“Shall I fetch the maître d‘, sir? To confer?”
“By all means, fetch him. But warn him against getting too close. He will be encompassed instantly, before he has time to squeak. Tonight I will eat. Hugely, and alone. For I am now hugely alone. I will eat, and juice might very well spurt into the air around me, and if anyone comes too near, I will snarl and jab at them with my fork—like this, see?”
“Sir, really!”
“Run for your very life. Fetch something to placate me. I’m going to grow and grow, and fill the absence that surrounds me with the horror of my own gelatinous presence. Yin and Yang. Ever growing, waiter. Run!”
“Right away, sir!”
“Some breadsticks might have been nice, too, do you hear? What kind of place is this, anyway?”
/b/
“I insist that you tell me.”
“Could you just possibly wait, for about nine tenths of a second, while I decide how to tell you?”
“What does deciding have to do with it? There’s a thing, and here am I, tell me the thing, voilà. Clearly there’s something bothering you.”
“Look, I’m obviously going to tell you, OK? Don’t have a spasm. It’s just that the thing I have to tell is, a, unbelievably weird, and I don’t even really understand it ...”
“So let’s have both our powers of understanding leveled at the thing, together. Whose power of understanding and persuasion soothed a potentially disastrously pissed-off Walinda for you, after all?”
“... and b, is something I was told not to tell, so I have to figure out a way to tell you in a way that’s going to least compromise my promise not to tell, and least make anything bad happen to the person whom the thing concerns.”
“Clear as a bell. As clear as this water glass, Lenore.”
“Don’t flick your water glass. Look, you said this place had really great steaks, and you said you were starving, so why don’t you just concentrate on the impending arrival of your steak, which I sort of think is coming right now?”
“....”
“Looks super, thank you. Rick, would we care for wine?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“ ... ”
“What kind?”
“ .... ”
“We’ll maybe just have a bottle of your house red, if that’s OK.... You are a baby. You have the understanding and compassion of a very very small child, sometimes.”
“Lenore, it’s simply that I love you. You know that. Every fiber of your being is loved by every fiber of my being. The thought of things about you, concerning you, troubling you, that I don’t know about, makes blood run from my eyes, on the inside.”
“Interesting image. Look, try your steak. You said you were in a position to eat a horse.”
“ .... ”
“Does that hit the spot?”
“My spot is reeling under the force of the blow. Now I insist that you tell me.”
“ .... ”
“Does this have to do with your trying to call that Rummage person while I was busy keeping Walinda from forcing me to choose between her services and yours, even though she was hired by Frequent himself? Shall I simply get up and go call Rummage right now?”
“He’s not there. He’s not here.”
“ .... ”
“He’s apparently out of the country, with my father.”
“Doing what?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Is this the same ‘I can’t tell you,’ or a different one?”
“Different. ”
“Deeply hurt and pissed off, now.”
“Look, can I just assure you that I’ll tell you later, and not tell you now, and think, and eat my salad? Would that be OK? I’ll stay at your place tonight, which I actually really want to do, even though I told Candy I’d be back home tonight, and we’ll talk. I really do need your advice. Yours especially, Rick. I just have to figure out what’s going on myself, first, for a second, OK?”
“It’s really quite bad, and it has to do with the nursing home, and no one has passed away.”
“Eat your steak.”
“I only—”
“Rick, who’s that?”
“Where?”
“Over there, by himself, at that table?”
“You don’t know who that is?”
“No.”
“That’s Norman Bombardini. Our landlord and Building-mate, of Bombardini Company and skeleton eye-socket fame.”
“He’s a large person.”
“He is large.”
“Gigantic, is more like it. Why’s he snarling and gnawing on the edge of the table?”
“Good Lord. My understanding, which I get mostly from War-shaver over at the club, is that these are just not good times for Norman. Problems with his wife. Problems with his health.”
“He looks like he really needs to lose some weight.”
“I guess he’s tried, off and on, for years. An interesting man. War-shaver hints around that his company is on the verge of a real—”
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
“Look at what the waiter’s bringing.”
“Good Lord.”
“There is just no way someone can eat all that.”
“Poor Norman.”
“Oh, that’s sick. He could at least wait till the waiter put it on the table.”
“Must be really hungry.”
“Nobody’s that hungry. And did he just try to bite the waiter? Was that an attempted bite?”
“Must be the light in here.”
“He’s really making a mess.”
“I’ve never seen him like this.”
“He’s getting juice on the people at the other tables. That lady just put her napkin on her head!”
“Is that a napkin? It’s really quite fetching.”
“You’re horrible. Look, they’re having to leave.”
“Well, it looked like they were almost done, anyway.”
“Well I’m not. I’m not going to look anymore.”
“Probably wise.”
“....”
“....”
“But I can’t really help hearing, now, can I?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“God, look at that, he’s almost done with all that. He has eaten a literal mountain of food in about two minutes.”
“Well, a lot of it’s on the floor, too, after all.”
