CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

by George Saunders

  “When your victim is elderly,” he says loudly and remonstratively, “it’s natural to assume heart attack. Natural, but, in this case, possibly deadly.”

  After a few more minutes of Heimlich he takes a pen from his pocket and drives it into her throat. Almost immediately she sits up and readjusts her wig, with the pen still sticking out. Leon kisses her forehead and makes her lie back down, then gives the thumbs-up.

  The crowd bursts into applause.

  I sneak off and sit for about an hour on the floor of the Control Hut. I keep hoping it’ll blow up or a nuclear war will start so I’ll die. But I don’t die. So I go over and pick up my wife.

  Leon wants to terminate me but Simone has a serious chat with him about our mortgage and he lets me stay on in Towel Distribution and Collection. Actually it’s a relief. Nobody can get hurt. The worst that could happen is maybe a yeast infection. It’s a relief until I go to his office one day with the Usage Statistics and hear moans from inside and hide behind a soda machine until Simone comes out looking flushed and happy. I want to jump out and confront her but I don’t. Then Leon comes out and I want to jump out and confront him but I don’t.

  What I do is wait behind the soda machine until they leave, then climb out a window and hitchhike home. I get a ride from a guy who sells and services Zambonis. He tells me to confront her forcefully and watch her fall to pieces. If she doesn’t fall to pieces I should beat her.

  When I get home I confront her forcefully. She doesn’t fall to pieces. Not only does she not deny it, she says it’s going to continue no matter what. She says I’ve been absent too long. She says there’s more to Leon than meets the eye.

  I think of beating her, and my heart breaks, and I give up on everything.

  Clive shows up at ten. As he keeps me awake telling me what his senior prom would have been like, Simone calls Leon’s name in her sleep and mutters something about his desk calendar leaving a paper cut on her neck. Clive follows me into the kitchen, wanting to know what a nosegay is. Outside, all the corn in the cornfield is bent over and blowing. The moon comes up over Delectable Videos like a fat man withdrawing himself from a lake. I fall asleep at the counter. The phone rings at three. It’s Clive’s father, saying he’s finally shaken himself from his stupor and is coming over to kill me.

  I tell him I’ll leave the door open.

  Clive’s been in the bathroom imagining himself some zits. Even though he’s one of the undead I have a lot of affection for him. When he comes out I tell him he’ll have to go, and that I’ll see him tomorrow. He whines a bit but finally fades away.

  His dad pulls up in a Land Cruiser and gets out with a big gun. He comes through the door in an alert posture and sees me sitting on the couch. I can tell he’s been drinking.

  “I don’t hate you,” he says. “But I can’t have you living on this earth while my son isn’t.”

  “I understand,” I say.

  Looking sheepish, he steps over and puts the gun to my head. The sound of our home’s internal ventilation system is suddenly wondrous. The mole on his cheek possesses grace. Children would have been nice.

  I close my eyes and wait. Then I urinate myself. Then I wait some more. I wait and wait. Then I open my eyes. He’s gone and the front door’s wide open.

  Jesus, I think, embarrassing, I wet myself and was ready to die.

  Then I go for a brisk walk.

  I hike into the hills and sit in a graveyard. The stars are blinking like cat’s eyes and burned blood is pouring out of the slaughterhouse chimney. My crotch is cold with the pee and the breeze. The moon goes behind a cloud and six pale forms start down from the foothills. At first I think they’re ghosts but they’re only starving pronghorn come down to lick salt from the headstones. I sit there trying to write Simone off. No more guys ogling her in public and no more dippy theories on world hunger. Then I think of her and Leon watching the test pattern together nude and sweaty and I moan and double over with dread, and a doe bolts away in alarm.

  A storm rolls in over the hills and a brochure describing a portrait offer gets plastered across my chest. Lightning strikes the slaughterhouse flagpole and the antelope scatter like minnows as the rain begins to fall, and finally, having lost what was to be lost, my torn and black heart rebels, saying enough already, enough, this is as low as I go.

