George Saunders - Pastoralia

No way am I table dancing for Angela Silveri. No way am I asking Angela Silveri’s friend if she wants to see my cock. No way am I hanging around here so Angela can see me in my flight jacket and T-backs and wonder to herself how I went so wrong etc. etc.

I hide in the kitchen until my shift is done, then walk home very, very slowly because I’m afraid of what Bernie’s going to do to me when I get there.

…

Min meets me at the door. She’s got flour all over her blouse and it looks like she’s been crying.

“I can’t take any more of this,” she says. “She’s like falling apart. I mean shit’s falling off her. Plus she made me bake a freaking pie.”

On the table is a very lumpy pie. One of Bernie’s arms is now disconnected and lying across her lap.

“What are you thinking of!” she shouts. “You didn’t show your cock even once? You think it’s easy making those thumbprints? You try it, smartass! Do you or do you not know the plan? You gotta get us out of here! And to get us out, you gotta use what you got. And you ain’t got much. A nice face. And a decent unit. Not huge, but shaped nice.”

“Bernie, God,” says Min.

“What, Miss Priss?” shouts Bernie, and slams the severed arm down hard on her lap, and her other ear falls off.

“I’m sorry, but this is too fucking sickening,” says Min. “I’m going out.”

“What’s sickening?” says Bernie. “Are you saying I’m sickening? Well, I think you’re sickening. So many wonderful things in life and where’s your mind? You think with your lazy ass. Whatever life hands you, you take. You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying home and studying.”

“I’m what?” says Min. “Studying what? I ain’t studying. Chick comes into my house and starts ordering me to study? I freaking doubt it.”

“You don’t know nothing!” Bernie says. “What fun is life when you don’t know nothing? You can’t find your own town on the map. You can’t name a single president. When we go to Rome you won’t know nothing about the history. You’re going to study the World Book. Do we still have those World Books?”

“Yeah right,” says Min. “We’re going to Rome.”

“We’ll go to Rome when he’s a lawyer,” says Bernie.

“Dream on, chick,” says Min. “And we’ll go to Mars when I’m a stockbreaker.”

“Don’t you dare make fun of me!” Bernie shouts, and our only vase goes flying across the room and nearly nails Min in the head.

“She’s been like this all day,” says Min.

“Like what?” shouts Bernie. “We had a perfectly nice day.”

“She made me help her try on my bras,” says Min.

“I never had a nice sexy bra,” says Bernie.

“And now mine are all ruined,” says Min. “They got this sort of goo on them.”

“You ungrateful shit!” shouts Bernie. “Do you know what I’m doing for you? I’m saving your boy. And you got the nerve to say I made goo on your bras! Troy’s gonna get caught in a crossfire in the courtyard. In September. September eighteenth. He’s gonna get thrown off his little trike. With one leg twisted under him and blood pouring out of his ear. It’s a freaking prophecy. You know that word? It means prediction. You know that word? You think I’m bullshitting? Well I ain’t bullshitting. I got the power. Watch this: All day Jade sat licking labels at a desk by a window. Her boss bought everybody subs for lunch. She’s bringing some home in a green bag.”

“That ain’t true about Troy, is it?” says Min. “Is it? I don’t believe it.”

“Turn on the TV!” Bernie shouts. “Give me the changer.”

I turn on the TV. I give her the changer. She puts on Nathan’s Body Shop . Nathan says washboard abs drive the women wild. Then there’s a close-up of his washboard abs.

“Oh yes,” says Bernie. “Them are for me. I’d like to give those a lick. A lick and a pinch. I’d like to sort of straddle those things.”

Just then Jade comes through the door with a big green bag.

“Oh God,” says Min.

“Told you so!” says Bernie, and pokes Min in the ribs. “Ha ha! I really got the power!”

“I don’t get it,” Min says, all desperate. “What happens? Please. What happens to him? You better freaking tell me.”

“I already told you,” Bernie says. “He’ll fly about fifteen feet and live about three minutes.”

“Bernie, God,” Min says, and starts to cry. “You used to be so nice.”

“I’m still so nice,” says Bernie, and bites into a sub and takes off the tip of her finger and starts chewing it up.

Just after dawn she shouts out my name.

“Take the blanket off,” she says. “I ain’t feeling so good.”

I take the blanket off. She’s basically just this pile of parts: both arms in her lap, head on the arms, heel of one foot touching the heel of the other, all of it sort of wrapped up in her dress.

“Get me a washcloth,” she says. “Do I got a fever? I feel like I got a fever. Oh, I knew it was too good to be true. But okay. New plan. New plan. I’m changing the first part of Phase One. If you see two thumbprints, that means the lady’ll screw you for cash. We’re in a fix here. We gotta speed this up. There ain’t gonna be nothing left of me. Who’s gonna be my lover now?”

The doorbell rings.

“Son of a bitch,” Bernie snarls.

It’s Father Brian with a box of doughnuts. I step out quick and close the door behind me. He says he’s just checking in. Perhaps we’d like to talk? Perhaps we’re feeling some residual anger about Bernie’s situation? Which would of course be completely understandable. Once when he was a young priest someone broke in and drew a mustache on the Virgin Mary with a permanent marker, and for weeks he was tortured by visions of bending back the finger of the vandal until he or she burst into tears of apology.

“I knew that wasn’t appropriate,” he says. “I knew that by indulging in that fantasy I was honoring violence. And yet it gave me pleasure. I also thought of catching them in the act and boinking them in the head with a rock. I also thought of jumping up and down on their backs until something in their spinal column cracked. Actually I had about a million ideas. But you know what I did instead? I scrubbed and scrubbed our Holy Mother, and soon she was as good as new. Her statue, I mean. She herself of course is always good as new.”

From inside comes the sound of breaking glass. Breaking glass and then something heavy falling, and Jade yelling and Min yelling and the babies crying.

“Oops, I guess?” he says. “I’ve come at a bad time? Look, all I’m trying to do is urge you, if at all possible, to forgive the perpetrators, as I forgave the perpetrator that drew on my Virgin Mary. The thing lost, after all, is only your aunt’s body, and what is essential, I assure you, is elsewhere, being well taken care of.”

I nod. I smile. I say thanks for stopping by. I take the doughnuts and go back inside.

The TV’s broke and the refrigerator’s tipped over and Bernie’s parts are strewn across the living room like she’s been shot out of a cannon.

“She tried to get up,” says Jade.

“I don’t know where the hell she thought she was going,” says Min.

“Come here,” the head says to me, and I squat down. “That’s it for me. I’m fucked. As per usual. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Although come to think of it I was never even the freaking bridesmaid. Look, show your cock. It’s the shortest line between two points. The world ain’t giving away nice lives. You got a trust fund? You a genius? Show your cock. It’s what you got. And remember: Troy in September. On his trike. One leg twisted. Don’t forget. And also. Don’t remember me like this. Remember me like how I was that night we all went to Red Lobster and I had that new perm. Ah Christ. At least buy me a stone.”