David Wallace - Broom of the System

11:30 Leave Lake Lady Medical Center, Chicago. dj/hvs

/e/

“It sure is weird having it be Monday and no telephones. You were awesome with Walinda, Rick. I never would have believed it.”

“My ears still hurt like hell. It was as if the takeoff merely softened my ears up for the landing. It was beyond belief, Lenore.”

“I’m so sorry. What can I do?”

“Oh, Route 9. Here it is. We’re on Route 9. God, the memories I have of Route 9. Good Lord, the Coolidge Bridge.”

“Haven’t you ever been back here, for reunions or stuff like that?”

“You must be joking.”

“….”

“The plane isn’t simply going to idle and wait for us at Bradley Field, Lenore, is it?”

“No way. That’s Stonecipheco’s one jet.”

“How thrifty.”

“I think it took off again almost right away. I think it had to get back home.”

“Places to go and people to see.”

“I’m not even sure. You hustled us into this limo in like four seconds.”

“The law of the East Coast. You see available transportation, you grab it immediately.”

“The plane’s supposed to be back for us by lunchtime tomorrow… eleven-thirty.”

“Plenty of time to talk to LaVache.”

“Which is obviously going to be a waste of time, in terms of Dad, I predict. There’s no way Lenore’s talking to LaVache if she hasn’t talked to me. LaVache and Lenore hate each other. And he doesn’t even have a phone. And he and John hate each other, too. Or rather at least he hates John.”

“So much hating.”

“Well, it’s just family hating. It’s not like real hating.”

“My God. The Aqua Vitae restaurant. I thought that had been tom down. I haven’t thought of the Aqua Vitae in years. Good God. We used to pile in the car and go on down to the Aqua Vitae for monstrously huge hamburg pizzas.”

“Hamburger.”

“Ah, regional linguistic clash. I love it. It all comes flooding back.”

“….”

“I really do have to pee, though.”

“Should we pull over? We can pull in really quick at this mall, here.”

“God, no, not a mall. We’re nearly there. We’re nearly here. I think perhaps it’s just excitement. Amherst is rife with restroom facilities, anyway. At least it used to be. I knew them all.”

“Hang in there, soldier.”

“At least you can watch the putative future of Stonecipheco in academic action. You can issue a full report to your father, back at his lair.”

“I’m not going to tell Dad anything except what I want to tell him. Dad told me like ninety lies in his office. I’m beginning to think Dad is maybe a compulsive liar. He lies pathologically, even sort of pathetically, when it comes to Miss Malig. And he had this guy who works for him, who I used to go to school with, spying on us. And he didn’t even tell him to come out until it was obvious that I’d seen his shoes under the window curtain.”

“Who is this person you went to school with? Have I been told about him before?”

“Look, an absolute moratorium on spasms is declared, here, Rick, OK? I’m just not in the mood at all.”

“….”

“And you should know I’m not my father’s messenger, or spy.”

“Relax. You’re among friends. You’re with the one person who places your interests above his own. Remember that.”

“Oh Rick.”

“I love you, Lenore.”

“But I have to admit I am sort of anxious to see what LaVache is like at school. He’s really smarter than John, I think. In terms of pure smarts, he’s the one person in the family who’s smarter than John. He never had to work a bit at Shaker School, I know. And at home in the summer he’s just a waste-product. He just sits around all day in the east wing, getting flapped and watching soap operas, and stuff like ‘The Flintstones,’ and carving designs in his leg.”

“ ”

“And at night, every night, he just goes out drinking with his spooky buddies, in their cars where the back is higher off the ground than the front.”

“Jacked-up.”

“Jacked-up cars. And Dad never knows what he’s doing, because Dad’s hardly ever around, or when he is he’s like tiptoeing around ever so discreetly with Miss Malig. Dad thinks LaVache works. He thinks LaVache is another him.”

“We’re almost there. This hill. We’re going to crest this hill, and we’ll be there.”

“I’m sure he must work, now, in college. I know I sure did.”

“And… ahh, there it is. Good heavens.”

“Your eyes are misting.”

“Bet your ass. I make no bones about it. I haven’t been back here in exactly twenty years. This is my alma mater.”

“Well, of course it is, you silly.”

“Alma mater.”

“….”

“Shall we just proceed right to Stone, Lenore? That is where LaVache lives, correct?”

“Right.”

“Driver, please take us directly to Stone Dormitory, Amherst College. You are, I’m afraid, on your own in terms of finding it. It’s one of the new ones, with which I’m not familiar, not having—”

“No problem, buddy.”

“How nice. Good heavens. How truly eerie, seeing all this. The trees are just barely hinting at beginning to turn, see? You can see it in some more than in others. Look there, for instance.”

“Pretty, all right.”

“Have you ever been here?”

“I’ve been to Mount Holyoke. I went there once, when Clarice was there.”

“Did you find it pretty?”

“It was March, but it was pretty. The campus was really pretty.”

“I’ve always liked Mount Holyoke, in a general sort of way.”

“What does that mean?”

“God, I really must pee, Lenore.”

“You can pee in LaVache’s room.”

“….”

“Oh, God, no! Rick, those shoes, still.”

“Pardon?”

“Those shoes. See those shoes, on those people? The boat shoes? With the leather shoe and white plastic sole?”

“Well, yes.”

“See those two girls and that guy? God, everybody’s still wearing them out here. Boy do I hate those shoes.”

“They, umm, seem all right to me. They seem harmless enough.”

“I have what I’m sure is this totally irrational hatred for those shoes. I think a big reason is that everyone at school wore them with no socks.”

“….”

“Which meant that they weren’t just wearing sneakers without socks, which would have been plenty repulsive enough, they were wearing nonsneakers without socks. Which is just incredibly…”

“Unhygienic?”

“Make fun if you want, smart guy. You’re the one who’s dumb if you pay Dr. Jay all that money and then don’t even listen to him. It’s not just that it’s unhygienic, it’s downright sick. It stinks. At school, I can remember, I’d be sitting in my carrel, in the library, doing homework or something, minding my own business, and somebody would sit down in the next carrel, with those shoes, and then they’d take them off, and I’d all of a sudden be smelling somebody else’s feet.”

“….”

“Which did not smell good, let me tell you, from constantly being in shoes without socks. I mean I really think foot-smell should be a private thing, don’t you?”

“….”

“What are you grinning at? Are those ridiculous feelings? Does that make no sense at all?”

“Lenore, it makes perfect sense. It’s just that I’d never given the matter that much thought. Never much thought to the… socio-ethics of foot-smell.”

“Now I can tell you’re being sarcastic.”

“You completely misread me.”

“….”

“Is that why you always wear two pairs of socks? Under constant and invariable sneakers?”