The Broom Of The System Part 53

Lang grinned down at Lenore. "Except what you don't know is he started a real tradition with that. Everybody started doin' it. He got to be a sort of legend, by our senior year. I don't think folks even knew he was the one who stayed up in his room all the time. I think they thought he was somebody else."

Lenore thought of big Biff Diggerence, all alone in a room. Moving around from time to time. Going to the bathroom in beer cans. She remembered his bottom, and his playing with Sue Shaw's hair while she cried.

"He didn't marry Sue Shaw, did he?"

"That girl?" Lang said. "Good Lord no. Least I don't think so. Unless you know something I don't."

Later they had switched. Lang lay where Lenore had been and she moved over into his spot. Lang had shoved his duffel bag under the bed and had put the s.h.i.+rts and socks in a drawer that still had some of Misty Schwartz's clothes in it. The big television was now on, with the volume low. Out of the comer of her eye, Lenore could see enormous heads on the screen, flas.h.i.+ng back and forth, talking about the news. There were shots of gymnastics, but Lenore didn't really watch.

Lang told Lenore that he had been unhappy. He told her that he had felt trapped and constricted and claustrophobic for quite a while now. That he had been an accountant lately and hated it with a righteous fire. About his wife's voice being all around him. Lenore told Lang a little bit more about LaVache, and about Clarice and Alvin Spaniard and their troubles, and family theater.

Lang told Lenore that what he really wanted to do, he was pretty sure, was to go back to work for Industrial Desert Design, Dallas. He told her about the Great Ohio Desert, and about Neil Obstat, Jr., and Ed Roy Yancey, Jr., and about the Corfu Desert. He told her what had happened was that his father had said that if Andy married a Jewish lady, he wouldn't let him into the company. His father had been dumb and stubborn, and so had Lang, and so Lang had been an accountant for the past few years.

"And it wasn't even like she was really Jewish, even," Lang said. "She never goes to church. And G.o.d knows her Daddy don't go to any Jewish churches. Her Daddy's this insane pantheist f.u.c.ker who wors.h.i.+ps his lawn." Lang told Lenore some items of interest concerning Rex Metalman, and his lawn, and Scarsdale, and Rick's ex-wife, Veronica. Then he kissed her for a long time.

They probably kissed for about five solid minutes. Lang was an unbelievably gentle kisser. Lenore wouldn't have believed it. Rick's kisses had always been really intense. Rick had said they mirrored and were informed by the intensity of his pa.s.sion and commitment toward her.

While Lang traced lines everywhere with his finger, Lenore told him about her brother in Chicago, about a strange dream she'd had last night in which she dreamed that her mother dreamed where her brother was, and the dream made him be in that place, someplace with bright lights and people you could just tell were kind.

Lang said he felt really strongly that everything was going to be all right. He felt John was going to be OK, and he now knew for sure, personally speaking, that he was going to get a divorce from Mindy. Then he told Lenore a story about his own brother, his half-brother, who had been much older than he, his father's son by his first marriage, and about how this brother had unfortunately been killed in the conflict in Vietnam, in the Marines.

What had happened was that Lang's brother had been trained, along with all the other Marines at a certain training fort in Virginia, to throw grenades into enemy buildings and then wait just out by the door while the grenade exploded inside and put everybody out of commission, and then to come in and finish people off. And how, in Vietnam, Lang's brother had been fresh off the plane, and had tried to pull the grenade maneuver on a hut in a small village, apparently an enemy hut of some kind, but anyway that the walls of the hut had, not surprisingly, been made of gra.s.s and straw and dried water-buffalo droppings, and so the grenade's explosion not surprisingly tore right through the soft wall of the hut, and killed Lang's brother where he stood, waiting to finish people off. Lang said he had hardly known his brother at all. He said that the Marines had revised the fort's training after a lot of other Marines educated in Virginia had died this way. This was apparently early in the Vietnam conflict.

