They Is Us

by Tama Janowitz

  “But… But…”

  “I am sorry. I was just about to take my scheduled break. You’ll have to come back during the hours.”

  “But when I got here it was the correct hours! I’ve been waiting and waiting –”

  She is already utterly wiped out. “Karthy?” she calls to the front desk. “I’m going upstairs to the lounge for a nap; do me a favor and don’t tell anyone where I am.”

  An endless procession of children – daughters, sons, grandchildren – who expect her to take care of their parents. Really she tries her best. It is too much work for ten, how do they think she could keep up with everything?

  In the lounge the President is on HGMTV explaining – or trying to explain – current wartime regulations. “For those unable to serve in the military it is now permissible to hire a substitute from an emerging nation, for an annual fee of $100,000, some of which will be going to help the family of the conscription substitute.”

  She flicks channels. The reporter on the twenty-four-hour entertainment news and gossip channel is babbling animatedly about Marie-Therese Rolex, the aging actress who has just been unceremoniously dumped by her much younger husband, the Brazilian playboy Diego LeClery. He is so cute! Of course, that poor actress has long ago lost the first blush of youth. Generally speaking, women become bitter around the age of thirty-two!

  She switches back. “Strict guidelines will be followed, thanks to the major bill just passed by Congress listing those available and willing to serve, to be found at www. –” A long droning list follows: “Monrovia, Turkina, Nigeraopia, Syria Lanka, Hezbollastan…” General applause from the attentive press corps follows the announcement of each name of each country. “And now on a lighter note, let me welcome the soon to be First Man, my fiancé, Scott Grielgig!” The two men kiss briefly and look into the camera with dewy glycerin eyes.

  “Some of you have been wondering about our plans for the wedding and where we are planning to register,” says Scott, looking down shyly. “The wedding will be taking place on August nineteenth in Jackson Hole, the western-most tip of Nature’s Caul Valley. Mr President and I have decided that the best gift of all will be if each of you is willing to give to one of our pet projects: the fund to continue research into the terrible disease that has afflicted so many of us here in this country – the Chuntey Bolls Foundation. As you know, Chuntey Bolls has affected more than two point nine billion…”

  Murielle turns off the HGMTV. Where is she going to get the extra money to make a donation? Without any help from Slawa, things are going to be even tighter.

  She can’t sleep at night, it’s hopeless. Or if she does, it’s only to travel that long lonely estrogen highway which at any moment can get up and wrap itself around her like a python, squeeze, squeeze no juice left then all of a sudden up up yeehaw with Slim Pickens and then down down down with that big morose Icelandic guy outta Journey to the Center of the Earth, lord love a duck you never know what kinda ride you gonna hop that hobo freight train in the dark only to find. When she does wake in the a.m. she’s got new hairs on her chinny chin chin and sheets stiff with stale sweat. Can she sleep now, no no so back downstairs to her office. Her job as associate administrator, to ease and soothe the complaints of those people who are paying for their parents, means, apparently, that she is a whipping boy for all the angry people; of course they absolutely refuse to believe the reality, which is that there is nothing she could do to fix anything!

  The daughters and wives come into La Galleria Senior Mall and Residence Home for the Young at Heart; she can hide but they always track her down. “My husband’s mother, we got the bill this month and we were charged for forty-four bottles of antacid! And, quite frankly, she seems very agitated!”

  She has to explain again how, daily, the residents are led into the exercise room, sometimes twice a day, where they can lift weights and run on treadmills. Except that the treadmills of course are permanently switched off, and the weights are only papier-mache. Without the mind, the body can hurt itself rather easily!

  Now she has to look up Mrs Rabsom’s account. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “I thought she couldn’t spend more than her monthly allotment, what’s she doing with forty-four bottles?”

  How to explain… “If your mother –”

  “My husband’s mother –”

  “If she went to the Supharmacy and didn’t go to the cashier, then it’s electronically registered via Mrs Rabsom’s microchip when Mrs Rabsom leaves the store.”

