The Broom Of The System Part 55

"Have I not earned some trust?"

"I don't like this at all," Lang was saying. He squatted on his hams in the bow, resting his elbows on his knees and looking through the binoculars. "Not one little red bit, good buddy."

Obstat took two Pop Tarts out of their wrapper and tossed the wrapper into the lake. "At least they've stopped for a second," he said with his mouth full. "My arms are f.u.c.king numb, w.a.n.ger."

"Something's up," said Lang. "The little dung beetle's up to something."

"What's he doing?"

"It's not so much what he's doing." Lang s.h.i.+fted up into a seat. "It's the way Lenore's looking, here."

"How's that dress doing in all this heat, is what I want to know," Obstat said eagerly. "She got that little V of sweat at the chest yet? I love that little V."

"f.u.c.k off," Lang said.

"Hey now w.a.n.ger, you said I could look at the legs, and the V too if there was one!"

"Stop whining G.o.ddammit Neil," Lang said angrily. He looked at Obstat, who was looking at him as he chewed. Lang rolled his eyes. "Here, then. Just take a fast G.o.dd.a.m.n look if you have to." He pa.s.sed the binoculars over to Obstat and rubbed his face.

Obstat scanned with the gla.s.ses. Lang could see that he was getting Pop Tart filling on them. "Oh Jesus G.o.d I'm in love," Obstat whispered. "This is it. Mommy."

"I told you to cut that s.h.i.+t out about Lenore."

"Who's talking about Lenore? I'm talking about this totally unbelievable babe under a sun umbrella that Lenore and the little double-chinned guy just went by."

"Just went by?" Lang sat up. "Where're they going?"

"They just turned around, looks like. They're going back the way they came I guess." Obstat was still aimed at the beautiful woman, in a black swimsuit, under an umbrella.

"Turned around? The f.u.c.k. f.u.c.k. Give me those things." Give me those things."

Obstat looked up from the gla.s.ses, p.i.s.sed off. "Hey," he said. "Look here. If my a.s.s gets dragged all the way out here and then gets made to row a stupid boat so you can try to read people's lips, and if you're going to get all hinkey about Lenore and not let me express feelings, you can at least let me scope a little bit."

"You little skull-head," Lang said. He yanked the binoculars out of Obstat's hands and scanned the black rim of the Desert. "Holy s.h.i.+t, they are goin' back," he said. Obstat munched his Pop Tart in a funk. "I don't like this at all," Lang was saying. He reached out and knocked the Pop Tart out of Obstat's hand into the water.

"Hey!" Obstat said.

"Row!" yelled Lang. People in the other boats looked over. Lang squatted back in the bow. "Turn this f.u.c.ker around and row back the way we came." He looked through the binoculars again as Obstat muttered and picked up the heavy oars.

"And also start gettin' us in closer to sh.o.r.e,'" Lang said, pausing for just a moment to look back at what was undeniably a really unbelievable woman, in that swimsuit. "I want us a whole lot closer to sh.o.r.e."

11 September.

"So where do you get off, Fieldbinder?" Slotnik said, crossing and uncrossing his legs on the love seat.

The living room smetled vaguely of burn. Fieldbinder sat in wet clothes, s.h.i.+vering, the black wires of his burnt hair protruding up in a fan from his head, his hands full of stiff black feathers.

"What can I say, Don?" he said.

"An excellent question, Monroe, " said Slotnik, glancing over at Evelyn, in a new dry robe and nothing else, looking at her reflection in the dark living room window and trying on wigs. Slotnik turned back. "]ust what can you say, my friend, with your wet wrinkled clothes and smelly, kinky head? What can the universe say, when my supposedly good and respectable neighbors wors.h.i.+p my children on the sly, and my supposedly good friend and colleague b.a.l.l.s my wife, pokes and punctures the object of my every non-professional thought, tries to take my wife away, from me, to whom she rightfully belongs. " " He stared at Fieldbinder. "What is to say, Monroe?" He stared at Fieldbinder. "What is to say, Monroe?"

"Don, you've raised a number of interesting points, " said Fieldbinder. He glanced up at the staircase and saw two sets of pajama-feet, the children's, as the Slotnik children stood at the top of the case and listened, and perhaps sucked their thumbs.

"Just where do you get off, is what I want to know, " said Slotnik, crossing and uncrossing his legs, jangling a pair of open handcuffs. "Because, for your own information and files, you've gotten off for the last time. This is the end. This is it. "

Fieldbinder grinned coolly, then wryly. "Is it, " " he said. He slowly felt at the feathers with his good hand. he said. He slowly felt at the feathers with his good hand.

"Yes, " said Slotnik, returning Fieldbinder's smile with one equally wry. He went to Evelyn, at the window, and in a single motion calmly handcuffed her wrist to his wrist. Evelyn said nothing; she continued to put on wigs, making Slotnik's arm rise and fall with her own. Slotnik stared past his wife at Fieldbinder's tiny reflection in the dark window.

