When I Worked for the Nobel Prize Committee

Joe Hunt — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:51:00 +0000

The apricot

Alfred Nobel was a clean man.

I shook his hand,

And he wiped it on a handkerchief—

then, on an apricot

“The apricot,” he said,

“is a natural cleanser. Its enzymes

calcify and categorize

and neutralize the particles of dirt.”

Before he walked away,

I placed a “Kick me” sign

on his back, and a “Do not disturb”

sign on his stomach.

I ask you: which is more accurate?

Aching out an existence

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

they told me, “No employee of the Nobel Prize

committee nor any member of his/her immediate

family may win the Nobel Prize.”

I threw the carbon proofs for my poem-book

Aching Out an Existence into the Baltic Sea.

Then it hit me: “What about Erik Axel Karlfeldt?”

I jumped in headfirst.

It was warmer than I thought it would be. Still,

it got colder than I imagined.

My landlady Eva swears under and over her

breath, pouring pitchers of hot water on my head.

“Is it salvageable?” I ask.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head,” she says,

then walks to the radiator, flips my pants like

a pancake. “You know, Karlfeldt was given the

award only posthumously,” she says. “Or maybe

that was the effect you were going for?”

“No, ma’am,” I say. Then, “How can I put this…

Could you pour some hot cocoa mix into the bathtub?”

Lampshades and door-hinges

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

polishing lampshades and door-hinges, I overheard

them in their secret chambers.

Someone said: “I think that I shall never see

a poem as lovely as Ingrid Bergman.”

Someone said: “A poem should not mean, but be.”

Then he spilled his coffee on his stomach. I had

to clean it up.

Someone else said: “A fine poem should have

several layers—but only in the wintertime. In

summertime, a poem should have only one layer,

if that.”

Old McDonald

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

they gave me a Visa card, a rain-slicker, and fifteen

weeks to find the man who wrote “Old McDonald

[Had a Farm].” “We want to give him the Nobel Prize.”

“For literature?” I asked. “For literature, chemistry, peace—

it doesn’t matter. Ee,” he said. “Aye,” he said. “Oh,”

and then he sighed—an eighteen-second sigh. I’d never

heard anyone sigh for so long.

I couldn’t leave soon enough. I slept that night

at the Nobel Prize hotel. At 2:30 a.m. the telephone

rang. “Have you left yet?” “No.” “There’s a taxi

outside the lobby, continental breakfast in the back

seat, and slippers underneath your bed.”

I went first to Vasterhaninge, because it was on

the way. I pulled the taxi over to buy some gas. A dog

approached me with a “Woof-woof,” followed by a man,

with a “I hear you are looking for Edvard March.”

“Who?” I asked. He pulled out a gun. “Get in the car.”

The car was a ’79 Cadillac Seville, black, with

leather interior, anti-lock brakes, power-steering. “Calm

yourself,” the man spoke. “The revolver is merely to

emphasize my point. It’s not even loaded—see? My

mustache isn’t real, either.” I nodded.

“Edvard March is the man you seek, the man who

wrote the song you know so well. I am Emil, emissary

of the Catholic Church.” “But why?” “The church desires

to make him a saint.” “Really?” I said. “Yes. The church

does not joke around.”

I licked my lips with my tongue and rolled my eyes

backwards to think. “To be a saint,” I said, “you have

to be dead?” “Yes, for one year.” “Hm.” (I still wasn’t

sure if the prize could be given to dead people, beside

Karlfeldt.) “Hm.” I didn’t know what else to say.

Emil continued: “You might be interested to know

we’ve been studying his life in this vicinity for two months.

So far, ‘Things are looking up,’ as you Americans say.”

“To be a saint,” I said, “you have to do three miracles.”

“Yes.” “What were his miracles?” “Ee,” he said. “Aye,”

he said. “Oh.”

The maple bars

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

nothing in life was free—not even continental breakfast

at the Nobel Prize Hotel. Milk: twenty-five cents.

Maple bars: fifty cents.

After wiping my mouth with a newspaper, I pretended

to read the newspaper, so I could sit in the chair longer.

One story went: “Numerous hail-worthy scholars insist

vehemently, within inches of their lives, that one reason

van Gogh killed himself was craziness from sucking on

lead-poisoned paintbrushes…”

These same scholars, dressed in their pajamas,

carrying briefcases, walk right past me every day—

sucking on fifty-cent maple bars, painting maple bar

paintings.

The cliffs of Dover

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

I moonlighted as Alfred Nobel’s chauffer. Once

I drove up an exceedingly high mountain. It was

my idea. His idea was: “Just drive around. I need

to be alone for a while.” Then he got out.

But I got stir-crazy, waiting in the car. I joined

him on the edge of the cliff, dangling his feet over

the edge (except his shoes were nicer than mine).

“Howdy-hoo,” I said. “It’s a long way down.”

He was expecting me to say something like that.