  “Are you saying she stole them?”

  “Um… she might have put them in her bag by accident.”

  “That’s your problem, then! We aren’t paying!”

  “Maybe it’s time to think about getting Mrs Rabsom’s i.d. bracelet changed to Reduced Access.”

  The doors to the Supharmacy are automatic and only open for those with the blue plastic i.d. bracelets; blue means Still Functional. By the time a person gets to green, they are confined to the fish-tank sized area, they can neither enter nor leave unless accompanied by a security nurse.

  Meanwhile the next daughter/cousin/relative/in-law is waiting to see her. “My mother’s been complaining about the music, she wants to hear music from when she was young, you know she’s older than the others here, she keeps singing Soft Cell’s only hit Tainted Love, you know. The stuff you play drives her crazy, she says it’s for a very uneducated class of people, Aerosmith? Bob Dylan? She wants Duran Duran or, you know, who wrote Wide-Eyed and Legless?”

  “Andy Fairweather-Lowe. But that’s not the point. I can assure you, the music of which your mother speaks is often rotated on our play list; everyone has a chance to hear what he or she likes or wants. Most of our Young at Hearts love Karen Carpenter! And Tony what’s-his-name and Dawn! Fitty Cent! James Taylor, Dirty Old Bastard, the Grateful Dead; we have a wonderful DJ for the elderly!” Murielle is spluttering now, this is ridiculous, arguing about music; next the lady will be trying to say, Mozart over Coltrane, or Chopin versus the music of the immortal genius Paul Shaffer. None of these things have anything to do with anything, let alone each other! “We try our best to please, but we can’t suit everyone’s taste –”

  Her job is to soothe, to placate, to offer reassurance; nothing would ever, could ever, be done to change anything, what is lost is lost forever, dreadful sorry but the music isn’t going to be altered, the dentures weren’t going to be recovered: it had long since been made clear to her by those higher up that she is expected simply to string people along, take notes that appear to be of use, if the complaints persist she is to say an inquiry is taking place… Anything to stall for time until they have forgotten, or the relative has… died. Which never takes all that long.

  What other senior home has a Supharmacy, which, actually, was her idea? Here the old people ransack the place confidently, revived momentarily at the thought they can save ten dollars on a particular brand of toothpaste for the next fifteen minutes only!

  On the other hand maybe this was not such a good idea. Because every single product has those automated motion detectors that grab intelligence information off the implant chip of the shopper. “Please, pick me, Lewis Frumkes!” shrieks the box of tissue.

  “No, me, me!”

  “Hey, Beth Savage!” The antacid is almost in tears. “Don’t leave me here, I’m all alone!”

  “My brand is preferred by nine out of ten doctors!”

  The cacophony grows louder. “Feeling a little logey? I’m Fiber Pop! Fiber Pop boosts you up – and out!”

  And the sultry woman’s voice, “For a woman’s added pleasure… Hey, stop! Where you going?”

  Those poor poor old people, they are good and kind – or at least they want to be thought of that way – and they are so sorry for the lonely products crying out, they can’t bear to abandon a single tube of sobbing toothpaste, they have to be distracted by the public announcements:

  “Attention shoppers! For the next five minutes, our own-store-
brand Early Warning Pregnancy Detection kit will be seventy-five percent off!”

  Round the dinner table, talks resume. Is it worth it to spend the extra money on a more popular brand because you’re familiar with it, or risk trying a cheap brand to save money? Discussions lead to fights and physical fisticuffs that actually have to be broken up!

  In this fashion grassroots politics continue. Capitalism versus Communism. Democracy versus Fascism. Socialism versus Labor. There are Whigs and Wobblies, Shi’ites and socialists, religious right and liberal left – all cooped together in the same young-at-heart center shopping mall! And… nothing is the winner! Everything comes out to one big, fat zero.

  Except for the blare from the HGMTV, the house is strangely quiet when she gets home.

  “Kids!” she shouts toward the bedrooms. “What are you guys doing, I don’t trust you, did you finish your homework?”

