"ULTERIORITY" IN "ANYWHERE,ANYWHERE"

“There are many other things I have found myself saying about poetry, but the chiefest of these is that it is metaphor, saying one thing and meaning another, saying one thing in terms of another, the pleasure of ulteriority.” This is Robert Frost in 1946, in an essay for The Atlantic Monthly.  As quoted in the blog called “The Rawness” on Oct 6, 2010. 

The blogger continues:

“Today’s Raw Concept is Ulteriority. Ulteriority occurs whenever there is a gap between a purported surface motive and the deeper and an underlying (and usually more powerful) motive that subtly occurs beneath surface, the latter also being known as the ulterior motive.

“Whenever we say something has ulteriority, what we’re saying is that there’s some kind of gap between what is going on the surface compared to what’s going on below the surface. If there’s a high level of ulteriority, then the gap between what’s being communicated on the surface and what’s being communicated below the surface is not only very wide, but in addition the communication below the surface is especially complex, nuanced and subtle.”

This is one of the major secrets of powerful writing: that the writer is not just creating a smooth surface narrative that slides easily across the page but also is thinking about issues of rhetoric, of social reference, of his own wish to express or explore something molten at his own core, and maybe even thinking about becoming famous.  In “Anywhere, Anywhere”  this depth dimension is suddenly present in a way it was not in Tim Barrus’ first book. 

This is Barrus managing stigma within stigma.  First, there is the stigma of being a soldier in the Vietnam War, a betraying, politically correct ambush for men coming home from risking their lives as they were made to do.  Second, there is the stigma of being gay.  Within this -- which is simply the sexual desire for someone of one’s own sex -- is the stigma WITHIN the gay community of not being a conforming middle-class wage earner nor an Oscar Wilde witty aesthetician, but frankly, aggressively, macho.  (Which in itself can be politically incorrect in an era of feminists.)  On top of that is the stigma of being in a wheelchair.  (And having PTSD before it was understood.)

Barrus’ saving counterforce is tender intimacy.  Even between big strong men who share a bed and a bathtub.  Someone to hold you while you die.  This is the “spine” of all Barrus writing.  In this book he finds his voice: profane, jazzy, familiar, chanting and poetic.  The themes of boys and subterranean are already here in the teenaged tunnel rat soldiers who must clear VC out of underground diggins.  Also present are the themes of raw determination and not dying alone.   This is not California anymore.  This is Manhattan/Mineshaft.  Gritty and dark.  Part of the ulterior dynamics is that Vietnam is a screen for AIDS.  Jungle war and Agent Orange stand in for the virus, just as deadly, just as hidden.  A fast, violent apocalypse is more understandable and sympathetic than a slow eating away of friends and lovers, who still need to be held while they die. 

The irony is that the intimacy of the story attracts women, at least those young and unconventional enough to not be offended.  But then, it is also probably partly what attracts stalkers, hating themselves and looking for something to either save them or destroy them.  Publishers do not generally consider either of these categories a promising platform for sales, but perhaps they should reconsider.  Most recently on Facebook females were strongly attracted, along with Asian boys.  As the culture evolves -- everyone becoming less shockable -- this book begins to look mainstream.  Intimate relationship appears to be a more durable focus than sex.  Even in war.

The section on Vietnam must have been derived from tales told by veterans and it’s plenty convincing, which it has to be to justify the section that deals with the idiocy of mental health wards of shuffling men drugged into mental glitter balls and dressed in pajamas that let their dicks hang out.  Another section deals with the families trying to understand and help -- or not.  These are situations the author knows but do not assume he is writing autobiography.  His “ulterior motive” is to indict society as it exists.  In the end his solution is old-fashioned and, considering that these men are mostly supposed to be gay, a surprise.  They decide to help and protect children, not just any children but “brown” children (Native American, Hispanic, Asian).  Anywhere, anywhere.

Using song lyrics is a little risky because the songs can go out of the public mind and lose the effect of a sound track playing in the head of the reader, but the songs Barrus uses (“Barbara Ann”, “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Hound Dog”, “Teddy Bear”, “Love me Tender” and  “House of the Rising Sun”) are so iconic and deeply embedded in the public mind that even I know them.

Except one.  I did have to look up the "House of the Rising Sun".  It’s such an old ballad that many of the original meanings are lost, but the main euphemism seems to be that the “house” is either a brothel or a prison.  In case you’ve forgotten, here’s the refrain:
 
Oh mother tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun

My level of ignorance meant that the image I got was simply the natural “rising sun” which I associate with Asia and also with the American Southwest.  I happen to know that Barrus is one who, like a Native American, often watches the sun come up, even if it’s because he’s been out all night.

This book is a lament, energized by indignation, full of despair, and rich with slang and poetry.  I can’t tell you how it compares with other Vietnam literature because I don’t know the genre and I suspect it suffers in some minds from not having been written by an actual veteran.  The strength of it is the portrayal of bonding among a few men determined never to let each other give up, even after their heads have literally been blown off.  Insanely, they go on.

Here’s part of the last paragraph when the men are driving towards the American Southwest:  “The sun set in front of us with the same kind of brilliant, glorious orange that she used to show us at sunset in Vietnam.  Uncompromising and intransigent.  Bloodred and indigo.  Candy, soda, dirty pictures, boom boom dope.  Elvis in my head.  YOU AIN’T NOTHING BUT A HOUNDDOG . . . “   I reckon the sun probably rises and sets about like that in Afghanistan, too, where at the school they drink three cups of tea.  What do you think the ulterior motive for that is?  It could be anywhere, anywhere.