  THE 400-POUND CEO

  At noon another load of raccoons comes in and Claude takes them out back of the office and executes them with a tire iron. Then he checks for vitals, wearing protective gloves. Then he drags the cage across 209 and initiates burial by dumping the raccoons into the pit that’s our little corporate secret. After burial comes prayer, a personal touch that never fails to irritate Tim, our ruthless CEO. Before founding Humane Raccoon Alternatives, Tim purposely backed his car over a frat boy and got ten-to-twelve for manslaughter. In jail he earned his MBA by designing and marketing a line of light-up Halloween lapel brooches. Now he gives us the brooches as performance incentives and sporadically trashes a bookshelf or two to remind us of his awesome temper and of how ill-advised we would be to cross him in any way whatsoever.

  Post-burial I write up the invoices and a paragraph or two on how overjoyed the raccoons were when we set them free. Sometimes I’ll throw in something about spontaneous mating beneath the box elders. No one writes a better misleading letter than me. In the area of phone inquiries I’m also unsurpassed. When a client calls to ask how their release went, everyone in the office falls all over themselves transferring the call to me. I’m reassuring and joyful. I laugh until tears run down my face at the stories I make up regarding the wacky things their raccoon did upon gaining its freedom. Then, as per Tim, I ask if they’d mind sending back our promotional materials. The brochures don’t come cheap. They show glossies of raccoons in the wild, contrasted with glossies of poisoned raccoons in their death throes. You lay that on a housewife with perennially knocked-over trash cans and she breathes a sigh of relief. Then she hires you. Then you get a 10 percent commission.

  These days commissions are my main joy. I’m too large to attract female company. I weigh four hundred. I don’t like it but it’s beyond my control. I’ve tried running and rowing the stationary canoe and hatha-yoga and belly staples and even a muzzle back in the dark days when I had it bad for Freeda, our document placement and retrieval specialist. When I was merely portly it was easy to see myself as a kind of exuberant sportsman who overate out of lust for life. Now no one could possibly mistake me for a sportsman.

  When I’ve finished invoicing I enjoy a pecan cluster. Two, actually. Claude comes in all dirty from the burial and sees me snacking and feels compelled to point out that even my sub-rolls have sub-rolls. He’s right but still it isn’t nice to say. Tim asks did Claude make that observation after having wild sex with me all night. That’s a comment I’m not fond of. But Tim’s the boss. His T-shirt says: I HOLD YOUR PURSE STRINGS IN MY HOT LITTLE HAND.

  “Ha, ha, Tim,” says Claude. “I’m no homo. But if I was one, I’d die before doing it with Mr. Lard.”

  “Ha, ha,” says Tim. “Good one. Isn’t that a good one, Jeffrey?”

  “That’s a good one,” I say glumly.

  What a bitter little office.

  My colleagues leave hippo refrigerator magnets on my seat. They imply that I’m a despondent virgin, which I’m not. They might change their tune if they ever spoke with Ellen Burtomly regarding the beautiful night we spent at her brother Bob’s cottage. I was by no means slim then but could at least buy pants off the rack and walk from the den to the kitchen without panting. I remember her nude at the window and the lovely seed helicopters blowing in as she turned and showed me her ample front on purpose. That was my most romantic moment. Now for that kind of thing it’s the degradation of Larney’s Consenting Adult Viewing Center. Before it started getting to me I’d bring bootloads of quarters and a special bottom cushion and watch hours and hours of Scandinavian women romping. It was shameful. Finally last Christmas I said e
nough is enough, I’d rather be sexless than evil. And since then I have been. Sexless and good, but very very tense. Since then I’ve tried to live above the fray. I’ve tried to minimize my physical aspects and be a selfless force for good. When mocked, which is nearly every day, I recall Christ covered with spittle. When filled with lust, I remember Gandhi purposely sleeping next to a sexy teen to test himself. After work I go home, watch a little TV, maybe say a rosary or two.

  Thirty more years of this and I’m out of it without hurting anybody or embarrassing myself.

  But still. I’m a human being. A little companionship would be nice. My colleagues know nothing of my personal life. They could care less that I once had a dog named Woodsprite who was crushed by a backhoe. They could care less that my dad died a wino in the vicinity of the Fort Worth stockyards. In his last days he sent me a note filled with wonder:

  “Son,” he wrote, “are you fat too? It came upon me suddenly and now I am big as a house. Beware, perhaps it’s in our genes. I wander cowboy sidewalks of wood, wearing a too-small hat, filled with remorse for the many lives I failed to lead. Adieu. In my mind you are a waify-looking little fellow who never answered when I asked you a direct question. But I loved you as best I could.”

