Stanley Elkin - Criers & Kibitzers, Kibitzers & Criers

The building was an outlaw. Low rents and a downtown address and the landlord’s indifference had brought together from the peripheries of business and professionalism a strange band of entrepreneurs and visionaries, men desperately but imaginatively failing: an eye doctor who corrected vision by massage; a radio evangelist; a black-belt judo champion; a self-help organization for crippled veterans; dealers in pornographic books, in paper flowers, in fireworks, in plastic jewelry, in the artificial, in the artfully made, in the imitated, in the copied, in the stolen, the unreal, the perversion, the plastic, the schlak .

On the third floor the elevator opened and the young man, Ed Wolfe, stepped out.

He passed the Association for the Indians, passed Plasti-Pens, passed Coffin & Tombstone , passed Soldier Toys, passed Prayer-a-Day. He walked by the open door of C. Morris Brut, Chiropractor, and saw him, alone, standing at a mad attention, framed in the arching golden nimbus of his inverted name on the window, squeezing handballs.

He looked quickly away, but Dr. Brut saw him and came toward him, putting the handballs in his shirt pocket, where they bulged awkwardly. He held him by the elbow. Ed Wolfe looked down at the yellowing tile, infinitely diamonded, chipped, the floor of a public toilet, and saw Dr. Brut’s dusty shoes. He stared sadly at the jagged, broken glass of the mail chute.

“Ed Wolfe, take care of yourself,” Dr. Brut said.

“Right. ”

“Regard your position in life. A tall man like yourself looks terrible when he slumps. Don’t be a schlump . It’s not good for the organs.”

“I’ll watch it.”

“When the organs get out of line the man begins to die.”

“I know.”

“You say so. How many guys make promises. Brains in the brainpan. Balls in the strap. The bastards downtown.” Dr. Brut meant doctors in hospitals, in clinics, on boards, non-orphans with M.D. degrees and special license plates and respectable patients who had Blue Cross, charts, died in clean hospital rooms. They were the bastards downtown, his personal New Deal, his neighborhood Wall Street banker. A disease cartel. “They won’t tell you. The white bread kills you. The cigarettes. The whiskey. The sneakers. The high heels. They won’t tell you. Me, I’ll tell you.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Wise guy. Punk. I’m a friend. I give a father’s advice.”

“I’m an orphan.”

“I’ll adopt you.”

“I’m late to work.”

“We’ll open a clinic. ‘C. Morris Brut and Adopted Son.’ ”

“It’s something to think about.”

“Poetry,” Dr. Brut said and walked back to his office, his posture stiff, awkward, a man in a million who knew how to hold himself.

Ed Wolfe went on to his own office. The sad-faced telephone girl was saying, “Cornucopia Finance Corporation.” She pulled the wire out of the board and slipped her headset around her neck, where it hung like a delicate horse collar. “Mr. La Meck wants to see you. But don’t go in yet. He’s talking to somebody.”

He went toward his desk at one end of the big main office. Standing, fists on the desk, he turned to the girl, “What happened to my call cards?”

“Mr. La Meck took them,” she said.

“Give me the carbons,” Ed Wolfe said. “I’ve got to make some calls.”

The girl looked embarrassed. Her face went through a weird change, the sadness taking on an impossible burden of shame, so that she seemed massively tragic, like a hit-and-run driver. “I’ll get them,” she said, moving out of the chair heavily. Ed Wolfe thought of Dr. Brut.

He took the carbons and fanned them out on the desk, then picked one in an intense, random gesture like someone drawing a number on a public stage. He dialed rapidly.

As the phone buzzed brokenly in his ear he felt the old excitement. Someone at the other end greeted him sleepily.

“Mr. Flay? This is Ed Wolfe at Cornucopia Finance.” (Can you cope, can you cope? he hummed to himself.)

“Who?”

“Ed Wolfe. I’ve got an unpleasant duty,” he began pleasantly. “You’ve skipped two payments.”

“I didn’t skip nothing. I called the girl. She said it was okay.”

“That was three months ago. She meant it was all right to miss a few days. Listen, Mr. Flay, we’ve got that call recorded, too. Nothing gets by.”

I’m a little short.”

“Grow.”

“I couldn’t help it,” the man said. Ed Wolfe didn’t like the cringing tone. Petulance and anger he could meet with his own petulance, his own anger. But guilt would have to be met with his own guilt, and that, here, was irrelevant.

“Don’t con me, Flay. You’re a troublemaker. What are you, Flay, a Polish person? Flay isn’t a Polish name, but your address…”

“What’s that?”

“What are you? Are you Polish?”

“What’s that to you? What difference does it make?” That’s more like it, Ed Wolfe thought warmly.

“That’s what you are, Flay. You’re a Pole. It’s guys like you who give your race a bad name. Half our bugouts are Polish persons.”

“Listen. You can’t…”

He began to shout. “ You listen. You wanted the car. The refrigerator. The chintzy furniture. The sectional you saw in the funny papers. And we paid for it, right?”

“Listen. The money I owe is one thing, the way…”

“We paid for it, right?”

“That doesn’t…”

“Right? Right ?”

“Yes, you…”

“ Okay . You’re in trouble, Warsaw. You’re in terrible trouble. It means a lien. A judgment. We’ve got lawyers. You’ve got nothing. We’ll pull the furniture the hell out of there. The car. Everything. ”

“Wait,” he said. “Listen, my brother-in-law….”

Ed Wolfe broke in sharply. “He’s got money?”

“I don’t know. A little. I don’t know.”

“Get it. If you’re short, grow. This is America.”

“I don’t know if he’ll let me have it.”

“Steal it. This is America. Good-by.”

“Wait a minute. Please.”

“That’s it. There are other Polish persons on my list. This time it was just a friendly warning. Cornucopia wants its money. Cornucopia. Can you cope? Can you cope? Just a friendly warning, Polish-American. Next time we come with the lawyers and the machine guns. Am I making myself clear?”

“I’ll try to get it to you.”

Ed Wolfe hung up. He pulled a handkerchief from his drawer and wiped his face. His chest was heaving. He took another call card. The girl came by and stood beside his desk. “Mr. La Meck can see you now,” she mourned.

“Later. I’m calling.” The number was already ringing.

“Please, Mr. Wolfe.”

“Later, I said. In a minute.” The girl went away. “Hello. Let me speak with your husband, madam. I am Ed Wolfe of Cornucopia Finance. He can’t cope. Your husband can’t cope.”

The woman made an excuse. “Put him on, goddamn it. We know he’s out of work. Nothing gets by. Nothing.”

There was a hand on the receiver beside his own, the wide male fingers pink and vaguely perfumed, the nails manicured. For a moment he struggled with it fitfully, as though the hand itself were all he had to contend with. Then he recognized La Meck and let go. La Meck pulled the phone quickly toward his mouth and spoke softly into it, words of apology, some ingenious excuse Ed Wolfe couldn’t hear. He put the receiver down beside the phone itself and Ed Wolfe picked it up and returned it to its cradle.

“Ed,” La Meck said, “come into the office with me.”

Ed Wolfe followed La Meck, his eyes on La Meck’s behind.

La Meck stopped at his office door. Looking around, he shook his head sadly, and Ed Wolfe nodded in agreement. La Meck let him enter first. While La Meck stood, Ed Wolfe could discern a kind of sadness in his slouch, but once the man was seated behind his desk he seemed restored, once again certain of the world’s soundness. “All right,” La Meck began, “I won’t lie to you. ”