Richard Ford - The Lay of the Land

“Fuck you and that goat you rode in on, you skinny little bitch,” one of the women shouts in merry mirth, and they all convulse full-throated.

I browse back through the curled pages of the Buyer’s Guide, wanting to give mechanic Chris another ten minutes. These publications can actually be the most helpful and news-packed that any citizen could hope for when entering a community or region where he knows no one and might grow dispirited and feel tempted just to head home to Waukegan. In the interest of plain and simple commerce, but for the price of nothing, the Guide provides a well-researched list of “essential services,” crisis numbers, “Best Bet” Italian, Filipino and Thai cuisines, walk-in wellness clinics, an e-mail address for a mortgage-consultant clearing house, emergency dental care and pet health hot-line numbers, oxygen tank delivery, bump shops and bail bondsmen. And, of course, bi-weekly training classes in the real estate profession. There’s even a list of local numbers for Monmouth and Ocean County Sponsors Anonymous. Plus, many small-business opportunities are advertised, situations where you can walk in and take over like I did. I always find one or two new summer rental properties every year by leafing through these pages on slow Saturday afternoons in January — often chalets I could buy myself if they’re in presentable shape, or manage for a good fee if they’re not. I also read through these crowded pages just to acquire (by osmosis) some sense of how we’re all basically doing, what we need to be wary of, look forward to or look back on with pride or relief. These spiritual sign-pointers are revealed to me in old fire stations, rectories or Chrysler agencies that are for sale, or once-thriving businesses in turnaround, or the number of old homes versus new ones on the sale block, or the addresses and plat maps of new constructions, the ethnicity (gauged by the names) of who’s selling what, who’s doing the cooking or who’s going out of business. And finally, of course, what costs what, versus what used to cost what. There’s in fact a listing in the middle Green Pages of every property sold in Monmouth and Ocean counties and how much was paid and by whom — sure signs of the time. Little of this will be anything I make a note about or mention to Mike in our Monday strategy breakfasts at the Earl of Sandwich. It’s just the soft susurrus, the hick and tick of the engine that warms us when it’s cold, soothes us when it’s beastly, and that we all hear and feel on our arms, necks and faces like atmosphere, whether we know it or whether we never do.

On page sixty-four, however, amidst all that’s familiar, a new Guide feature attracts my eye, part of a double-truck layout for the Mengelt Agency in Vanhiseville. Mengelt offerings are generally small, characterless scrub lots in old interior suburbs on their way to extinction, exactly like the ones Mike and I rode past on our trip to Haddam. The Mengelt motto, in hopeful serifs, is, “We find your home. You find the happiness.” There’s the usual row of tiny page-bottom snapshots showing the mostly unsmiling, mostly female Mengelt agents — a new batch of Carols, Jennifers and a Blanche — contributing to the impression that the institution of marriage may be losing some traction in Vanhiseville.

But in a larger framed box, under the title “Profiles in Real Estate Courage,” is a sharp color photo of “Associate of the Month” Fred Frantal, smiling and cherub-cheeked, a sausage of a fellow with a round weak chin, crinkly hair, a fuzzy mustache and two happy, saucerish eyes. Fred’s wearing a red-and-green lumberjack shirt that hints of a decent-size personal sculpture below the frame. And under his picture there’s printed a lengthy story apparently pertaining to Fred, which the Mengelt associates want the world to know about. I’d probably be smart to plaster Mike’s squinting, beaming mug onto our ad, with a boiled-down account of his improbable but inspirational life’s journey from Tibet to the Jersey Shore. It would attract the curious, which is often where commerce begins.

“‘Frog’ Frantal,” the Mengelt story goes, “is not just our Associate of the Month but our Associate of the Millennium. A two-year Vanhiseville resident and graduate associate from Middlesex Community College, Fred got gold-plated lucky when he married Carla Boykin back in ’82 and moved to Holmeson to be an EMS technician for the H’son Rescue Unit, where he saved many lives and made a big impression on many others. Fred and Carla raised two great kids, Chick and Bev, and have always trained Rottweilers. The Frantals moved to Vanhiseville in 1998, when Fred retired from the FD, having earned his real estate license at night. He joined the Mengelt family last year and made an instant impact here, too, on our residential sales, due to his EMS contacts and generally positive outlook (he loves cold calls). Fred’s a Navy vet, a brown belt in tae kwon do, an avid surfcaster and snowmobiler, a Regular Baptist Church member and these days is in demand as a motivational speaker on youth and grieving issues. Sadly, last winter tragedy struck the Frantals, when their son Chick, 20, was killed by a drunken snowmobiler in eastern PA. We all mourned Fred and Carla’s loss. But with support of friends, loved ones and the Mengelt crew, Fred’s back and ready to list your house and sell you another one. Frog has topped our leaders board eight of the last ten months, and deserves the distinction of Associate of the Millennium. He believes that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and that you meet triumph and disaster and make friends with both. If either of these describes your current real estate situation, give Fred a call at (732) 555-2202, or e-mail him at frog@mengelt.com. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us!”

Voices in the bar. Laughter. The tinkle-clinkle of glasses. Shuffle of booted feet, squeezing bar-stool leather, heavy coats rustling, exhale of heavy breaths. Outside, there’s the hiss of wind, the spatter splat of rain on the metal roof. A sigh of a door closing. These sounds of mutuality and arrival recede down a hallway, yet grow more distinct, as though I viewed the livening bar on a screen, with the sound track elsewhere.

Down the bar, little silver-haired Termite frowns toward me, narrows her eyes suspiciously, then turns back to the bar full of women, all laughing at something. Someone says, pretty loud, “So it turns out, see, that China’s really fucking BIG. ” “Whoa,” someone else says.

I am, I now perceive, immobilized on my stool, though in no danger of toppling off. I don’t feel drunk, though I could be. My head isn’t swimming. My extremities aren’t dulled or immobilized. I’d recognize all the money denominations in my pocket if I had to, could pay my tab and walk right out into the stormy parking lot and take command of my vehicle (which must be fixed by now). Yet I’m heavy-armed and moored to the bar rail, my heels stuck to the brass footrest. My empty highball glass seems small and distant — once again, as when I was a feverish kid and the contents of my room got pleasantly distant, and the sound of my mother’s footsteps in another room were all I experienced of ambient sound.

I’ve said it before. I do not credit the epiphanic, the seeing-through that reveals all, triggered by a mastering detail. These are lies of the liberal arts to distract us from the more precious here and now. Life’s moments truly come at us heedless, not at the bidding of a gilded fragrance. The Permanent Period is specifically commissioned to combat these indulgences into the pseudo-significant. We’re all separate agents, each underlain by an infinite remoteness; and to the extent we’re not and require to be significant, we’re not so interesting.