Stanley Elkin - A Bad Man

The man was silent. Then, “They’re getting away with murder,” he said softly.

“ Am I taking a chance with you? ” Feldman insisted. The man looked confused. “The buttons. Your buttons. So many eggs, so many baskets. I know what those cost you, you. The garish orchestration of your politics, a tune for turncoats, fa la la. First one thing and then another.”

“They’re getting away with murder,” the man said again.

“We agree in principle,” Feldman said sharply.

“They have to be stopped,” the man said, and his face went through an extraordinary change, a relaxation, giving way to a kind of gravity he had been resisting. Feldman understood that his brief rhetoric had been rehearsed. Now there was something fervid as falling about him. He might have been dropping through the air in a parachute.

“We agree in principle. Go on,” Feldman commanded.

“There are movements afoot,” the man said with the same blank passion. “A conspiracy.” His voice achieved the word. “The nationhood threatened,” he said so feelingly that he seemed close to tears. “Rioters. Looting. So-called civil rights.” As if these phrases had triggered his message, he began to talk rapidly now. Kennedy’s assassination. A signal. Their call to arms. A blood sacrifice — theirs. The Mistaken’s. Pervasive moral collapse. Municipal swimming pools and city parks systems usurped, national parks next. Muggings in the Grand Canyon, rape in Yellowstone. The debilitating effect of modern music: jungle rhythms, chaos. Basements tactics of the so-called Black Muslims. Trouble in so-called Asia. Prayer in schools, together with other decisions of the so-called Supreme Court. In a blueprint — he personally had seen the blueprint.

“You’ve seen the blueprint?”

“Yes. I’ve seen it.”

“Go on.”

The Mistaken were actually three and a half months ahead of schedule, and gaining at a rate of thirty-eight minutes a day. An hour and a half on the Sabbath while the nation slept. “ Wake up, America! ” he finished. “ Oh, for God’s sake, wake up before it’s too late! ” Then, as if to reassure himself that it wasn’t, he looked at his watch.

“Guns,” Feldman said quietly. “You want guns. And ammo. Plenty of ammo.”

“What?”

“Be quiet,” Feldman said. “Let me think. Who’s with you?”

The man blinked at him.

“Who’s with you? What’s your membership? The usual smattering of retired generals, I suppose, old ladies with cat hairs on their shawls, one of two sore losers from Cuba and Budapest. Is that the element?”

“I want—”

“You want, you want. I know what you want. You want a radio ministry. Fifteen minutes a day at six-fifteen in the morning. ‘Wake up, America,’ indeed. Do you know who listens to those programs? Shut-ins. People on turnpikes who drive all night to save on motels. I know what you want. You want pamphlets in bus stations and flags for the poor. Sit still. Sit still . This is important. Arm.”

“What?”

“ Arm , goddamn it! The so-called British are coming. Arm! But the American way — with American weapons. Do you know what I see? A militia of deer hunters in red-checkered vests. A calvary of coon hounds. An arsenal of sporting goods and bombs in Cokes. A Winchester in every golf bag. Poisoned fishhooks and hangmen’s line. Wake up, American! Force! How much money you got?”

“I don’t see how—”

“How much money you got?” He waved his hand at the man’s lapel. “Don’t tell me that jewelry comes cheap. Don’t jew around with me. We’ll need sleeping bags, canteens, plenty of canvas tents and first aid kits. Don’t expect to get away without casualties. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. We’ll need Sterno, charcoal grills, paper plates, walkie-talkies. And don’t forget the transistor batteries for the walkie-talkies.”

Whoopee, Feldman thought. Whoopee yi o ki yay. This is it. This is. “Tear-gas fountain pens,” he said. “Cattle prods. And flags, plenty of flags. Let them know who we are. And the rifles! And the ammo for the rifles! Forty thousand dollars. I can equip an outfit of two hundred men and put them in the field for forty thousand dollars. You got forty thousand dollars?”

“ Do you?” Feldman demanded.

The man was blinking steadily now, licking his lips.

“Come on, come on, it’s near closing. They have three and a half months, six minutes on us.”

“What about uniforms?” the man asked. “You didn’t say anything about uniforms.”

“Bowling shirts, yachting caps,” Feldman said sharply. “Do you have the money?”

“My savings,” the stranger said. His decision made, he seemed relieved. “And you’re right about these”—he pointed to his lapel—“just a lot of talk.”

“All right,” Feldman said, scribbling an order as he spoke, “take this to Sporting Goods. And I’m giving you this at cost, so I want to go into your political background to make sure the stuff isn’t falling into the wrong hands.”

The man nodded and extended his card. He acted as if something quite familiar were happening to him.

This encounter taught Feldman a valuable lesson: that everyone had already been tempted, that everyone had already succumbed, had had those things happen to him which he wanted to have happen, and was looking for them to happen again. Seduction was routine; yielding was; everyone had a yes to spend and spent it. And there was about them all some soft, run-to-fat quality not of knowledge but of consent and peace, the puffy eyes of the heart.

He felt better, relieved of his responsibility to satanize the world.

In the next few weeks Feldman did a land-office business in a wide variety of favors. He arranged an orgy for some conventioneers (a call to Freedman: “Lilly wants to go into a whorehouse, Doc. Figures she belongs in one after what she’s done to the family. Physicians keep tabs on this sort of thing. You know a place with a healthy bunch of girls? After all, I still have to sleep with her”). He helped out a woman who wanted to fix a judge (“Doc, Lilly was run in last night. What can you tell me about Judge Meader?”). He did some business with a homosexual, fixed up a childless couple with a black-market baby, and was generally content. It still nagged at him occasionally that he was not really responsible for his clients’ needs, but this was partially offset by an incident that occurred shortly after the visit of the right-winger.

A fellow came into the office but couldn’t say what he wanted.

“Girls?” Feldman asked.

“No. I don’t know.”

“Fellas then. I could put you on to some swingers. My personal physician treats them for the biggest families.”

“Not interested.”

“You drive? There’s this guy needs a wheelman for a bank job he’s planning.”

“I’m no crook.”

“Say, you don’t know what you want, do you?”

“Sure don’t.” The fellow sat spraddle-legged.

“All right,” Feldman said finally, “I’ve got it. I’ve been waiting for someone to try it out on. It’s new, an experiment. Not a bit risky, but very unusual and a lot of kicks.”

“Yeah?”

“Guaranteed, but it would cost you seven hundred bucks.”

“That’s a little more than I’d planned—”

“Okay, then it’s not for you. Forget it.”

“What is it?”

“Forget it. It’s not for you.”

“Well, you can tell me what it is.”

“No, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t want to cut corners on this project. We’ll think of something else.”