The Broom of the System (27 page)

“Aren’t tree toads amphibians, really?”

“Wise-ass. Amphibian in a pit in her neck. But she suddenly and ominously gets even more fanatical about being in shadow and wearing the scarves, even though these are obviously alienating things: the more she wants to be accepted by the world, the more she’s beaten back by her heightened perception of her own difference, amphibian-tenant-wise. She becomes absolutely obsessed with the green tree toad, and gives it a really hard time with her fingernail, and cries, and tells the man she hates the toad, and the man tries to cheer her up by taking her out dancing at a nightclub that has lots of shadows. Gum, please.”

“...”

“And things get worse, and the Thermos woman is now drinking a lot, sitting in her apartment, and as she’s drinking, the man will look at her sadly, as he sits nearby working on the design for a scale; and the tree toad, when it’s not busy getting flicked by a fingernail, will look at the man and blink sadly, from the lower lid up, there in the pit in the Thermos woman’s neck.”

“....”

“And now, disastrously, it’s late April. It’s the height of spring, almost. Have you ever been around someplace that has tree toads, in the spring, Lenore?”

“Oh, no. ”

“They sing. It’s involuntary. It’s instinctive. They sing and chirrup like mad. And this, I rather like to think, is why the tree toad looked sadly at the man as the man was looking sadly at the drinking Thermos woman: the tree toad has its own nature to be true to, too. The toad’s maybe aware that its singing will have a disastrous effect on the Thermos woman, right now, because whereas in the past she always just used to keep herself hidden away, in the spring, in the singing season, now she’s clearly torn by strong desires to connect, to be a part of the world. And so maybe the tree toad knows it’s hurting the Thermos woman, maybe irreparably, by chirruping like mad, but what can it do? And the singing clearly drives the Thermos woman absolutely insane with frustration and horror, and her urges both to connect and to hide away in shadow are tearing at her like hell, and it’s all pathetic, and also, as should by now be apparent, more than a little ominous.”

“Oh, God.”

“And one day, not long after the toad began singing in the apartment, as the air is described as getting soft and sweet and tinged with gentle promises of warmth, with a flowery smell all around, even in New York City, the man gets a call at work from the Thermos woman’s father, in Yonkers: it seems that the Thermos woman had thrown herself in front of the subway and killed herself that morning in a truly horrible way.”

“Sweet Jesus.”

“And the man is obviously incredibly upset, and doesn’t even thank the father for calling him, even though it was quite a thing for the Eastern European father to do, what with the man being an outsider, et cetera, and so but the man is incredibly upset, and doesn’t even go to the funeral, he’s so frantic, and he discovers now—the hard way—that he really was connected to the Thermos woman, really and truly, deeply and significantly, and that the severing of an established connection is exponentially more painful than the rejection of an attempted connection, and he wallows in grief, and also disastrously his old love problem immediately comes roaring back stronger than ever, and the man is falling passionately in love with anything with a pulse, practically, and now, disastrously, men as well as women, and he’s perceived as a homosexual, and starts getting regularly beaten up at work, and then he loses his job when he tells his supervisor he’s in love with him, and he’s back out wandering the streets, and now he starts falling in love with children, too, which is obviously frowned upon by society, and he commits some gross though of course involuntary indiscretions, and gets arrested, and thrown in jail overnight, and he’s in a truly horrible way, and he curses the love therapist for even suggesting that he try to love with his discriminating-love-faculty.”

“May I please ask a question?”

“Yes. ”

“Why didn’t the Thermos woman just take the tree toad out of her neck and put it in a coffee can or something?”

“A, the implication is that the only way the animal-in-neck people can rid themselves of the animals in their necks is to die, see for instance the subway, and
b,
you’re totally, completely missing what I at any rate perceive to be the point of the story.”

“....”

“And the man is in a horrible way, and his old love problem is raging, together with and compounded by his continued grief at the severed Thermos-woman-connection, and his desire never ever to connect again, which desire itself stands in a troublingly ambiguous and bad-way-producing relation to the original love problem. And so things are just horrible. And they go on this way for about a week, and then one night in May the man is lying totally overcome by grief and by his roughly twenty-five fallings in love and run-ins with the police that day, and he’s almost out of his mind, lying in a very bad way there on the rug of his apartment, and suddenly there’s an impossibly tiny knock at the apartment door.”

“Oh, no.”

“What do you mean, ‘Oh, no’?”

“....”

“Well he opens the door, and there on the floor of the hall outside his apartment is the Thermos woman’s tiny delicate pale-green tree toad, blinking up at him, from the lower eyelid up, with its left rear foot flattened and trailing way behind it and obviously hurt, no doubt we’re to assume from the subway episode, which episode however the toad at least seemed to have survived.”

“Wow.”

“And the story ends with the man, bleary-eyed and punchy from grief and love and connection-ambiguity, at the door, staring down at the tiny pale-green tree toad, which is still simply looking up at him, blinking sadly in reverse, and giving a few tentative little chirrups. And they’re just there in the hall looking at each other as the story ends.”

“Wow.”

“I think I’d like to try two pieces of gum at once, please.”

“....”

“It’s clearly not right for the
Frequent Review,
but I’m going to write a personal rejection note in which I say that I personally liked it, and thought it had possibilities, though it was not as yet a finished piece. ”

“Another troubled-collegiate-mind submission?”

