Thomas Pynchon - Bleeding Edge

“‘Drop dead’ might be better.”

Not too graceful a retreat. Given Maxine’s lack of success, and the likelihood that Tallis’s coolness will continue, she is stuck with telling March the unedited truth. That’s assuming she can get a word in, because March, now under the impression that Maxine is some kind of guru in these matters, has begun another commencement speech, this time about Tallis.

A few years back, one bleak winter afternoon, on the way home from the Pioneer Market on Columbus, some faceless yuppie shoved past March saying “Excuse me,” which in New York translates to “Get the fuck outta my way,” and which turned out finally to be once too often. March dropped the bags she was carrying in the filthy slush on the street, gave them a good kick, and screamed as loud as she could, “I hate this miserable shithole of a city!” Nobody seemed to take notice, though the bags and their strewn contents were gone in seconds. The only reaction was from a passerby who paused to remark, “So? you don’t like it, why don’t you go live someplace else?”

“Interesting question,” she recalls to Maxine now, “though how long did I really need to think about it? Because Tallis is here, is why, there it begins and ends and what else is new.”

“With the two boys,” Maxine nods, “it’s different, but sometimes I’ll sit and fantasize, what it would’ve been like, a girl.”

“So? go have one, you’re still just a kid.”

“Yeah, problem is, so is Horst and everybody I’ve dated since.”

“Oh, you should have seen my ex. Sidney. Disturbed adolescents from around the country would show up on pilgrimages just to inhale his secondhand smoke and stay calibrated.”

“He’s still…”

“Still kicking. He ever passes, it’s gonna be such a rude surprise for him.”

“You’re in touch?”

“More than I would like, he lives out on the Canarsie line with some 12-year-old named Sequin.”

“He gets to sees Tallis?”

“I think there’s a restraining order dating back a couple years from when Sid started hanging around in the street under their window with a tenor sax and playing this old rock ’n’ roll she used to like, and of course Ice put the kibosh on that quick enough.”

“One tries not to wish anyone ill, but this Ice person, really…”

“She goes along with it. You never want to see kids repeat your own mistakes. So what happens, Tallis goes ahead just like me and marries the wrong promising entrepreneur. The worst you can say for Sid is he couldn’t handle the stress of being around me all the time. Ice on the other hand appreciates stress, the more the better, so naturally Tallis, my perverse child, goes out of her way not to give him any. And he pretends he loves it. He’s evil.”

“So,” carefully, “job title at hashslingrz and so forth aside, how duked in would you say she is?”

“On what? Company secrets? She’s not whistle-blower material, if that’s what you’re hoping.”

“Not disgruntled enough, you mean.”

“She could be going around in a fit of rage 24/7, what difference would it make? Their prenup has more riders on it than the subway. Ice fucking owns her.”

“I was only there for maybe an hour, but I got this feeling. Like an agenda she may not be sharing with the wunderkind.”

“Like what?” A hopeful gleam. “A person.”

“We were only talking fraud… but… you think there could be a BF in the picture also?”

“Certain chapters of history would suggest. Tell you, frankly, it wouldn’t break her mother’s heart.”

“Wish I had better news for you.”

“So I’ll go on taking what I can get, my grandson Kennedy, I’ve got a graft in with the baby-sitter, Ofelia, she finds us a minute or two alone now and then. What else can I do but keep an eye on him, make sure they don’t fuck him up too bad.” Looks at her watch. “You got a minute?”

They proceed to the corner of 78th and Broadway. “Please don’t tell anybody.”

“We’re waiting for your dealer, what?”

“For Kennedy. They’re sending him to Collegiate. Where fuckin else. They want him seamlessly programmed on into Harvard, law school, Wall Street, the usual Manhattan death march. Well. Not if his grandma can help it.”

“I bet he’s crazy about you. Supposed to be the second-strongest human bond there is.”

“Sure, ’cause you both hate the same people.”

“Ooh.”

“OK, maybe exaggerating, I do hate Tallis of course, but I also love her now and then.”

Down the block in front of the ruling-class polytechnic, small boys in shirts and ties have begun to mill around. Maxine spots Kennedy right away, you don’t have to be clairvoyant. Blond, curly-headed, an apprentice heartbreaker, he backs gracefully away from a knot of boys, waves, turns and comes at a dead run up the block and into March’s embrace.

“Hey, kid. Tough day?”

“They’re making me crazy, Grandma.”

“Course they are, semester break’s almost here, they’re just getting in a couple more late hits.”

“Somebody up the block waving at you,” Maxine sez.

“Damn, it’s Ofelia already? The car must be early. Well, my good lad, it’s been short but meaningful. Oh and here, I almost forgot.” Handing over two or three Pokémon cards.

“Gengar! Japanese Psyduck?”

“These I’m told you can only get out of machines in selected arcades in Tokyo. I may have a connection, stay tuned.”

“Awesome, Grandma, thank you.” Another hug and he’s off. Watching him run to where Ofelia is now waiting, March goes a little telephoto with her gaze. “That happy Ice couple, I’m tellin ya, either they’re still not on to me or they’re doin a great impression of stupid. Either way somebody’s told Gunther to get here sooner.”

“Nice kid, there, for a Pokémaniac.”

“I can only pray Tallis didn’t get any neat-freak DNA from Sid’s mother. Sid is still brooding about all his baseball cards that she threw out forty years ago.”

“Horst’s mother too. What was with that generation?”

“Never happen today, not with the handle these yups have on the collectibles market. Still, I buy two of everything, just to be safe.”

“You’re gonna get Grandma of the Year, you don’t watch out.”

“Hey,” March determined to be a tough guy, “Pokémon, what do I know? some West Indian proctologist, right?”

HORST CAN’T FIND the ice-cream flavor he really needs today and is showing signs of gathering impatience, alarming in one usually so stolid.

“Chocolate Peanut-Butter Cookie Dough? Hasn’t been any of that around for years, Horst.” Aware that she sounds exactly like the acid-tongued spoiler she has labored all these years not to be, at least not sound like.

“I can’t explain it. It’s like Chinese medicine. Yang deficiency. Yin? One of them.”

“Meaning…”

“I would not want to freak out in front of the boys.”

“Oh, but in front of me, no problem.”

“How do I begin with someone at your level of food education? Aaahhh! Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Dough. See what I’m saying?”

Maxine takes the cordless phone and uses it for half of a time-out sign. “Just going to dial 911 here, OK sweetie? Except of course, that, given all your priors…”

How serious a domestic incident this is shaping up to be no one will ever know, because just then Rigoberto buzzes up from the lobby. “Marvin’s here?”

Before she can hang up the intercom, he’s at the door. Ganjaportation, no doubt. “Again, Marvin.”

“Day and night out there bringin the people what they need.” From the soon-to-be-vintage kozmo bag he produces two quarts of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Dough ice cream.