David Wallace - Broom of the System

RICK: Fuck this. Start the chair.

JAY: I’m your friend.

RICK: I have to go to the bathroom in the worst way.

JAY: We’re making strides. You don’t think we’re striding? I insist that we’re striding.

RICK: Schmuck.

JAY: The scent is everywhere.

RICK: You know who you’d get along with really well, is Norman Bombardini.

JAY: You know Norman?

RICK: Good God. I should have known. Let me out of here.

JAY: Come back on Monday. Give Lenore money so she can come back, too.

RICK: Schnook.

JAY: I’m here for you.

/i/

Lenore saw Mr. Bloemker through the window of Gilligan’s Isle as she was passing by after work on her way to the bus stop. Gilligan’s Isle was a little ways down from the Weight Watchers facility Norman Bombardini had pointed out from the restaurant the night before. In Lenore’s purse was a note from Mr. Bombardini, with a smeared chocolate thumbprint in one comer, that had come with an almost empty box of candy to the Frequent and Vigorous switchboard today. The note said “Be my tiny Yin.”

Gilligan’s Isle was a very popular bar. The inside of the place was round, the walls were painted to look like the filmy blue horizon of the ocean, and the floors were painted and textured to resemble beach. There were palm trees all over, fronds hanging down tick lishly over the patrons. Sprouting from the floor of the bar were huge statued likenesses of the whole cast: the Skipper, the Howells, Ginger, and the rest, painted in bright castaway colors and all with uncannily characteristic facial expressions. The huge castaways were sunk into the floor at about chest level; their heads, arms, shoulders, and outstretched upturned hands were all tables for patrons. There was a certain amount of intertwining: Mr. Howell’s arm was wrapped part way around Mrs. Howell’s waist, Mary-Ann’s long hair brushed the plastic top of Mr. Howell’s forearm, the Professor’s thumb hovered achingly close to Ginger’s décolletage. The bar itself was made of that vaguely straw-like material that huts on the show were made of. Behind the bar at all times was one of a number of bartenders, all of whom resembled, to a greater or lesser degree, Gilligan. Once an hour the bartender would be required to do something blatantly cloddish and stupid — a standard favorite had the bartender slipping on a bit of spilled banana daiquiri and falling and acting as if he had driven his thumb into his eye — and the patrons would, if they were hip and in the know, say with one voice, “Aww, Gilligan,” and laugh, and clap.

Mr. Bloemker was sitting at the back, at Mary-Ann’s left hand, facing the front window. With him was a very beautiful woman in a shiny dress who stared blankly straight in front of her. Lenore saw them and came inside and went over to their table.

“Hi Mr. Bloemker,” she said.

Mr. Bloemker looked up with a start. “Ms. Beadsman.”

“Hi.”

“Hello. Fancy meeting…” Mr. Bloemker looked strange and scooted a tiny bit toward Mary-Ann’s wrist, away from the beautiful woman he had been sitting right next to.

“Well Frequent and Vigorous is just over in the Bombardini Building, over there,” said Lenore, “which you can probably see, if you look over in the comer of the window, over there, with the lights on?”

“Well well.”

“Hi, I’m Lenore Beadsman, I know Mr. Bloemker,” Lenore said to the beautiful woman.

The beautiful woman didn’t say anything; she stared straight ahead.

“Lenore Beadsman, this is Brenda, Brenda, may I present Ms. Lenore Beadsman,” said Mr. Bloemker, his fingers in his beard. In front of both Mr. Bloemker and Brenda were drinks in plastic jugs shaped like pineapples, with straws coming out of holes in the top.

“Hi,” Lenore said to Brenda. “….”

“Please sit down,” said Mr. Bloemker.

Lenore sat. “Is Brenda OK?”

“Please don’t mind Brenda. Brenda is very shy,” Mr. Bloemker said. He was slurring a tiny bit. He was apparently a bit tight. His cheeks were lit up above the tendrils of the top of his beard, his nose shone, his glasses were a little steamed, and he was uncombed, a huge, obscene Superman-curl of hair lying like a giant comma across his forehead.

“I tried to call you today,” said Lenore, “except you weren’t there, and then I could only try once, because we were incredibly busy, what with horrible line trouble and everything.”

“Yes. It was a busy day.”

“I couldn’t have my father call you because he wasn’t in. He’s out for a couple of days, and apparently unreachable.”

“Yes.”

“But the minute he gets back.”

“Fine.”

“And the really big except also troubling news is that I think for sure Lenore and Mrs. Yingst and the other patients are at least still around, in Cleveland, because Mrs. Yingst’s walker was in my apartment last night, and it wasn’t before, and she left a message for me with my bird, who can suddenly talk.”

“Your bird can suddenly talk?”

“Yes. Unfortunately mostly obscenely.”

“I see.”

“To be honest, it’s not inconceivable that Mrs. Yingst gave him LSD.”

“Oh, now, I don’t think Mrs. Yingst would do something like that.”

“But then what’s going on, all these old patients just hanging around Cleveland, and not telling anybody, and staff and staff’s families hanging around, too?”

“Residents.”

“Residents, sorry.” Lenore looked at Brenda. “Listen, are you sure Brenda’s OK? Brenda like hasn’t moved once, that I’ve been able to see, since I got here.” Brenda stared straight ahead out of her beautiful eyes.

Mr. Bloemker looked blankly at Lenore. “Please,” he said, “give Brenda not a thought. It takes Brenda a while to loosen up around strangers.” He looked back down at his pineapple with bleary eyes and played with his straw. “Residents. We call them residents, you know, actually it’s at my insistence that we not call them patients, we call them residents because we try very hard at Shaker Heights to minimize the medical implications of their being with the facility. We try to minimize the appearance of illness, the importance of illness. Without much success, really, I’m afraid.”

“I understand,” said Lenore.

There was a yelp and a crash and tinkle; the bartender lay sprawled over the bar with his head in a palm-tree pot, his legs in white cotton pants waving, beer on the floor. “Aww, Gilligan,” everyone yelled and laughed, except Lenore and Mr. Bloemker and Brenda. Mr. Bloemker scratched under his beard with his straw.

“A troubling and disorienting position at the facility, mine,” he said. He looked up at Lenore. “Why don’t you help yourself to some of Brenda’s Twizzler? Brenda’s not drinking it, I see.”

Brenda stared.

“Well, I don’t really drink alcoholic stuff much,” Lenore said. “It makes me cough.”

“Here.”

“Thanks.”

“Troubling.”

“I can imagine.”

“The old… the old are not like you and I, Ms. Beadsman. As you no doubt know, having spent so much time around… at the facility.”

“They’re different, I agree.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.” Lenore tried a bit of Twizzler, got a strong taste of gin and Hawaiian Punch, closed her eyes, discreetly spat the bit of Twizzler back out of the straw into the plastic pineapple jug.

“They are also Midwesterners,” continued Mr. Bloemker. “As a rule, almost all of them are Midwesterners.” He stared off. “This area of the country, what are we to say of this area of the country, Ms. Beadsman?”

“Search me.”

“Both in the middle and on the fringe. The physical heart, and the cultural extremity. Com, a steadily waning complex of heavy industry, and sports. What are we to say? We feed and stoke and supply a nation much of which doesn’t know we exist. A nation we tend to be decades behind, culturally and intellectually. What are we to say about it?”