To make conversation, I offered him fifty dollars

if he’d tell me the secret formula for nitroglycerin.

“Well,” he said, “frankly, it’s too complex,

and I’m tired.”

I offered him a swig from my canteen of rasp-

berry lemonade. “Thank you,” he said. We took

turns drinking in silence, for an hour.

I had intended to push him off the cliff and steal

the money in his wallet, and the car, but his fine

social graces won my disreputable heart.

Left and right

I asked Alfred Nobel why they only give out

prizes once a year. “If I was in charge, I’d give

them out left and right.”

To my left, waiters in pencil-thin mustachios

moved like morning traffic. To my right: traffic

out the window, bumper to pedestrian.

Alfred Nobel said, “Allow me to answer your

question with another question.” (That’s when

my defense mechanisms kicked in.) “How many

suns do you see in the sky?”

“One.”

“And how many moons?”

“Do you mean in a leap year, or a regular year?”

“Either one. One.” Then a waiter interrupted.

“Would you care for some dessert?” “Actually,”

said Nobel, “might we have the check?”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

The human head cannot fathom more than one

or two items. We may only have one or two famous

philosophers: Plato, Aristotle. Only one scientist:

Einstein. And one or two artists: van Gogh, Picasso…”

“What about René Magritte?”

“What about René Magritte?”

The golden heart

Alfred Nobel

had a pocket-watch of gold,

worth its weight in gold—

that is clear.

He also had a heart of gold,

worth its weight in gold.

That is more complex.

In the jungles of the Congo,

an elephant thrust his tusks

through Pasteur’s heart.

A voodoo priest found him

and pitied him,

and sealed up his heart with gold.

(He had been given gold

in exchange for directions and medicine.)

If any man deserves a heart of gold,

it is Alfred Nobel—

but, also,

it makes his heart heavy.

Koko in the bathtub

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

a telephone wire lashed out in a rainstorm and

latched onto my roof. I heard the sound, but didn’t

know what hit me until Hélène telephoned.

“How can that be?” I didn’t want to believe it.

“How can we be talking on the telephone right now?”

She guessed that wire was okay.

“What a bad time to be wearing steel-toed shoes.

And why, of all days, did I choose today to mop

the floor?”

“Because,” Hélène says, “you dropped that jar

of butterscotch syrup when we had ice cream sundaes.”

“It was a rhetorical question.”

And what a bad day to give Koko the Monkey

a bath. It was a personal favor to Alfred Nobel.

He wanted Koko clean as a whistle when they gave

Penney, Koko’s trainer, the Nobel Prize for science

and Koko the Nobel Prize for peace.

“Come on, Koko. Time to get out,” I said. “It’s

not safe to be in that water.”

“Five more minutes.”

He thought he was Jacques Cousteau dive-bombing

a plastic squid. For a second there, I thought I was

Benjamin Franklin, discovering electricity, flying

the kite of Koko the Monkey.

Memphis, Tennessee

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

I thought that was enough to prove to the folks

back in Memphis, Tennessee that I was no shifty-

eyed, no count hoodlum.

I’d write to mother every week, detailing

conversations with Alfred Nobel, Marie Curie,

Louie Pastuer—a different invention or theory

every week!

She wrote back: “Tell me when something

important happens—like inventing a cow that

milks itself. The yellow-bellied Socialists.”

One week Antoine LaVoisier took me aside.

“I have a present for you.” Then unveiled a

bird-cage. “Well, what do you think? A chicken

with the outer, protective covering of the armadillo.

“That, way, no predator—no dog or raccoon—

can eat the chicken! The chicken would be extra

succulent and spicy! I thought you, of all people,

would appreciate this—being as you are from the

bread-basket of America…”

At that moment, I became suddenly tired.

LaVoisier shifted from one leg to the other,

and it seemed like an automobile driving down

the highway, from out of my vision to out of my

vision, and that sound.

George Washington

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

a little girl frolicked through the Nobel Prize gardens,

touching each individual calla lily on its head,

intoning “Duck, duck, goose.”

“What child is this?” I thought. I wondered

where her mother was. (I wondered where my next

meal was coming from, two weeks from payday.)

The little girl stumbled on a statue of Louis Pasteur,

knee-deep in morning glory. She looked up at his

face and said, “George Washington.”

“No,” I thought.

She stumbled on a statue of Albert Einstein,

surveying the Baltic Sea. She looked at his face

and said, “George Washington.”

“No, no,” I thought.

She drifted towards the statue of Alfred Nobel

holding the hand of Koko the Monkey. “Little girl!”

I said. She turned. I grabbed her arm just in time.

“Hey, what’s the big idea?” she said.

“We’re going to find your mother.”

“Why?” she said. “Ow, stop it. You’re hurting

my arm. Who do you think you are, anyhow—

George Washington?”

The coal-mines

Alfred Nobel worked in the coal-mines

on his days off, to remember his roots. His face

was always dirty—partly from working in the

coal-mines, and partly from eating chocolate cake.

