Circle Is a Balloon & Compass Both : Stories About Human Love

Introduction

I was Ben’s second-grade art teacher. I tried at the time to get him to see that the world was composed of both large movements and small decisions. Did he grasp it? Not at the time–mostly he just drew trees with odd-shaped fruit hanging from them–but he appears to have made up ground since then. I especially appreciate the way that the title of the book holds together the opposites of orientation (the compass) and escape (the balloon), not to mention the way the title conflates the zero of nullity and the O of orgasm. Has anyone ever titled a book with the shape of a circle before? I do not know but I hope it happens again and again.

That is all I have to say, and still I have something more to say. Years later, I encountered Ben again. By then I was not teaching art full-time, but substituting in that same school district, and Ben was not a second grader, but a tenth grader. Eight years had passed in my life; it was as if eight hundred had passed in his. Substitutes are the strangest kind of monarch, complicit in their own overthrow, and I decided that day to give the children an impossible assignment. “In your life, you will have to choose between options,” I said. “Write a short story that justifies not one choice or another, but the process of choosing.” I made the assignment from fun, perhaps even a touch of sadism. I could not have expected that the students would rise to the challenge. Many of them did a superb job with such an abstract assignment. Something about Ben’s response struck a chord in me, and I kept it among my papers. When I learned he was working on a story collection, I sent it to him, and he called me, laughing. “You know why I wrote that?” he said. “To impress a girl. A specific girl. She was sitting to the right of me. Her name was Mary Pollock.” I laughed, too, even though I think that he was not being honest. He did not write it to impress a girl so much as to calm himself in the presence of a girl he wished to impress. This is why we create: to keep our demons down without banishing them entirely.

Enough speculation. I give you his piece, revived (and revised) after a span of twenty years:

Life was a platform, and he had everything he needed there: a phone, food, companionship. He was happy. Then he looked to his right and saw a platform that was slightly higher, maybe three feet or so. He thought to himself that he might be happier on the other platform. The second platform also had a telephone, food, a companion. But he felt certain that the telephone was of a superior design and color, that the food was prepared better, that the companion would entertain and enrich him in ways that his companion could not. After all, the other platform was higher. He was consumed by the thought of jumping to it. He wasn’t sure if he could make the jump. He needed to make the jump. He agonized over it. He lost sleep, and when he did sleep, he dreamed about the slightly higher platform. Then one day he woke with the courage to jump. He knew that it was the day. He placed a final call on the telephone on the platform. He ate a final meal. He told his companion that he would be only one platform away, and that since it was higher, he would be able to jump back whenever he wanted. Then he took a running start and jumped, pushing off as powerfully as he could, certain that he would need all his effort to reach the higher platform. In the air he worried about falling into the void between platforms. What would that be? Death? Solitude? Neither was a thought that comforted him. Somehow, miraculously, his foot found the edge of the other platform. He landed there in a heap. He looked around. The phone looked about the same. The food looked about the same. The companion looked about the same. But at least he was higher. Then, as he was commending himself for having the courage to jump, the platform started to sink down, imperceptibly at first but then enough that he could see it move. It came to him in a flash: he had forgotten to figure in the effect of his own weight. He looked across at his former platform and it was rising. He closed his eyes. He opened them. He was standing on a platform. He had everything he needed there: a phone, food, companionship. Then he looked to his right and he saw a platform that was slightly higher, maybe three feet or so.

– Marie Palermo, 2005
In every thing there are two things. We can choose one sometimes and the other at other times. In this way, we can imagine that we are making choices when in fact we are doing anything but choosing.
–Arturo Respero
Black, Gray, Green, Red, Blue:
A Letter From a Famous Painter on the Moon

