Résumé With Monsters

by William Browning Spencer

  They went inside. The living room was small and full of light from the gossamer-curtained windows. A breeze made wind chimes sing. Philip sat on a small couch—he'd encountered larger armchairs—while Lily Metcalf made tea.

  "You can call me Lily," she said, returning with the tea. She sat down on the couch next to

  Philip. “I hate it when people call me Dr. Metcalf."

  Lily closed her eyes and leaned back. The sunlight showed her face to be a net of wrinkles. Her hair was a gray, spun-glass cloud.

  She opened her eyes and cast a long, sideways glance at Philip. "You are what, forty, something like that?"

  "I'm forty-five," Philip said.

  She sighed and absent-mindedly patted Philip's thigh. "When I was forty-five, my son Homer rushed off to Vietnam full of patriotic piss and vinegar and got himself killed almost instantly. I hope you are having a better forty- five." She sipped some tea, closed her eyes. She seemed to lose track of time, drifting into a brief stupor of melancholy. Philip studied the bright walls of the room. They were covered with miniature oil paintings of a traditional nature (the ocean, some cows, or perhaps bears, on a hillside, a boat—toy, or menaced by a fifty-foot child). Philip studied the mahogany end table, the faded oriental rug, the bookcase full of paperbacks, and was surprised when Lily spoke, being himself fully occupied in his study.

  "So, what's your issue?" Lily asked. "Ah—"

  "Yeah, sometimes it is hard to leap right in. Maybe I can jump start you. Mid-life crisis? Relationship problems? Wait, would you say you want to address high-level or low-level issues?"

  "I'm not sure I understand," Philip said.

  "Well." Lily put her teacup down and rested her hands on her knees and leaned forward. "High-level stuff would be self-actualization issues. You might feel restless. Anxiety might trouble your sleep. You might wonder if your success was fraudulent. You might be immobilized by boredom and a lack of purpose."

  Philip shook his head. "No, nothing like that."

  "Good. Frankly, self-actualization is not my long suit. I'm not good with people who don't have real problems. I am better with people who come here because their lives are in the shitter. I prefer crisis issues, I guess."

  "I guess that describes my situation," Philip said. "I guess I am in crisis."

  "All right. Good. You mind if I smoke?"

  "No. Certainly not."

  Lily swept a pack of cigarettes off the end table, banged one out, and lit it in what seemed a single motion. She blew smoke at the ceiling. "Some people see smoking cigarettes as a failure of character. They don't want a therapist who smokes. 'If she can't even quit a bad habit, how is she going to help me?' they ask. What do you think about that?"

  "I don't know."

  "Good answer, Philip. But the truth is, Jesus Christ probably smelled bad. You know what I mean? Nobody is perfect."

  "That's true."

  "So what is the crisis?"

  "It's a long story."

  "I bet. Let's have something shorter up front. How about if you tell me, in one sentence, what's going on. Maybe there are a lot of things going on, but just give me one incident. For example,

  'My wife left me' or 'The bank repossessed my car.' We can get at the underlying issues later, but I want to see a problem first, an event." "Ah—"

  "You think you can do that? Just one sentence. You understand what I'm asking here?"

  "Yes. Yes I guess so."

  "Okay, let her rip."

  "Well, I lost my job and my girlfriend left me."

  "Good," Lily said, nodding her head in violent affirmation as a cloud of cigarette smoke merged with her cloudy hair. "That's just what I meant. Now we are getting somewhere."

  "And hideous, cone-shaped creatures from outer space are going to leap, telepathically, across six hundred million years and destroy human civilization."

  It just came out.

  Philip glanced at his newfound counselor. Her eyes were closed, and she continued to blow smoke toward the ceiling. She seemed unperturbed by this revelation. Perhaps she was asleep, smoking in her sleep.

  But no. She turned her head toward him and opened her eyes, blue eyes that had seen things.

  "You are going to be an interesting client," she said.

  2.

  The session was over.

  "Tomorrow, same time," Lily said. "You better come every day for awhile." Philip asked about the cost. "A hundred dollars an hour," Lily said. "Jesus. I can't afford that," Philip said. "I work nights at this ratty print shop. I get eight dollars an hour."

  The old woman shrugged. "Okay, ten dollars an hour. Take it or leave it."

  Philip took it. Walking away from Lily Metcalf and getting into his car, he felt a rush of well-being, an elevation in his self-esteem. He had just saved himself ninety dollars an hour on therapy. Not bad.

  At work that evening, Philip was introduced to a new printer, a man named AL Bingham. Bingham was an older guy, sixty or so, bald except for a fuzz of fine gray hair that hovered over his baldness like steam. He possessed a long, pale face furrowed with lines that expressed weary incredulity.

  "Pleased to meet ya," he said, shaking Philip's hand. "My heart goes out to you typesetting lads. You've got to read the crap. That has got to take its toll."