Lenore told Lang about the situation involving Lenore Beadsman, her great-grandmother. It turned out that Lang knew a lot already, from Neil Obstat, Jr.

"He's got your picture in his wallet, you know," Lang said. "Neil does."

"I've always found him a little on the creepy side," said Lenore. "He used to follow me around in school, when we went to school together, but never say anything." At this point Lang kissed the part of Lenore's throat right under her chin, and Lenore held his head there with her hand. "I didn't like him because I thought his head looked like a skull, I'm afraid. I know that's really shallow." She ma.s.saged the back of Lang's head while he kissed her throat. "And one time some bigger kids hung him from a hook by his underpants in P.E., and I saw him there, and I remember I felt like I was seeing somebody dead, because his head was all skully, and his eyes were closed, and we could see pretty much his whole bottom. "

Lang said that in reality Neil Obstat wasn't a bad guy at all. He said that he and Neil were thinking about taking the day off tomorrow, seeing how it was Sat.u.r.day, and going off somewhere. He said Lenore was more than welcome to come along, that he'd keep Obstat from being at all creepy. Lenore laughed. Then she told Lang that she was supposed to go out to the Great Ohio Desert with Rick Vigorous tomorrow, that they had made the plans already, and that the plans were pretty unchangeable. Lang was not too pleased.

"It's just that about a million people seem to think Lenore's out there," Lenore said. "As they keep making incredibly clear." Here Lang tried gently to lift her knee up with his hand, but stopped when she resisted.

"Also Rick really wants to go for some reason," Lenore said. "Today he was completely unsubtle about it. He almost yelled. And my brother, my father, Mr. Bloemker at the nursing home ... everybody looks to be made weirdly happy if I just go out and look for Lenore on a dune for a day." She had put her hand on Lang's cheek. "I'm too tired and p.i.s.sed off to argue with them anymore," she said. "And I guess now I need the chance to talk things over with Rick."

"Please just don't be too hard on him, Lenore," Lang said. He ran his thumb all the way along Lenore's leg, making her blink again.

Lang said he sensed everything was going to be all right with respect to Lenore's great-grandmother, too. He said he just felt it. But he said he didn't think Lenore should go to the G.O.D.

"n.o.body ever finds anybody in a place like that," he said. "People don't go to a place like that to look for other people. That's the opposite of the whole concept that's behind the thing."

"I think I ought to grab the opportunity to talk to Rick in private, though, anyway," Lenore said.

"Uh-huh," Lang said.

Faint music was coming from the television screen now. Heads kept replacing one another on the screen. Lang had a finger just under the elastic band of Lenore's panties, on her hip. Lang said the curve of Lenore's particular hip drove him right straight wild. He kissed her throat again.

Lang said grandmothers made him awfully sad. He said grandmothers were in his opinion basically sad things, especially the really old ones, who had all kinds of sad troubles. He told Lenore he remembered his father's mother in a nursing home in Texas in the 1960s. He said his grandfather had died and his father and mother had taken the grandmother in, for a time, but that things just hadn't worked out, even with a sort of nurse hired to come in during the day to look after the grandmother, and that Lang's father and grandmother had sat down and had a talk and Lang's father had told her she was going to get moved to a nursing home.

"She was just real decrepit, I remember," Lang said. "I remember she didn't move good at all, and her eyes they got milkier and milkier as time went by. She didn't kick up at the idea of going to the nursing home. I remember she nodded when my Daddy told her. You could tell she knew things just weren't working out.

"And the thing was we'd visit her in that nursing home every Sat.u.r.day," Lang said. "We made it like a routine. My Daddy tried real hard to be a good son. And the place wasn't but over in Fort Worth, so we'd all just pile in the car and go see her. Always my Daddy, G.o.dd.a.m.n near always me. Sometimes my mother and my brother. We'd pile in, and drive over, and we'd come through this gate of the place and have to go up this long, real windy gravel road to the place. This was a real nice place, too. It was real expensive. I can't say anything against the care she must of got."

