tell; I was too distracted by him.
“Nice to meet you, Rob.” And then my boss said, “Alright, you guys can get outta’ here,” and I jumped up like a goddamn rabbit and fled, racing to clock out and get as far away as possible from the first boy I didn’t want to leave.
I ran. I ran from him like he was the police. I ran from him like he cared if I was there or not, like he could even see me in the dark. Blanchfield defines the act of withdrawal, “If I withdraw, I withdraw myself. From what? From the race for city council, from active cocaine dependency, from the relationship, from the chill night air. To withdraw is to vacate what has held or kept you, and implies movement away from that engagement. Pullback” (p. 31). His eyes held me, his presence planted my feet to the concrete floor of the warehouse, his non-answers enticed and lured me in. So naturally, I withdrew. Blanchfield’s example of withdrawal from active cocaine dependency brings to mind pain, cold sweats, the shaking, ragged breathing, and the tears. The consequences of withdrawal seem never-ending. Blanchfield goes on a journey, questioning whether the pros of withdrawing outweigh the cons. Did he withdraw and leave his students or his partners in tears? Did he leave them shaking and sweating in the cold air? Did he cry with them as he said goodbye?
The first time I saw a grown man cry was at my eighth-grade graduation. I was fourteen years old and whatever the equivalent to valedictorian is for a bunch of tweens, so obviously I had to give a speech. Hours I toiled over this speech, my blood, my sweat, my tears pouring over the pages and making it really hard to read, but somehow, I muddled through, finding the perfect balance between entertaining and tear-jerking. My father was the music teacher so I spent more time at school than any child really should, arriving an hour early each morning and leaving hours after the final bell rang. I began my speech by discussing the painfully early morning drives to school with my father. I’d climb into the car, groggy as hell, either uncomfortably cold or far too hot, just to be greeted by the grating tune of some screeching country singer or the annoyingly dulcet tones of desensitized anchormen reporting the most boring of weather conditions or the latest gunshot victim whose name they forgot as soon as it came out of their mouths. My father would turn red and his voice would suddenly become booming as he shouted my full name at me when I instinctually and rebelliously flipped to another station. Every single morning we’d begin the day with the Next Great War of the Radio Dial as he immediately changed the channel back and mayhem ensued. I talked about how much I would miss my dad always being there. I talked about how much I would miss skipping Spanish class with my best friends to duck into his room and hideout, banging on his piano, or doodling all over his whiteboards. I was the quintessential “Daddy’s Girl” and everyone, including me, knew it. He was my hero the year before, but this year, he was one of my best friends. I looked out into the audience at my father, tears streaming down his face, my mother with her arm around him.
I quickly looked away. But it was too late. My skin felt tight like I was being inflated, filled with something hot and itchy, stretching to hold the unwanted substance. My fingers grew cold and moist, shaking as I tried to turn the page. Every muscle was too tight like they would snap at any moment. My knees were locked and feet planted firmly in my sister’s oversized high heels, my discomfort turning into a firm determination to ignore my weeping father, and finish the speech. In almost no time at all, the ceremony was over and we all walked into the crowd to greet our family and friends. I found my father too quickly and I could hardly look into his wet, reddened eyes. I hugged him because he hugged me, one-armed and from the side, trying not to cringe and to hold the smile plastered to my aching cheeks.
In Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, she sits on a footbridge staring into the future rather than the past. The footbridge itself is in a state of constancy, it is the present and has no opinion on the past or the future and yet provides the vantage point for the man who chooses to look downstream. The footbridge forces him to choose a single perspective. It is inanimate and unfeeling but provides a vantage point, with two perspectives. The man staring downstream watches the past as it passes without ever straying to question the oncoming. Blanchfield seems altogether fascinated by this new, unseen, and seemingly unimportant perspective.
He tells a story of a viral marriage proposal. The bride-to-be is sitting in the back of a truck, the camera is behind her, and while the truck is moving she is approached by all of her friends, her family, and her soon-to-be fiancé, all singing and dancing to precise choreography. Blanchfield spends the rest of the essay dwelling on the driver of the car, rather than the spectacle happening behind him. He says, “He is both the man staring downstream instead and the footbridge threshold itself” (p.35).
The man in the truck is simultaneously withdrawn from the symbol of the future taking place behind him, as well as actively withdrawing himself in the opposite direction of the commotion. No one looks at the man driving the truck but without him there would be nothing to see at all. He allows the proposal to continue on without him as he moves down the road, removing himself from the situation but being vital to its success. No one can see what he sees, but that does not mean that what he sees is not important. Without that perspective, that solidarity, that withdrawal, of the driver, the proposal would never have happened in the first place.
