Jonathan Franzen - The Twenty-Seventh City - A Novel

The most splendid thing about making money, of course, was the leverage it gave a chap playing the morality market. Devi had lived high on the hog off Rolf’s munificence, and she knew it. He’d bought her many fine things. She could scarcely have done better, and ever so easily have done worse. It was a general phenomenon. When he looked back on all the dears he’d shared bliss with in forty years, he could say to himself, in full candor, that he’d been square with every one of them.

“Jack. How are you.”

“Pretty dang good.” It was Thursday evening, a week since Probst’s announcement. “Just got back from the Maundy Thursday service at our church. Beautiful service. The new choirmaster has a real sense of taste, you should come sometime. I was never much of a church booster really, but I tell you, in the last few years — Do you still go to that little Lutheran church there on — where was it?”

“No,” Probst said. “Not since I stopped living with my parents.”

“Oh, long time. Long time. Huh. Well, listen. You’re going to say here I go again with this late-notice business, but — do you have any Easter plans yet?”

“Ah.”

“See, Elaine and I were thinking you might be all alone there, or you and Luisa, and, Well, I don’t know, it’s a family holiday. It’s a quiet holiday. Let me just tell you what we’re thinking of. We are going to go to early church, darn it —if we can get the kids out of bed— and vee have vays, heh — which would get us home by 10:30 or so. Dinner would be around two, and in the meantime, heh, we’re going to have the old egg hunt on the lawn. Elaine and I, we tell the kids they’re getting way too old for it, but every year they insist on having it. It’s more of a game now, of course. Well, like bridge. They take it real seriously, and I’m usually out there half the night hiding eggs. There’s a strategy, you know, whether you’re going to psych ’em out by using some of the old standard places, or not. Anyway, if you think this is something Luisa would enjoy, she could—”

“I don’t know, Jack—”

“She could come early. Or both of you. Otherwise, about 12:30.”

Probst crossed his eyes until they hurt. “I probably should have stopped you sooner, Jack, because unfortunately I do have some—”

“Oh, OK,” Jack readily agreed.

Anger leapt in Probst. “I do have some plans. I’m having Chief Jammu here for dinner.”

“Hey! From the cover of Time magazine to the table of Martin Probst.”

Was Jack insulting him?

“I mean, that’s great! Two people like you with such a lot on the ball, it’s great to think about. We saw your name in that article, by the way. Still doin’ the old neighborhood proud. And it’s pretty neat, you abandoning ship like that at the last minute. Heckuva surprise. I think you did the right thing, getting on the winning side. I call it the winning side because — remember how I used to be pretty good at calling elections?”

“Yes,” Probst said. He had no memory of it.

“I’ve gotten even better in the last few years. Ninety, ninety-five percent accurate. Anyways, this referention looks like a cinch.”

“That’s what the surveys would indicate.”

“Yep, and you know what made my mind up? I and Elaine always look for you on TV, and we listen to what you say. I thought you had some good arguments — that’s Martin, we always say — but what you said on Thursday or whenever. I really liked that.”

“Thanks, Jack. I hope you’re not the only one.”

There was a pause. Probst still had to do the grocery shopping for Sunday before the last stores closed, because it didn’t look like his schedule would allow him any time for it in the next two days. “Well,” he said.

“You doing anything right now?” Jack said.

“Right now?”

“Sure. We were going to have some coffee and cake.”

“Unfortunately—” Probst felt his knees weakening. With sudden resolve, he said, “Listen, Jack. Have you noticed that I haven’t had time to accept a single one of your invitations this year?”

“No, Martin.” The reply came in a new, sarcastic package. “I hadn’t noticed.”

They could turn vicious on you, just like that. Jack had done it as a teenager, too, flashed the bitter superiority of the less advantaged.

“I’m just trying to be honest with you,” Probst said. “I don’t want to waste your time.”

“Didn’t seem wasted.”

“Well, I guess then I don’t want you to waste mine.”

“OK.”

I’m Martin Probst. I’m chairman of Municipal Growth. I’m the builder of the Arch. I’m the friend of Jammu, I’m the Veiled Prophet, and I might just be the new county supervisor if I feel like it. “I’m sorry, Jack. I just think it might be better for both of us. It’s no reflection on—”

A dial tone.

“Bastard!” Probst slammed the receiver onto its hook. He collected his keys, coat and shopping list and fled the house before the phone could ring again. You try to be the least bit nice and—

They know what the score is, and still they—

And Barbara thought him spineless, patted him on the cheek. He was going to make her damn sorry she left him. He was in good shape. He was in very good shape.

He was going to broil lamb chops, bake potatoes, make a green salad and use the bottle of balsamic vinegar he’d discovered a week ago in a silver-colored box in the cupboard. It was what his salads lacked which Barbara’s hadn’t. In the last few weeks he’d begun to eat salads again. His steady diet of restaurant food had been adding a pound to his weight every five or six days, and suddenly he’d run out of places to hide the extra pounds.

He pulled into the Schnucks parking lot, took a cart from the queue outside, and entered the temple of light. He’d been coming here so often that he could now arrange his shopping lists sequentially, according to the aisles in which the foods were shelved. Vegetables fruits deli coffee cereals sauces dressings meat. Was it too early to buy the lamb? Not at all! Meat was tenderized by aging, and besides, by Saturday night Schnucks might have run out. He chose two packages of the best. He thought of the irony of slaughtering innocent lambs to celebrate Easter. He remembered when he’d known Jammu so casually he’d been afraid she was a vegetarian.

The lines at the only two checkout lanes still open curved around an extensive candy display. Probst put a large, hollow chocolate egg in his cart, edible bric-a-brac for Jammu’s appreciation. (But who would be fooled by these hollow eggs? Kids, that was who. Kids were fooled. The economy was fueled by the stupidity of kids.) As usual, he’d gotten in the slower of the two lines. (That bastard Jack.) He took a closer look at the graphics in the candy display. The chocolate bunnies came in flimsy cardboard cartons, brightly colored, wrapped in cellophane. Somewhere on every box were the words hollow milk chocolate and a list of enes and benzos and phosphos and lactos. But these weren’t ordinary bunnies. They were individualized, the box illustrations picking up on the creations within. A bunny on a chocolate motorcycle was identified as Chopper Hopper. A bunny with a magnifying glass carried the moniker Inspector Hector. There was a Jollie Chollie and, with a tennis racket, a Willie Wacket. Manning a chocolate fire engine was a group of bunnies collectively known as Binksville Fire Control; its higher price reflected its greater net weight. There was a Rolly Roller on skates. (“Excuse me!”) Super Bunny with a cast brown cape. Busy Bigby. Peter Rabbit — so they remembered Peter Rabbit, did they? And they sold these things to children and did not go to jail. Little Traveler. Parsnip Pete. Horace H. Heffelflopper. (“Excuse me!”) McGregor, simply. Mr. Buttons…. Probst was pawing through the cartons, seeking out fresh slaps in the face. He found yet another: Timid Timmy. (We are the greatest nation on earth.)