Easy and Hard Ways Out Page 15

  “I’ve invented a theorem,” said Dorfman.

  “A math theorem?” said Brank.

  “A general theorem,” said Dorfman, sucking a Wintergreen mint. “Here it is. Dorfman’s first theorem. At any given instant, the total world food supply cannot exceed the weight of the earth.” He stood near Brank’s desk, chest puffed out like a peacock’s, satisfaction suffusing his face.

  Brank stared at him. “How old are you, Sheldon?”

  “What?”

  “Old. Age. Your age. Here: a person’s age cannot exceed the number of years he has spent without his umbilical cord tied to someone else. How old are you?”

  “Thirty-six. Yours is only a definition, mine is a theorem. Why do you ask?”

  “Because, don’t you get tired of these theorems and puzzles and cute problems you’re always doing? I ran out of gas on these things when I was twenty-three.”

  Dorfman nodded slowly. “I figured you’d be jealous. Typical Old World attitude. It’s this type of thing that keeps your mind alive, prevents you from becoming a mental celery stalk like—” He thrust his chin in Wizer’s direction. “Your feigned bored cynicism on this is merely a cover-up for a fear of competition.”

  “Sheldon,” said Brank, “I’m not in competition with you. On anything. I know this may come as a shock, but you are not one of the focal points of my life. It’s not that I don’t like you, it’s rather that I don’t consider you. You are not a factor in my equation. Your view of Elton, incidentally, is rather arrogant.”

  “Harsh, but correct,” said Dorfman.

  Brank noticed he had hairy arms. “What makes you think you’re any different?”

  “Look,” said Dorfman, “surely the trivia we work on here is not enough to keep our minds alive. Listen: you put three random dots on a paper and connect them with lines. What’s the probability the resulting triangle is obtuse?”

  “I give up,” said Brank. “But knowing the answer to problems like that is not necessarily keeping your mind alive, either. We’re all on the same train here; the only difference is some of us walk through the cars and think they’re getting ahead of the others.”

  “Poor analogy,” said Dorfman. “Strained metaphor. I take courses. Art, literature, cultural things. I have plans. This is just temporary for me. No O.W. mentality here, no ghetto resignation.”

  Brank dropped a pencil and bent to pick it up as Dorfman began edging away.

  “You should leave it there,” said Dorfman over his shoulder. “Dorfman’s second theorem. Things already on the floor cannot fall.”

  Brank looked up and muttered under his breath. About that, at least, the crazy son of a bitch was right.

  Progress Report—Job 6145—H. Brank—12/3

  Calculations by J. Dubrowolski indicate unacceptable loss-bandwidth tradeoffs for epoxy-degraded Yig spheres. Trying to devise fixture to hold spheres onto rods without epoxy.

  Brank went to Bill Brennan in Drafting and asked if there were a designer or draftsman available to make shop sketches.

  “I think we’ll have one about 1992. Are you kidding, Harvo? We’re up over our ears; look at the cretins I get here.”

  Potamos and Plotsky turned around. “A poor supervisor blames his workers,” said Potamos.

  “He has the I.Q. of a crabapple,” said Brennan. “I’d suggest the Production drafting department, but they’re impossibly loaded too.”

  “This is job six-one-four-five,” said Brank. “I thought it had top priority.”

  “It does,” said Brennan. “But so do all the other jobs we have. Ardway gave me a list of priorities. Seven jobs have top priority, five are ultra-urgent, and thirteen are urgent. We won’t get to the urgent ones for about two months.”

  Brank nodded.

  Plotsky left his board and ambled over. “I hear there are yogis who can vomit at will. I hear some of them sit in a bathtub and draw water up their asses to give themselves enemas. It’s disgusting, but this is what I heard. The thing I’m wondering is if they can jerk off without touching themselves. Think off, I guess you’d call it. This is what I’m wondering.”

  “I can’t help you there, Ralph,” said Brank. “It is a fascinating subject for speculation, though.”

