Gilbert Sorrentino - The Moon In Its Flight

Cocktails

Hello, I’m Sven Bjornstrom. Often, various people have called me a crazy Swedish person, and I admit that I am of pale skin and have somewhat yellowed teeth. I am fairly skilled though unfluent in three languages, including, as you may surmise instantly, in English. I’m not in liberty to divulge at the present the identity, or name, of the other, or third language, for many reasons which will soon be made as clear as the limping waters. Well, and you wonder why it may be that I admit to being called a crazy Swedish person? That is quite easy! I look forward, to filling you in as my story unfolds. You will see that my life has not been wholly lacking in contented moments and my fair share of a bevy of hearty laughter, along with the rather occasional attention of some partially attractive, running all the way down the scale, to varied homely if not worse-looking ladies. Not all of which I actually knew very well.

I have always tried to act honorably and even with a pinch of stern honesty toward my fellow humans, some sort of trait that is to be continuously knocked into the head of Swedish babies, no matter who they may be. Day after day and year after year, honorableness and honest. Those are what you call the Swedish tickets! Many of these traits of habits are based right on the many teachings of Jesus Christ, or as we Swedish people jokingly daub him now and then, “the first Lutheran.” A person or two will sometimes hint that this is very close to blasphemy, and yet Jesus himself often enjoyed a good laugh and a cold glass of beer, yes. The world is filled up with plenty of people who are not actually good sports. Some opine, half as jest, that they should be killed every once in a while, ha ha.

I have sometimes been thought of as a martinet, a word I have looked up, by subordinates, co-workers, and sundry ladies of my past acquaintance. The word has no counter-something in the Swedish language, but insofar as I know, the closest expression to it might be translated as “fucking corporal.” A rude term, I opine, and yet it is in my open nature to speak with rugged vim. The ill will aimed upon me bursts directly out of the fact, like night from day, that I have setted my sights, ever since the proud day that I stepped off the plane from Sweden’s greener pleasant land to this great country of opportunity and money, on success of the sort that will, at long last, allow me to purchase, on credit, the Hickey-Freeman suits, the Bally-Bush shoes, the sportlike coats and tastily faded shirts created by Lauren Polo, not to mention the fine foods and the quaffing of the best French vintages. And, upon nearing the pinnacle, I attained the disputeless symbol of success, the signal of the arrival, whatever that truly means, the white shirt! In this last item, I am as much like a man I happen to know slightly, merely to say hello! and hi! and such greetings when we are strolling the avenues and quiet streets of Jackson Heights, which lies in Queens. This is a man who is a self-made man, a man who started his business career as some sort of a grimy lowlife sweaty type of a kike off the streets. Laboring in warehouses, shipping in shipping rooms, packing and taping in dusty basements surrounded up to the knees in old newspapers and excelsior. However, yes! by dints of cheerful smiles and judicially selected asskissing of those in charge of labor, he rose up slowly to the position of a stern but fair supervisor, as I’ve carefully pointed to, and one who wears the white shirt to business each and every day, also starched! with a knockout of a tie. In short. I have always myself dared to have a dream of being atop the hill of the rat race, where I can relax in a sophisticated manner or mode, donned in ascot and smoking gown and velvet slippers, with a pipe filled with the smoldering aromatic tobacco that women adore, and casually just lean back and kick over and drink tasty cocktails to my heart’s content with the best of them! And smile gently while I gently toy with my cultured fiancée, a university graduate and not necessarily, believe you me, a Swedish girl.

In brief. My résumé is as thus. First, I toiled in a bookstore where I had to contend, as weekend evening acting assistant manager, with loutish clerks who were constantly hanging about in the stockroom reading trashy magazines and the Daily News, and chatting of dirty jokes. As well, they seemed to enjoy eating baloney sandwiches on hard rolls, although I mention these culinarial obsessions only because they ate these foodstuffs in full view of the customers, while paying little heed to sorting and caring for the store’s large stock of bullfight posters, an item that we could not keep upon the shelves and walking out the door, as they say. They mocked and razzed at my sense of orderly behavior and fell into bouts of laughter when I employed a tape measure to make sure about the even, neat quality of the stacks of books stacked upon the tables and quite attractive, too. Each stack was displayed so that browsers could view them with ease, even though they were mostly cheapskates and made few purchases. This devoted attention on my part to swift care was not, I insist, crypto-fascist leanings on my part. I am, you must recall, a Swedish person, as I have suggested. I wore a neatly buttoned cardigan while performing my duties, along with a rather jaunty bow tie, somewhat like a college professor, I believe, and such dress is not the signs and such of tyranny in hiding and mental distress. No! I stoutly protest.

I admit, and have jovially admitted in the recent past in both oral and written chats, that I did, I do attest, at times, indulge in somewhat wild arm-waving, hoarse shouts, Swedish oaths, and ear-splitting, uh, screams, while on duty, along with a vigorous stamping of the floor with my feet and a pounding of the counter with my fist. Nothing of a serious nature, yet I saw the desired cocktail shaker floating away from me on a cloud of detested baloney sandwiches. It was a sour pill to watch the silvery dream break up into many pieces. The store manager, a swarty Italian guinea fellow, suggested to me in a harsh tone that I was alarming the customers and frightening them off, the cheap deadbeats! And also that the riffraff clerks were quitting regularly, since I disturbed their sandwich breaks. But what, I asked myself, does this greasy ball know of my desires for ultimate success? You can be sure that he was drinking the cocktails! “Sir,” I smilingly averred to him one evening, “you are drinking the cocktails, is this not the fact? What about my chance at the life of milk and honey?” He stepped back from me in what he made believe, I am quite certain, was puzzled alarm, and I was swiftly told to gather my cardigans and leave the premises. I was not working out as weekend evening acting assistant manager, so this gangster stated.

Soon hard upon this, my wife packed her bags and left me, tired, or so she claimed, of listening to my dreams. “Make a living!” the harlot attested. But never saying “die!” I soon claimed another forte as a translator for an import-export firm, until the windows of my mind began their slow fogging over with pesky lustful thoughts, brought on by gazing on a woman in my department who took to wearing the donning of skirts that were disturbingly tight as well as much too short for a lady. My fellow workers all smoked as well, a habit more dangerous to the innocent bystander than a month in heavy combat, so researchers have proved. And to their hearts’ content. I am happy to report that with the savings I have saved by not smoking, I have regaled myself with educational treats like various scientific magazines and flashlight batteries. And not just a few! I did not actually know Portuguese, my area of translational responsibility at the firm, and yet I pressed on. My sturdy versions of letters and contracts composed in this barbarous tongue were not exactly as precise as they might have been, and what with my attentive glare upon the body of the immodest lady and the translations, which the departmental chief termed “quite unbelievable,” if I recall aright, I was sent unnobly packing as a result of being canned. I had, I may add, drunk nothing but beer with my paltry lunches, while all about me cocktails were quaffed by people no better than I.