Q: I sometimes imagine that I am in Pest Control. I have a small white truck with a red diamond-shaped emblem on the door and a white jump suit with the same emblem on the breast pocket. I park the truck in front of a subscribers neat three-hundred-thousand-dollar home, extract the silver canister of deadly pest-killer from the back of the truck, and walk up the brick sidewalk to the houses front door. Chimes ring, the door swings open, a young wife in jeans and a pink flannel shirt worn outside the jeans is standing there. "Pest Control," I say. She smiles at me, I smile back and move past her into the house, into the handsomely appointed kitchen. The canister is suspended by a sling from my right shoulder, and, pumping the mechanism occasionally with my right hand, I point the nozzle of the hose at the baseboards and begin to spray. I spray alongside the refrigerator, alongside the gas range, under the sink, and behind the kitchen table. Next, I move to the bathrooms, pumping and spr aying. The young wife is in another room, waiting for me to finish. I walk into the main sitting room and spray discreetly behind the largest pieces of furniture, an oak sideboard, a red plush Victorian couch, and along the inside of the fireplace. I do the study, spraying behind the masters heavy desk on which there is an open copy of the Columbia Encyclopedia, hes been looking up the Seven Years War, 1756-63, yellow highlighting there, and be?hind the forty-five-inch RCA television. The master bedroom requires just touches, like perfume behind the ear, short bursts in her closet which must avoid the two dozen pairs of shoes there and in his closet which con?tains six to eight long guns in canvas cases. Finally I spray the laundry room with its big white washer and dryer, and behind the folding table stacked with sheets and towels already folded. Who folds? I surmise that she folds. Unless one of the older children, pressed into service, folds. In my experience they are unlikely to fo ld. Maybe the au pair. Finished, I tear a properly-made-out receipt from my receipt book and present it to the young wife. She scribbles her name in the appro?priate space and hands it back to me. The house now stinks quite palpably but I know and she knows that the stench will dissipate in two to four hours. The young wife escorts me to the door, and, in parting, pins a silver medal on my chest and kisses me on both cheeks. Pest Control!
Four oclock in the morning. Simon listen?ing to one of his radios, sipping white wine. Two horn players are talking about Coltrane.
"The thing is," one says, and the other bursts in to say, "Yeah, but wait a minute."
A Woody Shaw record is played. Simons using ear?phones so he can play the music as loud as he pleases without disturbing the women. At low volume you lose half of it, a thing his wife had never understood. Now one of the guests is praising D flat. "This is on ITC," the host says. "ITC is a new label thats just getting started in LA. Theyre getting new guys and doing new things." The drummer on the Woody Shaw record is wonderfully skillful if a bit orotund.
"Great one," says one of the guys on the radio, when the Wynton Marsalis track is over.
"A lot of humility," says the other. "I mean he can do it all."
Simon suddenly remembers putting on his daugh?ters shoes, in the morning, before his wife took her to nursery school. His wife brought in the child and the shoes, and Sarah would sit on his lap as sneaker was fit?ted to foot. "Make your toes little," hed say, and shed perversely spread them.
"New York is a bitch," the radio says, "but theres more community."
Wheat-germ bubble gum was served
At the Maniacs Ball
He lays himself down in bed, sleeps fitfully for an hour and a half. At six hes up again, in a t-shirt and jeans, moving around the apartment. The women are all still sleeping. He looks out of the windows. On the street a man in violet running shorts is carrying a woman on his shoulders, shes in fact riding him, her legs around his neck. The man is heavy, muscular, car?ries his rider with spectacular ease. The woman is in her early forties, the man the same age or a little younger. The man runs in circles, the woman waves like a circus performer. Its six-thirty.
When he goes out to get the Times there is a semi-corpse in the vestibule, a barely breathing Hispanic male. Hes vomited blood and blood is all over the red tile. Simon shakes the mans shoulder. Whiskey smell and no visible wounds. He shakes the man again. No response.
Theres a hospital at the end of the block. Simon, on the sidewalk, stops a resident on the way to work. Hes Oriental, Korean or Japanese, white-clothed, a stetho?scope stuck in his right-hand jacket pocket.
"Theres a man in here. Not in good shape."
The doctor looks annoyed.
"Call nine one one."
"I think youd better look at him. He looks pretty far gone."
With clear reluctance the doctor, a small man with a mustache, follows Simon into the vestibule. He bends over the fallen man, taking care not to touch him.
"Call the hospital. Something in the --"
He moves one hand up and down his chest.
"Drunk, too."
Simon trudges back upstairs and telephones the hos?pital.