  There is no reply. She turns down the volume. “Kids?”

  “It is every American’s duty to find the financing to hire a substitute. The American people’s most valuable asset is him or herself. When, in our covenant, it is stated: ‘Unable to serve in the military’ we mean we would prefer for those representing the cream of the population not to serve. However, anyone may take out a government loan to enable himself to hire a conscript. Low interest rates are available and financing at an APR73 of…”

  Now she’s distracted and forgets what she meant to do. The President is so darn cute! And what a physique; there’s a rumor he works out four hours a day, even though he claims he’s just naturally muscular. He has to be taking something at his age to have that kind of body. No wonder half the time he is shirtless when he gives his press conferences, the guy is totally ripped…

  He’s the nephew of a former President and got his start as an HGMTV entertainment reporter; she remembers when he started, twenty years ago.

  Now, abruptly, in response to some question from a press reporter he blurts, “The alien immigrant situation? Shit, I don’t need this shit, you understand what I’m talking? You know what I’m talking about? I told you all before the press conference, I ain’t talking no alien immigration shit! Shit… Now let me move on to some other topics: recounting last night’s top hologramovision shows…”

  She goes to see if there is any water, even a five-minute shower would help.

  12

  There is no way Slawa can get back up to the shop carrying his cats unless he has a ladder, but all the stores are, at this hour, closed. Maybe he can find a long rope and tie knots in it? And those poor cats, he can hear them mewing faintly, and a rushing of water. They must be trapped somewhere or they would surely come to him. “Kapiton!” he shouts, “Murka!” but now there is no response.

  At the moment he can’t think what to do. It is so hot in the shoe repair, and he is miserable. The bitch threw him out! Bocar is the only one who might soothe him. And now this, losing his cats! The sweat is pouring off him, tiny pearls of emotion, each droplet pure suffering in a condensed form. Here he sits, slumped in despair, a bindlestiff in a spindle-backed chair.

  What has he ever gotten out of life, apart from Julie and his cats, that brought him any happiness? And once again it feels as if alien rays or particles are throbbing inside his head, or even worse, like someone has taken a baseball bat to his head when he wasn’t looking. His eyes are dry and crackly, his sweat is oily, his armpit hair a virtual forest that soon will grow so long it will circle his neck and strangle him.

  He might as well throw loaves to the fishes, is how he feels about the uselessness of it all. To cool off, Slawa decides after climbing out of the Smoke-Easy, catless, to go to a nearby bar, where he orders a Moscow Mule.

  Here are the ingredients of a Moscow Mule, a drink developed around 1946 and mentioned in one of the works of the great writer Erich Maria Remarque

  Vodka

  Lime juice

  Ginger ale

  What you see below is not a picture of a Moscow Mule; nevertheless it is a drink.

  The President and Scott are on HGMTV, standing next to the horse.

  “Oh gosh Wes, isn’t he gorgeous!” Scott can’t help squealing, he is so happy! He embraces the President. Scott, yes, what a man, those muscles, that polished skin, hairless; only his voice is maybe a little offensive, from going to those fancy schools out there where they learn to speak as if their back teeth have been wired together. Scott can’t help this, though: is it his fault he grew up in the New Hollywood section of Nature’s Caul Valley? Adopted at an early age by Big Momma Taneesqua, star of that never-ending sit-com, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, given etiquette lessons, taught to ride through the green fields and across the Nature’s Caul streams, able to ski and fly his own private plane.

  He knows how to decorate a home! Is able to give tips on how to frost a red velvet cake in butter cream icing! He can top a cake with candied violets and daisies, and he is beside all that a really nice guy. He is a vegetarian and rescues stray dogs and he is on the board of all sorts of charitable institutions such as, oh never mind. The commentator who has been explaining all of this runs out of time; he has to cut short his praising of Scott and says, “The horse, who is to be renamed Tab Hunter, is a gift to Scott from Mr President. Tab is seventeen hands high – seventeen hands – now that’s a big white hunter! At eight years of age he is still quite young in the equestrian world; purchased secretly by Mr President as a wedding gift for Scott, who is going to give him, shortly, his own gift in return. Let’s listen in, shall we?”