One day I sat in his drawing room, leisurely

drawing monkeys with monkey-like features,

but with cat-like eyes!

Alfred Nobel looked over my shoulder.

“I like it,” he said. He left chocolate smudges

on my drawing and my shoulder. I could no

longer restrain myself.

“Of all the clumsy—” I never finished my

sentence, but he must have guessed what I was

thinking. He left the room in tears.

I found him outside, behind the old tool-shed,

scouring his face in the bird-bath, and scowling.

“Alfred Nobel,” I said. “Where will the

birds bathe?”

He dried his face on a towel. “That’s none

of your business.” (He had not yet learned to

control his temper.)

Later, walking by the bathtub, I heard strange,

squawking noises coming from the bathtub.

The Laboratory

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

my heart wasn’t in my work. I was secretly glad

when René Magritte’s petition for a prize in the Visual

Arts was turned down.

But then the Nobel stock fell. Morale was low.

Alfred Noble no longer went driving to clear his head.

His head got cloudy as the aftermath of Krakatoa.

“It looks like a volcano about to explode,” I whispered

to Koko the Monkey.

But cloud formations shift. “It looks to me like

a sailboat in-between Scylla and Charbydis.”

“What do monkeys know?” I said.

I was working overtime in the primate laboratory

to pay off some gambling debts (meaning credit

card debts). The last statement had flowers and a

14-karat gold xylophone—anything for Hélène.

“You have to get over her,” said Koko. “Come

on. Lay your head on my shoulder. Like a bridge

over troubled water. I will lay me down.”

I wondered who kept changing the radio station.

Alfred Nobel wants it on classical, for the plants.

The betrayal

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

Alfred Nobel told us, “One of you shall betray me,

before the rooster crows.”

My heart fell from my rib-cage. I figured it

would probably be me, at the rate I was going,

with the luck I was having at the time.

Everyone asked, “Is it me, Mister Nobel?”

including Koko. Everyone looked at their watches

or the floor—the sundial and shadows on the floor.

Suddenly, a gaggle of roosters flew in through

the window, crowing and crowing, like Peter Pan,

a dime a dozen!

Greg Vermeer, head maitre de at the Nobel

Prize restaurant and a good friend of mine, ran in,

breathless. “I’m sorry, Mister Nobel, sir. This

won’t happen again.”

That night, I ate my lemon chicken in silence.

Also, I ate peas and cabbage, although I said

to Greg Vermeer only two days ago, “No more
peas and cabbage.”

Peace that surpasses some understanding

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

I was completely at peace. Some helicopters

wavered above my head while I slept, but they

were so far away it sounded like a butterfly.

I maybe changed positions in my sleep—

twitched open my eyes, but then shut them.

The helicopters, doubtless, were looking

for me and Koko the Monkey. A crack team

of evil scientists wanted to use him for their

evil designs, to speed up the tide of evolution.

In addition, a crack team of noble scientists

wanted Koko to thwart the cold fusion bomb’s

development with his electromagnetic brain-waves.

Every inhabitant of Stockholm wanted him

for his or her private reasons.

I asked Koko the Monkey, “What do you want?”

He said, “To swim in the Baltic Sea.”

The day before I got fired

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

Alfred Nobel invited me to maple bars and choco-

late. How could I refuse?

I admired his calm demeanor and cuff-links.

He chewed every bite of maple bar several times

and wiped his mouth on a silk handkerchief.

“Let me be perfectly honest,” he said. “It’s

not that I dislike you. I do. You have a certain

‘moxy,’ as you Americans say—a je ne se quois,

from the French. Snille o’ smak, as we say here…”

I thanked him politely. Then said, equally

honestly, “I like you also. You have a certain—”

[I fumbled around in my head]—“dignity.”

“Yes,” he said. “Dignity. Thank you.”

He breathed.

“This dignity is a hard thing to come by.

It is the fruit inside a jar which Koko the Monkey

tries to grab—but if he grabs, cannot release

his hand from the jar.”

“Yes,” he said—the shadow on his face ticking

from four fifty-nine to five o’clock. “I have

longed for this dignity all of my life.”

After fourteen years

When I worked for the Nobel Prize committee,

they fired me, after fourteen years. (Alfred Nobel

didn’t have the heart, but my shift supervisor did.)

“The truth is: the prize-giving business is slow.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes. The trouble is we have to give money away,

but we have no source of incoming revenue.”

“Oh,” I said. “Then how have you paid for

the money so far?”

“Mostly from selling broken bottle-caps and

dog-collars. Want to buy a dog-collar?”

“No, thank you,” I said politely.

“How about some batteries? In any case,

we don’t have any money to give you. However,

we could pay you in vodka.”

“Truly?” I said.

“Yes. ‘Vodka’ is Polish for water.” Then

he smiled.

“Well,” I said. “Like water for chocolate.”

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When I Worked for the Nobel Prize Committee