"Yes, " " he said again. "This is it. You've let yourself in for it, Monroe. " He turned. "You've put your precious, prodigious self in connection with another. And now I'm taking the other back. Evelyn and I are now joined together, forever, in discipline and negatian. " he said again. "This is it. You've let yourself in for it, Monroe. " He turned. "You've put your precious, prodigious self in connection with another. And now I'm taking the other back. Evelyn and I are now joined together, forever, in discipline and negatian. "

"Discipline?" Fieldbinder said, removing some mud and a twig from the crease of his slacks.

"She is now gone, the connection severed, and so you are done, " " said Slotnik, holding up his handcuffed wrist for effect. Evelyn's arm moved with his. said Slotnik, holding up his handcuffed wrist for effect. Evelyn's arm moved with his.

"I see, said Fieldbinder.

"Yes I'm sure you do, " Slotnik said coolly. "The connection is severed, you are yourself punctured, you are done. You will bleed out of yourseif and rise like a husk on a dry wind. There will be less and less of you. You will grow smaller and smaller in your stylish clothes, until you disappear altogether. " Slotnik grinned wryly. "You will return to the night sky with your satanic bird, and every dawn and dusk the horizon will run with your juices. "

"What an interestingly absurd theory, Don, " " Fieldbinder said coolly. Fieldbinder said coolly.

"I'm afraid he means it, Monroe, " " said Evelyn into the window. "Don has always been a man of his word. " She turned and c.o.c.ked her head, modelling a blond wig. "What do you think of this one, before you have to go?" said Evelyn into the window. "Don has always been a man of his word. " She turned and c.o.c.ked her head, modelling a blond wig. "What do you think of this one, before you have to go?"

Fieldbinder moved to look at his watch, but it had already slipped off his wrist onto the carpet without a sound.

"What's this? Are we checking out today?"

"Is that what we're doing, Mr. Beadsman? Checking out?"

"Yes."

"Well I have a form for you to sign right here, and then I guess off you go into the blue."

"We usually don't release on Sat.u.r.day you know Mr. Beadsman. I had to get this form out of a locked drawer you know."

"I apologize for any inconvenience."

"Oh I was just joking with you. That was just a joke. There's no inconvenience at all."

"May I please leave, then?"

"That's a good signature you've got there, Mr. Beadsman, isn't it? Now is somebody meeting you, or what?"

"No."

"Dr. Nelm told me to expect somebody to meet you, Mr. Beadsman. Are we being naughty?"

"I want to take a taxi to the airport."

"Are we going home, Mr. Beadsman? Are we going home to see our family?"

"Well all I can say is you just get your mother to give you something to eat. You just don't eat enough, is part of your problem, if you want my two cents' worth. You just eat, you hear?"

"Can you please call me a taxi?"

"And your father's been notified, Dr. Nelm told me."

"I'll notify everyone."

"Looks like a beautiful day out there. I heard it was going to rain, but I'll take suns.h.i.+ne bouncing off our lake any old day won't you?"

"I wish I was going to the airport on such a beautiful day."

"I'm afraid the sun will hurt my eyes, I've been inside so long."

"Now don't you worry. You can just squint until you get used to it. Your old eyes will adjust to the outside lickety-split, mine always do."

"This is just a bright town we live in Mr. Beadsman."

"So this goes on, really for longer than is necessary in order to get the narrative job done, with scene after scene of the wife coming in, tapping some McTeague McTeague onto the theoretical dentist's lip, the psychologist coming in and fondling the achingly lovely wife from behind, even as she taps the onto the theoretical dentist's lip, the psychologist coming in and fondling the achingly lovely wife from behind, even as she taps the McTeague McTeague code, the wife finally unable to resist any longer and throwing herself into the arms of the psychologist, and their rutting like crazed weasels on the hospital room floor while the theoretical dentist lies helpless in his bed, drowning in numb blackness and despair, vividly imagining precisely the scene that is taking place on the floor below him." code, the wife finally unable to resist any longer and throwing herself into the arms of the psychologist, and their rutting like crazed weasels on the hospital room floor while the theoretical dentist lies helpless in his bed, drowning in numb blackness and despair, vividly imagining precisely the scene that is taking place on the floor below him."

"Although I bet it's at least ninety-eight point six out here right now, don't you think? I don't know about at night, but I think the Desert could maybe support Lenore during the day. But maybe I'm just grasping at straws. Do you think I'm just grasping?"

"But see, part of the theoretical dentist's despair stems from the fact that he really doesn't and can't blame his achingly lovely wife for what is happening. He knows all about his wife's being troubled. He knows that she needs something which he is now, through no fault of his own, unable to give her. So he doesn't and cannot blame her. But imagine his despair, Lenore. In his numb helpless black isolation he needs the emotional center of his life, the object of his complete adoration, his fiancee, more than ever; and yet he knows that it is precisely his state of helpless, inefficacious isolation-a state he is in through exactly zero fault of his own-that is of necessity driving the lovely woman he adores farther and farther away. So he forgives, Lenore. He forgives. But he b.u.ms every minute in a cold flame of unimaginable torment."

"What's going on, Rick?"

"He forgives her, Lenore. From the icy depths of his helpless isolation and fierce and complete love, he extends a theoretical hand of forgiveness, like so ..."