  Slawa will never get used to this holographic TV. It is bad enough to have the news commentator standing there behind the bar, so real, but now when the President and Scott and the big horse come into the foreground, Slawa recoils with a start. It was one thing when the holograms were teeny tiny little things. But life-sized! When the horse leans forward for a moment he is certain it is leaning toward him, lip curled, about to take a chomp on his sleeves.

  But everyone else seems used to this new system; they all laugh when they notice Slawa jump, making it clear that, to them, Slawa is about as sophisticated as those first viewers of the motion pictures, who yelled and ran from the theater when it appeared a train was coming down the track – toward the audience.

  “I can’t call him Frosty,” says Scott, rubbing his face against the horse. “I am going to call him Tab Hunter. Don’t you think?” What the President doesn’t know – but the viewing audience, most of them do know – is that Scott has discovered the horse some time before and has to pretend, wink, wink! that it is a surprise.

  The President shrugs. “Whatever you want, baby. He’s all yours. Happy birthday. I hope he’s what you wanted.”

  “Ooh, he is. My big mack daddy.” Scott gives the President a brief hug, and in one easy motion places his impeccable left boot into the stirrup and lifts his other leg over Tab’s big white bottom. Tab, in a brief power-play neighs and bucks a little, as if he doesn’t know what Scott is trying to do! Only Scott is such an equestrian that, somehow, with a firm grip from Scott’s strong thighs, Tab settles down immediately, for he realizes now who is in charge.

  At a brisk trot Scott waves to the camera, heads out of the White House Fortress and into the grassland beyond. The houses and buildings in the vicinity were long ago knocked down, turned into green verdant swathes to house the bunkers below in an extra blanket of safety.

  “Be careful!” the President calls as the two firm bottoms – one belonging to Scott, the other to the horse – disappear from view. “Now that’s a pretty sight, isn’t it?” says the President into the camera. “And now let me turn for a moment to a more serious matter: in our quest for oil, it has proved necessary to once again set off underwater nucular bombs.” Mr President chuckles. “One great thing about my tenure as President was being able to change that word to nucular. Let me pause to say, thank you viewers for your support on this important issue, I received nearly half a million letters praising my action. And now it’s time, I b
elieve, to take a break for a commercial. Mr Clean and the Green Giant – I hear CLEAN PEAS is a new co-product you’re to tell us about?”

  Once in a while a murderous rage comes over him. The first time it happened, he had just been released from whatever kind of institution it was, back in Russia. When he got home his mother was no longer there. All the old people in Moscow had disappeared, the babushkas, the toothless granddads with their bottles.

  Two men occupied the apartment. Growing up in the Soviet Union, he had not known what homosexuality was. There had been no mention of such activity or such people, because it was illegal. Therefore, it did not exist. And then, on this, his first day out, to be greeted by two men who claimed to have never heard of his mother, to claim they had lived there for fifteen years, and inviting him in for a 3-way. In his grief and confusion, Slawa supposed he had a temper tantrum, or something: throwing the garbage pail, breaking up some furniture, smashing one man, repeatedly, into the refrigerator until the door opened and inside he saw orange juice, and cheeses, and chocolate! Meat and coffee, whole coffee beans in a bag! Tins of caviar, a plump cooked chicken! Then he really lost it, he could not even force himself to think of what had happened. Anyway, it was a long time ago.

  Apart from rare occasions, though, Slawa is really a gentle soul. Even though Murielle thinks he drinks a lot, as far as he is concerned he drinks very little. Perhaps something has been slipped into his drink? He is so angry, suddenly. He could kill them. He should kill them. These people, what do they know of suffering? They are the golden ones, inheritors of objets de vertu and antique Japanese swords. They dwell in the Lost City of Atlantis, or Treasure Island. The VIP room of Pimlico Racetrack.