Herman Melville Rewrites ‘Bartleby” for 2021
“If you’re gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit, so they cut it down to 3:05" — Billy Joel’s ‘The Entertainer’
Bartleby — A Story of Wall Street, 1853. Revised 2021.
I’m an old dude. I have been a lawyer for a long time. I work on Wall Street — and I don’t have a wife or children. My job is my life. We didn’t have copy machines back in 1853, so I had to hire temp help, what we called law-copyists or scriveners. Today, I guess, you’d call them interns or side-hustlers.
You know how everything needs to be signed in triplicate, right? Sign here — sign there — and there — and there, again — with the yellow marker by the red x. So I would hire these guys to copy what I wrote — whether it was a will or a deed to some property on the Upper East Side. Or a cease and desist order.
It was all, what you would call, legalese, and very boring stuff, but important stuff, because we’re talking about money here, people. I think I’m a pretty good writer, and I could write the Great American Novel one day, perhaps even better than Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
Maybe one of these days I can be a real writer. But here I am. Doing what I can do. So let me tell you about these scriveners. One is really important — Bartelby. That’s why I gave the story his name, right? I’m not stupid.
I employed three scriveners — Turkey, Nippers, and Ginger Nut. Why don’t I use their real names? Well, if you had to act like a copy machine all day, copying and copying like some Trappist monk from the 12th Century, using ink and quill, well, I think you’d be dehumanized as well. They were sorta like Dilberts if you pardon the anachronism.
The “wall” in Wall Street is like your version of the cubicle office. Cut off all distractions and efforts to make eye connections with your fellow co-workers, right? It’s great for business, and who gives a massive burrito crap with corn nuggets about employee morale and humanity. I want my scrivener's scrivening, right? I’m here for my clients and to make loads of money. For me.
Turkey was about my age — he was old and single. Guess he wasn’t livin’ the dream, right? He was my best scrivener — but before noon. After that, what a freakin’ mess. Inkblots all over the place. For six hours — noon through six, he was a complete waste. But what he did before noon was awesome. I think he started hitting the sauce at lunch, so I get it. Like those hot dues in Mad Men — beatin’ back the booze and beddin’ the babes, but he wasn’t getting any ladies or deals done. His face would get all red and corpulent.
And Nippers, well, he was awful in the morning! Dreadful! Complete waste of my money. He would fuss at his desk, walkabout, and was rather ADD if you ask me. But then he’d settle down in the afternoon — and his handwriting was rather nice. If he didn’t do copy, I’d see him as a pirate. Or a tattoo artist. In another life, I hope he’d be a pirate. He was young — 25 — and perhaps saw this job as a step into another cubicle in the Jenga-like ascent on the American Dream ladder — as long as no one pulled a plank underneath him. lol.
And Ginger Nut? What a total freak! Now, he was only 12, but we were old-fashioned back then and knew the best place for poor children was working. Labor laws? Are you kidding me? Much better with me than a Dickensian workhouse, right? Ginger Nut would be, “Please, sir, may I have another twenty pages to copy?” His pop sent him to me, with the crazy idea that anyone named Ginger Nut could be a barrister at the bar.
But I can see why poor people believe in The American Dream. I grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, sailed my yacht on the Sound, attended Yale (Skull and Bones, man!) —and then Harvard Law — and daddy and mummy have paved the way for me for this lush corner office. Someone once called my pops a Robber Baron, and I almost slapped him with a writ of habeas corpus or a tailored suit of defamation of character — suing for an ad hominem attack. Is that libel or slander? Good thing I have Uncle Google now, right?
That kid should have been a baker — as he consumed nothing but ginger-cakes! Scads and scads of ginger! What a nut! His hands were all greasy and would smear the copy. And then I would make him redo the copy. Crazy. He didn’t use his desk much. Know why? It was covered in nuts! The whole desk — he was like some freakin’ squirrel stocking up for winter. Why did I keep him? Well, he was dirt cheap — and I saw him like some foster kid I should help. I’m actually not a bad guy for a lawyer.
Sorry! Let me cut the exposition crap, and get to Bartleby. Talk about someone with severe PTSD. He was like that fearless girl on Wall Street! Did he think I was the bull? Or was I really a teddy bear? What the hell was he resisting, anyway?