  Ralph Pederson, Philip's boss, laughed nervously. "It is not for us to judge our customers," he said. Pederson, Philip had noted, was superstitious about such things, believing, perhaps, in an ever-listening god of customer wrath that was a jealous god and would brook no calumny. You never, not ever, said anything negative about a customer. In the restrooms were signs (72 point Helvetica extrabold) that read:

  THE CUSTOMER PAYS OUR SALARIES.

  "People are okay, but the public is an asshole," Bingham said.

  This guy is going to last less than a week, Philip thought.

  It was Tuesday, payday, and Philip got his check along with the usual motivational literature.

  Philip knew that he shouldn't read the little pamphlet that came enclosed with the check. These were the mind-rending voices of the ghoul-lizards, the creatures of the System. These tiny tracts had titles like "Be a Team Player" or "Dress for Success" and were produced by some company in New Jersey and were illustrated and designed and written by someone who had not been out of his house since the early fifties and did not, apparently, have a television or other means of discovering changes in fashion or the elimination of sexist language ("office gal," for instance, was no longer synonymous with secretary in the larger world).

  Philip thought of calling Lily Metcalf so that she could tell him to throw the pamphlet away without reading it, but he saw the title "Maintaining a Positive Attitude" and he was lost.

  The unctuous, self-satisfied tone asserted itself with the first sentence, "Life sets some hard tasks for those who wish to succeed, and an employee who sees such tasks as burdens, who says, 'Why didn't my boss give this to Jones? I've got all I can handle without this,' could find himself out of a job when such an attitude affects his performance."

  The writer of these pamphlets had been around—although Philip suspected that he was now a bedridden and bad-tempered invalid—and was inclined to illustrate his message with anecdotes. This time, the writer told the story of Sally, a waitress who was told that her uniform needed to be dry-cleaned every day. Sally, one of the malcontents who populated these moral tales and generally came to a bad end, said, "Why should I have to pay my hard-earned money to have uniforms dry-cleaned every day? I think it is a stupid rule. I'm not going to do it. I can't afford it on the tips I make."

  Philip's heart went out to Sally. Why, indeed, should she have to obey such a rule—and spend her own money to do so? If her money-grubbing boss was so set on dry-cleaned-daily uniforms, why didn't he foot the bill?

  Melanie, a perkier and no doubt younger waitress, said, "I think it is a good rule. I will do it. By having a bright, sharply pressed uniform every day, I will look and feel better and the customers will
see this and give me bigger tips. Even though I will be spending my own money to have my uniforms dry-cleaned daily, the extra money I will make will more than compensate for that initial outlay."

  Philip was always impressed by Sally's restraint upon hearing this nonsense. Sally never attempted to strike the smarmy apple polisher.

  Philip put the pamphlet down and took a deep breath. A black miasma of despair clouded his mind. This was powerful motivational stuff, almost as strong as the rant on dressing for success which had urged the wearing of suits. The motivational material that Ralph purchased by the case was not tailored to print shops.

  Philip got up from his terminal and walked outside. The night air was damp and full of the day's heat. A match flared, and Philip saw the gnarled features of the new printer as that man leaned into the glow of a match, lighting his cigarette.

  "Hey typesetter," he said, nodding to Philip. "How is the Resumeracket doing?"

  "Okay, I guess," Philip said. "I'm typesetting business cards right now."

  "Business cards. You reckon our boss ever wakes up in the middle of the night and wonders what the meaning of life is? You reckon he shakes his wife awake and says, 'Honey, tell me again why we are in such a godawful hurry to see that every asshole in Travis County has five hundred pieces of cardboard with his name on them.'"

  Philip laughed nervously. "No, I don't think our employer worries about that sort of thing."

  Bingham laughed, smoke erupting from his nostrils. "You bet he doesn't. Any capitalist worth a goddam knows there's no profit in the meaning of life."

  Philip agreed that there was no profit in philosophy. All was unknowable, blessedly unknowable, and what was glimpsed of truth was a ravening beast whose corrosive breath alone could boil human flesh. Philip left Bingham and returned to his computer. No Work No Worries No Money, some old fart declared.

  #

  "I love her," Philip said. They were sitting in Lily's backyard, sitting in lawn chairs in the shade of twisted live oaks.

  Lily was wearing a shapeless yellow dress and sunglasses. Her feet were bare. Sunlight, filtered through the leaves, wove green shadows over the both of them.

  "So you followed her to Austin," Lily said.

  Philip nodded his head. "Yes. And at first she wouldn't talk to me. I mean, she wanted to put it all behind her, and I was part of it. I understand that. She doesn't want to believe that the Old Ones exist, even though she was right there, even though—"

  Lily interrupted. "The Old Ones are the monsters from outer space, the creatures from hundreds of millions of years in the past who controlled this corporation you worked for, this MicroMeg."

  "Well, not exactly. They didn't control it, at least not originally, but it was a Doorway."

  Lily waved a blue-veined hand. "If Amelia were here, how would she explain her actions?"

  "She's confused. She doesn't want to look at—"

  "Philip. Tell me what she would say if I asked her why she came to Austin."