AND what if we grow old together, just the four of us? The loving quartet? What if we raddle to?gether? They of course raddling at a rate less precipi?tant than my own. I have a quarter-century advantage, in terms of raddling. Hes WAD, as the medical stu?dents say, Whirling Around the Drain. What kind of old ladies will these old ladies be? Veronica will be, as ever, moody. Shell do something immensely foolish, like writing a book. The book will be an extended medi?tation on the word "or," or the road not taken, or the road taken but not enjoyed, or the road taken and en?joyed to the fullest, a celebration of "or" not less fun-some than Kierkegaards. Twelve people will read the book. Four will write her letters. I will read the book but not write her a letter. "Good work," I will say to Veronica, clapping her on the shoulder several times to signal hearty congratulation. "That type. . ." The book will have been set in Bulmer, a typeface most eloquent, anorexic Bodoni but speaking never theless. Veronica will bring me my toddy as I sit by the fire, two pints of tequila laced with capers and a little gunpowder. Shell kiss my knee, which will probably, by this time, resem?ble a drill bit. Ill place my claw in her hair, now red and a very convincing red thanks to improved Dupont manipulation of the Periodic Table. The old folks at home.
Dore will come in and demand to know where my penis has got to. I dont know, Ill say, it was there yes?terday, more or less. You call that there, shell say, scornfully, and Ill say, I am a poor relic, a poor husk, a leftover, a single yellow bean covered with Cling Wrap sailing on a flawed plate through the refrigerator of life. Yes, shell say, excuses, you promised us Eden, you did, I remember, not anything you said in so many words but by implication, you implied that we would be happy forever together. . . I didnt! Ill say, or scream, I always said that things would turn out badly, consult the records, look at the transcript, you have no right to --
Anne
"ITS the fault of men. As a group."
"They dont want us to bloom and flower."
"Trying to keep all the prosperity for a few self-selected individuals. Men."
"Ive endured it on every side."
"Whole societies have taken glee and satisfaction from heckling, humiliating and scourging me."
"Thought I heard a skunk barking."
"They are tearing me apart with their defamations that whole worlds chuckle about."
"I think we should buy some cars or something, Firebirds and Cutlasses."
"The inconsequence of your thought is a burden to me."
"Stick a screwdriver down your throat if you mess with me. A big screwdriver."
"Gotta get that birds nest on the ground."
"You can start, in America, with just a nickel, and pretty soon you have a dime!"
"Ive been busy, sorting buttons, one thing and an?other."
"Polishing the doorknobs and getting the fug out of the corners."
"A few rows of figgers Id like you to check over."
"Used to be able to stay up all night and roar. Cant do that now."
"Wash my fingers frequently, bubbling in responses to forms and questionnaires."
"We watched a movie in which a giant chandelier visited the earth and a lot of little green wimps hung about the edges of the frame, cooing."
"Yeah I saw that one."
"Guy came up to me on the street, black guy, he says, Can you spare a quarter for an American citizen? "
"You gave it to him."
"How could I not?"
"Caught in the cognitive squeeze."
"Pink always struck me as sordid."
"Hes got those little spots on his hands."
"Burns. From cooking fried chicken. The grease jumps."
"If men knew what they were doing, they would cringe with fear."
"Older people should be treated with respect, not much but some."
"Thats really a very fine attitude toward older peo?ple. I admire you for that."
"Its hard to be bright and fresh when youre too old."
"You can accidentally shoot your dog. Ive known cases of that."
"Old men with canes gimping down the sidewalk. White hair and bent heads."
"I dreamed about this pony last night. Very engag?ing pony. We kept it in Simons room."
"They found more rabid skunks. Two in Brooklyn Heights and one at the World Trade Center."
"If they get here, how will they get here?"
"From Brooklyn, they have to walk over the bridge. From downtown, all they have to do is walk up Hudson Street."
"They could be on Hudson Street already. We wouldnt know."
"They could be in the graveyards. Hiding out in the graveyards behind the sagging stones. We wouldnt know."
"If they bite you then youre dead."
"No you have to have shots in the stomach. Forty-two shots in the stomach."
"What they do is bite your domestic animals, your cats and dogs, and then your domestic animals bite you. Or they bite other domestic animals and even?tually somebody bites you. Or your children."
"Im going to stay off the streets."
"No just wear boots. Then if one approaches you you can kick it."
"What does a skunk look like? Ive never seen one."
"It looks like a wallaby except that it has a different kind of head. Less attenuated. Theyre black."
"Ive only seen them squashed on the road."
"Maybe we should put chicken wire over the win?dows."
"I think were getting into a panic here. Just wear boots."
"Let Simon deal with them."
"Do you think hes brave?"
"No I dont think hes brave. But I think hes smart."
"If hes smart why doesnt he make us happy?"
"Who can make us happy? I mean if you look at it realistically."
"He said his wife finally asked him to stop introduc?ing her to people as my wife. "
"Thats not unreasonable."
