David Wallace - Broom of the System

“More wine?”

“Rick, can I ask do you really own that fabulous bird who’s lighting up religious television?”

“If you’re referring to Vlad the Impaler, he is Lenore’s cockatiel.”

“That’s not what I heard, emotionally speaking.”

“What did Lenore say to you?”

“Rick, should I be straight with you?”

“You can certainly be straight about anything Lenore told you.”

“I find you very attractive. I’m sorry if that offends you, but I always have, really, in a way, ever since I was little, and you and Daddy would walk around the lawn in tennis clothes, looking for weeds and drinking things that I’d get to drink the last bits of out in the kitchen.”

“….”

“I remember how wet the glasses got in the summer, the water ran down the sides. I remember that. And you were out there in tennis clothes. It was like a childhood crush.”

“… restroom, very briefly, if you’ll perhaps excuse me for just a second, I’ll be…”

“And all it would take is one word from Lenore, or you, to CBN, to get me in the door as a voice on ‘The Partners With God Club.’ Rick, you could be an absolutely tremendous help to me.”

“What about Andy? What would he think?”

“What about Andy? What about Lenore?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“Look. I’m a professional voice. I’m the best young corporate voice on the market today. Listen to this. This is CBN. This is ‘The Partners With God Club,’ with your host, Father Hart Lee Sykes, and his bird Vlad. Stay tuned, please.”

“That really is awfully good.”

“Damn right it’s awfully good. I’m a professional.”

“But the bird’s stage name is Ugolino, not Vlad.”

“Ugolino?”

“Yes. Sykes claims Vlad the Impaler revealed his own stage name on the plane to Atlanta, amid a divinely induced aura of glazed blue light. Sykes claims Ugolino is some Biblical character or other. He’s still trying to pin down the reference.”

“And his bird, Ugolino. Please stay tuned.”

“No argument about quality from this end, Mindy.”

“You could call the Christian people tomorrow.”

“Lenore and I have an uncancellable appointment during the day tomorrow.”

“An appointment?”

“You might say we are going to the dentist.”

“You’re going to the Ohio Desert, mister. I know all about it. Andy told me all about it. He’s going, too.”

“No he isn’t. That is not possible. Just Lenore and I are going. That’s a fact.”

“Relax. So maybe he’s going on his own. Maybe he’s going with that creepy guy from the baby food company who helped him with the Desert a long time ago. All I know is he said he was going to wander and commune.”

“Just Lenore and I are going with each other, though.”

“Whatever you say.”

“….”

“So OK. I’ll fill in for a while.”

“Good. Good. Fine.”

“It’ll be fun, and like you said I’ll be able to be around whoever I want to be near.”

“Yes.”

“Except there’s still the matter of training.”

“Not a problem at all.”

“I’ll need to be trained. Although I think you’ll find I can remember whatever you want me to remember. I have a great memory.”

“Well certainly. Ms. Peahen… gave me some introductory material for you, which I as a matter of fact have right here… somewhere. Walinda is willing to install you temporarily at my say-so.”

“Train me.”

“Just listen to this: ‘A Phase III Centrex 28 console with a number 5 Crossbar has features which greatly aid the console operator in the efficient performance of his or her duties.’ ”

“That isn’t what I meant, Rick.”

“Excuse me?”

“I have an idea. Let’s go discuss training. I’m staying right over at the Marriott.”

“….”

“It’ll be fun and instructive. Trust me. Check please!”

“Not entirely sure I even…”

“And but what are those reflections in the street, Rick? Look there, by the comer. The street lights up, and then it doesn’t. What’s going on?”

“Neon. Gymnastic neon, I think.”

“Neon. Isn’t that pretty. Off, on. One, two.”

“You don’t find it a bit troubling?”

“Not one tiny bit.”

/g/

“I don’t know,” Lang said. “I just don’t know what’s with these freakin’ locks.”

“You have to jiggle the key sometimes. Sometimes Candy and I have to jiggle it.”

“You’re telling me,” Lang muttered. He got the door open.

Misty Schwartz’s second-floor apartment looked a lot like Lenore’s room, except it was a bit smaller, and had only one west window, and was definitely much tidier. Lenore looked around, then up at the ceiling that was her floor upstairs.

“You must be very neat,” she said.

Lang was hanging up their coats. “I was a boy, and I’d make my bed, and here’d come my Daddy with a Kennedy half-dollar, and he’d flip it onto the bed, and if the thing didn’t just bounce right back up onto my Daddy’s thumb with the Kennedy head back on top I had to make the sucker up all over again.”

“Geez.”

“Look, you maybe want a can of wine?” Lang said, making motions toward the door of the apartment. “I got some wine downstairs, in the Fridgidaire. It’s next to your soda water, you might have seen.”

“A can of wine?”

“They were on sale.”

“Think I’ll pass,” Lenore said. She smoothed out her dress from the hairy ride on the Inner Belt in Lang’s new Trans Am. A plane came in very low now, and for a moment everything seemed to slow way down, in the noise. Lang stood by the door, looking at her. Lenore could see the way the bright light from Misty’s overhead fixture hit off Lang’s eyes, hitting and breaking up like there were chips of mint in his eyes. Lenore felt the back of her neck with her hand.

As Lang smiled and turned to go she said, “Look, why not. I’ll try a can, or some of your can, whatever. Why not try some wine,” she said.

“Well that’s just fine,” said Lang. “You can warm up that old TV, if you want.” He went out and left the door open.

That old TV was a huge white sail of a screen that curved predator-like over a squat mahogany box. Inside the box a projector pointed like a gun at the screen’s breadbasket. Lenore hit a red button on the box, and an enormous head filled the screen, and there was volume. She hastily turned the thing off, and the screen drizzled and was blank again. The head had been someone from “Dallas,” though, Lenore was pretty sure.

When someone has the same general kind of room you do, it’s usually very interesting to see what they’ve done with it. In Misty Schwartz’s case it wasn’t quite as interesting as it might have been. Lenore didn’t know Misty very well; there had been some unpleasantness over a phone bill, on the Tissaws’ central kitchen phone, a few months ago, and Lenore had since been down to Misty’s place only once or twice, when she had to borrow necessities. Candy Mandible, who had borne the brunt of the phone bill unpleasantness, had said that the only reason Misty Schwartz wasn’t a lesbian was that she had never seen her own face in the mirror. Lenore thought that made no sense at all.

Which didn’t keep her from really not caring too much for Misty’s apartment, though: a room in which lines of steel and a certain kind of grainy white burlap fabric predominated. There was a chair made of white burlap cushions collected and given shape in a frame of polished metal bars. A clear glass table with the same kind of metal frame. At right angles a small couch of the same material as the chair. On the wall a painting of a plain pale orange square against a white background; also a picture of Misty Schwartz and some man on a black statue of a sperm whale, the kind of whale with those jaws. The man was down lying in the jaws, with his arm back over his forehead like Pauline in Peril, and Misty was riding on the thing’s back, pretending to give it the whip, her mouth and eyes open wide. The photo was right flush up next to the painting. That was it for the walls, except for the television screen, which was pretty clearly a Lang addition.