Lenore nodded, and Lang touched her lip.

"So we'd just wind on up that road, and I remember how it always looked all sinister up at the actual home itself, which was at the top of a kind of hill, 'cause my Daddy always had tinted gla.s.s in his cars, so when I'd look up at the place through the winds.h.i.+eld I'd see all this s.h.i.+t through tinted gla.s.s, and it'd look dark as h.e.l.l, and like it was going to rain and storm and all. It always looked weird," Lang said. "And we could always see her, as we were coming up that road, 'cause she was always waiting for us on the porch of the place, every time. Place had a real nice porch, raised up. We'd see her as we drove up, see her from far away, 'cause she had this bright-white hair you could see for miles, and a wheelchair. But and anyway she'd be out there, and we'd come up and pile out, and up we'd go to visit. She was always real glad to see us. It was good to see her, too, but also of course kind of an obligation, you couldn't deny the fact. I remember I b.i.t.c.hed about it, some Sat.u.r.days. Had other s.h.i.+t to do. I was like eight." Lang took his hand off Lenore's hip and brushed it softly back and forth over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "But you know we'd visit and all, and she'd fill us in on what she was doing. Which didn't take much time, 'cause I remember what she was always doing was just making pot holders, for my mother. She made about one pot holder a month, was all. Her hands always moved like it was real cold."

Lang cleared his throat. "But then after some time went on like that, on one particular Sat.u.r.day we didn't go. We couldn't go that time. My Daddy had some emergency, I had s.h.i.+t to do, so on. So we didn't go that Sat.u.r.day. And the next day I remember we couldn't go that day either. There was just no two ways about it. But Monday we did go, to make up the visit, like surprise her with a visit, to make it up, which seemed fair and all. We all went ahead and piled in that Monday after I got off school. We went, and as we pull up that long drive up the hill we're confused, 'cause we can see her, hair all white and wheelchair s.h.i.+ning, there on the porch, with everything looking all dark and nasty around her in the tinted gla.s.s. And my Daddy goes 'What the h.e.l.l?' 'cause here it was Monday, not Sat.u.r.day. And it was cool out, you know. It was like November, and things could get cool. But and so she's sitting there anyway on the porch, in her chair, in blankets, so on.

"And we get up there and get out of the car and go on up to the porch, and she's glad as h.e.l.l to see us, like I said her eyes were milky but the milk seemed like it went out of them when she was real happy. She was clapping her hands real slow and soft, and smiling, and trying to hurry to pull pot holders and s.h.i.+t out of the blankets in her lap to show my mother, and grabbing at us and all, and my Daddy says something like 'Momma it's Monday, it's not Sat.u.r.day, we couldn't come Sat.u.r.day so we come today instead to be fair, now you tell me how'd you know to be out here waiting for us today, we didn't tell anybody we was coming,' so on. And she looks at my Daddy I remember like she don't understand, for a time, and then she smiles, real nice, and shrugs, and looks around at us and says well she waits for us every day. Then she nods. Every day, see. She says it like she thought we knew how she waited for us to maybe visit every G.o.dd.a.m.ned day."

Lenore watched Lang.

"Turned out she didn't know Sat.u.r.day from Adam anymore," Lang said. "She didn't know we had this s.h.i.+t down to a routine." He looked out past Lenore. "Or else maybe she did know, but she waited anyway, thinkin' maybe she'd get lucky and we'd want to see her even on some day when we didn't have to. Even when it got real cool out on the porch of the place she'd wait, it turned out. She just kept looking at my Daddy like she didn't see what the problem was, this was just her life, now, here, didn't we know it? While all the while we just stood around feeling terrible. I remember I felt like s.h.i.+t after that. I was big-time sad." Lang rubbed at an eye. "She died after that, too, 'fore I got much older."

