David Wallace - Broom of the System

“It’s just about this kid-putting-himself-through-prep-school submission. Is the Physicians’ Desk Reference a real book, or is it just a made-up name?”

“The P.D.R. is real.”

“…. ”

“It numbers among its features a cataloguing, chemical breakdown, manufacturer, dosage, and contraindications for almost every known form of prescription medication available in the United States, in a given year.”

“Oh.”

“People seriously interested in drugs and things medical, but particularly drugs, swear by it.”

“Even kids?”

“Especially kids.”

“How come you know all this?”

“I knew a child who swore by his copy of the P.D.R. Who used to keep it hidden in his toychest, under his old football pads and helmet.”

“Your son?”

“…. ”

“It‘s,pretty late, you know. The lake’s all spoiled mayonnaise now, see?”

“….”

“Look, I’m sorry I was testy at lunch. Dr. Jay had just got done being incredibly weird and obnoxious. I’m seriously considering not seeing him anymore. I think we need to talk about it.”

“Do we.”

“Anyway, I’m sorry.”

“Not a problem at all. Not a problem, at all.”

“Are you going to work much more? Is that Norslan stuff?”

“No. Yes.”

“Is Andy still around?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know, Lenore.”

“You should have heard what he said to Candy this afternoon, at Mr. Bombardini’s meeting. You want to hear about it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Are you going to work much more?”

“I haven’t picked up my Plain Dealer yet. I believe I’ll drop down and pick it up and catch up on things, for a bit.”

“You don’t feel like going to dinner, then?”

“…. ”

“Um, maybe I’ll just stay out at Mavis’s desk and do some more submissions, and wait until you maybe want to go.”

“….”

“Are you OK?”

“Come closer. I can’t see you in this light.”

“Look, I’m sorry I said that that Fieldbinder story you obviously liked sucked canal-water. It was one an eminent friend sent you, right? It all became clear to me this afternoon. Let’s consider it one of the things that keened my pitch. I took it off the rejection pile. I asterisked it.”

“Not a problem at all.”

“So should I wait for you, for dinner?”

“Do whatever you feel valid and three-dimensional doing, Lenore.”

“Pardon me?”

“In answer to your question, the Physicians’ Desk Reference is very real. It has transcended its context, one might say.”

“Are you sure you’re OK? Was Jay a total shit to you too?”

“Just feel a bit… tired and small tonight. A little coyote-ish.”

“Coyote-ish?”

“….”

/h/

Nearly six, the sun low and the shadow full and the watery lights lit high overhead in the lobby ceiling, Judith Prietht was closing up shop and getting ready to shut down the console for the night, the Bombardini Company getting more than enough legitimate calls during business hours. Into her shopping bag went the limp-necked sweater she had almost finished knitting; off went her slippers and on went her street shoes; now off when her console (Position Release and Position Busy pushed together shut down a Centrex 28 equipped with a special Shutdown feature, which the Frequent and Vigorous console wasn‘t, and could only be put to rest by removing the console cable itself from its jack in the back with a ratchet wrench, an option exercised on more than one occasion by Vern Raring in the really empty, quiet part of the night); off went her lamp, leaving the Frequent and Vigorous half of the switchboard cubicle in a softer kind of light; on went her hair net; in went a Certs. Out she went, blowing a not-returned kiss to Candy Mandible, home to feed her cat.

Candy sat smoking again, waiting for Vem Raring to come in at six, trying not to look at the little clock over the console while she told the latest Lang story to Walinda Peahen, who sat completing time sheets for submission to Payroll the next morning, Friday. Walinda was not in a good mood, having been kept overtime in her other job at Frequent Leisure Suit today, but Candy Mandible was the kind of woman who tended to ignore moods not caused directly by her; and since Walinda Peahen was the kind of woman whose bad moods tended to be made worse by people around her behaving as if she were in a bad mood, she and Candy actually got on fairly well, and it was Candy who had originally gotten Lenore her job, this fact now being the only really sore point in Candy-Walinda relations.

“Be needin’ to hire somebody else now that the girl finally got promoted by her squeeze,” Walinda had said.

“Only a temporary person, though,” Candy said. “Because she’s only going to be helping Mr. Vigorous temporarily, while he’s incredibly busy with the Stonecipheco account.”

“Huh,” said Walinda. She turned eyes thick with shadow on Candy. “Girl what you mean Stonecipheco? Vigorous told me it was a big new Norslan account they got.”

“Andy Lang told me that’s what Mr. Vigorous is supposed to tell people,” Candy said, turning slightly to avoid blowing smoke in Walinda’s face. “But it’s really not. It’s really Stonecipheco baby food.”

“And that crap be nasty?” said Walinda. “On sale once, and I give it to my child, and he like to die. Lenore be makin’ some foul-ass food, for all her money.”

“Lenore doesn’t make the food, Walinda, you know that.” Candy sighed. “And you know she doesn’t get any money from it. And just please remember to only hire somebody temporary, is all.”

Walinda didn’t say anything, and Candy launched into the Lang story.

“It was a scream,” she said. “I died. I laughed so hard that I died.”

Walinda worked the adding machine and didn’t say anything.

“I know you couldn’t come,” Candy continued, “but you know today Mr. Bombardini was having a meeting for everybody in both firms in the Building? You got the memo about that, right?”

“I got it. And I heard y‘all just had to hear the fat man talk about his Building.”

“Well it was just really bizarre, is all I can say. He was on this platform, with these like eight incredible hunks in loincloths holding him up in the air, and he was going on and on about how we all needed to begin to reconcile ourselves to having less space in the Building, because there was going to be a steadily decreasing amount of space for us, and then he stopped even mentioning the Building at all and. started talking about there like being less space for us in general, like the world was getting small or something, and he had this weird fiendish light in his eyes, and plus it looked like he’d gained about a thousand pounds or so, and he kept looking at Lenore like he wanted to eat her, and kept dropping all these hints about how there could be some space for some of us if we came around and played our cards right. Bombardini’s totally infatuated with Lenore, ever since his wife left him for a yogurt salesman. He sends her flowers almost every day.”

“Maybe she can get us a bigger cubicle in here, then,” Walinda said thoughtfully, adding up hours.

“But anyway the point is that it was supposed to be an incredibly serious meeting, and it was really a tense scene, and deadly quiet, ‘cause everybody’s scared to death of Mr. Bombardini,” Candy said, blowing a ring and putting a red-nailed finger through it. “So it was deadly quiet, and Bombardini was going on and on, and this Andy Lang guy was sitting right in front of Lenore and me, and he all of a sudden starts turning around in his chair, really slowly, and looks all intensely at us, like he’s got something really important to say, and we lean forward, and he leans back to us, and he whispers to us, real loud, ’I have an erection.‘ ” Candy began to laugh, with big breaths, making Walinda laugh too. “And I died, and started laughing, and it was even worse because it was such a deadly quiet and serious situation, and Lenore started laughing too, and we couldn’t stop. And then but Lang turned back around innocent as can be and started listening to Mr. Bombardini again, and there we were dying, laughing like hell. It was… awful.” Candy was laughing so hard that smoking became impossible. She dropped her cigarette in an old can of Tab, where it hissed and fizzed and died.