"Ow!"

"Dear me, excuse us, please."

"Watch where you're waving your hands, buddy!"

"Terribly sorry."

"Freaking crowds. Let's get, Rick. We're just playing games. Lenore isn't around here."

"So on it goes. Finally the theoretical dentist's brother, who is an estate attorney in Philadelphia, is able to break away from his incredibly successful practice and personal life to come see the withered husk of the theoretical dentist. Since the brother had gone through the Scouts right alongside the dentist, for him Morse code communication to the dentist is no problem, though communications from the dentist are still c.u.mbersome as h.e.l.l. Nevertheless we're subjected to long and difficult coded conversations between the two in the hospital room, while the lovely wife, consumed with understandable self-loathing, and afraid that she would not be able to help making a pa.s.s at the devastatingly handsome estate-attorney brother, stays shacked up in the malevolent blond psychologist's apartment, rutting, and also watching gymnastics on television, the symbolism of which doesn't escape the reader, rest a.s.sured."

"OK Rick, that's it. Cut the story charade. We're having a talk."

"You bet your lovely bottom we are."

"So why can't we just have a talk without you pretending it's something else, Rick? I find this pretty disturbing."

"But see finally the wife can no longer stay away, she realizes that whatever physical connection she may crave because of her disastrously weak self-network, she and the dentist are connected in a much deeper and more profound and yes in some sense even more fulfilling and three-dimensional way, namely an emotional emotional way, and so she rushes to the hospital, brushes aside nurses and orderlies, and bursts into the theoretical dentist's room, only to see to her horror the dentist's brother, leaning over the p.r.o.ne dentist, beginning to remove the dentist's upper lip with a Boy Scout knife." way, and so she rushes to the hospital, brushes aside nurses and orderlies, and bursts into the theoretical dentist's room, only to see to her horror the dentist's brother, leaning over the p.r.o.ne dentist, beginning to remove the dentist's upper lip with a Boy Scout knife."

"Oh, really, come on."

"As the dentist, it turns out, had requested. requested. Which, given the context, the sensitive reader of course regards as food for thought. But and so the wife screams, and the previously brushed-aside nurses and orderlies rush in, and they restrain the estate-attorney brother, and he is carried off, and the achingly lovely woman positively falls on the dentist's mangled upper lip, trying to stop the bleeding and save the lip, las.h.i.+ng out at doctors who come near, tapping over and over into the gore that she loves the dentist, that she is sorry, please to forgive her. And through his pain the helpless dentist feels her tap, and his heart almost breaks, and though he knows it will do no good, because her pathetic neurosis will, he knows, soon drive the wife into outside connections again, he does forgive her, he does, and he moves his lip in his pathetically tiny way, to let her know he forgives her, but the heart-tweakingly tiny familiar movement of the lip is here of course obscured by the flow of blood from the attempted lip-removal, and so the wife just cannot see the movement, no matter how frantically the helpless dentist tries to move his lip, and so the wife, getting no visible results, finally reels from the dentist's room in despair and horror and guilt, and immediately goes shopping." Which, given the context, the sensitive reader of course regards as food for thought. But and so the wife screams, and the previously brushed-aside nurses and orderlies rush in, and they restrain the estate-attorney brother, and he is carried off, and the achingly lovely woman positively falls on the dentist's mangled upper lip, trying to stop the bleeding and save the lip, las.h.i.+ng out at doctors who come near, tapping over and over into the gore that she loves the dentist, that she is sorry, please to forgive her. And through his pain the helpless dentist feels her tap, and his heart almost breaks, and though he knows it will do no good, because her pathetic neurosis will, he knows, soon drive the wife into outside connections again, he does forgive her, he does, and he moves his lip in his pathetically tiny way, to let her know he forgives her, but the heart-tweakingly tiny familiar movement of the lip is here of course obscured by the flow of blood from the attempted lip-removal, and so the wife just cannot see the movement, no matter how frantically the helpless dentist tries to move his lip, and so the wife, getting no visible results, finally reels from the dentist's room in despair and horror and guilt, and immediately goes shopping."

"Shopping?"

"Shopping?"

"Lenore, look out there. What is that flash, out on the water? Is that a sunlight-off-binoculars flash?"

"Good Lord it is. Lenore, what's going on?"

"It is. It's Lang, in a boat. They're rowing this way. They've been watching. Lenore, what is Lang shouting? Is that Lang, shouting?"

"Rick, I can explain ..."

"No problem at all. Let me just ... I have to hurry."

"What are those?"

"These are our connection, Lenore. I forgive you."

"Handcuffs? You're going to forgive me with handcuffs that say 'Bambi's Den of Discipline' on them?"

"The ... achingly lovely woman returns that night to the dentist's hospital room with her copy of McTeague. McTeague. She comes in the night to the numb dentist and taps to him. She taps the conclusion of She comes in the night to the numb dentist and taps to him. She taps the conclusion of McTeague. McTeague. The book's climax. Have you ever experienced the climax of The book's climax. Have you ever experienced the climax of McTeague?" McTeague?"