Dear Lucille Bogan,
Fifteen years ago, when I left the Earth, I was just another struggling painter in New York City. My canvases were of two varieties: expressionistic black-and-gray cityscapes that often featured hunched figures collapsed inside oversized trench coats, and brightly colored nudes of you. One June day, I made up my mind to abandon the darker side of my nature and embrace what was good in the world. I came to your apartment and leaned on the buzzer. “Hello?” you said. “It’s me,” I said. We had dinner. We had dessert. We went to bed and drank a few glasses of red wine, after which I made my case for embracing what was good in the world. “You know what that means? For us?” I said. You seemed to. We went to sleep perpendicular to one another. Your head was on my chest. The next morning, when I woke up, I was on the moon. You were not. I cursed. I kicked a stone and it flew for what seemed like miles. Low gravity has its advantages. By noon, though, I had recovered my composure sufficiently to invent the style of painting that would bring me international–indeed, interplanetary–renown. It was brighter and more vivid, even, than the nudes. It exploded with color. Here on the moon that kind of thing was in great demand, and has continued to be.

Dear Lucille Bogan,
Four days ago here on the moon I fell and hit my head on the corner of a table. I got up almost immediately–low gravity has its advantages–but I had a dizzy spell, then a fainting spell, then a swoon. It turns out that the culprit was not the fall at all but rather a moderately severe case of something called Longtime Moon Resident Dissociative Disorder, or Lam-rod. Symptoms include slight dizziness. I’m going to go lie down for a moment.

Dear Lucille Bogan,
Another symptom of Lam-rod is that you tend to start letters over again even though you have started them already.
Dear Lucille Bogan,
Last night I went to see a friend of mine named Krystof Janikowski. He’s here on the moon, too. Has been since ninety-two. He came here with his son Krystof Janikowski Jr. Krystof Janikowski likes to call him “the Hebe dwarf” because I guess the mother is Jewish. Krystof Janikowski also likes to pretend that he hates his ex-wife, although I happen to know that they had a perfectly amicable separation and that he still treasures her opinion on most matters. Krystof Janikowski wanted to discuss a book he has written. It’s called Blocaine and Shabu, and it’s a blaxploitation thriller set on the Earth in which one guy does another guy a solid. Krystof Janikowski is a god-damned idiot, and I told him so, right in front of that Hebe dwarf. He took a swing at me, and landed a punch on my shoulder, but it barely hurt. Low gravity has its advantages.

Dear Lucille Bogan,
Another effect of Lam-rod is that you start to question yourself. This letter seems no more interesting to me than a Fabian milk report. And maybe Blocaine and Shabu isn’t that bad after all.

Dear Lucille Bogan,
Or is it terrible? This Lam-rod is immensely frustrating. I am a famous artist. My work has been exhibited in the Art Museum of the Moon, the Modern Moon Art Museum, and the Lunar Art Institute. So why can’t I render a confident and irrevocable judgment on the quality of Blocaine and Shabu? I am going to the doctor right now.

Dear Lucille Bogan,
The doctor, who was short and who would have been considered fat back when I was on Earth but is now simply round–low gravity has its advantages–gave me a green pill. Doctors here on the moon are like that. They think that pills solve everything. When I was walking back from the doctor’s office, I saw Krystof Janikowski. He turned to avoid me, but I went up to him and clapped him on the back. “You know,” I said, “my opinion about the book is simply my opinion. If I had listened to every jerk who expressed skepticism during the three hours it took me to become a famous painter, I might have never done so.” Krystof Janikowski laughed. “I know,” he said. “But I appreciate your honesty. And I think I figured out the problem: I think the title should be reversed. Shabu and Blocaine is much better.” I shrugged. It didn’t seem to matter. So maybe the doctor and his green pill were the answer after all.

Dear Lucille Bogan,
Now it is tomorrow, and I am in such despair that I must call the doctor again.

Dear Lucille Bogan,
The doctor told me that despair is a side effect of the green pill. “First you feel real good,” he said, “and then you feel real bad.” I asked him why he didn’t warn me about that before. “Because I am better friends with Krystof Janikowski,” he said. “The Hebe dwarf is my godson.” He laughed merrily. “You’ll want to tear off your face all afternoon,” he said, “but it should be gone by tomorrow.”

Dear Lucille Bogan,
Now it is tomorrow again and I am in even greater despair. I called the doctor. “Crap,” he said, and he rushed right over. He gave me a red pill and then began to take my pulse, to listen to...