Pastoralia

by George Saunders

  Pedaling wildly now, he passed into the strange and dangerous zone of three consecutive Monte Vistas, and inside of each lived an old wop in a dago tee, and sometimes in the creepy trees there were menacing gorillas he took potshots at from bike-back, but not today, he was too busy with revenge to think about monkeys, and then he was out, into the light, coasting into a happier zone of forthright and elephantine Bueno Verdes that sat very honestly with the big open eyes that were their second-story windows, and in his mind as he passed he said hello HELLO to the two elephants and they in turn said to him in kind Dumbo voices hey Cody HEY CODY.

  THE BLOCK WAS shaped something like South America, and as he took the tight turn that was Cape Horn he looked across The Field to his small yellow house, which was neither Monte Vista nor Bueno Verde, but predated the subdivision and smelled like cat pee and hamburger blood and had recently been christened by Mom’s boyfriend Daryl, that dick, The House of FIRPO, FIRPO being the word Daryl used to describe anything he, Cody, did that was bad or dorky. Sometimes Mom and Daryl tried to pretend FIRPO was a lovey-dovey term by tousling his hair when they said it, but other times they gave him a poke or pinch and sometimes when they thought he couldn’t hear they whispered very darkly and meanly to each other FIRP attack in progress and he would go to his room and make the nosehole sound in his closet, after which they would come in and fine him a quarter for each nosehole sound they thought they had heard him make, which was often many, many more than he had actually really made.

  Sometimes at night in his room Mom babied him by stroking his big wide head and saying he didn’t have to pay all the quarters he owed for making the nosehole sound, but other times she said if he didn’t knock it off and lose a few pounds how was he ever going to get a date in junior high, because who wanted to date a big chubby nosehole snorter, and then he couldn’t help it, it made him nervous to think of junior high, and he made the nosehole sound and she said, Very funny I hope you’re amusing your own self because you’re not amusing my ass one bit.

  The Dalmeyer house now came into sight.

  The Dalmeyer car was gone.

  It was Go Time.

  The decisive butt-kicking he was about to give the Dalmeyer hose would constitute the end of FIRPO in the world, and all, including Ma, would have to bow down before him, saying, Wow wow wow, do we ever stand corrected in terms of you, how could someone FIRPO hatch and execute such a daring manly plan?

  The crowd was on its feet now, screaming his name, and he passed the chink’s house again, here was the driveway down which he must turn to cross the street to the Dalmeyers’, but then oh crap he was going too fast and missed it, and the announcers in the booth above the willow gasped in pleasure at his sudden decisive decision to swerve across the newly sodded lawn of the squatty-body’s house. His bike made a trough in the sod and went humpf over the curb, and as the white car struck him the boy and the bike flew together in a high comic arc across the street and struck the oak on the opposite side with such violence that the bike wrapped around the tree and the boy flew back into the street.

  Arghh arghh Daryl will be pissed and say Cody why are you bleeding like a stuck pig you little shit. There was something red wrong with his Arroes. At Payless when they bought the Arroes, Mom said, If you squirm once more you’re gonna be facedown on this carpet with my hand whacking your big fat ass. Daryl will say, I buy you a good bike and what do you do, you ruin it. Ma will come up with a dish towel and start swiping at the blood and Daryl will say, Don’t ruin that dish towel, he made his bed let him sleep in it, I’ll hose him off in the yard, a little shivering won’t kill him, he did the crime let him do the time. Or Mom might throw a fit like the night he slipped and fell in the school play, and Ms. Phillips said, Tell your mother, Cody, how you came to slip and fall during the school play so that everyone in the auditorium was looking at you instead of Julia who was at that time speaking her most important line.

  And Mom said: Cody are you deaf?

  And Ms. Phillips said: He slipped because when I told him stay out of that mopped spot did he do it? No, he did not, he walked right through it on purpose and then down he went.

  Which is exactly what he does at home, Mom said. Sometimes I think he’s wired wrong.

