Stanley Elkin - The MacGuffin

Outside the limousine now and still filibustering even as Hizzoner rolls his window up.

“Oh, hey,” says the City Commissioner of Streets, “I see you never went electric. With your car windows, I mean. That was a smart move. Well, hell, just another thing to go wrong. I’ve got them on mine and, knock wood, so far so good, but you never know. They get pretty temperamental I’m told, particularly in cold weather. As I say, I haven’t had much trouble but my neighbor up the street drives, I don’t know, one of those upscale Japanese luxury sedans, I forget which one, and his electric windows went out on him. It was only a fuse. Well maybe not a fuse exactly, but something relatively insignificant. Anyway, by the time it was working again it was like six or seven hundred dollars for parts and labor. They see you coming, those guys. Of course it’s an altogether different story with the kind of machinery this is. Yours is more like a ‘classic’ car. I guess a limousine like this one, they probably charge the city extra for manual handles.

“Well,” Druff says, holding his tongue, actually almost biting down on it for fear, perfectly capable of it as he is, of again blurting out the hideous non sequitur perched on its tip like irresistible candy. “Well,” he says. “Well.”

The mayor stares impassively out the window at him, then abruptly raises his jaw with an abrupt, quick little snap of his head, indicating to Druff to step closer. As if he has some confidence to impart to his streets commissioner that no one else may hear. More often than not it’s a political thing, this gesture. Druff’s used it himself on the customers, hundreds of times, inviting them into the squeezed, tight quarters of his confidence. Sharing his opinions (as if they were state secrets) about a particular dessert on the rubber-chicken circuit anyone in public office was obliged to travel. Or telling them in strictest, ears-only hush- hush that it seemed to him that this one or that one had put on or lost too much weight, and how — no, don’t look now — does it strike you, could something be wrong, do you think? What goes around comes around. Is that all this will amount to? Druff wonders. He certainly hopes so.

He still hasn’t moved. The mayor purses his lips, shrugs his eyebrows. It’s not just an invitation, it’s a direct command. Druff is drawn in.

“Yes?”

The mayor cracks the window about an inch and a half.

“You like my limousine?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“It is nice.”

“It is.”

He turned on a soft interior light. “All the comforts of home.”

“Yes, I see that.”

“All the comforts.”

“Yes.”

“Nice appointments.”

“Very nice.”

“Not too flashy?”

“No.”

“Well,” said the mayor, “you must be tired. I know I am.”

“Thank you for the lift.”

“You’re welcome. No problem.”

“To the Mansion, Your Honor?”

“Whenever you’re ready, Doug.”

And they were off, the limousine very quiet, almost silent, in fact, for a car so large. Perhaps, Druff thought, some of the sound was muffled by the small Oriental rug at Hizzoner’s feet.

Yeah, the MacGuffin goes. How about that?

Jesus, Druff goes, why didn’t you stop me?

Me? Stop you? You’re a force, you are. Once you get going. A force.

Some force.

Right down there with gravity.

Hold it. Where do you think you’re going?

You live here, don’t you? Ain’t this the place?

You stay outside.

Don’t be like that.

A man’s home is his castle. You stay outside.

Suppose it rains?

Mr. Mayor, Druff goes to himself, why haven’t we been better friends? Is it because I had nothing to do with that girl’s death? Christ, he must think I’m some jerk. He shoots a look at the MacGuffin. The MacGuffin made me do it, he goes.

The City Commissioner of Streets enters his castle. Leaving MacGuffin to fend for itself on his streets.

“Rose Helen, I’m back,” Druff calls out in the Mikey mode. He waits a moment. “I’m back,” he calls again. The lights were on but the house was quiet. “It’s me,” he repeats. “I’m back.”

He has a hideous premonition of disaster, of, well, retribution, revenge; and pictures Rose Helen in intimate, compromised positions of slaughter, of savage, indiscriminate massacre. Her pubic hair singed, her nipples cut off, switched and reversed and pushed back into her breasts like plugs, the distinctions blurred between crime and ostentation. He punishes himself with images of depravity so far beyond depravity it’s no longer depravity but business, nothing personal, her execution only someone seeking to send him a message.

Then he grinned. “It’s her batteries,” he said. “Poor kid, they must be as dead as a doornail.”

“Where have you been?”

“Rose Helen! Oh, Jesus, you scared hell out of me.”

“Do you know what time it is?”

“Look,” Druff said. He fished around in his pockets. “Look, I went out and got you these. They’re zinc oxides.”

“It’s almost eleven o’clock.”

“Not everyone carries them.”

“Michael had no trouble.”

“Mikey got you batteries? All right, Mikey!”

“I didn’t wait supper for you. The rest of the turkey is already back in the freezer.”

“Gee, Rose, I’m hungry as hell. I could eat a horse. Well, never mind. I’ll poke around in the refrigerator. I’ll find something.”

“Do you want me to defrost a drumstick? Do you want me to make you a sandwich? I could slice up some white meat and make you some toast.”

And then Druff, quite gently, was sobbing. Just like that. One minute he’s talking about dining on horse, the next he’s dissolved in tears of gratitude and thinking how genuinely splendid his wife is, how easily women can shift gears from put-upon and pissed-off back to nurture and duty.

“What’s wrong, have you been to the doctor? Is that where you’ve been all day? Have you been having angina again? What did he tell you?”

“Curse me, why don’t you, Rose Helen? No I haven’t been having angina. Angina, my God, that’s all I need! You think I’d let them have another go at me? After what I’ve been through? Their fucking tests. Their so-called options. ‘Let’s take this one step at a time, Bob. You could be managed medically. Or you might be a candidate for an angioplasty.’ An angioplasty! That’s a laugh. Do you personally know anyone who’s ever been a candidate for an angioplasty? I don’t. Hell no. They talk medical management and angioplasty at you, and all the time they’re sharpening up the long knives and prepping their chain saws so they can open you up to the air and oxidize your heart like an apple. No, thank God. There hasn’t been any angina to speak of.”

“To speak of.”

“That was only a little tightness in my chest. It wasn’t heart attack pain, and it never developed into angina. I lay down too soon after eating. I gobbled my food too fast.”

“And chewing all that coca has nothing to do with it.”

“No.”

“You think that junk is Juicy Fruit? Does it come with pictures of baseball players? Promise you’ll quit. It’s not good for your circulation.”

“Is that your scientific opinion?”

“It cuts off your circulation. That’s why you get that tightness.”

“It relaxes me. It’s my one pleasure.”

“Reality isn’t pleasant enough for you?”

“You think it gives me visions? You think it makes my colors brighter or brings out the music? It relaxes me. It makes it easier for me to deal with Mikey.”

“Don’t put it off on Mikey. Mikey has nothing to do with it.”