Lenore watched Lang rub one eye. She thought about his grandmother. Lang stopped rubbing his eye and looked at her. Lenore found her throat aching again. She began to cry, just a little bit.

"Now I didn't mean to make you sad," Lang said. He smiled kindly. "That's my sad, it's not your sad."

He began kissing at Lenore's eyes, to get the tears. He did it so gently that Lenore put her arms around his neck. After a minute Lang rolled her toward him and began with one hand to try to unhook the fastener on her bra. Lenore let him, and kept her arms around his neck. Lang played with Lenore's b.r.e.a.s.t.s while she cried and held onto him and thought of a sky in Texas, in November, through tinted gla.s.s.

18.

1990.

"Good morning, Patrice."

"Good morning. How are you this morning?"

"I'm just fine thank you. The nurse tells me you have something for me. "

"Yes."

"Can I ask what it is?" "Three men go camping in the woods. One of the men starts out doing all the cooking, but the three men make an arrangement where, if either of the other two complain about the man's cooking, the complainer will automatically take over the cooking."

"I'm not sure I understand, Patrice."

"The cook cooks and cooks, and the other two campers smile and say it's very good, and they all continue to camp. And by and by the cook gets tired of cooking, and wishes someone would complain and so have to take over for him, but there are still no complaints. So the cook begins overcooking things on purpose, or burning them, or hardly cooking them and having them be raw. But the other two campers still eat it all and manage to smile. Soon the cook begins putting soap in the coffee, sprinkling dirt on everything he cooks, but still the other two go out of their way not to complain."

"Is this a joke? This is a joke, Patrice, I can tell."

"So finally the cook gets angry, he's so very tired of cooking, and he goes deep into the woods and finds a pile of moose droppings, and he takes them back to camp and roasts them, and serves them for dinner, along with soapy coffee. And the other two campers dig in, and the cook smiles at them expectantly, and they're eating very slowly, and also looking at each other, with faces. Finally one of them puts down his fork and says to the cook, 'Hey, Joe, I'm afraid I've got to tell you that these things taste like moose droppings. Good, though.'"

"Ha-ha."

"Ha-ha."

"Patrice, that was splendid, that joke. Where did you hear that? Did you make that joke up?"

"My son told it to me."

"Well isn't that just good, Patrice."

"Yes."

"When exactly did he tell that joke to you?"

"I think a joke like that ought to be worth some breathing, don't you?"

"I certainly do."

"I sure think so."

11 September

The End Is a Night Fire.

It is another May night, because May never ever ends. Here is a street that should be dark. In a gust of light the cement of the street can be seen to be new and rough. Some of the homes do not yet have lawns. All the trees are young and thin and supported by networks of ropes and stakes. They flicker and whip in the wind of light.

The wind is a wind of hot sparks. The sparks rise and whirl and die in the shrouds of light they make. At the end of the street sighs a burning home. The home looks the same as every other home on the street. It is on fire. Fire comes out of every opening in the home and rises. As the fire makes more openings in the home and rises from them, the home sighs and settles. The heat of the fire makes the fence in the lawn glow red, and the fence cooks the lawn around it.

The home begins to fold into its fire. Fire comes out of all the openings. It sounds like paper crinkling. It tightens the skin of your face. The fire cannot be controlled, and the home draws in all the air on the street and with a sigh folds down into itself. It takes farever. Everything falls into itself, slow as feathers.

Out the door of the home flies a bird with its tailfeathers on fire. It rises into the sky in circles. It spirals up and up into the sky until its light melts into a sparkle of stars. Down to the lawn floats a corkscrew pattern of burnt feathers.

