Stanley Elkin - The Franchiser

“—I was discussing the rich. There are many wealthy. More than you think. I’m not just talking beneficiaries either, next of kin, in-laws, distant cousins, the King’s mishpocheh , the Emperor’s. But the rich man himself, the wage earner, the founder . Fly in an airplane in a straight line across one state. You couldn’t count the mansions or limousines, you couldn’t count the swimming pools. So many, Ben. You’re not one of them, and not one of the family, and still you exist. I am talking the long shot of existence, the odds no gambler in the world would take, that you would ever come to life as a person, a boy called Ben Flesh.”

He was very excited. He raised himself on the boards taped to his arms and leaned toward me, speaking so close to the oxygen tent that with each word he seemed about to take some of it into his mouth.

“Think of the last of their lines. How many do you suppose have been the last of their lines? Queers, say, or the imperfectly pelvic’d or ball-torn or so wondrously ugly they could never make out and didn’t have the courage or the will to rape? Whatever the reason the last of their lines, end of the road, everybody out. How many? Forty million? Fifty? I don’t have the statistics. — I’m reminded of those rich men again; you could have been the paper for a stock or a bond; you could have been change in somebody’s pocket or a lost dollar nobody found. — But at least fifty million. So great a number, yet you managed to be born, you made it anyway, you wormed your way. And if you happen to be white, that’s a miracle squared. Are you following my argument? White people are a minority, you know. As land is to sea, white is to black, to yellow and mongrel Pak. So we keep compounding the miracle like the interest rate on money never touched.

“It’s incredible really. Amazing. Who could believe it? You weren’t aborted, you didn’t end up in a scum bag. You survived the infant mortality stuff. You made it past measles, polio, mumps. You outwitted whooping cough, typhoid, VD. God bless you, boy, you’re a testament to the impossible! And not just that, but you aren’t broken or damaged, there are no birth defects; you’ve your full complement of fingers, your fair share of toes. Your brains are present and accounted for. You’re literate, you do sums.

The Dean’s list at Wharton. I know, I know. And even without parents you’ve got clothes, shelter, sex, what to eat — you know, the drives, the hydramatics of being, four on the floor and more where that came from. Yes, and you get the point of jokes and have a favorite movie and maybe even the room where you stay is done up in your best color. My God, lad, you’re a fucking celebration!

“And over and beyond everything, your inventory of good fortune like leaves on trees, there’s still some advantage left over. Nurse, Nurse! ”

The woman ran back into the room.

“What is it, Mr. Finsberg? Is something the matter?”

“Nothing. Nothing. I wanted you to see this phenomenon.” He poked his plasma board at the tent and pointed me out.

“You’ll tear the tent, sir.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes. I thought he had passed out. But in a moment he began to speak again.

“The wars,” he said breathlessly, his eyes still shut. “You were drafted. But you lived to tell the tale. In my own lifetime, just in my own country, there’s been the Spanish-American, the First War and Second, plus a little showing the flag here and a little more there. And maneuvers going on all the time. Even as we talk, maneuvers going on, war games, and if plenty buy it in the line of duty, a lot more buy it and it’s only an accident. In car wrecks on highways, your own parents, for example — and may I belatedly say how sorry I am? Al was my partner and Rose my friend, and I miss them dearly, the both. And the houses burned down that you weren’t in — all the chance crap, all the hazard, actuarial rough stuff.”

He opened his eyes. “Am I on the right track?” he asked softly. “Will you leave here singing? Humming the tune?

“What I’m looking for is the argument priests used to give, maybe still do, about how long a time eternity takes. Like if a birdie were to carry one grain of sand in its beak from a beach and fly across the ocean with it and then go back for another grain and shlep it overseas and lay it down by the first and then go back for a third and so on and so forth, and have to do that on all the beaches in the world, one grain at a time, and the same with deserts and all the sand traps in all the golf courses on earth, including miniature, and all the hourglasses and kids’ sandboxes and throw in, too, every grotty piece of sand in tennis shoes from picnics at the beach and the gritty leftovers in all the crotches of jockstraps and bathing suits from all the summer vacations in history and all the winters in Miami and other resorts — and when the birdie did all that, that would be only a fraction of a fraction of just the first second of what’s left of eternity! All right, listen: And say that the heat in Hell at the time our feathered friend makes his first trip is already the boiling point of water, and that it gets one degree hotter every time not just that the goddamn bird completes a trip but every time he flaps his fucking wings , and the pain and hotness of that heat at the end of all those trips would be to ultimate pain only what putting a pair of mittens on the coldest day in the coldest winter in the world would be to the ultimate comfort of your hands. And you could have been any one of those grains of sand, or any one of those seconds of eternity, or any one of those B.T.U. ’s!

“Ben, everything there is is against your being here! Think of get-togethers, family stuff, golden anniversaries in rented halls, fire regulations celebrated more in the breach than the observance, the baked Alaska up in flames, everybody wiped out — all the cousins in from the coast. Wiped out. Rare, yes — who says not? — certainly rare, but it could happen, has happened. And once is enough if you’ve been invited. All the people picked off by plagues and folks eaten by the earthquakes and drowned in the tidal waves, all the people already dead that you might have been or who might have begat the girl who married the guy who fathered the fellow who might have been your ancestor — all the showers of sperm that dried on his Kleenex or spilled on his sheets or fell on the ground or dirtied his hands when he jerked off or came in his p.j.’s or no, maybe he was actually screwing and the spermatozoon had your number written on it and it was lost at sea because that’s what happens, you see — there’s low motility and torn tails — that’s what happens to all but a handful out of all the googols and gallons of come, more sperm finally than even the grains of sand I was talking about, more even than the degrees. Well — am I making the picture for you? Am I connecting the dots? Ben, Ben , Nick the Greek wouldn’t lay a fart against a trillion bucks that you’d ever make it to this planet!

“So! Still! Against all the odds in the universe you made happy landings! What do you think? Ain’t that delightful? Wait, there’s more. You have not only your existence but your edge, your advantage and privilege. You do, Ben, you do. No? Everybody does. They give congressmen the frank. Golden-agers go cheap to the movies. You work on the railroads they give you a pass. You clerk in a store it’s the 20 percent discount. You’re a dentist your kid’s home free with the orthodontics. Benny, Benny, we got so much edge we could cut diamonds!”

“I have none of these things, Godfather.”