The Americans, Baby

by Frank Moorhouse

  ‘Oh no – no, sir.’

  ‘I’m not the church-going type – but I’m an ethical man and I believe there is a Great Chairman in that Other Country which is the destination of us all.’

  Mortality was always not far from Becker. Becker replenished by his drink, wanting to ask about the poor food of Rotary and about the treasure, said instead, ‘I have never been in one place long enough.’

  ‘I often say that there is no need to be in a club to live by the principles of Rotary – what we need is not more men in Rotary but more Rotary in men,’ McDowell hammered out.

  Then McDowell mused, ‘It has guided my family life. Now take my family – there is high authority, you’d probably know – for the proposition that a child owes no natural affection to the parents – that such affection will, however, result from kind treatment, companionship, and studied care. The sacredness of the whole family, I argue, is largely due to the environment of fellowship that is made around it. That’s what Rotary and life are about. Complexes cannot live in the Rotary house of fellowship – do you agree?’

  Becker scratched around in the remnants of Course 231 Social Psychology. ‘Complexes, sir? I don’t fully follow.’

  ‘A Complex means that people aggravate their differences, while fellowship is generally interpreted as a development of the principles on which there can be agreement – one is destruction: the other, harmony.’

  ‘I follow.’

  Again McDowell slipped down into reverie.

  Becker slugged down his drink.

  McDowell came up out of the reverie saying, ‘What is your honest opinion of my daughter Terri?’, a darkness of trouble about his face.

  ‘I really don’t know her that well – I spend so little time at Head Office.’

  Two hands masturbating between her legs.

  ‘We haven’t seen her for a year.’ The darkness blackened and without comment McDowell rose and left the room, returning with a letter.

  ‘I want you to read this – tell me what you think of a daughter who’d write this to her father.’

  ‘Really, sir, I don’t think it’s my place …’

  ‘Go on – I’d like your opinion – I like the American approach.’ McDowell shook the letter at him in the agitated way of the elderly.

  He knew the contents of the letter. He knew no response to the contents. He was thinking of the wording of a response, not reading the letter – he saw it all there in key words from the night in the bedroom under the Archfiend in Goat Form. A loud, blurred letter written with a felt pen. He saw the words, shave head, castration, lice, methadrine, a pit of snakes, your cursed daughter. You didn’t need Soc. Psy. 231 to know it was the letter of a speed freak screaming to her father.

  ‘Really, sir, I don’t think it’s my place to comment …’

  ‘Please, I’d be grateful – for any comment – it’s so difficult to seek advice … in this town … about this sort of thing.’

  Becker returned to the letter, pretending to read, and then said, ‘I guess, sir, it’s part of her search.’

  McDowell didn’t acknowledge but said, ‘Do you read the Readers’ Digest?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I do.’

  ‘I like the positive American approach of the Digest – it’s the only thing I’ve got to go by – this drug thing comes stealing into the home – remember also that this is not the behaviour of a teenager – Terri’s no mixed-up child – she is nearly thirty – nearly thirty.’ McDowell was grim with bewilderment. ‘She is nurtured in good fellowship and the ethics of this home – I can only put it down to the city life and the company of artistic types.’

  Becker had not realised Terri was thirty. Some search. Some of us, he guessed, were looking for more than others. Take himself.

  Becker handed back the letter. The apple, he observed, probably didn’t fall far from the tree.

  ‘Her search, you say?’ McDowell seemed to be having trouble with that. ‘You must stay the night.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, but I have luggage at the motel, and I’d like to return there.’

  ‘Why, Mother would be very hurt indeed if you didn’t stay.’

  ‘Really, sir, I’d prefer …’

  Becker stood up.

  McDowell stressed the invitation, the insistent host. ‘After you’ve been of such good counsel.’

  ‘Please, sir, I wish to return to my motel, if you would excuse me.’

  In the car, McDowell laughed again heartily, and said, ‘I put a strong case – but always remember this, there are three sides to every question – your side, the other fellow’s side, the right side,’ and laughed.