Feet run over the lawn, through the flaming feathers. Fieldbinder and Evelyn Slotnik, hand in hand, run into the night, their hair on fire. In the light of their own hair they are wind. They make glowing cuts in the black square blocks of the suburbs as they run the tiny miles to the Slotniks' pool. Fences blush and fall away. An airplane is flying low overhead. The pa.s.sengers look down and see it all. They see one s.h.i.+ning pond of fire soaking out into the lawns and making shrouds of needled light that float up toward them, disappear when they touch. They see two surprised points of orange fire moving too fast through black backyards and waffled fences, making for a kidney of clean new blue water that lies ahead in a line lit up The pa.s.sengers look down and see it all. They see one s.h.i.+ning pond of fire soaking out into the lawns and making shrouds of needled light that float up toward them, disappear when they touch. They see two surprised points of orange fire moving too fast through black backyards and waffled fences, making for a kidney of clean new blue water that lies ahead in a line lit up from from below. It is captured forever below. It is captured forever on on quality film. quality film.

One of the oars fell into the water and Neil Obstat, Jr., lunged for it, knocking over his can of beer so that beer fizzed on his pantleg. He struggled to get the heavy oar back in its lock.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it," he said.

"Just keep the f.u.c.ker still, Neil," said w.a.n.g-Dang Lang.

"s.h.i.+t," said Obstat. Some people trying to fish over in the next rowboat were mad at the commotion and were giving Obstat the finger.

Lang was in the bow of the boat he and Obstat had rented at the Great Ohio Desert Fish License and Boat Rental Center for what Lang thought was a truly criminal amount of money.

"This whole thing's just gettin' too G.o.dd.a.m.n commercialized," he'd said to Obstat. Obstat had shrugged and hefted the beer.

Lang had some binoculars through which he was watching Lenore Beadsman and Rick Vigorous wandering along the lake's edge through one of the really blasted and forbidding parts of the Desert. Despite the weekend crowds, Lenore was easy to see in her bright white dress, and of course there was too the matter of Rick Vigorous's beret. Lang and Obstat were way out in the lake. Obstat was supposed to be rowing the boat so that they stayed just even with Lenore and Rick.

"What do you see?" Obstat had asked from the oars.

When Rick and Lenore were turned the right way, Lang could see their faces, but he couldn't yet make out what they were saying. They weren't talking much. Lenore was moving pretty easily through the deep sand, but Lang could see Rick Vigorous having trouble and sometimes needing to trot to keep up. Lenore kept making him look at his watch, as if time were an issue. It was still only mid-morning, but it was hot for September. Crowds wove in and out around Lenore and Rick. Someone on the rim was hawking black tee-s.h.i.+rts in a voice Lang could hear clear out on the water.

Lang held the binoculars in one hand. His other hand hurt like h.e.l.l today, from twirling his car keys on his injured finger last night. He thought his bird-bite might be getting infected.

"f.u.c.king bird," he said.

Obstat was grunting at the oars. He kept clunking them against the sides of the boat. Lang and Obstat were positively mowing over people's fis.h.i.+ng lines, and the people in the other boats were getting really p.i.s.sed off, but Lang told Obstat not to pay them any mind.

"Just remember I get a gander or two at those unearthly legs, climbing dunes," Obstat gasped as he pulled.

"They'll start sayin' important s.h.i.+t any minute now," Lang said.

"I absolutely insist that you invite me to relate a story."

"My shoes are full of this G.o.dd.a.m.ned sand."

"Lenore ..."

"Hey! Watch where you're going for Christ's sake!"

"Dear. Excuse us, please."

"For crying out loud."

"Terribly sorry."

"h.e.l.l of a place for a picnic."

"If you want my opinion, Lenore, they should either obliterate this place or enlarge it. The touristiness of the whole thing is negating whatever marginal attractions this place had to offer."

"People aren't smelling too terrific in this sun, either, I notice."

"Forget smells. You're here to concentrate on potential grandmother-signs."

"What kind of signs, Rick? I should look for Lenore neither climbing up nor sliding down a dune, all because of a game my brother made up when he was flapped? This has got to be a waste of time. I don't understand your obsession with this. With getting me out here today."

"Apparently Lang and his a.n.u.s-eyed Sancho Panza are about, too. Lurking, et cetera."