“I think I’m going to be physically ill.”
“I’m frankly worried. This has almost taken my mind off your present lack of trust in me. Norman is not right.”
“How come I’ve never seen him? I see his car all the time, in that space.”
“I think there are size problems with the front door. He has a special entrance on the east side. Elevator. Reinforced cables.”
“Wow.”
“....”
“Did he finish all that? Is he finished?”
“He’s certainly slowing down. I sense something missing, though. See the way he’s looking around?”
“Dear God, Rick, look at the floor.”
“Dessert. That’s what’s missing. And here comes the waiter.”
“Laws of nature will be violated if he eats all that and doesn’t die.”
“Lenore, listen, I think we should go over and see if there’s anything we can do.”
“Are you joking? I think that’s an insane person, over there. I don’t think it was the light, I think he really tried to bite the waiter. See the way the waiter’s just sort of tossing the desserts onto the table from a safe distance?”
“Norman’s sated, though, you can tell. The desserts are going at a normal rate, more or less.”
“You’ve still got a lot of your own steak left, you know.”
“The steak will keep. I feel vicariously gorged, anyway.”
“What are you doing? Are you kidding? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Come on.”
&
nbsp; “Big mistake, Rick. Not something I wish to do.”
“Be a sport.”
“How are we going to get over there?”
“Serpentine. Follow me. Watch the—”
“I see it.”
“Norman?”
“Who’s that?”
“Rick Vigorous, Norman.”
“Not a good time, Vigorous. The beast is at trough, as you can see.”
“Norman, we were just at the other table, there, just beyond the vegetables, see?”
“....”
“... And thought we’d come over to see if anything in particular might be the tiniest bit wrong, and to introduce this young lady I’m with, who works in the Building, and whom you may or may not know.”
“I don’t think I know you, no.”
“Norman Bombardini may I present Ms. Lenore Beadsman, Lenore, Mr. Bombardini.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
“Beadsman. Not related to Stonecipher Beadsman, by any chance?”
“Lenore is Mr. Beadsman’s daughter.”
“Daughter. Interesting. Stonecipheco Baby Foods. Not a bad line of products, really. A bit soft and runny for my taste, of course....”
“Well, it’s infant food, really, Norman.”
“... but any port in the proverbial storm. Please feel free to sit down.”
“Shall we?”
“Ummm ...”
“Let’s.”
“Just put the plates anywhere at all. You probably don’t want to sit in that chair, at all, Ms. Beadsman, I predict.”
“Not really.”
“Here’s another one.” “....”
“So, Norman.”
“I don’t suppose either of you would care for a bit of eclair?”
“No thank you.”
“No thanks, Norman, really. ”
“Well, it’s just as well, because you can’t have any. They’re mine. I paid for them and they’re mine.”
“No one disputes that.”
“Staked your claim pretty thoroughly, I’d say.”
“Ms. Beadsman, you’re not one of those spunky girls, are you? One of those girls with spunk? My wife has spunk. Or rather she had spunk. Or rather she was my wife. Spunk is apt to make me uncontrollably ravenous, thus representing not an insignificant hazard to the possessor thereof.”
“Lenore is comparatively devoid of spunk, really.”
“Thanks, Rick.”
“So, Norman. How are things?”
“Things are huge and grotesque and disgusting, Vigorous; surely you can see that.”
“Pretty keen analysis, really.”
“Careful, Ms. Beadsman. That was spunky, in my opinion.”
“Norman, I couldn’t help noticing that you’re having rather more for dinner than seems completely natural. Or healthy.”
“I’d go along with that, Vigorous.”
“So I presume something is the matter.”
“Astute as always.”
“....”
“You want to know the story? I’d be happy to tell you. I think I have just enough caloric energy stored up to make it through the telling of the tale. It’s short. I am monstrously fat. I am a glutton. My wife was disgusted and repulsed. She gave me six months to lose one hundred pounds. I joined Weight Watchers ... see it there, right across the street, that gaunt storefront? This afternoon was the big six-month weigh-in. So to speak. I had gained almost seventy pounds in the six months. An errant Snickers bar fell out of the cuff of my pants and rolled against my wife’s foot as I stepped on the scale. The scale over there across the street is truly an ingenious device. One preprograms the desired new weight into it, and if one has achieved or gone below that new low weight, the scale bursts into recorded whistles and cheers and some lively marching-band tune. Apparently, tiny flags protrude from the top and wave mechanically back and forth. A failure—see for instance mine—results in a flatulent dirge of disappointed and contemptuous tuba. To the strains of the latter my wife left, the establishment, me, on the arm of a svelte yogurt distributor whom I am even now planning to crush, financially speaking, first thing tomorrow morning. Ms. Beadsman, you will find an eclair on the floor to the left of your chair. Could you perhaps manipulate it onto this plate with minimal chocolate loss and pass it to me.”
“....”
“Marvelous.”
“Still, though, Norman, I know you to be a highly intelligent man. Surely turbulence with the wife is no reason to eat like this. To self-destruct. A purported failure at Weight Watchers ... to hell with Weight Watchers!”
