Stanley Elkin - The MacGuffin

Well, he was already standing anyway. Looking back in Doug’s direction, whose shtick about detours and overflow and made-up streets had closed out the routine. He nodded at his erstwhile chauffeur and turned to the city’s chief executive.

“I quit,” he said.

“You quit?”

“That’s right. I’m resigning. I quit.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes.”

“That’s your trouble, Druff. And you call yourself a politician. You quit? You don’t know dust about smoke-filled rooms, do you? You’d just go and give up a plummy job like yours? Snap? Just like that? No quid pro quo? No dealing? No nothing? Well, I never,” said his mayor.

He was right, Druff thought. Everyone did.

Sure, prompted the MacGuffin. You didn’t even get how you know that name out of it.

A lot you’ve got to criticize, scolded wounded Druff. Where were you when I needed you?

Within hearshot, sightshot and soulshot, little buddy. Don’t worry about me.

So what do I do now?

Did I bring you here on an empty stomach? Did I pour rye in your eye? Did I feed you coca leaves all day like there was no tomorrow? The hell, scorned the MacGuffin. You got yourself into this. You just go and get yourself out.

Beat a strategic withdrawal, is that what you’re advising me?

Jesus! contempted old Mac.

Druff tossed a grateful mental wink at his friend.

Jesus Christ Jesus, kibitzed MacGuffin.

While Druff stared down the mayor.

“Gotcha!” he told him. “No, Frank,” Druff said, “I’m not quitting. Don’t you recognize more floor show when you see some?”

“Well, come along then,” the mayor said.

“You’ll take me?”

“Does he need your arm, do you think, Doug?”

“Maybe that and some stretcher-bearers, Mr. Mayor.”

And made a face as he came within breath range of the still-incumbent City Commissioner of Streets. Who, startled, suddenly recalled his performance that afternoon in Doug’s apartment. And willed his imperfectly steady legs into a locked position, conscious of his hip flexion, deliberately straightening his lumbar curve, minding all his orthopedics. In this manner he carefully made his way toward his bereaved hostess. I must look, he thought, like whatsisname, Frankenstein’s monster. Yeah, he thought hopefully, but sober.

“What can I say?” he said.

“You’re kind,” Mrs. Macklin said.

“Me?” he offered. “Nah. Marvin was kind.”

“Kind? Marvin was a hardened banker.”

Eureka! he exclaimed mentally. And didn’t forget to propitiate his MacGuffin.

Oh boy. His MacGuffin was disgusted.

Thinking as they led him off, It’s the company I keep, the circles I do and don’t travel in. Of course! Marvin Macklin was a hardened banker! What’s a hardened banker?

It was the first question he asked when he got into the limo. (Asking it through a speaking tube which he took off a hook where it lay on the dash. Because the mayor had instructed Druff to sit up front with the driver. “You’re not out of the woods yet,” Hizzoner explained through the tube. “You could be carsick. I’m only human, Druff. Well, I’m queasy. It’s nothing personal. I just can’t stand the sight of blood or the smell of puke.” Druff not too drunk to register that Motor Pool One was not as high-tech as his own electronically bristled limo, that its upholstery was not even leather but some gray cloth stuff he could not name but which wore an odor, not unpleasant, of some at once sweet and sour, luxurious mildew. It was a “machine” he associated with the days of lap rugs and tasseled hand pulls, some golden age of “motoring,” of hampers and running boards, of spares securely buckled inside round metal forms mounted near graceful, elegant fenders. He doubted that the limousine had a radio, let alone a cellular telephone. Or if it did it would be on the AM band, or shortwave perhaps. It would have vacuum tubes. Static would crackle in its felt-lined speakers. Now he was conscious of it, he noticed that this boat was stick-shift, a banker’s car from the days when streets were streets, and that’s what reminded him.) He looked at Doug as he lifted the speaking tube from its hook. “How do I work this thing, do I blow into it first or what?”

“The captain blows into it first. You just talk into it.”

“It’s funny,” Druff managed to fish when they’d traveled a few blocks, “I wouldn’t have called Marv ‘a hardened banker.’ What do you suppose Mrs. Macklin meant by that, Mr. Mayor?”

“Mind your business,” said Mr. Mayor.

“Are you sore at me?” Druff asked. “Don’t be sore at me. I’ve had a rough day. I was only kidding when I spoke of resigning. Those were my nerves resigning, not me. Hey, loyalty is my middle name. You really think I’d quit on you with the streets how they are? I was out in them last night. You wouldn’t believe the traffic. The traffic was terrific. The bankers, the bakers, the candlestick makers. Boy oh boy.”

“Quit, don’t quit,” the mayor boomed at him through the tube while Druff was still speaking. “No one’s indispensable. FDR’s brains blew up on him when he was out on a date with his girlfriend during the War. You think that affected anything? The hell! A few weeks later the Germans surrendered.” (Hmn, Druff thought, not only the same phrase MacGuffin had used, the same inflection, the same tone of voice!) “And what do you mean, ‘the bankers, the bakers?’ Why do you keep carping on that?”

“And what do you mean, ‘FDR’s brains blew up on him when he was out on a date with his girlfriend’?” the City Commissioner of Streets shot back.

“This is a ridiculous conversation,” the mayor said in a normal voice unaided by the speaking tube.

“It is,” Druff replied, too exhausted to trust his voice to an unabetted acoustics, and still speaking into the tube.

“Drop this one off first, Doug,” the mayor commanded.

What did he mean “this one?”

He was so tired. Beyond tired, weary really. He’d been on the go all day. It was amazing to him it was still only Saturday night. As that afternoon it had been amazing to him that it was still only that afternoon, as twilight had astonished him, as even now he was surprised not to be able to perceive just a hint in the darkness of even false dawn, time running in place on him, stuttering, skipping, caught like a phonograph needle in a faulty groove, the day’s long melody making no progress. It was Saturday, the weekend. On any normal Saturday he would have found some occasion to go off by himself in his house, to lie down, at least to put his feet up, to snooze in an easy chair, perchance to dream. It was the failure of privacy which so tired one, thought Druff, pressed and pooped. If he could just lean back in the old-fashioned, comfortable and roomy automobile, big as a bedroom even up front with Doug, sit back, maybe catch forty winks. Druff gazed sleepily out the window. He didn’t quite recognize where they were. There was probably still a ways to go. The mayor had finished speaking. Doug, always a more focused driver than Dick, was concentrating on the road. Druff, lulled by the ride, allowed himself to shut his eyes.

No! Don’t you dare! his MacGuffin startled.

“What’s it to you?” jolted Druff out loud.

The hypnagogic sleep, jerk. You talk too much, remember? It’s already been demonstrated that speaking tube’s for show, not for blow. The acoustics in here are better than Carnegie Hall’s. They’d pick up every word.

But I’m so tired.

Keep walking, don’t sit down. Run a cold shower, drink some black coffee.

Sleepy weepy.

Then talk, I tell you! Keep talking. But stay awake! Don’t let yourself lose consciousness. Stay in control.