David Wallace - The Pale King - An Unfinished Novel

For the past four weeks, really only Shane Drinion has seemed unaffected by the presence of a terribly attractive woman. Granted, it’s not clear to anyone just what Drinion is affected by. The other transfers from La Junta CA (Sandy Krody, Gil Haight) describe him as a very solid Fats and S corp examiner but a total lump in terms of personality, possibly the dullest human being currently alive. Drinion tends to sit very quiet and self-contained at his place with his hand around a glass of Michelob (which is what’s on tap at Meibeyer’s), his face expressionless unless someone tells a joke that’s somehow directed at everyone around the table, at which time Drinion will smile briefly and then his face will go back to being expressionless. But not expressionless in a glazed or catatonic way. He watches whoever is speaking very intently. Actually, intently isn’t even the right word. There is no particular kind of study in his gaze; he just gives whoever’s speaking his complete attention. His bodily movements, which are minimal, give the suggestion of being clipped and precise without being fussy or prissy. He will respond to a question or comment directed explicity to him, but other than these rare times he is not one of the people who speaks. But he’s not one of these people who shrinks or recedes in groups until he’s barely there. There’s no sense that he’s shy or inhibited. He’s there but in an unusual way; he becomes part of the table’s environment, like the air or ambient light. It’s ‘Second-Knuckle’ Bob McKenzie and Chuck Ten Eyck who’ve conferred on Drinion the name ‘Mr. X,’ short for ‘Mr. Excitement.’

At one Happy Hour in June things eventuate such that Drinion and Meredith Rand are left alone together at the table, more or less right across from each other, at the part of the evening when a lot of the other examiners have left for home or other venues. But they’re both still there. Meredith Rand is evidently waiting for a pickup from her husband, who is said to possibly be some kind of medical student. Keith Sabusawa and Herb Dritz are once again playing foosball while Beth Rath (who rather likes Sabusawa; they go all the way back to the IRS Training Center in Columbus) watches with her arms crossed and a More-brand cigarette going in one hand.

So they’re sitting alone at the table. Shane Drinion seems to be neither nervous nor not to be sitting alone opposite the galvanic Meredith Rand, with whom he’s exchanged not one direct word since his posting in late April. Drinion looks directly at her, but not in the challenging or smoldering way of a Keck or Nugent. Meredith Rand has had two gin and tonics and is on her third, slightly more to drink than normal but has not yet smoked. Like most married examiners, she wears both an engagement ring and a wedding band. She looks back at him, though it’s not as if they’re staring into each other’s eyes or anything. Drinion’s expression could be called pleasant in the way that certain kinds of weather are called pleasant. He is on either his first or second glass of Michelob from one of the pitchers that’s still on the table, some not wholly empty. Rand has asked Drinion one or two innocuous questions about his origins. The thing about the Kansas Youth Authority orphanage seems to interest her, or else it’s just the flat candor with which Drinion says he spent much of his childhood in an orphanage. Rand tells Drinion a brief childhood vignette about her going to a girlfriend’s house and their using their hands and feet to climb up inside doorjambs and remain there high up in the jambs splayed and as if framed, though later on she will not be able to remember the reason for telling this anecdote or any of the context behind it. She does notice, almost right away, the same thing that Sabusawa and many of the other examiners have noticed — which is that although Drinion seems only partly socially present in a large gathering, there is a very different quality to any kind of tête-à-tête with him; he has the quality of being easy or good to talk to, which is an attribute for which there is no good single word in English, which is slightly odd, although so is whatever is good about talking to Drinion, since he possesses nothing that could be called charm or social grace or even evident compassion. He is, as Rand will say later to Beth Rath (though not to her husband), a very odd bird indeed. There is a brief exchange that Meredith Rand won’t remember so well, involving Drinion’s being an itinerant examiner and the REC and Examinations and the Service in general, i.e., Rand: ‘You like the work?’ which it seems to take Drinion a moment or two to process. D: ‘I think I don’t like it or dislike it either.’ R: ‘Well, is there something else you’d rather be doing?’ D: ‘I don’t know. I don’t have any experience doing anything else. Wait. That’s not true. I worked in a supermarket three evenings a week between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. I would not prefer working in a supermarket to what I’m doing now.’ R: ‘It sure doesn’t pay as well.’ D: ‘I put things on shelves and affixed small adhesive price tags to them. There wasn’t much to it.’ R: ‘Sounds boring.’ D: ‘…’

‘We look like we’re having a tête-à-tête’ is the first thing that Meredith Rand will later be able to remember clearly having said to Shane Drinion.

‘That’s a foreign term for a private conversation,’ Drinion responds.

‘Well, I don’t know how private it is.’

Drinion looks at her, but not in the way of someone who’s not sure what to say in reply. One thing about him is that he’s completely the same, affectwise and demeanorwise, by himself as he is in a large group. If he gave off a sound it would be like a single long tone from a tuning fork or EKG flatline instead of anything that varies.

‘You know,’ Meredith Rand says, ‘if you want to know the truth, you kind of interest me.’

Drinion looks at her.

‘I’m guessing you don’t hear that a lot,’ Meredith Rand says. She gives a little bit of a dry smile.

‘It’s a compliment, that you find me of interest.’

‘I guess it is, isn’t it,’ Rand says, smiling again. ‘For one thing, it’s that I could say something like that, that there’s something sort of interesting about you, without you thinking I’m coming on to you.’

Drinion nods, one hand around the base of his glass. He is very still, Meredith Rand notices. He doesn’t fidget or change positions in his chair. He’s a bit of a mouth-breather; his mouth hangs slightly open. With some people the mouth hanging open thing makes them look not too bright.

‘For instance,’ she says, ‘imagine if I said something like that to “2K” Bob, how he’d react.’

‘All right.’

Something goes slightly opaque for a moment in Shane Drinion’s eyes, and Meredith can tell he is literally doing it, imagining her saying ‘I find you interesting’ to Second-Knuckle Bob McKenzie. ‘What would his reaction be, do you think?’

‘Do you mean his outer, visible reaction or his inner reaction?’

‘The visible one I kind of don’t even want to imagine,’ Meredith Rand says.

Drinion nods. He is, it is true, not all that interesting to look at, in terms of looks. His head is somewhat smaller than average, and very round. No one’s seen him in any sort of hat or coat yet; it’s always a white dress shirt and sweater vest. His hairline is receding in a way that makes his forehead seem elaborate. There are some pimple scars around his temple areas. His face isn’t very defined or structured; his nostrils are two different sizes or shapes, she can see, which is usually bad news for how good-looking someone is. His mouth is slightly too small for the width of his face. His hair is that dull or waxy kind of dark blond that sometimes goes with a reddish complexion and not the greatest skin. He’s the sort of person you’d have to look at very intently even to be able to describe. Meredith Rand has been looking expectantly at him.