What the hell happened to this guy? Was it some vixen who broke his heart? We didn’t have the Civil War yet — so it wasn’t like he saw so many dead people in his dreams. Did he actually want to do something with his life rather than be a copy machine! Was he that delusional? Was he a beauty school or barbershop dropout? IDK. But he was fine — my best scrivener — until one day he stopped doing all work. Just total defiance. The dude just said over and over, “I would prefer not to.” What? Why not say “No?” Why that totally irritating “I would prefer not to?”
Jesus, it was so damn polite. Talk about passive. Well, I would prefer you to work if you want to get paid. I would prefer you not to sleep in my office! Where did you think you were born? Greenwich, CT? I should have clubbed him, but I’m a decent humanitarian, actually — even for a lawyer! I wanted “to do good.” Like some damn, impoverished missionary, I wanted to “save” him! Also, maybe, I wanted to alleviate any sins on my ledger, just in case, there is a judgemental God. Oh my, how 18th Century! Thank God we don’t “judge” anymore. I really like 2021!
But Bartleby didn’t seem to care a tinker’s cuss about money! Or salvation! He just stopped. It bothered the others as well. Did he want to be all-Union and Norma Rae and cause Civil Disobedience, like this dude up in Concord would write? The horror! Did he complain about the pay and the medieval working conditions? The 12-hour work shift with Sunday off to pray all day?
No — he just said, ‘I’d prefer not to.” I tried reasoning with him, but you may as well reason logic and science with a Trump supporter who believes Hilary and Microsoft are planting microchips in the vaccines that will make them one of the letters or punctuation marks in LGTBQIA2S+ and vote Bernie/Commie and sap their precious bodily fluids!
Bartleby was like that — would not listen!
Even when I fired him, after several weeks of him just sitting at his desk, he would sleep in my office? Didn’t he have a gutter or grate to warm him on the street? I finally kicked him out, but like a bad politician or a deadly pandemic that keeps surfacing, he kept returning — as if to send me a message.
What message, Bartleby? Oh, the horror! Oh, the humanity! Was that all?
He finally found himself in jail. I didn’t want to put him there. Was that where he wanted to be? Like Gandhi or Thoreau or Martin Luther King? Was he a martyr? IDK, man. But I went to visit him, and when I asked him, why, why, why, he had the audacity to say, “Isn’t it obvious, homeboy?”
What? Obvious? And please, Call Me HomeSlice!
I did some investigation, and I found out that his previous employment had been at a Dead Letter Office. Wasn’t that an album by the college radio band, R.E.M.? Yes — but it’s also where mail goes that’s undeliverable. Like my letters to Laura Linney? Like a Harry Potter Owl-o-Gram?
Was this supposed to be a metaphor? Writers writing to the world that no one reads? Like a Great American Novel about a very large mammal pursued by a crazy man with only one leg?
I don’t know. All I know is that Bartleby haunts my dreams when I’m sipping a Bourbon-barrel Imperial Stout from one of those great craft brewery places in Astoria. I’m alone, but my brownstone is soooo comfortable. I have my maid cook up some vegetarian chili with naan, and I have my butler massage the corns on my feet. I Bluetooth Adele on my Bose headphones, and get naked, except for my plaid boxers, and I think she’s singing about me.
But in my mind, it’s either Laura Linney or Helen Mirren who is seducing me. Totally hot women, right? And smart — I like smart women, as long as they don’t disagree with me. Or like, ask for the right to vote or have equal rights — can you imagine? A woman lawyer? LOL.
Thank God I originally wrote this in 1853.
Then I think about Bartleby rotting away in jail — and what a buzzkill. Talk about a limp biscuit! Time to switch to real bourbon! Thank God tomorrow is Sunday! With church now on TV due to COVID-19–20–21, I can pretend to listen while I dream of Laura Linney!
Or my maid. She’s actually not that bad — and I don’t think she’s happy in her marriage. Thank God she has a good job, though.
Oh, the humanity! You know, now totally buzzed, I forgot all about that Bartleby guy. What a grade-A loser, right?
