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

I’m shocked. We always got along so well. In the notes he used to throw over the wall he was always saying how much he envied and admired me, and telling me long personal anecdotes about his love for his daughter. That’s why I stole the cake. That’s why I risked my job.

“Did you hear me, shithead?” he says. “What’s your Flaw, big balls of wax in your ears? No wonder nobody respects you people. Hit the road, freak. Be thankful I’m too busy to have you rebraceleted.”

I walk through the camp. Filthy babies are sitting in the mud, swatting at passing dogs. Some entrepreneur drags in a muffler and men start pounding it into sheet metal with old shoes. On the perimeter is an immaculate tent surrounded by flowers. A shrunken old woman minds a pot on a healthy little fire.

“Hello!” she says. “I can sense a hungry youngster. Come sit down and have something to eat.”

“Garibasi said I shouldn’t loiter,” I say.

“That pup,” she says. “Look at my tent and look at his town, then tell me who’s got more sense, me or the mayor. I tell him: Just because we’re down on our luck doesn’t mean we have to live like animals. But he doesn’t listen. He’s too busy having dance parties and naming dirt streets after his mother.”

She hands me a bowl made of cardboard and duct tape. In the bowl is stew. She says she got the vegetables in exchange for sewing and the meat in exchange for a home boil remedy. We eat at a table she earned midwifing. Afterwards she offers me a handmade toothbrush, then tells me to lie down so she can relax me with a soothing dulcimer melody.

“Pardon my boldness,” she says, “but the pinkness of your wrist tells me that you’re one of our Special people.”

“You mean a Flawed,” I say in a self-pitying tone.

“Flawed my eye,” she says. “There’s not a person on this earth who’s not Flawed in one way or another.”

Suddenly Garibasi’s standing in the tent doorway.

“For example,” she says. “Look at the size of this man’s rear. If that’s not a Flaw I don’t know what is.”

“Out, pal,” Garibasi says to me. “You’ve had your meal. You’ve had your pep talk from Miss Know-It-All here. Now get going.”

“You do have a whopping big bottom, Johnny,” she says, laughing. “And you have no authority over me. Only I do.”

“I got the authority,” he says. “I got the fucking authority. Trash her tent.”

The toughs pull up her stakes and dump what’s left of her stew on the ground. Her matronly bun comes loose and her white hair falls down. They stomp on her dulcimer and shred her old photos. They splinter her hope chest and break her mosquito-repellent sticks, then stand around waiting for her to go into hysterics.

“You jokers,” she says. “Do you really think you’ve damaged anything of value? I’ll have this place looking better than any of yours again in no time. How sad. How sad that men like you exist and believe yourself strong.”

“Easy for you to say,” says one tough.

“Yeah, old bat,” says another, and blows his nose on her comforter.

She gives him a look and he slithers away.

“I’m sorry, Sara,” Garibasi says. “But you have to respect my authority.”

“When you get some,” she says, “I will.”

She digs through the wreckage for a brush and reinstates her bun. Garibasi and his crew go off, whooping and playfully goosing one another.

“Now tell me,” she says. “Where are you bound, and why?”

“New Mexico,” I say. “A family matter.”

“Good God,” she says. “You Special people must stay out of the West at all costs. Believe me, I know, from bitter experience. My husband was Special. For years before he was born, his parents had been unwittingly drawing their water from a mutagenic well. Perhaps you have a similar story. He was born with a withered leg and a hearing loss, but a sweeter man you never met. Our son got the withered-leg gene only. But it never slowed him down any. He drew cartoon characters on his Flawed bracelet, played ball, wrestled, flirted with the girls. A blessing. So self-confident. So energetic. Too much so. The day he turned eighteen he left us a note: Mother, Dad, it said, I’m off to see the world. While he was gone the Thirteenth Amendment was repealed and the Slave Edict went into effect. A year later his body showed up on our doorstep in a wooden box. He looked ninety. A slaver in Alton, Illinois, had drugged him and sold him to an Idaho rancher.”

She stops to regain her composure. I awkwardly pat her age-humped back. She regards me fiercely.

“Now what makes you think you’re any different from my Addie?” she says. “Are you smarter? Stronger? Better prepared?”

“I can hide my Flaw by always wearing shoes?” I say feebly.

“Pshaw,” she says. “It’s these people’s business to know a Flawed. They can smell a Flawed coming. They eat Flaweds for breakfast.”

“She’s my sister,” I say. “I have to go.”

“Then get out of my sight,” she says in a trembling voice. “I consider you a suicide. Goodbye, dear dead boy. Our Lord has reserved a special place in Limbo for those who put an end to themselves.”

“I’ll be okay,” I say.

“No,” she says firmly. “You won’t.”

Then she turns away and starts putting her tent back together, singing “Simple Gifts” at the top of her ancient lungs.

That night I sleep a troubled sleep beside a fetid stream. I dream of Limbo, a tiny room full of dull people eternally discussing their dental work while sipping lukewarm tea. I wake at first light and hike through miles of failing forest and around noon arrive in a village of paranoiacs standing with rifles in the doorways of flapper-era homes. It’s a nice town. No signs of plunder or panic. The McDonald’s has been occupied by the radical Church of Appropriate Humility. Everyone calls them Guilters. The ultimate Guilter ritual is when one of them goes into a frenzy and thrusts his or her hand into a deep fryer. A mangled hand is a badge of honor. All the elders have two, and need to be helped on and off with their coats. There was a rash a few years ago of face-thrusting, until the national Guilter Council ruled it vain and self-aggrandizing. Guilters believe in quantifying pain. Each pain unit is called a Victor, after their Founder, Norm Victor. Each Victor earned is a step towards salvation. Having a loved one die tragically earns big Victors. Sometimes for a birthday present a wife will cheat on her husband with one of his friends in such a manner that the husband walks in and catches a painful eyeful. Once at the facility we got hold of a bootleg video of a group of cuckolded Guilter husbands talking about the difficulties of living with simultaneous rage and gratitude.

Two Guilter guys are standing against a golden arch painted gray. In Guilter epistemology the arches represent the twin human frailties of arrogance and mediocrity. One of the Guilters is violently pulling off his cuticles. Every few minutes he takes out his notebook and logs in some Victors. I say hi as I pass and he nods and winces and rips off another.

“Which direction is the Thruway?” I say.

“I’m not worthy to tell you,” he says. “I’d probably get it all wrong. I’m lowly.”

“Could you take your best guess?” I say.

“I don’t think so,” he says, and tears off a cuticle. “What if I misled you and you wandered for hours in the wrong direction? I’d feel horrible.”

“Go ahead,” his partner says. “If you feel really bad about it, to the point where you can’t sleep, that’s three Victors an hour.”

The cuticle puller stops pulling.

“Seriously,” his friend says. “New regulations.”

“In that case,” the cuticle puller says, “I believe you’re going the right way.”