“No, Vigorous; as usual, no. I have come to see this afternoon that Weight Watchers—and diet enterprises, diet books, diet personalities, and diet cults in general—that they are almost inconceivably deep and profound things. They have tapped into a universe-view with which I find myself in complete agreement.”
“A universe-view? Norman, I—”
“I see you’re interested, Ms. Beadsman. Have I interested you?”
“Sort of.”
“No small feat, I imagine, to interest a spunky, sharp-haired girl.”
“....”
“Yin and Yang, Vigorous. Yin and Yang. Self and Other.”
“....”
“Weight Watchers holds as a descriptive axiom the transparently true fact that for each of us the universe is deeply and sharply and completely divided into for example in my case, me, on one side, and everything else, on the other. This for each of us exhaustively defines the whole universe, Vigorous. The whole universe. Self and Other.”
“Sounds uncontroversial to me, Norman.”
“Yes and also not only that each of our universes has this feature, but that we are by nature without exception aware of the fact that the universe is so divided, into Self, on one hand, and Other, on the other. Exhaustively divided. It’s part of our consciousness.”
“Okey dokey. ”
“And then they hold as a prescriptive axiom the undoubtedly equally true and inarguable fact that we each ought to desire our own universe to be as full as possible, that the Great Horror consists in an empty, rattling personal universe, one where one finds oneself with Self, on one hand, and vast empty lonely spaces before Others begin to enter the picture at all, on the other. A non-full universe. Loneliness, Vigorous. Weight Watchers sees itself as a warrior in the great war against loneliness. Is that not noble? One moment. You, waiter! I wouldn’t say no to a mint, you know! Feel free to bring some mints! Excuse me. Loneliness. Balance. The emptier one’s universe is, the worse it is. This we all surely accept. Do either of you not accept this?”
“....”
“....”
“Now, Weight Watchers perceives the problem as one involving the need to have as much Other around as possible, so that the relation is one of minimum Self to maximum Other. This is a valid though, as I’ve seen this afternoon, by no means exclusive way to attack the problem. Are you getting my drift, Vigorous?”
“Well, a drift is such a—”
“It occurs to me that I couldn’t care less. A full universe, Vigorous, Ms. Beadsman. We each need a full universe. Weight Watchers and their allies would have us systematically decrease the Self-component of the universe, so that the great Other-set will be physically attracted to the now more physically attractive Self, and rush in to fill the void caused by that diminution of Self. Certainly not incorrect, but just as certainly only half of the range of valid solutions to the full-universe problem. Is my drift getting palpable? Just as in genetic engineering, Vigorous. There is always more than one solution.”
“I think I—”
“An autonomously full universe, Vigorous. An autonomously full universe, Ms. Beadsman.”
“What should I do with these mints, here?”
“I’ll just take the bowl, thank you. Rather than diminishing Self to entice Other to fill our universe, we may also of course obviously choose to fill the universe with Self.”
“You mean ... ?”
<
br /> “Yes. I plan to grow to infinite size.”
“Do I recall saying big mistake? Did I mention decks not being completely full?”
“Lenore, please. Norman, friend, really. A universe-view is one thing. No one can grow to infinite size.”
“Has anyone ever tried?”
“Not to my knowledge, no, but ...”
“Then do me the kindness not to shrilly monger finite failure until I’ve tried. No one had ever been able to give butter life, either, but ...”
“What was that?”
“Nothing. To be ignored. A slip of the tongue.” “....”
“Yes and tonight Project Total Yang begins. I am going to grow and grow and grow. There will of course eventually cease to be room for anyone else in the universe at all, which I’m afraid will also mean the two of you, for which I apologize, but say also tough titty.”
“Really, enjoyed it a lot, we’ll have to do it again. We better go, my salad is attracting a fly, over there, I can see.”
“Looks yummy.”
“Unfortunately it’s mine and not yet part of your universe, at least temporarily. Rick, should we just wade on back over ... ?”
“Norman, I simply would not be honest if I didn’t say right up front that I’m worried about you, about your emotional outlook, given what you’ve told me of your day today, with its attendant strains.”
“Won’t be an outlook, eventually. Only an inlook. I just hope I can financially crush that yogurt distributor before there ceases to be any meaningful difference between him and me. The light green mints are particularly good here, I think. You may if you wish each have one.”
“ .... ”
“ .... ”
“Really quite good. Of course one other advantage of my approach to the Yin/Yang problem is that dieting becomes the worst possible thing to do. I find dieting makes me insanely angry at everything. Dieting makes me want to murder everyone around me.”
“Instead of merely appropriating their space.”
“You are not un-sharp, are you? Rather like your father. Your father whips a mean carrot. I could, of course, leave selected small comers of the universe unfilled for those who might arouse in me feelings of affection and attachment.”
“I’ll get back to you, probably, if things begin to crowd.”
The Broom of the System Page 10