  And Ms. Phillips said, Well, today, Cody, you learned a valuable lesson, which is if someone tells you don’t do something, don’t do it, because maybe that someone knows something you don’t from having lived a longer time than you.

  And Daryl said, Or maybe he liked falling on his butt in front of all his friends.

  Now a white-haired stickman with no shirt was bending over him, so skinny, touch touch touching him all over, like looking to see if he was wearing a bulletproof vest, doing some very nervous mouthbreathing, with a silver cross hanging down, and around his nipples were sprigs of white hair.

  Oh boy, oh God, said the stickman. Say something, pal, can you talk?

  And he tried to talk but nothing came, and tried to move but nothing moved.

  Oh God, said the stickman, don’t go, pal, please say something, stay here with me now, we’ll get through this.

  What crazy teeth. What a stickman. The stickman’s hands flipped around like nervous old-lady hands in movies where the river is rising and the men are away. What a Holy Roller. What a FIRPO. A Holy Roller FIRPO stickman with hairy nips and plus his breath smelled like coffee.

  Listen, God loves you, said the stickman. You’re going, okay, I see you’re going, but look, please don’t go without knowing you are beautiful and loved. Okay? Do you hear me? You are good, do you know that? God loves you. God loves you. He sent His son to die for you.

  Oh the freaking FIRPO, why couldn’t he just shut up? If the stickman thought he, Cody, was good, he must be FIRPO because he, Cody, wasn’t good, he was FIRPO, Mom had said so and Daryl had said so and even Mr. Dean in Science had told him to stop lying the time he tried to tell about seeing the falling star. The announcers in the booth above the willow began weeping as he sat on Mom’s lap and said he was very sorry for having been such a FIRPO son and Mom said, Oh thank you, thank you, Cody, for finally admitting it, that makes it nice, and her smile was so sweet he closed his eyes and felt a certain urge to sort of shake things out and oh Christ dance.

  You are beautiful, beautiful, the stickman kept saying, long after the boy had stopped thrashing, God loves you, you are beautiful in His sight.

  • The BARBER’S UNHAPPINESS •

  1.

  MORNINGS THE BARBER LEFT his stylists inside and sat out front of his shop, drinking coffee and ogling every woman in sight. He ogled old women and pregnant women and women whose photographs were passing on the sides of buses and, this morning, a woman with close-cropped black hair and tear-stained cheeks, who wouldn’t be half bad if she’d just make an effort, clean up her face a little and invest in some decent clothes, some white tights and a short skirt maybe, knee boots and a cowboy hat and a cigarillo, say, and he pictured her kneeling on a crude Mexican sofa, in a little mud hut, daring him to take her, and soon they’d screwed their way into some sort of bean–field while some gaucho guys played soft guitars, although actually he’d better put the gaucho guys behind some trees or a rock wall so they wouldn’t get all hot and bothered from watching the screwing and swoop down and stab him and have their way with Miss Hacienda as he bled to death, and come to think of it, forget the gauchos altogether, he’d just put some soft guitars on the stereo in the hut and leave the door open, although actually what was a stereo doing in a Mexican hut? Were there outlets? Plus how could he meet her? He could compliment her hair, then ask her out for coffee. He could say that as a hair-care professional, he knew a little about hair, and boy did she ever have great hair, and by the way did she like coffee? Except they always said no. Lately no no no was all he got. Plus he had zero access to a beanfield or mud hut. They could do it in his yard but it wouldn’t be the same because Jeepers had basically made of it a museum of poop, plus Ma would call 911 at the first hin
t of a sexy moan.

  Now those, those on that meter maid, those were some serious hooters. Although her face was sort of beat. But if you could take those hooters and slap them on Miss Hacienda, wow, then you’d be talking. Just the meter maid’s hooters and some decent clothes and a lip wax and the super sexy voice of the librarian who looked away whenever he ogled her, and you’d have his perfect woman, and wow would they ever be happy together forever, as long as she kept a positive attitude, which come to think of it might be an issue, because why the heck was she crying in public?

  Miss Hacienda passed through a gap in a hedge and disappeared into the Episcopal church.

