David Wallace - Broom of the System

And they came from Mindy Metalman’s room. Behind the white shade there were shadows. And, too, there were the sounds… like the scent, tiny but penetrating… of a passion, not a person, being yielded to. And I got down on fours on the desk amid papers and glass and allergy capsules and looked out and saw in the Metalmans’ driveway a strange, deep-red Mustang with big rear tires, and the shade with its shadow dance, and behind and above the car and the house the slow, liquid pulse of a distant aerial tower’s red light that matched the spasms of my own drugged heart and so became my falling star. And there were the sounds of Mindy Metalman, in another world, the world of the liquid pulse; and the thought of someone unknown to me sharing the world with her, the thought that some actual person with big rear tires was with her, now, all this sent me off the desk and into the bathroom to climb atop the laundry hamper and brush away hot insects and listen at the lightbulb. For my dry dull head full of pollen thought that if we could just catch something the same, here, the insects and I could all kick off our shoes and have a beer.

I have said to her, no I will not be going to any gymnastic babyfood spectaculars with you.

And when she says why not I say ask Lang.

I say by all means, take the morning off. Go roll about. Be three-dimensional. Sign bottoms.

And she says I am going to go read to my grandmother.

And I say go, ask valid young Lang whom to take to Erieview, he’s in the next room.

And she stands there in her sneakers and says don’t push at me. Darling darling darling, tell me about the reversal I say.

How something or other to have her down below, in my network, all over again. In the cubicle. The lobby will resound, glow. I have bought breath mints.

Lenore what does it mean to feel that you must either kill or die. Does that make us an insect, in a field of light that can be only desired, or else extinguished?

Between yesterday and me lies a whole field of it.

The mints make it cold when I suck at the air. A suck at the air equals a sigh. Dinner, with Mindy Metalman? Oh yes oh no.

The burnt house stands delicate and everything is still arranged but now everything is black and hollow and featherlight and near dust and squeaks in the wind. The toilet is untouched, and pulses quietly as the wind blows through hollow ribs, all around it.

One, Two, Three, Four: that’s utter tripe, says his Lenore.

/d/

“I know what I know, is all.”

“What does that mean, ‘I know what I know’?”

“I know the whole story.”

“Well if I don’t know the story I obviously don’t know if you know the story.”

“The Andy story.”

“What, like his historical story, the story of his life, or what he’s been doing here, or what?”

“You are so funny.”

“Why am I funny?”

“This isn’t the same material, you know.”

“It’s close. It’s the same color.”

“But it’s not the same texture. I want that thin cotton texture, that fadedness and thinness, that it-could-give-way-at-any-second quality.”

“Well maybe you should know that this particular dress is like ten years old, is why it’s so thin. I don’t know why you’re so fixated on this dress.”

“I’d buy it from you, but if it barely fits you like that there is simply no way it could fit me.”

“Who says I’d sell it?”

“So what we need is this color in a lighter, more cottony material.”

“Anyway, it’s Lenore’s. I couldn’t sell Lenore’s dress. I’d have to buy it from her, which I’ll probably do anyway given the Nick thing, but then I wouldn’t want to sell it. See?”

“Relax. It wouldn’t fit me anyway.”

“….”

“I am having lunch in the cafeteria of something called Moora dian’s Department Store, Cleveland, Ohio. Alan and Muffin would just die.”

“This is a really good store. Don’t underrate this store.”

“Not mad about its fabric selection one bit.”

“I’ll give you the names of some other stores, but I can’t go with you, I don’t think. Walinda embolisms if I go over an hour for lunch.”

“She is not my very favorite person.”

“She’s just hard to get to know. You get to know her, everything’s OK. She just didn’t like your jacket, probably. She tends not to like people who have a lot of money. Which you pretty obviously do.”

“….”

“Have money, I mean.”

“….”

“Which if you’ll excuse me makes me sort of wonder why you’re even considering working even as a temporary at the Frequent and Vigorous board. Which don’t get me wrong is not a horrible job or anything, I’m not talking down my job, but it just isn’t too exciting, and right now it’s especially hectic and a pain because of line trouble, and you might or might not know it only pays four an hour, which is a pretty un-princely sum.”

“Money isn’t even an issue. I’m on vacation. I have unlimited vacation time, nearly, in my career. Retail food prices aren’t expected to change in the next few weeks.”

“What a job. I couldn’t believe it. I can’t believe you do that.”

“….”

“Hey, do it again.”

“Not here, Candy.”

“Come on. It’s noisy, no one’ll hear. Please.”

“Honestly.”

“Please.”

“Total: seventeen-fifty. Cash: twenty dollars. Change due: two-fifty.”

“That’s just too super.”

“It gets less super as time goes on, believe me.”

“But so you’d only work at F and V to be near Andy.”

“Maybe in a way.”

“What way is that, if you don’t mind my asking? And why do you want another version of this dress? I don’t get it.”

“You are an inquisitive little thing.”

“You and I look enough alike as it is. Why do you want my dress?”

“That was the point, a minute ago. As you pointed out, it’s Lenore’s dress, not your dress.”

“All right, this is technically Lenore’s dress, if you want to get technical. And this is the dress she wore the time you met her.”

And the time Andy met her.“

“Right.”

“Right.”

“So what?”

“I know what I know.”

“How about letting me know a little of what you know, then?”

“Look, I know all about Andy and Lenore Beadsman. I know you’re her friend, and you can go ahead and tell her I know all about it.”

“What do you know?”

“Everything.”

“I mean what is there to know?”

“Listen, I know you two are friends, but if I’m going to be honest with you you can at least not insult my intelligence.”

“I’m not insulting anything, Mindy.”

“See, I can not only see what’s going on, but I have the advantage that I can also see why it’s going on.”

“Hey, Lenore doesn’t even like Andy very much, to tell the truth.”

“Frankly Lenore does not interest me. My husband, he interests me. And I can see why he’s doing what he’s doing.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Don’t you see why? Yes we’ve had a bad period, but you know all relationships go through bad periods. There are bad times in all relationships. But yes this was a bad period. And now Andy sees your little friend Lenore, in the middle of this admittedly bad period, and suddenly he feels he’s able to go back to a branch in the tree of his life, the branch nine years ago, when he met me and fell in love with me and started a relationship with me, but also, see, the exact same branch he met Lenore at, sitting in her little violet dress and being antisocial and throwing shoes at people, and so suddenly Andy feels as if maybe he can go back and just take a different path from the same branch, to—”