George Saunders - Pastoralia

Tom Rodgers gestured to an assistant, who took a wig out of a box and put it on the dummy’s head.

“What we’re going to do now is act this out symbolically,” Tom Rodgers said. “Primitive cultures do this all the time. They might throw Fertility a big party, say, or paint their kids white and let them whack Sickness with palm fronds and so forth. Are we somehow smarter than primitive cultures? I doubt it. I think maybe we’re dumber. Do we have fewer hemorrhoids? Were Incas killed on freeways? Here, take this.”

He handed Yaniky a baseball bat.

“What time is it, Neil?” said Tom Rodgers.

“Time to win?” said Yaniky. “Time for me to win?”

“Now is the time for you to win,” said Tom Rodgers, clarifying, and pointed to the dummy.

Yaniky swung the bat and the dummy toppled over and the wig flew off and the assistant retrieved the wig and tossed it back into the box of wigs, and Tom Rodgers gave Yaniky a big hug.

“What you have just symbolically said,” Tom Rodgers said, “is: ‘No more, Winky. Grow wings, Winky. I love you, but you’re killing me, and I am a good person, a child of God, and don’t deserve to die. I deserve to live, I demand to live, and therefore, get your own place, girl! Fly, and someday thank me!’ This is to be your submantra, Neil, okay? Out you go! On your way home today, I want you to be muttering, not angrily muttering but sort of joyfully muttering, to center yourself, the following words: ‘Now Is the Time for Me to Win! Out you go! Out you go!’ Will you do that for me?”

“Yes,” said Yaniky, very much moved.

“And now here is Vicki,” said Tom Rodgers, “One of my very top Gold Hats, who will walk you through the Confrontation step. Neil! I wish you luck, and peace, and all the success in the world.”

Vicki had a face that looked as if it had been smashed against a steering wheel in a crash and then carefully reworked until it somewhat resembled her previous face. Several parallel curved indentations ran from temple to chin. She led Yaniky to a folding table labeled “Confrontation Center” and gave him a sheet of paper on which was written, “Gentle, Firm, Loving.”

“These are the characteristics of a good Confrontation,” she said, a bit mechanically. “Now flip it over.”

On the other side was written, “Angry, Wimpy, Accusatory.”

“These are the characteristics of a bad Confrontation,” said Vicki. “A destructive Confrontation. Okay. So let’s say I’m this person, this Winky person, and you’re going to tell me to hit the road. Gentle, Firm, Loving. Now begin.”

And he began telling Vicki to her damaged face that she was ruining his life and sucking him dry and that she had to go live somewhere else, and Vicki nodded and patted his hand, and now and then stopped him to tell him he was being too severe.

Neil-Neil was coming home soon and Winky was way way behind.

Some days she took her time while cleaning, smiling at happy thoughts, frowning when she imagined someone being taken advantage of, and sometimes the person being taken advantage of was a frail little boy with a scar on his head and the person taking advantage was a big fat man with a cane, and other times the person being taken advantage of was a kindly, friendly British girl with a speech impediment and the person taking advantage was her rich, pushy sister who spoke in perfect diction and always got everything she wanted and went around whining while sucking little pink candies. Sometimes Winky asked the rich sister in her mind how she’d like to have the little pink candies slapped right out of her mouth. But that wasn’t right. That wasn’t Christ’s way! You didn’t slap the little pink candies out of her mouth, you let her slap your mouth, seventy times seven times, which was like four hundred times, and after she’d slapped you the last time she suddenly understood it all and begged your forgiveness and gave you some candy, because that was the healing power of love.

For crying out loud! What was she doing? Was she crazy? It was time to get going! Why was she standing in the kitchen thinking?

She dashed up the stairs with a strip of broken molding under her arm and a dirty sock over her shoulder.

Halfway up she paused at a little octagonal window and looked dreamily out, thinking, In a way, we own those trees. Beyond the Thieus’ was the same old gap in the leaning elms showing the same old meadow that would soon be ToyTowne. But for now it still reminded her of the kind of field where Christ with his lap full of flowers had suffered with the little children, which was a scene she wanted them to put on the cover of the singing album she was going to make, the singing album about God, which would have a watercolor cover like Shoulder My Burden , which was a book though but anyways it had this patient donkey piled high with crates and behind it this mountain, and the point of that book was that if you take on the worries and cares of others, Lord Jesus will take on your cares and worries, so that was why the patient donkey and why the crates, and why she prided herself on keeping house for Neil-Neil and never asked him for help.

Holy cow, what was she doing standing on the landing! Was she crazy? Today she was rushing! She was giving Neil-Neil a tea! She burst from the landing, taking two stairs at once. The molding had to go to the attic and the dirty sock to the hamper. While she was up, she could change her top. Because on it was some crusty soup. The wallpaper at the top of the stairs showed about a million of the same girl whacking a smiling goose with a riding crop. Hello, girls! Hello, girls! Ha ha! Hello, geese! Not to leave you out!

From a drawer in her room she took the green top, which Neil-Neil liked. Once when she was wearing it he’d asked if it was new. When had that been? At the lunch at the Beef Barn, when he paid, when he asked would she like to leave Rustic Village Apartments and come live with him. Oh, that sweetie. She still had the matchbook. Those had been sad days at Rustic Village, with every friend engaged but Doris, who had a fake arm, and boy those girls could sometimes say mean things, but now it was all behind her, and she needed to send poor Doris a card.

But not today, today she was rushing!

Down the stairs she pounded, still holding the molding, sock still over her shoulder.

In the kitchen she ripped open the cookie bag but there were no clean plates, so she rinsed a plate but there was no towel, so she dried the plate with her top. Hey, she still had on the yellow top. What the heck? Where was the green top? Hadn’t she just gotten it out of her drawer? Ha ha! That was funny. She should send that in to ChristLife . They liked cute funny things that happened, even if they had nothing to do with Jesus.

The kitchen was a disaster! But first things first. Her top sucked. Not sucked, sucked was a bad word, her top was yugly. Dad used to say that, yugly. Not about her. He always said she was purty. Sometimes he said things were purty yugly. But not her. He always said she was purty purty, then lifted her up. Oh Dad, Daddy, Poppy-Popp! Was Poppy-Popp one with the Savior? She hoped so. Sometimes he used to swear and sometimes he used to drink, and once he swore when he fell down the stairs when he was drunk, but when she ran to him he hopped up laughing, and oh, when he sang “Peace in the Valley” you could tell he felt things would be better beyond, which had been a super example for a young Christian kid to witness.

She flew back up the stairs to change her top. Here was the green top, on the top step! Bad top! I should spank! She gave the green top a snap to undust it and discipline it and, putting the strip of molding and the dirty sock on the step, changed tops right then and there, picked up the molding, threw the dirty sock over her shoulder, and pounded back down the stairs.