The Learners: A Novel (No Series)

by Kidd, Chip

  “Interesting.” He grinned, just the merest bit.

  “That’s exactly what we’ve planned to do. Glad you agree. We have several controls like that in mind.” He was polite, but time was up.

  I didn’t want to leave. If I could stay with him, for at least a few hours, he could sustain me. Maybe even cure me. “Good. That’s good.” He was a doctor. I was sick. If I left now, I couldn’t be sure what would happen.

  This visit, it didn’t do what I thought it would.

  “You take care of yourself, now.”

  I was trying to, honestly. I was running as fast as I could. It wasn’t working. The train was coming, for me, right on schedule.

  “Sure.” And what could I do now but say good-bye to him, for the second and last time.

  Back to the big “what if.”

  I walked home, the long way, through the Old Campus and across the Green. It was lunchtime. I opened the kitchen cabinet above the stove, removed a can of Bambini-Buono Bolognese Bowties, and emptied it into a saucepan. I reached for the knob of the gas burner, stopped.

  I didn’t dare turn it on.

  Knobs. Switches. Levers. Buttons. They do devious things, I knew that now. They trigger horror in the world. They were to be avoided.

  I managed to down two cold spoonfuls and tossed the rest into the garbage.

  That night, I awoke, anxious. Something was strange, out of place. I looked over at the clock to see what time it was. I couldn’t make it out, so I turned on the lamp: 2:35 in the morning. And then I saw.

  Someone was in the room, with me.

  At the foot of the bed. Standing. A man. His face obscured, half in shadow. Weak moonlight mottled the curtains and dimly silhouetted his head and shoulders. He was wearing a hat.

  I tried to scream, couldn’t. Mute with pure, hot terror. Backed helplessly against the headboard. Why couldn’t I scream? My mouth was flapping, useless, no breath in or out.

  He drifted closer. Silently into the lamplight, which crept up his body, inch by inch. Cordovan wing tip shoes, black trousers, leather belt, a white dress shirt with rolled sleeves, a tie the color of dried blood. His top shirt button was undone, and the bottom of his face, his chin, looked familiar—heavyset, pale, light stubble, and…

  Heavy, horn-rimmed glasses.

  It was Wallace. From the lab.

  I should have been relieved. But something about this was unbearable. He stared at me, blankly at first, then his face grew with annoyance. How did he get in here? Was he sleepwalking? Wasn’t the door locked?

  He was right next to me now, at the side of the bed.

  My hand, tremulous, reached out to his, which he brought forward, slow with reluctance.

  I touched him.

  It was like flipping a switch. His eyes threw themselves open, full, his pupils became terrible black bullets shooting out of a white sky—aimed right at mine. His mouth exploded with a deafening, electric shriek:

  “LET ME OUT!”

  no.

  “LET ME OUT!”

  stop it.

  “LET ME OUT!”

  please.

  “LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LETMEOUTLETMEOUT LETMEOUTLETMEOUT!”

  I reached

  “LET ME OUT!”

  out to

  “LET ME OUT!”

  to turn

  “LET ME OUT!”

  him off.

  “LET ME—”

  And then I woke up.

  WE’LL BE RIGHT BACK,

  QUICK AS A BUNNY.

  CONTENT AS METAPHOR.

  So, what’s a metaphor for me, Metaphor? How about: a label. A street sign, an entry in a dictionary. Simply, I am something that represents, or stands for, something else. So why would anyone want to use me? To get their point across more effectively, of course, but more specifically to give visual presence to things that can’t otherwise be depicted. There are things that we can’t see until we see them as something else.

  Take Evil, for example: What does Evil look like? It’s the snake in the Garden of Eden. The grinning red man with horns, a tail, and a pitchfork. A skull and crossbones. Hitler.

  And what about Good? Oh, you know—a human being with a glowing ring hovering over his head and wings on his back. A Lamb. Gold. The Old Days.

  But keep in mind that the same metaphors can mean completely different things, depending on how you use them. That snake, for example. In Genesis, he is Evil Temptation, but put him on a flag that says “Don’t Tread on Me” and he’s Righteous Revolution. Wrap two of him intertwined around a caduceus and he is Medicine.

