David Wallace - The Pale King - An Unfinished Novel

‘So anyhow,’ the first examiner says. ‘We go over, have a drink. Midge and Alice Bodnar get to talking about some new drapes they’re looking at for the living room, on and on. Pretty dry stuff, wife stuff. So Hank and me end up in the den, because Hank he collects coins — seriously, he’s a serious coin collector from what I could see, not just those cardboard albums with circular holes, he really knows his business. And he wanted to show me a picture of a coin he was thinking about acquiring, for his collection.’ The other man had looked up for the first real time when the guy telling the story mentioned coin collecting, which is a hobby that to Lane Dean, as a Christian, has always seemed debased and distorted in a number of ways.

‘A nickel, I think,’ the first fellow is saying. He keeps lapsing into what seems like almost talking to himself, while the second man starts and stops examining the growth thing. You get the idea that this is the sort of interchange the two men have had on breaks for many, many years — it’s such a habit it’s not even conscious anymore. ‘Not a buffalo nickel, but some kind of five-cent piece with an alternate backing that’s well-known; I don’t know much about coins but even I’d heard of it, which means it must be pretty well-known. But I can’t think of the correct term for it.’ He laughs in a way that sounds almost pained. ‘Right out of my head. I can’t remember it now.’

‘Alice Bodnar’s a pretty good little cook,’ the other fellow says. The plastic tabs of a light-brown clip-on tie show slightly around his shirt’s collar. The knot of the tie itself is tight as a knuckle; there’d be no way to loosen it. From where he stands, Lane Dean has a better, more circumspect view of this second examiner. The growth on the inside of his wrist is the size of a child’s nose and composed of what looks almost like horn or hard, outgrowthy material, and appears reddened and slightly inflamed, though this may be because the second fellow picks at it so much. How could one not? Lane Dean knows that he might well become sickeningly fixated on the man’s wrist’s thing if they worked at adjoining Tingles in the same Pod — trying to look at it without being observed, making resolutions not to look at it, etc. It slightly appalls him that he almost envies whoever is at that table, imagines the reddened cyst and its career as an object of distraction and attention, something to hoard the way a crow hoards shiny useless things it happens to find, even strips of aluminum foil or little bits of a locket’s broken chain. He feels an odd desire to ask the man about the growth, what is its deal, how long, etc. It’s happened, just as the man said: Lane Dean no longer needs to look at his watch on breaks. There are now six minutes left.

‘Jeez, well, there was a whole plan to poach some salmon fillets and eat out on the porch with the salmon with this special little sage glaze Midge and Alice wanted to make up and scalloped potatoes — I think scalloped; maybe you call them au gratin. And a big salad, so big you couldn’t pass the bowl around, even; it had to be on a little separate table.’

The second man is now carefully rolling his shirtsleeve down and buttoning it back over the wrist with the thing, though when he sits over returns and the sleeve pulls back slightly Dean bets that the rim of the cyst’s red penumbra will still show slightly over the cuff, and that the cuff’s movement back and forth over the growth throughout the examination day might be part of what makes it look red and sore — it might hurt in a tiny, sickening way each time the man’s cuff pulls forward or back over the little growth of horn.

‘But it was such a nice day. Hank and I were in the den, that has a set of those large types of windows that look out over part of the front lawn and the street; there were some neighborhood kids riding bicycles up and down the street and yelling and just having a hell of a time. We decided, Hank did, what the hell, it’s such a hell of a nice day, let’s see if the girls want to barbecue. So we got out Hank’s grill, a big Weber model with wheels that you could roll it out if you leaned it backwards; there were three legs but only two with wheels — you know what I’m talking about.’

The second man leans out and spits neatly through his teeth into the grass at the edge of the hexagram. He’s maybe forty, silver hairs in the hair on the side of his head in the sun, Lane Dean can see. Lane Dean imagines running out into the field in an enormous circle, flapping his arms like Roddy McDowall.

‘So we did, wheeled it out,’ the first man says. ‘And barbecued the salmon instead of poaching it, though everything else was the same, and Midge and Alice talked about where they got the salad bowl, that had all these little carvings around up near the rim, the thing had to weigh five pounds. Hank grilled them on the patio, and we ate there on the porch because of the bugs.’

‘What do you mean?’ Lane Dean asks, aware of the slight edge of hysteria in his voice.

‘Why,’ says the first, heavier guy, ‘the sun was going down. The skeeters come down off the golf course out by Fairhaven. No way we’re going to sit out on the patio, get eaten alive. Nobody even had to say anything about it.’ The man sees Lane Dean still looking at him, his head cocked exaggeratedly in a curiosity he didn’t one bit feel.

‘Well, it’s a screen porch.’ The second man is looking at Lane Dean like, who is this guy?

The man who’d eaten supper at the other people’s house laughs. ‘Best of both worlds. A screen porch.’

‘Unless it rains,’ the second man says. Both of them laugh ruefully.

‘I’d always from early on as a child I think somehow imagined Revenue men as like those certain kinds of other institutional heroes, bureaucratic, small- h heroes — like police, firemen, Social Service workers, Red Cross and VISTA people, the people who keep the records at SSI, even certain kinds of clergy and religious volunteers — trying to stitch or bandage the holes that all the more selfish, glitzy, uncaring, “Me-First” people are always making in the community. I mean more like police and fire department office and clerical personnel rather than the ones who everyone knows about and get in the newspaper for what they do. I don’t mean the kind of heroes that “put their lives on the line.” I suppose what I’m saying is that there are other kinds. I wanted to be one. The kind that seemed even more heroic because nobody applauded or even thought about them, or if they did it was usually as some enemy. The sort of person who’s on the Clean Up Committee instead of playing in the band at the dance or being there with the prom queen, if you know what I mean. The quiet kind who cleans up and does the dirty job. You know.’

‘And Desk Names are back. This is another plus under Glendenning. Nothing against the Pale King, but the consensus is that Mr. Glendenning is more agent-morale-oriented, and Desk Names are one example.’

[Off-camera prompt.]

‘Well, they’re just what it says. Instead of your name. There’s a plate on your desk with your Desk Name. Your Name de Gear as they say. No more worrying some burger whose shoes you maybe have to squeeze a little bit knows your name, maybe they find out where you and your family live — don’t think this isn’t on an agent’s mind.’

[Off-camera prompt.]

‘Though it’s not exactly like before the Pale King. It got out of hand, there’s no denying. There’s no obvious joke Desk Names now. Which to be honest got old fast and nobody misses; nobody wants a taxpayer thinking he’s silly. We are far from silly around here. No more Phil Mypockets or Mike Hunt or Seymour Booty. Although nobody least of all Mr. Glendenning says you can’t still use the Desk Name as a tool. In the great battle for the hearts and minds. If you’re smart, you’ll use it as a tool. We rotate; seniority chooses the plate. This quarter, my Desk Name is Eugene Fusz — you can see it right on the nameplate here. They look pretty good now. One type of tool is you use a Desk Name where the subject isn’t sure how to pronounce it. Is it like fuse, is it like fuss, is it like fuzz? The burger sure doesn’t want to offend you. Other good ones are Fuchs, Traut, Wiener, Ojerkis, Büger, Tünivich, Schoewder, Wënkopf. There’s over forty-three plates extant. La Bialle, Bouhel. Umlauts are always good; umlauts seem to drive them especially nuts. It’s just one more little off-balance tactic. Plus a small little smile on a gray day and so forth and so on. Hanratty applied for a Peanys plate for third quarter — it’s under review, Mr. Rosebury said. There’s a line, after all, under Glendenning. This is about revenue. It ain’t exactly the Chuckle Hut we’re running here.’