He did not remember a single line of the hundreds of poems he committed to memory in his youth so that he could give himself the shivers at will–not “Silent, upon a peak in Darien,” or “My God, I heard this day,” or “All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?” None of these did he remember; not one. Anders did not remember his dying mother saying of his father, “I should have stabbed him in his sleep.”
In Tobias Wolff’s short story, “Bullet in the Brain” we follow a man named Anders as he is trying to conduct some sort of business at a bank. Anders is a literary critic described as using a “weary, elegant savagery” to review books and his current situations. Anders takes out his frustration on the women standing in line in front of him. While he is waiting to see the teller, two men enter the bank, wearing ski-masks and carrying guns, with the intent to rob. The gunmen are not safe from Anders’ criticism. He ridicules them for using words like ‘dead meat’ or ‘capiche.’ Anders’ attitude is not appreciated by the gunmen so he is shot. They say that our lives flash before our eyes as we die. But for Anders, Wolff made the choice to focus on the moments that Anders did not see. Anders does not remember his first lover, his wife, his daughter, protesting the war, or reading a book written by a classmate. Anders remembers playing baseball as a child and the ‘elated’ feeling he got from hearing one child say:
“Short’s the best position they is.”
The question this piece raises is “What will you remember when you die?” I found Wolff was asking himself that question when he wrote this piece. There is a necessity to understand which moments in our lives that define us and create the person we become. When we can understand what and when these moments are, we are able to see what sort of impact they have on us for the rest of our lives.
This short story also gives insight into how Tobias Wolff’s childhood has affected how he tells stories as an adult. There as moments in this story that I see young Toby. When Anders makes snarky comments about the robbers, I feel that eleven year old Toby is speaking through him. The major insight I take away from this story is the need to understand the importance of the little moments in our lives in which we feel part of ourselves change, even if it is ever so slightly.
basicwandering 