  Philip rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. This therapy was hot work. "She would say she had to get away from me, that I was crazy."

  "Crazy," Lily repeated. She lit a cigarette and waved the match out. "Are you crazy?"

  "Of course not."

  "How would Amelia describe you?"

  "She would say that I had no ambition and didn't like going to jobs. She would say that I was easily bored, and so I turned everything into fantasy. She would say that the novel I was working on, which is a sort of H. P. Lovecraft type story, had gotten out of hand, had driven me crazy."

  "Hmmmmmm," Lily said. "Your Amelia says quite a lot when given the opportunity."

  Philip shrugged.

  "How do you feel about jobs?" Lily asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Have you ever had a job that you liked?"

  Philip frowned. "No, I guess not."

  "Tell me about your first job," Lily said.

  Philip looked up. "Well, I had chores and stuff for my allowance, but I guess my first real job was mowing our neighbor's lawn. That was Mr. Bluett. He was a very weird dude, a fat, pear- shaped guy who wore these big, oversized shorts. He was an old guy with a lot of money. He told jokes, lots of jokes, one right after another." "So how was the job?" "At first it was just fine." "And later."

  "Later it wasn't so good." "Tell me about it."

  3.

  The lawnmower had stalled out in a huff of blue smoke, vomiting clumps of cut grass. Philip yanked on the pull rope, and the motor coughed like a fat man choking on cigar smoke.

  Great, just great.

  It had to be a hundred degrees out, August, not a cloud in the sky, the sun a bright, unfocused blur. Philip itched all over, tortured by the gritty paste of grass and dust that coated his skin.

  Philip pulled on the cord again, and the engine caught. The mower leapt forward, an undisciplined dog tugging on its leash.

  Mr. Bluett's house was a big white mansion two streets over from the house Philip lived in with his mother and the ghost of his father and the ancient, ever-watching Elder Ones. The lawn was a long, rolling expanse, green even in the last sere days of summer.

  Philip finished mowing the lawn and was emptying another bag of grass clippings into a trash can when Mr. Bluett came around the corner of the house.

  "Wicked hot, isn't it, Philip?" he said.

  "Yes sir," Philip said.

  "You don't have to call me sir," Mr. Bluett said. "The queen didn't make me a knight." He laughed. He was a soft old guy with boiled-red flesh and thin, reddish hair that rippled tightly over his skull. He was rich, having made a fortune in real estate. He wore a shirt decorated with colored fish and big, floppy blue shorts and flip-flops.

  "Thirsty?" Mr. Bluett asked.

  "Yes s—Yes."

  Mr. Bluett nodded. "Come on. I got iced tea."

  Mr. Bluett put an arm on Philip's shoulder and led him around the house to the swimming pool in the back.

  A big pitcher of iced tea rested on a white patio table.

  The ice rattled as Bluett filled a large plastic tumbler and handed it to Philip.

  "Looks good," Bluett said, surveying the lawn with his hands on his hips. "You do good work, Philip. How old are you?"

  "Thirteen," Philip said.

  "A teenager! Well, damn. I was a teenager once myself, although you might find that hard to believe. You getting any pussy?"

  Philip said nothing. He was feeling uncomfortable. Adults didn't say "pussy." Kids like Ronnie Hargrave and rowdy Butch Walker said "pussy." The iced tea made Philip's stomach hurt, and Mr. Bluett was leaning forward, his face oily with suntan lotion, his breath sour and fleshy beneath a coating of minty mouthwash.

  "Maybe you ain't worked up to pussy yet," Bluett said. His voice sounded different now, shifting the way a grown-up's voice will. "You might be practicing with your buddies first. You know, sucking each other's dicks."

  Philip shook his head, frowning. "I have to be getting home," he said.

  "Hey," Bluett said, standing up, "it ain't no big deal. Let me pay you for that lawn. You done a fine job."

  Bluett pulled out his wallet and thumbed through the bills. He frowned. "Looks like I got nothing but a twenty. Well damn. Hey, you been mowing my lawn all summer, call it a bonus."

  He handed the twenty to Philip.

  Twenty dollars! Great!

  "Thank you," Philip said.

  "Hey, you're a good kid." Bluett reached forward and ruffled Philip's head. Then, suddenly, he leaned forward, cupped the back of Philip's head with his hand, shoved his face into Philip's and kissed Philip on the lips.

  Philip shouted, fell backward. The plastic tumbler bounced on the flagstones and ice leapt out.

  Philip got up and ran. He heard Mr. Bluett behind him, shouting.

  "It ain't no big deal!" Mr. Bluett was shouting. "It ain't anything to get exercised about!"

  Philip reached his bike, jumped on it, and raced down the hill.

 
"So that's how your first job ended," Lily said.

  "No," Philip said. "I worked for him the next summer too. I got twenty dollars every time I mowed his lawn."

  "And did he make any more sexual advances?"

  "No, not exactly. Sometimes he would ask me to get something out of the pool. I'd have to take off my clothes to go into the pool. I forget why, but you couldn't wear clothes in the pool."