David Wallace: Broom of the System

“Sure you know Doug, Doug’s a kick-ass guy,” the aforementioned Biff is heard from, short and broad with watery denim eyes dull and beady with party, and a little blond beardish thing sprouting from his chin, making it look a little like an armpit, Lenore thinks. His voice is low and rather engagingly grunty. Lang’s is soft and smooth and nice, although he does seem to fall in and out of some sort of accent, at times. He says:

“Ma‘am now I know for a fact you met Doug Dangler because he told me all about it, at length.” His bottle-green eyes fall on Lenore. “It was at a party at Femur Hall, right after Christmas break and Winterterm and all? You were standing talking to this guy, and y’all were more than a little taken with each other, when the guy very unfortunately got taken slightly under the weather and vomited a tiny bit in your purse? That was Doug Dangler.” Lang smiles triumphantly. Biff Diggerence laughs ogg-ogg, his shoulders go up and down together. Lang continues, “And he said how he was real sorry and could he pay to have your purse cleaned? And but you said no and were all… mind-bogglingly nice about it, and when you were rescuing items from your purse you on purpose dropped that piece of paper that had your name and box number and phone and all on it, that phone bill? Doug picked that sucker up, and that’s how you met him,” smiling, nodding.

“That was that guy?” Mindy says. “He said I gave him my name on purpose? That’s just a lie. That was utterly disgusting. I had to throw that purse away. He, I remember he came up to me” (to Clarice and Sue) “and put his hand on the hem of my sweater, and said how he had this hangnail that had got caught on my sweater, and how he couldn’t get away, it was stuck, ha ha, but he did it for like two hours, until finally he threw up on me.” To Wang-Dang Lang she says, “He was bombed out of his mind. He was so drunk he was actually drooling. I remember drool was coming out of his mouth.”

“Well now Melinda surely you know how we can all tend to get that way at certain times.” Lang nudges Biff Diggerence, who almost falls on Sue Shaw, who squeals and backs toward the door with her arms crossed.

“Look, I think you better leave,” Clarice says from now over by Lenore. “We’re all really tired and you’re really not supposed to be up here without—”

“But, now, we just got here, really,” Wang-Dang Lang smiles. He looks around again. “I couldn’t impose on you ladies for a small can of beer, could I, by any chance, if you maht possibly…?” gesturing over at Sue’s little fridgelette by the bunks. And then he sits down in Sue’s wooden desk chair by the door, by a speaker. Biff still stands by Sue, facing Clarice and Lenore. Sue looks at Clarice, Mindy at Biff, who grins yellowly, Wang-Dang Lang over at Lenore in her chair at the back by Mindy’s door, sitting watching. Lenore feels like a clot in her pretty violet dress and bit of lipstick and bare feet, wondering what to do with her shoes, if she should throw a shoe at Lang, it’s got a sharp heel, are the police on their way?

“Look, we don’t have any beer, and if we did it’s just rude for you guys to come in here uninvited and ask us for beer, and I don’t know Doug Dangler, and I think we’d really just appreciate it if you’d leave.”

“I’m sure there’s all the beer you could possibly want downstairs,” Clarice says.

Biff Diggerence now belches a huge belch, one of almost unbelievable duration, clearly a specialty, then he has another swallow out of his Comonawannaleiya cup. Lenore involuntarily mutters something about how disgusting this burp was; all eyes go to her. Lang smiles broadly:

“Well hi there. What’s your name?”

“Lenore Beadsman,” says Lenore.

“Whey you from, Lenore?”

“Lenore’s my sister,” Clarice says, moving toward the door and looking at Biff Diggerence. “She’s fifteen and she’s visiting and she’s invited, which I’m afraid you’re really not, so if you’ll just let me out for a quick second, here…”

Biff Diggerence steps over like a dancer, with a flourish, to block the door with his body.

“Hmmm,” says Clarice. She looks at Mindy Metalman. Mindy goes over to Lenore, gets her damp robe off the back of the chair, puts it on over her armless sweatshirt. Lang smiles warmly. Biff watches Mindy for a second, then turns around abruptly at the door, starts banging his head on the door, over and over, really hard. Wang-Dang Lang laughs. The banging isn’t all that loud compared with the noise of the party and all, though, suddenly, because the music’s now a lot louder, they must have opened the dining room doors at eleven.

“Thing about Biff,” Wang-Dang Lang shouts over the pounding to Clarice and Mindy Metalman, “beer does not entirely agree with him because he is, we’ve found, for some reason physically incapable of… um… emptying his stomach in crisis. As they say. Just can’t do it, ‘matter how much he drinks, which is often more than can be explained by known physical laws. It’s dangerous, right Digger?” Wang-Dang shouts over to the pounding Biff. “So instead of booting, the big fella here finds himself having recourse to…”

“… Pounding his head against the wall,” Clarice finishes for him with a little mouth-smile, she obviously remembers Creamer and Geralamo and company, Lenore can tell. Lang nods at Clarice with an engaging grin. Biff finally stops and turns back around, resting his back against the door, beaming, with a red forehead, a little cross-eyed. The muscles in his big neck are corded. He closes his eyes and leans back and breathes heavily.

“Well if we could just stay and rest up and catch our breaths for just a couple of seconds for the second half of the big luau, down there, we’ll be more than obliged to you,” says Lang. “And I’ll be giving old Doug the bad and from what I can see most unfortchinit news about your not remembering him, Melinda-Sue. He’ll be hurt, I’ll just tell you right now, in advance. He is a shy and sinsitive person.”

“Seems like a common problem over there at Amherst,” says Clarice. Lenore smiles at her.

Meanwhile Mindy has gone over to the ashtray to see about the corpse of the joint. Lenore can tell Mindy’s decided not to be intimidated, all of a sudden. Mindy’s shiny legs through the robe are now right by Wang-Dang Lang’s face, he’s still sitting in the chair, his nose about even with her waist. Lang looks down at his shoes, with the white soles, he’s shy, almost, Mindy makes even him shy, Lenore sees. Mindy resuscitates the joint with a big plastic lighter that says “When God Made Man She Was Only Joking.” She pauses, watches it. It glows, she takes it back with her to the edge of Sue Shaw’s bed, sits down, faces Lang off the end of the bunk. The room’s all quiet, except for party noise, underneath. Mindy concentrates on the j-bird, then pauses again, then looks at Lang and holds the joint out to him.

“Well now aren’t you kind,” Lang says softly. He takes a bit of a polite puff, smiles at Mindy.

“Who are you guys, anyway?” Mindy asks. Clarice and Sue are glaring at her.

Lang stops and smiles broadly, taken aback. Holds out his hand. “I personally am Andrew Sealander ‘Wang-Dang’ Lang, class of’83, from Nugget Bluff, Texas, residing now at 666 Psi Phi fraternity, Amherst College, Massachusetts, U. S. A.”

“A sophomore.”

“Affirmative. As is Bernard Wemer ‘Biff’ Diggerence, of Shil- lington, Pennsylvania.” A pause, all pregnant. Lang looks up at Biff, who seems still to be sleeping at the door.

“We’ve actually, I’ll tell you ladies in confidence, been sent out,” Wang-Dang leans all conspiratorially toward Mindy and Lenore. “We’ve actually been sent out for what could be termed our ‘nitia tion.”