Stanley Elkin - The Dick Gibson Show

“An Aluminum Siding Salesman?”

“Yassuh. Dat’s our Kunchachagwa word for ‘chief.’ Yassuh”— Southerners had taught him all the rest of what he knew of English—“How you call in yo’ language—‘chief.’ Aluminum Siding Salesman way we say dat.”

So when Norman refused to become a target for baseballs the circus owners had to let him go. He signed up with a lecture bureau and traveled briefly around the South giving talks, but fearing the same reaction he had received in the circus he took measures to improve his act. He appeared before them naked.

“Folks,” he would say, “y’all see befo’ you a tragic essample ob de noble sabage. I looks out ober dis yere audience ob ladies an’ gennelmuns in yo’ all’s fancy finery an’ it gibs me de culture shock. Acherly, if No’man not be so perlite he lak to bust him sides laughin’ jest to look at yo’ all’s suits an’ coats an’ whatnot.

“Shoot! Yo’all eber lib in a cabe? You prob’ly tink sech ting all dark an’ slimy. But I tell you sho as ah lib de Stone Age was de bes’. Ain’ no air pollution in de Stone Age, ain’ no angst, ain’ no sech ting as identity crisis. Course we had our shibboleths and societal taboos, dass true. Fo’ essample, we worship peanut shells, an’ ebery autumn when de leaves fall offen de trees we tink it’s gone be de end ob de wod’ for sho’. But whut dat mean? It all relatib. Eberyting relatib. Norman, him see fire an’ him see wheel, him see television an’ him see Indiana, an’ dere ain’ no comparison. When de blood ob Aluminum Siding Salesman run in yo’ veins, I guess yo’ neber be satisfied wit cibilization. But I say one ting fo’ yo’all — I sho’ laks dat mosquito netting. De proper study ob mankind is man.”

Usually he was arrested.

After the lecture tour he took a job in a foundry, and with the money he saved he was able to buy a little piece of bottomland in Arkansas.

“Norman,” Norman told Dick one night, “trace de whole entire history ob western cibilization all in his own self. Start out in de Stone Age, in on de birt’ ob fire — may dey rest in peace — go into de foundry fo’ de Iron Age, an’ now he a farmer. Eben do some time in show biz. It jest goes to show dat it’s true whut dey say — ontogeny sho’ nuff recapitulates phylogeny an’ make no mistake! Him all tuckered out do. Tink dis nigger skip de Industrial Rebolution!”

Dick wondered how Norman was feeling tonight. The caveman was a moody caller, and at times recently he had seemed almost deranged with gloom. “Norman, how are you?”

“Norman all messed up, Gibson Bwana. Crop come up. Norman get him ’nudder culture shock.”

“What’s happened, Norman?”

“I buy farm fum white man, neber tink to ask what he planted. Norman just a jerk, neber make it in de white man’s worl’.”

“Come on, Norman, that’s no way to talk. You’re very adaptive.”

“You know whut dat son bitch planted?”

“Well, let’s see—”

“Peanuts! Him planted peanuts. I neber see so many peanuts. In cabe in Chad we got maybe altogedder five peanuts. My people worship little feller peanut. Now Norman got him more peanuts den de Kunchachagwa Pope. Make him nerbous to tink he got so many. If Mama only alibe to see …” His voice cracked and trailed off.

“Norman — you’ve got to stop thinking like that. Your mother’s dead. She died when the tribe discovered fire.”

“Sho, Norman know dat. Still, Mama very religious woman, very ortodox. Her stay in de temple all de day, make holy holy. Wouldn’t she be pleased to see her Norman wit all dem peanuts!”

“She’d be very proud.”

“Also — har, har — Norman in lub.”

“What was that?”

“Norman fall in lub.”

“That’s wonderful, Norman. Who’s the lucky girl?”

“Her — tee hee — her— No. Norman dassn’t say. Not ’llowed speak name ob female fo’ de marriage ceremony.”

“Oh?”

“I speak to she fadder do. Him ’gainst de marriage.”

Dick could imagine what the prospect of a caveman in the family might do to a parent. “Well, sometimes these things happen,” he said soothingly. “Still, if the girl loves you—”

“Dat’s jus’ whut Norman tell he sweetheart. She say she want to finish school.”

“That isn’t unreasonable. If you both still feel this way after she graduates—”

“Can’t wait much longer. Norman no chicken. Him be forty yar nex’ comet. An’ little girl just startin’ de kindergarten.”

“You’ve fallen in love with a child in kindergarten?”

“Otre temps, otre moeurs.”

“Norman, that’s … You can’t—”

“Gibson bwana prejudiced as de udder white man,” Norman said sourly.

“Prejudiced? What’s prejudice got to do with it? … What other white man?”

“Udder white man — de redneck. She fadder.”

“The little girl’s white?”

“Whut dat matter? After we married we go back to Chad. Whut dipperence color make in a cabe?”

“Norman, you live in Arkansas! Listen to me. I want you to promise— Norman, listen to me. Listen to me, please.”

“Norman got to go. Some fellers poundin’ at de cabin do’.” Gibson could hear it, an alarming Tattle and some confused shouting.

“Norman?”

But the line went dead.

A newsbreak and a couple of commercials followed. Dick took the next call at seven minutes after three. It was from an Atlanta man who couldn’t sleep and called Dick to share with him the thought that had kept him up all night. He worked as an adjustor for an insurance company and was puzzled by the fact that people always told funny stories at lunch. “Why lunch? Why humor?”

“Well probably you eat with your co-workers, and most of them are men, right?”

“Yes, but you’re on the wrong track. These aren’t dirty jokes. Mostly they aren’t even jokes at all. They’re anecdotes, amusing things that happen to them in the business, or about odd people they used to know. Sure, sometimes people are smutty, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“My point is that you’re with your colleagues. It’s mostly an all- male company.”

“That’s so, but just as often the secretaries come with us, or some of the girls from the typing pool. It isn’t just men. Why humor? Why lunch? That’s what I’m driving at.”

“That’s what I’m driving at. You’re with colleagues. Isn’t it natural for people who know each other this way to talk about the oddball things that have happened to them?”

“Sure, but why lunch? We see each other socially at other times and it isn’t like that. I see Schmidt. Schmidt’s probably my best friend. But when we go to parties or out to dinner, Schmidt’s a totally different person. We talk about issues, or the news, or maybe our kids. There isn’t all that laughing.”

“I don’t understand. Does it bother you to hear a humorous story?”

“I didn’t say it bothered me. I never said it bothered me. But don’t you see? Everything is funny; it’s always funny. Everybody in my department is an adjustor, but often we eat with underwriters or salesmen or computer personnel or even with the company physicians. We’re a big company, one whole floor is a clinic where people come to be examined for their policies. But it doesn’t make any difference if a man is a doctor or a salesman or an adjustor like myself. Whenever he speaks up at lunch it’s to tell a funny story or make some wisecrack. That’s the way it was with the last company I worked for, and the firm I was with before that when I was in another business. It’s universal.”