  So you see, I can be very, very powerful. I am the political cartoons by Thomas Nast that brought down Boss Tweed’s Tammany Hall. I am the hammer and sickle of the Soviet Union. I am the Rising Sun. I am the bald eagle that IS the United States of America.

  Words of warning: Don’t mix me up.

  You wouldn’t want to gild that lily, especially if you’re only going to whitewash it in the process.

  That spark of life could be the kiss of death.

  Monday morning at nine I lingered in Tip’s office doorway, waiting for him to notice. “Truce,” I said, my hand next to my head. He smiled and motioned for me to sit.

  “What’s the word?” he asked, hands folded behind his head. Then his face darkened. “You look like the dog’s dinner, by the way. Are you missing sleep?”

  God. “Some, I guess. I’ve been at this thing like we all have.”

  He made a notation on one of his ever-present legal pads. “I’ll get you something for that. Works wonders. My doctor is practically the Sandman.”

  “Not necessary, thanks. But I have a new idea for you. Preston would never go for it, so I thought why not toss it your way. This is going to sound weird, but…The first time, when Mimi said ‘taste test.’ It struck me—that’s what you should do.”

  “Taste test.”

  “But I mean literally. Even if we’d gotten more, well, normal people to interview, for the shoes, we were going about it the wrong way. Too direct. When people are on the spot they freeze up, don’t know what to say. But they’re much more on the level when you just talk to them, in a normal social context.”

  “Okay, so you’re suggesting…”

  “Try doing it as—” Say it. Say, it. “…as an experiment.”

  “An experiment. How?”

  “Catch them off guard. Shoes are one thing. But potato chips are another.”

  “Potato chips.”

  “I know, it sounds nuts. Listen: run a new ad, but only in the Yale Daily. That should weed out weirdo townies. Recruit the Yalies for a Krinkle Kutt blind taste test, against some other local brands—Utz or Wise or Good’s or what have you. And then, in the middle of it, ask them casually about the shoes they’re wearing, what they think about them.”

  He furrowed his brow, suspicious.

  “They’ll probably be more honest, revealing. For better or worse.”

  Tip buried his face in his hands. Finally, “Jesus, how did you ever think of that?”

  If you only knew. If I could only stop thinking about it.

  “It’s brilliant.” He exhaled, leaned back. “You bastard.”

  Yes—at least on the second count, I thought so, too.

  About an hour later, back at my desk, the phone jarred me out of a waking daydream of coupons, grocery circulars, and tortured screams. “Mr. Ware would like to see you in his office, please.” Miss Preech’s voice reached my ear from a world away, like it was coming through a waxed string via a tin can.

  It was ten to twelve. What did he want? “Yes ma’am, be right there.” I straightened my tie, dusted the blue-pencil shavings from my pants. “It’s Preston,” I said to Sketch. “I’m being summoned.”

  “Here’s look’n at ya.” He winked.

  Ware’s office door was cracked, an oblique invitation. He motioned for me to sit.

  “It finally came
to me this morning.” He looked elated. As in awake. “When I was getting dressed.”

  “It did?”

  “Ha! I’ve still got it.” He gripped the sides of his desk as if it were a rocket, ready to take off. “Okay, kid, are you ready for this?”

  Was I? “Sure.”

  “One, two…” He leered at me suspiciously, his right eyebrow hoisted high above the left—was I supposed to join in? To what?

  “Yes?”

  “Jiminy! One, two…”

  “Three! What?” Help me, help me,

  “Oh, COME ON. One, two. One, two!”

  Was I an idiot? Or being accosted by a lunatic?

  “We all learned it in school! It’s the easiest thing in the world. And they’ve never used it!”

  “Never used what?”

  “Buckle my shoe!!”

  “You’re wearing wing tips.”

  “NO! You moron! That’s the slogan!”

  “It is?”

  “Of COURSE it is. ‘One, two, buckle my shoe!’ It’s been on the tip of our tongues the whole time!”