  Why was she going into church on a weekday? Maybe she had a problem. Maybe she was knocked up. Maybe if he followed her into the church and told her he knew a little about problems, having been born with no toes, she’d have coffee with him. He was tired of going home to just Ma. Lately she’d been falling asleep with her head on his shoulder while they watched TV. Sometimes he worried that somebody would look in the window and wonder why he’d married such an old lady. Plus sometimes he worried that Ma would wake up and catch him watching the black girl in the silver bikini riding her horse through that tidal pool in slow motion on 1–900–DREMGAL.

  He wondered how Miss Hacienda would look in a silver bikini in slow motion. Although if she was knocked up she shouldn’t be riding a horse. She should be sitting down, taking it easy. Somebody should be bringing her a cup of tea. She should move in with him and Ma. He wouldn’t rub it in that she was knocked up. He’d be loving about it. He’d be a good friend to her and wouldn’t even try to screw her, and pretty soon she’d start wondering why not and start really wanting him. He’d be her labor coach and cheerfully change diapers in the wee hours and finally when she’d lost all the weight she’d come to his bed and screw his brains out in gratitude, after which he’d have a meditative smoke by the window and decide to marry her. He nearly got tears in his eyes thinking of how she’d get tears in her eyes as he went down on one knee to pop the question, a nice touch the dolt who’d knocked her up wouldn’t have thought of in a million years, the nimrod, and that SOB could drive by as often as he wanted, deeply regretting his foolishness as the baby frolicked in the yard, it was too late, they were a family, and nothing would ever break them up.

  But he’d have to remember to stick a towel under the door while meditatively smoking or Ma would have a cow, because after he smoked she always claimed everything smelled like smoke, and made him wash every piece of clothing in the house. And they’d better screw quietly if they weren’t married, because Ma was old-fashioned. It was sort of a pain living with Ma. But Miss Hacienda had better be prepared to tolerate Ma, who was actually pretty good company when she stayed on her meds, and so what if she was nearly eighty and went around the house flossing in her bra? It was her damn house. He’d better never hear Miss Hacienda say a word against Ma, who’d paid his way through barber college, like for example asking why Ma had thick sprays of gray hair growing out of her ears, because that would kill Ma, who was always reminding the gas man she’d been a dish in high school. How would Miss Hacienda like it if after a lifetime of hard work she got wrinkled and forgetful and some knocked-up slut dressed like a Mexican cowgirl moved in and started complaining about her ear hair? Who did Miss Hacienda think she was, the Queen of Sheba? She could go into labor in the damn Episcopal church for all he cared, he’d keep wanking it in the pantry on the little milking stool for the rest of his life before he’d let Ma be hurt, and that was final.

  As Miss Hacienda came out of the church she saw a thick-waisted, beak-nosed, middle-aged man rise angrily from a wooden bench and stomp into Mickey’s Hairport, slamming the door behind him.

  2.

  Next morning Ma wanted an omelet. When he said he was running late she said never mind in a tone that made it clear she was going to accidentally/on purpose burn herself again while ostensibly making her own omelet. So he made the omelet. When he asked was it good, she said it was fine, which meant it was bad and he had to make pancakes. So he made pancakes. Then he kissed her cheek and flew out the door, very very late for Driving School.

  Driving School was being held in what had been a trendy office park in the Carter years and was now a flat white overgrown stucco bunker with tinted windows and a towable signboard that said: Dirving School. Inside was a conference table that filled most of a room that smelled like a conference table sitting in direct sunlight with some spilled burned coffee on it.

  “Latecomers will be beaten,” said the Driving School instructor.

  “Sorry,” said the barber.

  “Joking!” said the instructor, thrusting a disorderly wad of handouts at the barber, who was trying to get his clip-ons off. “What I was just saying was that, our aim is, we’re going to be looking at some things or aspects, in terms of driving? Meaning safety, meaning, is speeding something we do in a vacuum, or could it involve a pedestrian or fatality or a family out for a fun drive, and then here you come, speeding, with the safety or destiny of that family not held firmly in your mind, and what happens next? Who knows?”

