I went with Marianne to the Sendak Museum. She had been wanting to go for a while.
Children are not allowed at the Sendak Museum. The curators explain that it is not necessary for children to visit the Sendak Museum. They do not need it. The curators like to use words like “space” in contexts in which the common working man would not think it natural to use “space” but probably “place” or “area” or “realm” or “court” or “wheelhouse” or “amphitheater.” The Sendak Museum is supposed to be a child’s “space” for adults. That is, it is a place where adults are supposed to get in touch with their “inner child.”
I was skeptical.
Marianne wore a nice dress and looked very handsome in it. It was her 32nd birthday. Marianne is six feet tall. She and I had an agreement. We would see how it went at the Sendak Museum and go from there.
“Welcome to the Sendak Museum,” said the greeters at the Sendak Museum.
“Welcome to the Sendak Museum,” said the guards at the Sendak Museum.
“Welcome to the Sendak Museum,” said the curators, who were naked.
“Thank you,” we said. “It is very fine to be here.”
We did not know what to do with our hands. I remembered when I first met Marianne. She told me I seemed like a person in effortless control of his hands. She liked that quality in a person. From that moment on, I’ve had only the greatest difficulties with my hands, controlling them, knowing what to do with them, etc. Our palms became sweaty. They glistened. Our fingers faltered. Then the guards led us to the delousing chamber.
In the delousing chamber, we joined other guests in taking off our clothes. We were as naked and as vulnerable as clams. We were cold, too. Humiliating “locker room talk” was piped in. Hoses engaged and hosed us down. Powders fell from the high ceiling and powdered us down. The hoses again. We were made clean.
We were given the option of putting on plush, white, sterile Sendak Museum pajamas. We were given the option of remaining nude. For a surcharge, it was possible to wait for our street clothes to be dry-cleaned, although the curators discouraged this. We chose the dry-cleaning option. We liked our clothes. After waiting outside of the delousing chamber for some time, we settled for the pajamas.
The curators at the Sendak Museum hold that the delousing procedure is important because it suggests Sendak’s own insecurities and the vulnerability of his work. Public nudity and humiliation assist in appreciation of his genius, they say. It is also true that Sendak’s housekeeper subjected him to delousing and verbal abuse when he returned from long trips, such as book tours, or water buffalo hunts. There is a practical element, too, which is that the curators at the Sendak Museum simply or unsimply do not know where their guests have been, and some of the artifacts at the Sendak Museum are sensitive to filth and/or grime.
In the delousing chamber, I saw Marianne’s naked body covered in delousing powder, as if in snow, and I fell in love with her all over again. She saw me watching her, looked from my delousing-powder-covered parts to the naked curators’ parts, which were not covered in delousing powder (the curators stood above on catwalks), and she smiled at me, with irony.
The artifacts at the Sendak Museum are primarily pictures of Sendak. The artifacts at the Sendak Museum are secondarily things Sendak owned. There are some 57,000 pictures of Sendak at the Sendak Museum. There are some 23,000 things he owned. For instance, there is a Dog Room at the Sendak Museum. The Dog Room is located in the Biography Wing. In the Dog Room, visitors are invited to study the remains of Sendak’s dogs, whose bones are arranged and glued together as articulated skeletons. The dogs’ mouths are open in a way that suggests they are barking in a not-unfriendly spirit. The dogs are 37 Scottish Terriers and four German Shepherds.
Living Scottish Terriers walk the halls of the Sendak Museum. They are deloused each morning. The gift shop at the Sendak Museum sells Sendak Scottish Terriers. Visitors may special order Sendak German Shepherds. Sendak German Shepherds are more difficult to maintain and are known to misbehave toward children and adults with “childlike dispositions.” In his later days, Sendak preferred German Shepherds. It pleased him to be misbehaved toward, and in his old age, pleasures were few.
Sendak is Polish for “execration.” Because of this, the curators at the Sendak Museum have hired witches and Satanists to perform hexes on the Sendak Museum, for authenticity. When Sendak was 12, he sold his soul to Jimmy Cagney. Cagney returned it just under twenty-seven months later by way of the United States Postal Service.
Sendak’s brother was a traveling salesman of engineering textbooks, and his sister studied for many years for the British Sea Captains’ Examination, which she never succeeded in passing. For his part, Sendak wanted as a child to be a flautist, but his fingers were too fat.
The famous mechanical doodads Sendak made with his siblings are on display in the Doodad Wing. There are also life-size versions of these and other mechanical doodads in the Doodad Wing. The Doodad Wing is separate from the Biography Wing because of its sheer size. The Doodad Wing is marked by a large sign which reads, “Doodads This Way, Please.”
I thought to myself, “Perhaps I will make, for Marianne, a hard, brown, nutlike Doodad.”
The Sendak Museum consists of many wings. There is a wing for each of his major books. There is, for instance, a Juniper Tree Wing. In the Juniper Tree Wing, female visitors are known to inexplicably give birth and later die. It is very moving to behold.
In the A Hole Is to Dig Wing, visitors dig an enormous hole.
The most popular and largest wing of the Sendak Museum is the Where the Wild Things Are Wing. In this wing, visitors are encouraged to abuse drugs and alcohol. The bacchanalia is perpetual. Some visitors never leave the Where the Wild Things Are Wing.