“That’s the very strong sense I get, although the kid tried to pass himself off as much older in his cover letter, and included what I have now determined to be a phony bibliography of published material. ”

“Lordy.”

“I’m suddenly monstrously hungry, Lenore.”

“I know for a fact there are sandwiches. Let me buzz Jennifer.”

“....”

“Well, it’s about time somebody wanted something around here.”

“Hi Jennifer. I think Mr. Vigorous would like a sandwich.”

“Well, sure. Sir, what would you like?”

“What sorts of sandwiches do you have, please?”

“We have ham, today, and also turkey.”

“Does the turkey have mayonnaise?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Miracle Whip, or Hellman’s?”

“Sir, I’m afraid I’m not sure. Lenore, I’m sorry.” “That’s OK, Jennifer. Hellman’s makes Rick’s throat itch, is the thing.”

“How perfectly awful!”

“Perhaps I’ll have the ham, provided it’s mayonnaiseless, with the crusts removed from what I’ll naturally assume to be rye bread.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please, and understandably again given the above it’s vital that there be no mayonnaise, though I would like a smidgeon of mustard, and also a Canadian Club with a spash of distilled water.”

“Lenore?”

“May I please have a ginger ale?”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Thanks, Jennifer.”

“Beautiful girl.”

“Trying to make me jealous?”

“Don’t I wish.”

“....”

“Speaking of which ... I saw Norman, yesterday, Lenore. He asked about you.”

“Really? I think we’re getting close to Bradley Field. I know we’re over New York state, anyway. See the traffic?”

“Norman asked about you.”

“Really.”

“Norman claims to be in love with you.”

“Why that tone, Rick?”

“What tone?”

“An obese, hideous, insane, aspirations-to-be-infinite person, who’s off his rocker, expresses a necessarily-given-his-universe-view temporary interest in someone who made every effort to be explicitly rude to him, and who clearly has no interest in him, and you get that tone.”

“I almost attacked him on the spot. I just had no idea where to begin hitting. He’s much larger than he was a week ago.”

“That seems longer ago than a week, doesn’t it?”

“Besides, his palanquin carriers were all quite burly. Otherwise I really would have lunged.”

“....”

“Norman hasn’t communicated with you directly, has he? Expressed things to you?”

“I’ll handle it, Rick.”

“Handle what?”

“Whatever needs to be handled.”

“....”

“I get to handle things too, you know. I’m a person.”

“What has he said?”

“Nothing even the tiniest bit interesting, and nothing that’s really any of your business.”

“None of my business?”

“....”

“None of my business?” “....”

“Aren’t
you
my—? Thank you. Thanks.”

“Looks super, Jennifer, thanks. Are we getting close?”

“I know we’re over New York. Captain says about half an hour.”

“Thanks.”

“Just buzz if there’s anything at all, you two.”

“She didn’t take the crusts off.”

“Give me your knife. I’ll do it.”

“We’re her only responsibility, the one thing she has to do, and she doesn’t take the crusts off.”

“....”

“You’re not my business? I’m confused about what’s my business and what isn’t?”

“Got a knife, here, remember.”

“....”

“I’m your friend. Your girlfriend. I’m not your business.”

“My
girlfriend?”

“Whatever you want to call it. May I please eat these crusts, or do you want them for some reason?”

“The things I love are my business.”

“That’s just untrue. The things you love and the people you love are the things and people you love. Your business is you.”

“....”

“Just like my business is me.”

“....”

“Which I’ll handle, Rick.”

“My, aren’t we assertive and confident and sure of ourselves all of a sudden.”

“I don’t think this is the place for this. When you start using the plural tense, I sense spasm-potential.”

“This ham is far too salty.”

“You did take your gum out, right?”

“I’m losing you, Lenore. My ears were rumbling ominously at impending loss. That’s what that rumbling really was.”

“Why do you perceive everything in terms of having and losing? Have you ever for about one second thought of how that makes me feel? You haven’t ‘lost me,’ whatever on God’s green earth that means. I’ll handle the people who might happen to be temporarily infatuated with me on my own, is all.”

“People?”

“Sweet shrieking mother of God! Listen to yourself! You’re not even insanely jealous, you’re just ...
pathetically
jealous.”

“So now I’m pathetic.”

“No more. I’m going to sleep. May I please put my ginger ale on your tray?”

“You may not go to sleep, Lenore.”

“....”

“At least have the decency to give me some gum, to have, for the landing, which I might tell you I’m not looking forward to one bit.”

“Here.”

“....”

“....”

“You are too my business.”

“Fnoof. ”

“Christ.”

 

10:42 Arrive Floor 5. ID check complete. Station log verifies assignment to observe patient “JB,
”
Room 573, admitted p.m. of Thursday, 26 August.

10:45 Arrive Room 573. ID check complete. Occupants of 573 as of 10:45: Joy; patient “JB”; Dr. Robert Golden, Supervisor Emotional/Psychological Services, Lake Lady Center; Dr. Daniel Nelm, Staff Physician, /P
S,
L.L.C. Observe patient “JB.” Patient male, Caucasian, fair, dark hair, height appr. 5’ 9”, weight appr. 100 lbs. Prominent features: eyes. Exceptionally large, black. Condition skin around eyes indicates lack of/difficulties connected with sleep. Patient conscious but sedated. Medication indicated Golden to be 110 Thor. Pcm #7 drip ver. saline x 2 hrs.; increased to 220 Thor. Pcm #7 post shift #3 (11 p.m.-7 a.m.).