  What do my colleagues know of Dad? What do they know of me? What kind of friend gets a kick out of posting in the break room a drawing of you eating an entire computer? What kind of friend jokes that someday you’ll be buried in a specially built container after succumbing to heart strain?

  I’m sorry, but I feel that life should offer more than this.

  As a child my favorite book was Little Red-Faced Cop on the Beat. Everyone loved the Little Red-Faced Cop. He knew what was what. He donned his uniform in a certain order every morning. He chased bad guys and his hat stayed on. Now I’m surrounded by kooks. I’m a kook myself. I stoop down and tell raccoons to take it like a man. I drone on and on to strangers about my weight. I ogle salesgirls. I double back to pick up filthy pennies. When no one’s around I dig and dig at my earwax, then examine it. I’m huge, and terrified of becoming bitter.

  Sometimes I sense deep anger welling up, and have to choke it back.

  Sadly, I find my feelings for Freeda returning. I must have a death wish. Clearly I repulse her. Sometimes I catch her looking at my gut overhangs with a screwed-up face. I see her licking her lips while typing, and certain un-holy thoughts go through my head. I hear her speaking tenderly on the phone to her little son, Len, and can’t help picturing myself sitting on a specially reinforced porch swing while she fries up some chops and Len digs in the muck.

  Today as we prepare mailers she says she’s starting to want to be home with Len all the time. But there’s the glaring problem of funds. She makes squat. I’ve seen her stub. There’s the further problem that she suspects Mrs. Rasputin, Len’s baby-sitter, is a lush.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Freeda says. “I come home after work and she’s sitting there tipsy in her bra, fanning herself with a Racing Form.”

  “I know how you feel,” I say. “Life can be hard.”

  “It has nothing to do with life,” she says crossly. “It has to do with my drunken baby-sitter. Maybe you haven’t been listening to me.”

  Before I know what I’m saying I suggest that perhaps we should go out for dinner and offer each other some measure of comfort. In response she spits her Tab out across her cubicle. She says now she’s heard it all. She goes to fetch Tim and Claude so they can join her in guffawing at my nerve. She faxes a comical note about my arrogance to her girlfriend at the DMV. All afternoon she keeps looking at me with her head cocked.

  Needless to say, it’s a long day.

  Then at five, after everyone else is gone, she comes shyly by and says she’d love to go out with me. She says I’ve always been there for her. She says she likes a man with a little meat on his bones. She says pick her up at eight and bring something for Len. I’m shocked. I’m overjoyed.

  My knees are nearly shaking my little desk apart.

  I buy Len a football helmet and a baseball glove and an aquarium and a set of encyclopedias. I basically clean out my pitiful savings. Who cares. It’s worth it to get a chance to observe her beautiful face from across a table without Claude et al. hooting at me.

  When I ring her bell someone screams come in. Inside I find Len behind the home entertainment center and Mrs. Rasputin drunkenly poring over her grade-school yearbook with a highlighter. She looks up and says: “Where’s that kid?” I feel like saying: How should I know? Instead I say: “He’s behind the home entertainment center.”

  “He loves it back there,” she says. “He likes eating the lint balls. They won’t hurt him. They’re like roughage.”

  “Come out, Len,” I say. “I have gifts.”

  He comes out. One tiny eyebrow cocks up at my physical appearance. Then he crawls into my lap holding his MegaDeathDealer by the cowl. What a sweet boy. The Dealer’s got a severed human head in its hand. When you pull a string the Dealer cries, “You’re dead and I’ve killed you, Prince of Slime,” and sticks its Day-Glo tongue out. I give Len my antiviolence spiel. I tell him only love can dispel hate. I tell him we were meant to live in harmony and give one another emotional support. He looks at me blankly, then flings his Death Dealer at the cat.