  Becker was not clear in his own mind, to what, if anything, this related.

  The telephone as bolas

  All right, then, it was a transactional world. Becker had learned that early enough – one good turn deserved another, a little kindness will be returned a thousand-fold, smile and the world smiles with you. Sam was fond of saying, ‘Every conversation is a transaction.’ Well, Sam, what was the trade tonight, what did I give, what did I get?

  The motel room was a comfort to be sure. Not that he was retreating from L-I-F-E, no sir, not by a dandy long shot. He was still ready to get out there and dig for treasure. But he couldn’t see why he should have been selected tonight in this fibro town to receive the ass-pains of Rotarian T. George McDowell and his errant daughter.

  A bourbon with ice. Fire and ice. I think I know enough of hate/to say that for destruction ice/is also great/and would suffice.

  Becker was not averse to poetry or to jazz music. He sometimes wondered if this didn’t soft-edge him, business-wise.

  Motels. A clean safe passage-way around the world. He could be in Manitoba or good old Atlanta. The security of standardisation. All he asked of his little old hunk of life, for that year, was the standard four-star motel. Five-star tomorrow. And for the next day, treasure and a castle.

  The telephone rang, causing Becker to drop his bourbon.

  Ah shit.

  Who in damnation!

  He heard the plug of connection – the telephonist said long distance person-to-person. ‘Mr Becker?’

  ‘Yes, this is he.’

  He heard the wires – saw them stretching along the coast of this fibro nation – he saw the wires stringing him together with someone – a bolas – against his preference. He watched the mute whites and greys of the television from the telephone, awaiting the intrusion of the call to bring him stumbling down.

  ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ he said impatiently.

  ‘Hello,’ a girl’s voice, ‘it’s me, Terri.’

  Terri.

  ‘Jesus! What is this – I’ve just this moment come from your father’s house and now you’re busting in down the line.’

  Becker checked the anger in his voice.

  ‘I want to talk to you and apologise for my uncouth conduct the other night – the seduction hassle – it wasn’t cool, me unloading all that on you.’

  ‘Oh hell – forget it.’

  ‘What did father say?’

  ‘We talked some – we talked about you – say how did you know how to get me here – and why this time of night?’

  ‘I made the bookings, remember?’

  He remembered now all right. From the mit of the father to the mit of the daughter.

  ‘Tell me what my father said.’

  ‘Now look – it’s very late.’

  ‘Did he tell you his daughter was a head? I bet he didn’t.’

  ‘He showed me your letter, yes.’

  ‘He showed you my letter!’ Outrage. ‘He shouldn’t have done that – that’s not fair.’

  ‘Look, if you don’t mind me saying I seem to know more about you and your damn family than I want to damn well know.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have shown you that letter.’

  Becker began to wonder again. Why? She went on complaining.

  ‘You can see he doesn’t love me, can’t you?’ Becker took the
question, stretched the telephone cable to its limit, and using one hand poured a drink, adding ice.

  Becker was in need of a prayer as well as a drink.

  Here we go. ‘No, I don’t think he loves you. Not in the way you mean. No.’

  Rotary love, maybe? He didn’t bother to mention it.

  Terri shut up. The line was empty of voice.

  ‘How can you say that?’ she came back, almost anguished.

  ‘You asked me – I told you.’

  Again the silence. He could hear a drumming on the line. Wind?

  ‘No one has ever said that before – everyone has always said he does love me and I wasn’t being fair to him.’

  ‘Well, you asked me, that’s the way I see it.’ Becker watched television.

  Further silence, and then, ‘Well, at least you’re straightforward.’

  ‘I’m going now, I have to get some sleep – hit the sack, I have a big day.’

  ‘Selling Coca-Cola,’ her voice, returning to normal, was good-natured, but had a derisive edge.

  Becker had met derision before. Becker knew about derision.

  ‘Yes, goddam it – doing my simple self-appointed task of selling the best damn soft drink in the world – the best damn way I know how.’

