Джордж Сондерс - CommComm

I’ve sent out more than thirty resumes, been store to store, chatted up Dad’s old friends. Even our grocery’s half-closed. What used to be Produce is walled off with plywood. On the plywood is a sign: “If We Don’t Have It, Sorry.”

CommComm’s been offered a group transfer to NAIVAC Omaha. But Mom and Dad aren’t allowed into the yard, much less to Omaha. And when I’m not around they get agitated. I went to Albany last March for a seminar and they basically trashed the place. Which couldn’t have been easy. To even disturb a drape for them is a big deal. I walked in and Mom was trying to tip over the coffee table by flying through it on her knees and Dad was inside the couch, trying to weaken the springs via repetitive fast spinning. They didn’t mean to but were compelled. Even as they were flying/spinning they were apologizing profusely.

“Plus it really does stink in here,” Little Bill says.

“Who all is getting a headache, raise your hand,” says Jonkins.

“Oh, all right,” Rimney says, then goes into my cubicle and calls Odors. He asks why they can’t get over immediately. How many odors do they have exactly? Has the entire base suddenly gone smelly?

I walk in and he’s not talking into the phone, just tapping it against his leg.

He winks at me and asks loudly how Odors would like to try co-ordinating Community Communications while developing a splitting headache in a room that smells like ass.

All afternoon it stinks. At five, Rimney says let’s hope for the best overnight and wear scuba gear in tomorrow, except for Jonkins, who, as far as Jonkins, they probably don’t make scuba gear that humongous.

“I cannot believe you just said that,” says Jonkins.

“Learn to take a joke,” Rimney says, and slams into his office.

I walk out with Jonkins and Mrs. Gregg. The big flag over the Dirksen excavation is snapping in the wind, bright-yellow leaves zipping past as if weighted.

“I hate him,” says Jonkins.

“I feel so bad for his wife,” says Mrs. Gregg.

“First you have to live with him, then you have a stroke?” says Jonkins.

“And then you still have to live with him?” says Mrs. Gregg.

The Dirksen Center for Terror is the town’s great hope. If transferred to the Dirksen, you keep your benefits and years accrued and your salary goes up, because you’re Homeland Security instead of Air Force. We’ve all submitted our Requests for Transfer and our Self-Assessment Worksheets and now we’re just waiting to hear.

Except Rimney. Rimney heard right away. Rimney knows somebody who knows somebody. He was immediately certified Highly Proficient and is Dirksen-bound, which, possibly, is another reason everybody hates him.

My feeling is, good for him. If he went to Omaha, imagine the work. He and Val have a routine here, contacts, a special van, a custom mechanical bed. Imagine having to pick up and start over somewhere else.

“Home, home, home,” says Mrs. Gregg.

“PIDS, PIDS, PIDS,” I say.

“Oh, you poor thing,” says Mrs. Gregg.

“If I had to stand up in front of all those people,” says Jonkins, “I’d put a bullet in my head.”

Then there’s a long silence.

“Shit, man, sorry,” he says to me.

The Farragut’s full. I admit, concede, explain , and pledge . During the Q. & A., somebody says if the base is closing, why spend big bucks on a Beaver Habitat? I say because the Air Force is committed to insuring that, postClosure, all Air Force sites remain environmentally viable, prioritizing both species health and a diverse life-form mix.

Afterward Rimney’s back by the snacks. He says is there anything I can’t PIDS? I say probably not. I’ve PIDSed sexual-harassment cases, a cracked hazardous-waste incinerator, half a dozen jet-fuel spills. I PIDSed it when General Lemaster admitted being gay, retracted his admission, then retracted his retraction, all in the same day, before vanishing for a week with one of his high-school daughter’s girlfriends.

“You might have noticed earlier that I was not actually calling Odors,” Rimney says.

“I did notice that,” I say.

“Thing I like about you, you’re a guy who understands life gets complicated,” he says. “Got a minute? I need to show you something.”

I follow him back to CommComm. Which still stinks. I follow him into the copier closet, which stinks even worse.

In the closet is something big, in bubble wrap.

“Note to self,” he says. “Bubble wrap? Not smell-preventing.”

He slits open the bubble wrap. Inside is this giant dirt clod. Sticking out of the clod is a shoe. In the shoe is a foot, a rotted foot, in a rotted sock.

“I don’t get it,” I say.

“Found down in the Dirksen excavation,” he says. “Thought I could stash them in here a few days, but phew. Can you believe it?”

He slits open a second bubble-wrap package. There’s another guy, not enclodded, cringed up, in shredded pants, looking like he’s been dipped in mustard. This one’s small, like a jockey.

“They look old-timey to me,” Rimney says.

They do look old-timey. Their shoes are big crude shoes with big crude nails.

“So you see our issue,” he says. “Dirksen-wise.”

I don’t. But then I do.

The Racquetball Facility was scrapped due to someone found an Oneida nose-ring portion on the site. Likewise the proposed Motor Pool Improvement, on account of a shard of Colonial crockery.

If a pottery shard or partial nose ring can scrap a project, think what a couple of Potentially Historical corpses/mummies will do.

“Who else knows?” I say.

“The contractor,” Rimney says. “Rick Granis. You know Rick?”

I’ve known Rick since kindergarten. I remember how mad he’d get if anyone called his blanket anything but his binkie. Now he’s got an Escalade and a summer house on Otissic Lake.

“But Rick’s cool with it,” he says. “He’ll do whatever.”

He shows me Rick’s Daily Historical-Resource Assessment Worksheet. Under “Non-Historical Detritus,” Rick’s written, “Two contemp soda bottles, one contemp flange.” Under “Evidence of Pre-Existing Historical/Cultural Presence,” he’s written, “Not that I know of.”

Rimney says that a guy like me, master of the public-presentation aspect, could be a great fit at the Dirksen. As I may know, he knows somebody who knows somebody. Do I find the idea of Terror work at all compelling?

I say sure, yes, of course.

He says, thing is, they’re just bodies. The earth is full of bodies. Under every building in the world, if you dig deep enough, is probably a body. From the looks of it, someone just dumped these poor guys into a mass grave. They’re not dressed up, no coffins, no dusty flower remains, no prayer cards.

I say I’m not sure I totally follow.

He says he’s thinking a respectful reburial, somewhere they won’t be found, that won’t fuck up the Dirksen.

“And tell the truth,” he says, “I could use some help.”

I think of Tape 4, “Living the Now.” What is the Now Situation? How can I pull the pearl from the burning oyster? How can the “drowning boy” be saved? I do an Actual Harm Analysis. Who would a reburial hurt? The mummy guys? They’re past hurt. Who would it help? Rimney, Val Rimney, all future Dirksen employees.

Me.

Mom, Dad.

Dad worked thirty years at Gallup Chain, with his dad. Then they discontinued Automotive. Only Bike remained. A week after his layoff, Grandpa died. Day of the wake, Dad got laid off too. Month later, we found out Jean was sick. Jean was my sister, who died at eight. Her last wish was Disneyland. But money was tight. Toward the end, Dad borrowed money from Leo, the brother he hated. But Jean was too sick to travel. So Dad had an Army friend from Barstow film all of Disney on a Super-8. The guy walked the whole place. Jean watched it and watched it. Dad was one of these auto-optimists. To hear him tell it, we’d won an incredible last-minute victory. Hadn’t we? Wasn’t it something, that we could give Jeanie such a wonderful opportunity?