  Freeda comes down looking sweet and casts a baleful eye on Mrs. Rasputin and away we go. I take her to Ace’s Volcano Island. Ace’s is an old service station now done up Hawaiian. They’ve got a tape loop of surf sounds and some Barbies in grass skirts climbing a papier-mâché mountain. I’m known there. Every Friday night I treat myself by taking up a whole booth and ordering the Broccoli Rib Luau. Ace is a gentle aging beatnik with mild Tourette’s. When the bad words start flying out of his mouth you never saw someone so regretful. One minute he’ll be quoting the Bhagavad Gita and the next roughly telling one of his patrons to lick their own bottom. We’ve talked about it. He says he’s tried pills. He’s tried biting down on a pencil eraser. He’s tried picturing himself in the floodplain of the Ganges with a celestial being stroking his hair. Nothing works. So he’s printed up an explanatory flyer. Shirleen the hostess hands it out pre-seating. There’s a cartoon of Ace with lots of surprise marks and typographic symbols coming out of his mouth.

  “My affliction is out of my hands,” it says. “But please know that whatever harsh words I may direct at you, I truly treasure your patronage.”

  He fusses over us by bringing extra ice water and sprinting into the back room whenever he feels an attack looming. I purposely starve myself. We talk about her life philosophy. We talk about her hairstyle and her treasured childhood memories and her paranormally gifted aunt. I fail to get a word in edgewise, and that’s fine. I like listening. I like learning about her. I like putting myself in her shoes and seeing things her way.

  I walk her home. Kids in doorways whistle at my width. I handle it with grace by shaking my rear. Freeda laughs. A kiss seems viable. It all feels too good to be true.

  Then on her porch she shakes my hand and says great, she can now pay her phone bill, courtesy of Tim. She shows me their written agreement. It says: “In consideration of your consenting to be seen in public with Jeffrey, I, Tim, will pay you, Freeda, the sum of fifty dollars.”

  She goes inside. I take a week of vacation and play Oil Can Man nonstop. I achieve Level Nine. I master the Hydrocarbon Dervish and the Cave of Dangerous Lubrication. I cream Mr. Grit and consistently prohibit him from inflicting wear and tear on my Pistons. There’s something sick about the amount of pleasure I take in pretending Freeda’s Mr. Grit as I annihilate him with Bonus Cleansing Additives. At the end of night three I step outside for some air. Up in the sky are wild clouds that make me think of Tahiti and courageous sailors on big sinking wooden ships. Meanwhile here’s me, a grown man with a joystick-burn on his thumb.

  So I throw the game cartridge in the trash and go back to work. I take the ribbing. I take the abuse. Someone’s snipped my head out of the o
ffice photo and mounted it on a bride’s body. Tim says what the heck, the thought of the visual incongruity of our pairing was worth the fifty bucks.

  “Do you hate me?” Freeda asks.

  “No,” I say. “I truly enjoyed our evening together.”

  “God, I didn’t,” she says. “Everyone kept staring at us. It made me feel bad about myself that they thought I was actually with you. Do you know what I mean?”

  I can’t think of anything to say, so I nod. Then I retreat moist-eyed to my cubicle for some invoicing fun. I’m not a bad guy. If only I could stop hoping. If only I could say to my heart: Give up. Be alone forever. There’s always opera. There’s angel-food cake and neighborhood children caroling, and the look of autumn leaves on a wet roof. But no. My heart’s some kind of idiotic fishing bobber.

  My invoices go very well. The sun sinks, the moon rises, round and pale as my stupid face.

  I minimize my office time by volunteering for the Carlisle entrapment. The Carlisles are rich. A poor guy has a raccoon problem, he sprinkles poison in his trash and calls it a day. Not the Carlisles. They dominate bread routes throughout the city. Carlisle supposedly strong-armed his way to the top of the bread heap, but in person he’s nice enough. I let him observe me laying out the rotting fruit. I show him how the cage door coming down couldn’t hurt a flea. Then he goes inside and I wait patiently in my car.

  Just after midnight I trip the wire. I fetch the Carlisles and encourage them to squat down and relate to the captured raccoon. Then I recite our canned speech congratulating them for their advanced thinking. I describe the wilderness where the release will take place, the streams and fertile valleys, the romp in the raccoon’s stride when it catches its first whiff of pristine air.

  Mr. Carlisle says thanks for letting them sleep at night sans guilt. I tell him that’s my job. Just then the raccoon’s huge mate bolts out of the woods and tears into my calf. I struggle to my car and kick the mate repeatedly against my wheelwell until it dies with my leg in its mouth. The Carlisles stand aghast in the carport. I stand aghast in the driveway, sick at heart. I’ve trapped my share of raccoons and helped Claude with more burials than I care to remember, but I’ve never actually killed anything before.