  “A crash?” said someone.

  “An accident?” said someone else.

  “Crash or accident both could,” said the instructor. “Either one might or may. Because I’ve seen, in my CPR role, as a paramedic, when many times, and I’m sorry if you find this gross or too much, I’ve had to sit in our rescue vehicle with a cut-off arm or hand, even of a kid, a really small arm or even limb, just weeping as if I hadn’t been thoroughly trained, as I know none of you have, but I have, and why was I holding that small arm or limb and bawling? Because of someone like you yourselves, good people, I know you are, I’m not saying that, but you decided what? What did you decide? Or they. That person who cut off that kid’s arm I was carrying that day I was just saying?”

  No one knew.

  “They decided to speed is what you did,” said the instructor sadly, with pity for both the armless child and the otherwise good people who on that fateful day had decided to speed, and now sat before him, lives ruined.

  “I didn’t hit nobody,” said a girl in a T-shirt that said Buggin’. “Cop just stopped me.”

  “But I’m talking the possibility aspect?” the instructor said kindly. “I’m talking what happens if you walk away from here a man or woman not changed in her thought patterns by the material I’m about to present you in terms of the visuals and graphics? Which some of the things are crashes and some are working wounds I myself have personally dressed and some are wounds we downloaded off the Internet so you could have a chance to see wounds that are national? Because why? Because consequences. Because are we on this earth or an island?”

  “Oh,” said the Buggin’ girl, who now seemed chastened and convinced.

  Outside the tinted window were a little forest and a stream and an insurance agency and a FedEx drop–off tilted by some pipeline digging. There were six students. One was the barber. One was a country boy with a briefcase, who took laborious notes and kept asking questions with a furrowed brow, as if, having been caught speeding, he was now considering a career in law enforcement. Did radar work via sonar beams? How snotty did someone have to get before you could stun them with your stun gun? Next to the country boy was the Buggin’ girl. Next to the Buggin’ girl was a very very happy crew-cut older man in a cowboy shirt and bolo tie who laughed at everything and seemed to consider it a great privilege to be here at the Driving School on this particular day with this particular bunch of excellent people, and who by the end of the session had proposed holding a monthly barbecue at his place so they wouldn’t lose touch. Across the table from the Happy Man was a white-haired woman about the barber’s age, who kept making sly references to films and books the barber had never heard of and rolling her eyes at things the instructor said, while writing Help Me! and Beam Me Up! on her notepad and shoving it across the table for the Happy Man to read, which seemed to make the Happy Man uncomfortable.<
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  Next to the white-haired woman was a pretty girl. A very pretty girl. Wow. One of the prettiest girls the barber had ever seen. Boy was she pretty. Her hair was crimped and waist-length and her eyes were doelike and Egyptian and about her there was a sincerity and intelligence that made it hard for him to look away. She certainly looked out of place here at the conference table, with one hand before her in a strip of sunlight that shone on a very pretty turquoise ring that seemed to confirm her as someone exotic and darkish and schooled in things Eastern, someone you could easily imagine making love to on a barge on the Nile, say, surrounded by thousands of candles that smelled weird, or come to think of it maybe she was American Indian, and he saw her standing at the door of a tipi wearing that same sincere and intelligent expression as he came home from the hunt with a long string of dead rabbits, having been accepted into the tribe at her request after killing a cute white rabbit publicly to prove he was a man of the woods, or actually they had let him skip the rabbit part because he had spoken to them so frankly about the white man’s deviousness and given them secret information about an important fort after first making them promise not to kill any women or children. He pictured one of the braves saying to her, as she rubbed two corncobs together in the dying sunlight near a spectacular mesa, that she was lucky to have the barber, who had powerful medicine in terms of being a powerful medicine man, and silently she smiled, rubbing the corncobs together perhaps a little faster, remembering the barber naked in their tipi, although on closer inspection it appeared she was actually probably Italian.

  The girl looked up and caught him staring at her. He dropped his eyes and began leafing through his course materials.