Gilbert Sorrentino - The Moon In Its Flight

The wretched and highly uncultured thug who ran the shipping room at my next job, wherein I performed as the purchasing agent, bookkeeper, correspondent, more and less, really, as the chief cook and bottle washer, whatever that may mean, for a paperback-book distributor, was grossly arrogant. He remarked that I was “fucking crazy,” as I recapture his vile lingo, when I insisted, as the acting temporary assistant mailroom overseer, that a promotional mailing be stamped, on its envelopes, FIRST CLASS, twice on the front of the envelopes, twice on the back, and once on the labels. Once again, he muttered an imprecation directly at my benignly smiling person. Thus, I became somewhat excitedly disturbed, naturally, leaped toward the wooden supports tying two bookcases together, and swung there, rather suavely, so as to cool my head off and regain the calmness that was mine. The boss arrived soon after upon the spot. “I merely want to DRINK THE COCKTAILS!” I vigorously claimed. Quickly, in the face of the boss’s blustery quiz, I implied that the shipping-room lout, who had never even owned the sort of white shirt I daily sported, was not carrying out my officious orders. Thus doing his best to obstruct my rising to the top of the company ladder. Just then, a woman who had ignored my presence in the company for some time, popped a LifeSaver into her weakish mouth, and the rabble of the shipping enclave unwrapped large baloney sandwiches in front of me, the silent message screaming its disdain! I saw, once again, my American cocktail-like dreams going up in smokes yet again. I must have fainted amid a tidal wave of chuckles, and soon found myself on the “bricks.”

For the past few months, I’ve been calling various colleagues of yore at three o’clock in the morning with stern words of anonymous hatred. Crazy Swedish person? I’ll be showing them crazy Swedish person! I’ve also stocked my larder and pantry, whatever the cupboards are called here in the land of dreams come true, with ready-to-imbibe Bloody Marys and Manhattans, and other alcoholic treats. They are not at their best at a room’s temperature, thus I wait for the electric company to accede to my wishes to turn the power back on. However, I am careful of my appearance, white shirt, bow tie, cardigan, all business. I have discovered this is called electric blue in color, what a book I once browsed through called “the color of madness.” The author is well-known to be a homosexual pervert, yet I must try to love him for all his improper moralistic leanings. I may give him a brief telephone call one early morning and we will just see how he likes them apples, as you say here. My goal of sophisticated cocktail-drinking with the smartest of the smart set is not, I assure you, but the goal of a feebleminded dumbbell! My Timex now informs me that my boiled potatoes bubbling tastily on my Sterno stove are ready. Along with a cup of savory instant coffee and a few choice pages from a good book, I’ll leisurely dine away, although I would prefer to exchange bon mots with discreet, beautiful women in the paled moonlight, as you may have guessed. It is good to be an alien in America despite the crudities encountered.

The Wheels Turn

The salesmen, dear new colleagues and friends, who are out in the field, have no time to be answering requests by clients or would-be clients for samples, information, direction, or guidance; nor do they have time to engage in amorous or sexual correspondence with these people. Unless, of course, they feel that such interchange will lead to a considerable account. Photographs of a compelling or arousing nature may accompany diverse missives, along with, at times, gifts of cash, and such items may be able to change the most focused minds. You, as correspondents, here in the Correspondence Department, are in no position, nor will you ever be in such a position, to judge whether or not the salesmen in the field will have the time or inclination to reply to such letters “personally,” if I may use such a word, freighted, oh freighted as it is with velleity and suggestion. It matters little, that is, what your opinions of such letters may be, since all letters that land — and I use the word advisedly — that land on your respective desks, cluttered though they may well become with odds and ends of folderol and impedimenta, will, of needs, be those that have already passed through the vetting process on the twenty-third floor, that is, in the Alpha Department of the School Division, Southwestern Branch, a department supervised by our Mr. Bjornstrom, a man known to our other supervisors — and they are many — as “the man with the rubber stamp,” or, as he often delights in roughly and somewhat jovially, even hysterically, describing himself, “the Stockholm Corporal.” Stockholm is, of course, in Sweden, Mr. Bjornstrom’s homeland. These instructions, then, are tendered you in the event that an unvetted letter from a client or would-be client lands on one of your desks, which will, of course, never happen. If it should, well, no need to go into the nooks and crannies of that impossible eventuality. At present.

To your right, you will notice a series of shelves or pigeonholes stocked with stationery of varied hues, shades, tones, and colors. On closer inspection — do not attempt to inspect at this time, PLEASE! — on closer inspection you will see that the stationery contains the preprinted names and addresses of those salesmen who are yours to assist, obey, jolly along, praise, flatter, and take the blame for in all matters epistolary. There are also, in the drawers beneath the shelves and pigeonholes, paradigms, or model letters, which we call “dummies,” that will guide you in drafting replies to the various letters sent “your” particular salesmen, letters requesting samples, information, guidance, loans, photographs, reading lists, and, on those impossibly rare if not impossible occasions that I just mentioned, requests for sexual dalliances of diverse types. These, as I have said, will never reach you, actually, but in case they should get by Mr. Bjornstrom’s seasoned vetters, they are to be ignored by you, and such occasions brought to my attention, whereupon you will probably be, as they say, “let go.” For no reason should such a letter be answered in your salesman’s name, is that understood? Is that understood? It may seem unfair that one or more of you might possibly be “let go” through no fault of your own, through, as it were, your devotion to duty and the job. It is unfair, but life is always terribly hard on those with neither money nor power, despite propaganda to the contrary. Am I right? Of course I’m right! If you should, how shall I put it? cheat, that is, fail to call such a misguided letter to my attention, the furnaces are always roaring in the sub-sub-basement! Ha! Ha! Ha! I like my little joke!

You will discover that the stationery on the shelves is nothing, really, other than good American paper and nothing but; nothing to be in awe of, letterheads or no. And you would do well to ignore the rumors suggesting otherwise. Rumors of all sorts are born and circulate in a large and virtually omnipotent corporation such as this one. They emanate, for the most part, from the “creative” divisions of the firm, the Professional Trash-Fiction Division, the Memoir Division, the Hip-Youth Division, the Sure-Fire Division, the Dim-Bulb Division, the Texas School-Adoption-of-Everything Division, the Devout-Christian Rapture-Mania Division, the Unborn-Child-Series Division, as well as those divisions that support what the company likes to think of as its old soldiers — those editors, publicists, accountants, and lunch-eaters who have made their lives into one long testament to their belief that they have done their best to make real for all humankind the kind of book that is both an exciting read and a contribution to the general culture of regular Americans — and others, of course, depending on how the rights are spelled out in the contracts. As their unofficial coat-of-arms proclaims: GOOD BOOKS, BIG BUCKS. You may, at times, even hear a rumor that can be traced to the Shipping and Receiving Department, but the nonentities who toil therein are prone to whining, and may be ignored or, better yet, reviled at any opportunity that presents itself. Management and the Correspondence Department tend to think of these employees as we do waitresses — necessary, perhaps, but wonderful targets for insult. Best for you to ignore all information that is not included in the company newspaper, edited by Mr. Pearl, The White Shirt.