  Becker believed, among other things, in prowess and the pursuit of excellence.

  Soft Drink and the Distribution of Soft Drink

  ‘Becker?

  ‘Becker?

  ‘Becker?

  ‘Becker!

  ‘Becker!’

  Becker heard his name, heard the voice of Terri, heard the coin tapping like a blindman on the window of his motel room, felt his sleep decamping. He opened his eyes, and yes, saw Terri peering through the window into the darkened room. Sweating, he was left, high, wide and awake by his fleeing afternoon sleep.

  ‘Becker, it’s me, Terri.’

  ‘Now what the hell!’ he cried, irritably. Becker, in his undershorts, lumbered up and went to the window.

  ‘Let me in.’

  ‘Terri, now listen, what is this?’

  They faced each other through the glass. Terri tapped at it with the coin. Becker opened the window. Terri swung a leg over the sill and entered, jeans, Women’s Liberation tee shirt, barefoot.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me knocking on the door?’

  ‘No, I was asleep.’ He had heard the knocking but had chosen to sleep.

  ‘Knocked for ages.’

  ‘Yes, all right, I did hear but I chose not to answer.’

  ‘American directness. Why are you sleeping at this time of the day?’

  ‘Terri, what are you doing here?’

  She went to the dressing table and examined his toiletries, his aftershave. She tossed them one by one into the wastepaper bin.

  ‘Why are you sleeping in the afternoon?’

  As if he didn’t have sufficient headache and ulcer with the seminar itself.

  ‘Terri, what are you doing here?’ he demanded picking up the toiletries from the wastepaper bin.

  ‘I came down to listen to the pollution.’

  Becker sat down tiredly, reaching for his Old Crow under the bed and took a swig, rinsed his mouth, and spat into the garden.

  ‘I really came to see you.’

  Why him? He took another swig and swallowed.

  ‘Do you usually drink so heavily?’ she said, condemnatorily. ‘John Barleycorn must die.’

  ‘I’m not drinking heavily, I am simply bringing myself around. Care for a drink?’ He proffered the bottle without overmuch grace.

  ‘No – I’m off alcohol.’

  He poured himself a slug and added ice from the polyurethane cooler.

  ‘I really came to see you because you haven’t been in the office and things were so hung up between us when you came to my place. And that telephone call! I want to know you!’

  ‘Look at my personnel record, and further more I’m working – not socialising.’

  Terri sat on the bed, rolled on to her back and reclined.

  ‘Be my guest,’ Becker said grumpily, head hanging towards his knees.

  ‘I’m attracted to you – madly – isn’t that typical? You’re madly attracted to someone and everything fouls up every time you try to express it.’ She was cheerfully resigned.

  ‘Now looky – you have lately come from a psychiatric clinic – you have this drug thing – you’re all screwed up – you admit that yourself – you could hardly, really, seriously say you’re ready for a … ah … straight … normal … association – and furthermore Coca-Cola don’t like their executives fraternising with female staff and furthermore you scare me – you scare the very hell out of me, and furthermore I want no complications. No complications.’

  ‘I think you’re fighting yourself. Furthermore I’m just a casual typist not permanently working for Coca-Cola – and furthermore you find me physically attractive but you’re resisting it.’

  He had to admit it.

  ‘Well, take me.’

  ‘Now, Terri …’

  He closed his eyes. ‘Terri, please go away.’

  ‘Is that what you really want? I’ll forget I’m in Women’s Liberation – just go ahead and use me, take me.’

  Becker gave his thirsty soul a drink of Old Crow.

  ‘Go on – fuck me. Then I’ll go away if you want.’

  She scored highly on audacity.

  He wavered. He was not a man over strongly disciplined by moral restraint. He was not Baptist. He was, he considered, inclined to lust. Inclined – it was more a capsize than an inclination. It would be his downfall. He would rob him of his slice of the cake. Sam wouldn’t suffer from lust. Sam had will. Sam was married, though he’d heard it said that lust couldn’t be contained, that it always overflowed its container. There was something generous about lust. Lord Rochester. The rot had started with his reading Rochester. That weirdo English teacher back in Atlanta had done it. The inclination and capsize had started there. That had been the end of the Baptist.