  “Hmmm.”

  “It’s pure gold!” He turned and typed it up, ripped it out of the roller. Thrust it at me. “Here ya go, kid.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Thank God that’s over with. Let’s go to lunch.” He was already standing, collecting his jacket.

  “Together?”

  “Why the hell not. I finished the crossword already. It’s a Tuesday. Hungry? I’m always hungry,” he declared, buttoning up the front. “I shouldn’t be, too old. But you.” He paused, accusing. “You should be hungry, all the time.”

  “The usual, Dimbleby.” The tables at the Graduate Club—a white clapboard colonial mansion on Elm Street, facing the Green—were covered with a stiff custard linen that bore the small tell-tale holes of decades of boiled Irish laundering. And that’s exactly how the members liked them. The floors, billowing warped oak boards undulating beneath frayed runners, led to a receding series of rooms lined with flocked wallpaper and dotted with foxed etchings of Harkness Tower. Seated in the rear-most alcove, Preston was the most at home I’d ever seen him. Sprung from the office prison.

  “Yes sir. And for the gentleman?” Dimbleby, our waiter, was out of central casting—grizzled as a dried apple, shrinking by imperceptible increments in his starched tuxedo, incurably haunched by decades of leaning in close to take orders.

  “I’ll have—”

  “Make it two,” Preston interrupted, “we’re celebrating.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  The menu: shrimp cocktail, thin Rhode Island chowder, Steak Diane, Chicken Kiev, buttered wax beans, parsley potatoes. I suspected the food was an afterthought to what was really on the diner’s mind.

  “Here we are.” Dimbleby placed a pair of martinis, straight up with olives, onto the center of the table.

  Yikes. Where I came from, martinis were for Saturday evenings, not Tuesdays at noon.

  Oh well. This was something of an occasion, right? Warily, I lifted it in his direction, took a metallic sip, “Cheers—”

  “Aaah. Not half bad.” Preston’s glass was empty, the olive practically spinning. He popped it into his mouth like an aspirin.

  “The same sir?” Dimbleby sprited away the glass, not missing a trick.

  “You’re my saviour, Dimble.” Preston cracked the menu. “Now let’s see, what looks good today?”

  Once he’d ordered his Clams Casino and Shepherd’s Pie, and me my iceberg wedge and Chicken Español, I thought I’d try a little shop talk. “So, how do you see the ad?”

  “See it?” The very idea: anathema. “I won’t see it until you show it to me. That’s your job.”

  “Right.”

  “You’ll be able to do a lot with it, too. It’s a well-spring!”

  And, halfway through my second drink, I believed him: “One, two, buckle my shoe” revealed itself, thanks to the transmogrifying powers of gin, as the genius stroke of the decade—all things to all people, the doorway to greater knowledge in the universe. How could I not have seen it? It’s what Buckle was made for. Surely they could not but kneel in awe at its nearly obscene greatness. And it was my job to see it through. My job. This is how it must have felt when Rakoff & Ware was in its salad days, wooing the big accounts. Exhilarating. “Preston?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” He was on his fourth martini now. Entering initial stages of Shut Down.

  I was still in a Sputnik orbit, able to temporarily forestall the impending disaster below. “How is it different now than then?”

  “What?”

  “The firm.”

  “Than then, when?”

  “When you and Lars were pitching, I don’t know, Buster Brown?”

  “Hrrummff, we were kids. Kids who got lucky. The ad game was still new. We were just making it up as we went along. I honestly think half the time the clients were just too polite to turn us down—it used to be a gentleman’s business.”

  “And now?”

  “Hah. It’s a horse orgy! Back there,” he nodded sideways, I supposed in the general direction of the office. “They think I’m just an old fool. And maybe they’re right.” He flexed his eyebrows and inhaled the rest of his drink. “But I’ve got their number, every one of ’em. They think I don’t see anything. I see it all.”

  “You do.”

  “Oh, you betcha.” He was really fired up now.

  I couldn’t resist. “Okay, so I’m just going to run down the list, and you tell me the first thing that pops into your head.”