"One day there wont be any wives any more."
"Or husbands either."
"Just free units cruising the surface of the earth. Fly?ing the black flag."
"Something to look forward to."
"Do you really think so?"
"What about the children?"
"Get one and keep it. Keep it for yourself. Hug it and teach it things. Everything you know."
"But they need fathers, in theory. That kind of qual?ity, that kind of rough quality. . ."
"I forgot about boys."
"Reminds me of thick lumber stacked on the back of a truck, held down by chains --"
"How can we leave him?"
"How can we not leave him?"
"Hes gracious and good."
"Hes not the only pebble on the beach."
"Its an impossible situation."
"But I like it."
"The thing is, whether we believe in ourselves or not."
"Its like three people reading a magazine at the same time."
"But well never see him again."
"Well send postcards."
"Little satisfaction in that."
"Well you cant have everything."
"Something is better than nothing."
"The thing is, we just have to have the courage of our convictions."
"Well Ive learned this: To make progress, you have to give up something."
"How do you know thats true?"
"It sounds right. It includes pain."
"I have hope," Simon says. "Not a hell of a lot of hope, but some hope. You need tons of hope sim?ply in order to function. Got to think that everything will work out. I dont think thats condescending. I hope its not condescending. Ive dealt with young peo?ple before. I taught Sarah to roll her eyes and groan, when she was four, we rehearsed it. She was attempting it already, herself, but she hadnt got it right. My father believed in the Second World War, a good choice. I believe in bricklayers but even bricklayers get things wrong, you specify a course of contrasting brick, vary the pattern of headers and stretchers and they misread the blueprints. I dont want to be condescending. Trees have integrity, cant go far wrong with a tree. You want to make a building look good, budget heavily for trees. A bird in the tree is better than a kick in the prosthesis. Thats all I mean. Thank you and good night."
"Simon, I dont want to go," Anne says.
"I dont want you to go."
"But I have to."
"I understand that. But you could be foolish and un?wise."
"Youd get tired of me."
"No. The reverse, if anything. We could sit around and watch old movies on television. Thats all I ask."
"Thats not true."
"I ask you, formally, to stay. Will you stay?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"It wouldnt work out."
"We could enjoy it for a short time. Might be as much as two whole years."
"You make it sound like a cancer situation. It wouldnt be fair to the others."
"When is anything ever fair to the others?"
SIMON flew to North Carolina to inspect a job hed done in Winston-Salem, a hospital. The con?struction was quite good and he found little to com?plain of. He admired the fenestration, done by his own hand. He spent an agreeable night in a Ramada Inn and flew back the next day. His seatmate was a young German woman on her way to Frankfurt. She was six months pregnant, she said, and her husband, an Army sergeant in Chemical Warfare, had found a new girlfriend, was divorcing her. She had spent two years at Benning, loved America, spoke with what seemed to Simon a Texas accent. Her father was dead and her mother operated a candy store in Frankfurt. They talked about pregnancy and delivery, about how much wine she allowed herself, whether aspirin was in fact a danger to the baby, and how both of her brothers-in-law had been born in taxis. She was amazingly cheerful given the circumstances and told him that the Russians were probably going to attempt to take over Mexico next. We had neglecte d Mexico, she said.
Over the Atlantic on the long approach to Kennedy Simon saw a hundred miles of garbage in the water, from the air white floating scruff. The water became agitated at points as fish attacked the garbage and Simon turned his mind to compaction. When they landed he kissed the German woman goodbye and told her that although she probably didnt feel very lucky at the moment, she was very lucky.
"I got to go away now," Dore says. "I got to leave this place."
"I gots to make mah mark in de whirl," says Veron?ica.
"The prophet Zephaniah appeared to me in a dream," Anne says. "He said, Split! Split!"
"Time boogies on," Dore says.
They are gathered by the door with much duffel. As?pects of optimistic gloom.
" Bye guys," Simon says.
They lurch through the door.
Q: Maybe theyll come back.
A: No, no. Of course not. Why should they?
Q: Do you want them to come back?
A: I have peculiar dreams. But I sleep very well, on balance.
Q: How many hours a night?
A: Four or five.
Q: Some people like Giacometti. As a sculptor. Al?though I suppose its foolish to speak of "liking" Gia?cometti. Armature with impetigo. Hes not about women.
A: Yes he is. Also, hes got a razor in his shoe.
Q: Do you want some of these little green ones? Theyre supposed to be good.
A: I think not.
Q: Feels like Saturday today, I dont know why. . .
A: It does feel a bit like Saturday. . .
Scan Notes, v4.0: Proofed very carefully, italics intact. In many places, the punctuation may seem incorrect or missing, but that was the way it was in the DT so blame eithere Bantam or Barthelme, not me.