My favorite wing was the Night Kitchen Wing. In the Night Kitchen Wing, visitors are invited to swim in one of several vats of milk, provided the visitors are naked. Marianne did not want to swim in any vat of milk, but I could not resist the opportunity.
“Come on, Marianne,” I said, “visiting the Sendak Museum was your idea. Live a little.”
She did not like it when I told her to live a little. She refused. She wanted instead to eat the dough that was being proffered at the many long tables. She was hungry. Who could blame her?
I stripped naked, and I dove into the milk. For a few fleeting moments, I was the milk, and the milk was me.
I met a woman in the Night Kitchen Wing, while Marianne was chewing dough with several curators (naked) and guests (various states of undress), who was very beautiful and who had an even suntan on her back and on her legs, in addition to other places. Her name was Valerie. We held hands as we swam in the vat of milk. I was Valerie, and Valerie was me, and we were both the milk, and the milk was us. I felt something in my chest with Valerie that reminded me of the old times with Marianne. Oh, I thought, Marianne. I fainted, I woke, milk dripped from my nostrils, and I wept.
I parted ways with Valerie, but I won’t soon forget her, nor soon will I forget the even distribution of her tan.
Sendak hated going to the beach. That is why there is an entire wing called The Beach Wing. The Beach Wing is full of sand, and it is off-limits to visitors. No images are available of The Beach Wing. Raccoons are rumored to live there.
I was drinking Hawaiian Punch and potato vodka at the Sendak Museum. Marianne had succumbed to sudden heartache.
“Sadness,” she said, “sadness.” Again, she said, “Sadness.”
We were in the One Was Johnny Wing of the museum. People kept coming and going. A man with a loud voice announced the number of people in the room each time someone came or went. He was supposed to be the narrator of One Was Johnny. This was not the best wing of the Sendak Museum.
I felt a little sad, too, but I had my Hawaiian Punch and potato vodka. I offered some to Marianne. She felt better.
Many people succumb to sudden heartache at the Sendak Museum. In this way, it is not dissimilar from other museums.
However, the curators at the Sendak Museum maintain that the sudden heartache at the Sendak Museum is more sudden and more achy than the sudden heartache at other museums. We beheld the curators in their nakedness as they explained this. It was in the auditorium, during orientation. The curators’ sex organs were lit up and enhanced by stage lights, and cast impressive shadows. We felt that they were not incorrect. We felt the sudden heartache again and again, and each time it was no less achey, and each time it was no less sudden.
We applauded.
The curators of the Sendak Museum could not decide where to put the man-eating lion. In the Higgledy Piggledy Pop Wing, or in the Pierre Wing? The curators decided to get three man-eating lions, one for both of the appropriate wings, and one for good measure that is kept in the basement.
The lions eat visitors up.
The lions are cranky from indigestion.
The lions are not deloused, ever.
Maurice Sendak invented the Tornado electric can opener. When he was seven years old, he was sitting at his window, wistfully watching other children at their play, when he witnessed the brutal double murder, by way of decapitation with a garden machete, of the twins next door. The murder was perpetrated by Jimmy the Kid, a serial child murderer who lived down the street with his great grandmother. Sendak’s detailed description of the chocolate milk stain around the perpetrator’s mouth led to Jimmy the Kid’s arrest, ending his reign of terror, which had lasted for several days. The great grandmother’s skeleton is on display in the Sendak: The Life of a Hero Wing. Later in life, Sendak wrote many letters to the editor of The New York Times complaining about the quality of the ink. He hated it to smudge on his fingers.
How do I know these things about Sendak? Easy. They are written on little placards stuck to the walls and the floors and on objects throughout the Sendak Museum. Some of the placards are blank. The curators, who are naked, encourage visitors to make up their own facts and write them in. This was Sendak’s own idea. He wanted to democratize his legacy. I read this on a placard in the Moon Room.
After a while at the Sendak Museum, I noticed I’d been separated from Marianne. I didn’t know for how long. I went out looking for her. I found her beneath an arbor in the Outside Over There Wing. She was with a curator who wore a beard. They were both naked. They were both weeping. They were inside of one another. Nearby, goblins danced, and a blonde dwarf in an indigo dress played badly on a French horn.
This sort of thing is known to happen at the Sendak Museum. It contributes to the sudden heartache.
I went to the Where the Wild Things Are Wing and abused drugs and alcohol. I looked for Valerie, but not very hard.
After another while, I sobered up and found Marianne. We were both very sad, and there was nothing even too sudden about it anymore. We decided we had had enough of the Sendak Museum, and so we went to the gift shop. We bought a Sendak Terrier named Jennie and ordered a Sendak German Shepherd we will call Blake. He will come by way of the United States Postal Service in two weeks, we have been assured.
We went home, then, on the metro. We did not discuss Valerie, and we did not discuss Marianne’s curator. We petted Jennie and looked out the window. When we got home we had our supper, which was chicken soup with rice. It was very nice. Then I wished Marianne a happy birthday, and we went to bed.
Charlie Sterchi‘s work appears in Wigleaf, Subtropics, The Southampton Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Gainesville, Florida.