  “The list? Wha—”

  “Nicky.”

  “Oh. Hah! Waiting for Mummy to die.” No hesitation. “He should try a tent stake and a wooden mallet.”

  “Sketch?”

  “Mmm. Wasting his time and talent. Always did. He could have been jeezing Disney, he had any sense. Keep going.”

  “Tip?”

  “A smart-ass. He could sit on a Popsicle and tell you what flavor it is.” Then he waved his left hand up and down, suddenly boneless, and snarled, “He’s a flit.”

  I pretended I didn’t hear that. Which was half true. “Miss Preech.”

  “A hair-pie with fangs.”

  “Why is she so angry?”

  “Women are always angry. It’s how they get things.”

  “Really?” And what, I wondered, had it gotten Miss Preech?

  “That, and crying. Look at Mildred.”

  “Mrs. Rakoff?”

  “She got far on tits and tears. Farther than I ever did.” A dark smile. “Christ knows.”

  “I can’t—somehow, picture her crying.”

  “You’ve never had to. You don’t want to. It’s not for the squeamish.”

  “When was the last time you saw her cry?”

  “Heh-heh.”

  “Uh, what?”

  “You’d think it would be when they found Lars’s body…”

  Jesus. “Why, what were the circumstances?”

  “Not good.” Dour. He didn’t elaborate.

  “So. That wasn’t it. When Mimi cried.”

  “No. It was…after that.”

  A burp.

  “…when Hamlet got the croup.” His eyelids met each other in rapturous memorial bliss.

  Check, please.

  Without a word, Dimbleby ushered us into the club’s Cadillac and drove us the eight blocks back. I walked Preston up to his office, guided his key into the lock.

  Loaded at three in the afternoon, I truly understood him: It was the only way to understand him. “Well, thanks for—”

  Slam. Over the transom I heard the murmur of sozzled grunts—the Burberry mac and suit jacket shed with impatience and tossed to the floor, a squeaky office chair yanked and slumped into, an unwanted consciousness eagerly and swiftly abandoned.

  Three, four, shut the door.

  Wallace had been “visiting” me almost every night now for the last two weeks, the same nightmare. You’d think I’d get wise to it event
ually, but it took me by horrified surprise every time. It was as physically exhausting as it was emotionally flaying.

  Was there some part of me that wanted it that way?

  “Here, take these. On the house.” Tip had set the small amber bottle on my desk two afternoons ago. A month’s dosage of prescription Duradream sleeping pills.

  “Oh, thanks. Look, you really didn’t have to do that.”

  Extra strength.

  “No sweat. You don’t look well, Hap. I mean it.”

  I was going to return them, but changed my mind. Instead I set them next to my night table at home and would stare at the label until dawn. I didn’t dare take one.

  Not yet.

  In the clear light of the next day, my head restored to at least its own sense of troubled recognition, the scales had fallen and “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe” turned back into the pumpkin it was before the ball. And with the big Buckle presentation less than a week away. Yes, I would do something with the copy, but now I had to do something else. Another ad, something of my own, on my own. But this time what I needed before I had the right words was the right image. The latter would give birth to the former, not the other way around.

  With a new sense of focus, I did what I used to do in school—I camped out two whole nights in the Sterling Library, researching the subject of the problem at hand. Shoes: their history, role in society, what they meant in different cultures. What I kept coming back to was that in the Western World, when trying to ascertain one’s social status, it’s not so much about the shoes themselves, but about the lack of them. Preston had that much right: The Depression taught us that the only thing that screamed “poverty” more than eating a shoe to survive is not even having the option. Okay, so now what?

  I was still without an answer when, waiting in line to check out my books the second night, my eyes fell upon a row of pictures—an exhibition from the library’s photography collection—framed and hung along the west wall of the nave. There it was, literally staring me in the face, my epiphany in the shower now made manifest: a black-and-white study by Dorothea Lange of a young man’s bare feet, lying in the grass, toes curled. While luxuriating in their repose, they also betrayed a naked vulnerability. Cowering, helpless, afraid of the world. In pure need.