  She was unzipping her jeans.

  ‘I knew you were attracted to me – I could tell. Usually, I’m all shy, twitching with it, but with you I knew.’

  He looked at her. She arched her backside and pulled her jeans and pants down – he pulled them from the ankles. She sat up and bending forward pulled off the Women’s Liberation tee shirt. Naked, she was of excellent figure.

  He took off his undershorts – ‘let’s get this job done’ – and rolled on to the bed.

  For simplicity, directness, and lust, Becker thought, it was hard to beat.

  Becker had once, and only once, read an obscene New York newspaper called the National Expose. There was something from that paper which described a girl and a dog. It had stayed in his mind. It went something like this: ‘He was very sensitive like a human being (Becker liked that). We talked to each other. He understood me with his eyes. He’d lick my breasts and then look at me to see if I liked it. Then down on my belly and look up again to see if it was all right. Just like he was human. Then he was at my side licking it. I just reached over … it was already out of its sheath and I began to play with him … just like I would a man and then he started to mount me.’

  Out the front of the lecture room the man from the Department of Agriculture who looked like a dog was licking down the belly of the audience, pausing for signs of delight, and then continuing his passionate talk about pollution and its effect on animals.

  Becker was thinking what a crazy way to promote soft drink – here Coca-Cola was putting up good money for a bunch of earnest people to feel better because they sat through five talks on pollution. I feel better myself, thought Becker, but not that much better.

  Terri was sitting beside him reeking of lust, having bluntly refused to shower. She’d accused him of taking ‘American showers’. She’d mocked him for over-showering, especially after sex.

  He’d yelled at her, ‘If you won’t do it for personal hygiene – do it for the cause of air
pollution.’ She’d laughed.

  If everyone in the village kept their stoop clean, the whole village would be clean, thought Becker, recalling his grandmother.

  He didn’t see this seminar as the way he wanted to go about selling Coca-Cola. He liked the direct approach of good, old, honest selling.

  Display.

  Availability.

  A strong single product.

  Pollution, it occurred to him, was probably all to do with self-destruction. We’re all in that business. We pollute ourselves, goddam. That semester of existentialism had done him no good. People wanted health but all the time they did unhealthy things. The unhealthy was always a better proposition. Why was that? Terri was unhealthy and uncontrollable. He liked a little control. He liked a lot of control. Terri was, to be precise, a kook. She was a persistent kook. She was, like unhealthy things, a desirable package. She was a plastic bomb.

  He preferred control yet so often he was flung into the oily whirlpool. There was a question. Why did he consort with pollution? Why did he skirt the odorous abyss so perilously?

  At the conclusion of the session the chairman said, ‘And we’d like to thank Coca-Cola for making this seminar possible.’

  It sounded as if had Coca-Cola not existed there would have been no pollution.

  And then the chairman invited Becker to come forward on behalf of Coca-Cola.

  They expected dollars, not words, to come from his big American mouth. That was all right by him. That was what it was all about.

  ‘All over the world,’ Becker began, ‘the Coca-Cola company has been pointed at as meaning … ah … nasty America … bad teeth of the children …’ Some laughter. Laughter is the best medicine ‘… up in Asia you get students even burning down the plant … and they cry “American Imperialism”… and so on … all that … I want you just to think for a second what Coca-Cola is … it’s a beverage … a simple goddam soft drink … it’s not a Sherman … a napalm bomb … it’s not a damn political system … goddam, it’s a soft drink.’

  Becker pulled himself up. ‘To conclude, my grandmother used to say if everyone in the village kept their stoop clean, the whole village would be clean.’

  Clapping.

  He was about to return to his seat, having turned smiling to the chairman, when the guy shouted – not shouted, said with oratorial boom – ‘Coca-Cola, sir, pollutes the blood.’