George Saunders - CivilWarLand in Bad Decline - Stories and a Novella

When I’ve finished invoicing I enjoy a pecan cluster. Two, actually. Claude comes in all dirty from the burial and sees me snacking and feels compelled to point out that even my sub-rolls have sub-rolls. He’s right but still it isn’t nice to say. Tim asks did Claude make that observation after having wild sex with me all night. That’s a comment I’m not fond of. But Tim’s the boss. His T-shirt says: I HOLD YOUR PURSE STRINGS IN MY HOT LITTLE HAND.

“Ha, ha, Tim,” says Claude. “I’m no homo. But if I was one, I’d die before doing it with Mr. Lard.”

“Ha, ha,” says Tim. “Good one. Isn’t that a good one, Jeffrey?”

“That’s a good one,” I say glumly.

What a bitter little office.

My colleagues leave hippo refrigerator magnets on my seat. They imply that I’m a despondent virgin, which I’m not. They might change their tune if they ever spoke with Ellen Burtomly regarding the beautiful night we spent at her brother Bob’s cottage. I was by no means slim then but could at least buy pants off the rack and walk from the den to the kitchen without panting. I remember her nude at the window and the lovely seed helicopters blowing in as she turned and showed me her ample front on purpose. That was my most romantic moment. Now for that kind of thing it’s the degradation of Larney’s Consenting Adult Viewing Center. Before it started getting to me I’d bring bootloads of quarters and a special bottom cushion and watch hours and hours of Scandinavian women romping. It was shameful. Finally last Christmas I said enough is enough, I’d rather be sexless than evil. And since then I have been. Sexless and good, but very very tense. Since then I’ve tried to live above the fray. I’ve tried to minimize my physical aspects and be a selfless force for good. When mocked, which is nearly every day, I recall Christ covered with spittle. When filled with lust, I remember Gandhi purposely sleeping next to a sexy teen to test himself. After work I go home, watch a little TV, maybe say a rosary or two.

Thirty more years of this and I’m out of it without hurting anybody or embarrassing myself.

But still. I’m a human being. A little companionship would be nice. My colleagues know nothing of my personal life. They could care less that I once had a dog named Woodsprite who was crushed by a backhoe. They could care less that my dad died a wino in the vicinity of the Fort Worth stockyards. In his last days he sent me a note filled with wonder:

“Son,” he wrote, “are you fat too? It came upon me suddenly and now I am big as a house. Beware, perhaps it’s in our genes. I wander cowboy sidewalks of wood, wearing a too-small hat, filled with remorse for the many lives I failed to lead. Adieu. In my mind you are a waify-looking little fellow who never answered when I asked you a direct question. But I loved you as best I could.”

What do my colleagues know of Dad? What do they know of me? What kind of friend gets a kick out of posting in the break room a drawing of you eating an entire computer? What kind of friend jokes that someday you’ll be buried in a specially built container after succumbing to heart strain?

I’m sorry, but I feel that life should offer more than this.

As a child my favorite book was Little Red-Faced Cop on the Beat. Everyone loved the Little Red-Faced Cop. He knew what was what. He donned his uniform in a certain order every morning. He chased bad guys and his hat stayed on. Now I’m surrounded by kooks. I’m a kook myself. I stoop down and tell raccoons to take it like a man. I drone on and on to strangers about my weight. I ogle salesgirls. I double back to pick up filthy pennies. When no one’s around I dig and dig at my earwax, then examine it. I’m huge, and terrified of becoming bitter.

Sometimes I sense deep anger welling up, and have to choke it back.

Sadly, I find my feelings for Freeda returning. I must have a death wish. Clearly I repulse her. Sometimes I catch her looking at my gut overhangs with a screwed-up face. I see her licking her lips while typing, and certain un-holy thoughts go through my head. I hear her speaking tenderly on the phone to her little son, Len, and can’t help picturing myself sitting on a specially reinforced porch swing while she fries up some chops and Len digs in the muck.

Today as we prepare mailers she says she’s starting to want to be home with Len all the time. But there’s the glaring problem of funds. She makes squat. I’ve seen her stub. There’s the further problem that she suspects Mrs. Rasputin, Len’s baby-sitter, is a lush.

“I don’t know what to do,” Freeda says. “I come home after work and she’s sitting there tipsy in her bra, fanning herself with a Racing Form. ”

“I know how you feel,” I say. “Life can be hard.”

“It has nothing to do with life,” she says crossly. “It has to do with my drunken baby-sitter. Maybe you haven’t been listening to me.”

Before I know what I’m saying I suggest that perhaps we should go out for dinner and offer each other some measure of comfort. In response she spits her Tab out across her cubicle. She says now she’s heard it all. She goes to fetch Tim and Claude so they can join her in guffawing at my nerve. She faxes a comical note about my arrogance to her girlfriend at the DMV. All afternoon she keeps looking at me with her head cocked.

Needless to say, it’s a long day.

Then at five, after everyone else is gone, she comes shyly by and says she’d love to go out with me. She says I’ve always been there for her. She says she likes a man with a little meat on his bones. She says pick her up at eight and bring something for Len. I’m shocked. I’m overjoyed.

My knees are nearly shaking my little desk apart.

I buy Len a football helmet and a baseball glove and an aquarium and a set of encyclopedias. I basically clean out my pitiful savings. Who cares. It’s worth it to get a chance to observe her beautiful face from across a table without Claude et al. hooting at me.

When I ring her bell someone screams come in. Inside I find Len behind the home entertainment center and Mrs. Rasputin drunkenly poring over her grade-school yearbook with a highlighter. She looks up and says: “Where’s that kid?” I feel like saying: How should I know? Instead I say: “He’s behind the home entertainment center.”

“He loves it back there,” she says. “He likes eating the lint balls. They won’t hurt him. They’re like roughage.”

“Come out, Len,” I say. “I have gifts.”

He comes out. One tiny eyebrow cocks up at my physical appearance. Then he crawls into my lap holding his MegaDeathDealer by the cowl. What a sweet boy. The Dealer’s got a severed human head in its hand. When you pull a string the Dealer cries, “You’re dead and I’ve killed you, Prince of Slime,” and sticks its Day-Glo tongue out. I give Len my antiviolence spiel. I tell him only love can dispel hate. I tell him we were meant to live in harmony and give one another emotional support. He looks at me blankly, then flings his Death Dealer at the cat.

Freeda comes down looking sweet and casts a baleful eye on Mrs. Rasputin and away we go. I take her to Ace’s Volcano Island. Ace’s is an old service station now done up Hawaiian. They’ve got a tape loop of surf sounds and some Barbies in grass skirts climbing a papier-mâché mountain. I’m known there. Every Friday night I treat myself by taking up a whole booth and ordering the Broccoli Rib Luau. Ace is a gentle aging beatnik with mild Tourette’s. When the bad words start flying out of his mouth you never saw someone so regretful. One minute he’ll be quoting the Bhagavad Gita and the next roughly telling one of his patrons to lick their own bottom. We’ve talked about it. He says he’s tried pills. He’s tried biting down on a pencil eraser. He’s tried picturing himself in the floodplain of the Ganges with a celestial being stroking his hair. Nothing works. So he’s printed up an explanatory flyer. Shirleen the hostess hands it out pre-seating. There’s a cartoon of Ace with lots of surprise marks and typographic symbols coming out of his mouth.