  Brennan threw up his hands in a theatrical gesture as Brank walked Plotsky back to his drawing board. On the shelf underneath, mixed in with the triangles, French curves, and protractors, Brank caught a glimpse of shiny magazine covers.

  “Other people,” said Plotsky softly, “receive pornography they don’t want in the mail and they become enraged. I send away for it, and I can’t get it.”

  Brank nodded sympathetically.

  “Got a hot job here,” said Plotsky, indicating the sheet on his board.

  “Must be,” said Brank, backing away. “I’m gonna have to make my own sketches.”

  “Yeah, this is a scorcher,” said Plotsky. “Part for one of the bigwig’s boats. Big hush-hush deal. Won’t say who it’s for.”

  Brank halted, and stared at the ceiling for almost a minute. Then he began to laugh.

  Later in the day, Steinberg approached him and asked how the new fixture was progressing.

  “I’m doing the shop sketches myself,” said Brank. “I couldn’t get a draftsman. They’re working on some bigwig’s boat. Big hush-hush deal, so nobody knows it’s Rupp’s.”

  Steinberg quickly swiveled his head from side to side. “Shh! Shh! You’re not supposed to mention that.” He whispered so that Brank could barely hear. “How did you find out? Only supervisory personnel are supposed to know that.”

  “Wizer told me,” said Brank.

  “Wizer. Hmm. Who told him, I wonder?”

  “Oh, Rocco did. The way it works is, the secretaries tell the maintenance men who tell the techs who tell the engineers. Of course, sometimes word does filter back to the supervisors, but it’s usually from the direct source, which means it’s full of lies and distortions.”

  “They told me it was very sensitive, that it required great discretion, that no leaks could be tolerated.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Brank.

  “I’m asking everyone to work overtime,” said Steinberg abruptly.

  “But, Stan, it’s pointless. You know the job’s impossible.”

  “We have to make maximum effort, we have to set examples.”

  “Stan, it’s impossible. Examples for whom?”

  “We’re all guilty, the blame is spread, the ax falls evenly. A chain is only as weak as its strongest link.” Steinberg sneezed, rubbed his eyes, sneezed again.

  “I don’t know,” said Brank.

  “Know. Know. Mr. Ardway is watching. Put in the time. If you want, I’ll take a vote on it, but you have to vote yes. Everyone does. This is a democratic lab, we’re adults. We do what’s necessary. You want the vote?”

  “I yield, Mr. Chairman,” said Brank.

  Brank sat and stared. Night work was impossible. Evening was a time for dinner and reading the newspaper and playing with Brucie, a time of lying on carpets, stretching out on sofas, massaging Joanie’s legs, watching TV, sleeping. A mind and body locked into these patterns could accomplish nothing useful in a work environment, even if useful work were possible. Steinberg was slaving away in his cubicle over some arcane report. Dubrowolski ran out of lined paper in the middle of a derivation and continued the proof on the surface of the desk. Dorfman studied the World Almanac and mentally composed another anonymous letter to Rupp. Brank got up and took a walk.

  He passed the Accounting Department, looked in at the few remaining secretaries. There is a peculiar intimacy between people who work overtime in the evenings, a sense of duty shared, things mutually missed. Brank felt a special, extrasexual bond between himself and the secretaries. He wanted to go over and utter platitudes: Hi. Kinda lonely workin’ nights, huh? Really gets dark fast this time of year. Real cold out, I hear. Progress reports flashed through his mind: with J. Dubrowolski, evaluating Mavis of Accounting for sexual p
otential. Retinal, oral, and olfactory measurements performed on subject’s breasts, buttocks, and genitalia all agree with theory within experimental error.

  He returned to his desk, drew four lines on his shop sketch, erased two. He put down some dimensions, added tolerances, then changed his mind and crumbled the sheet into a ball. He stood up, sank a fifteen-foot jump shot into the wastebasket, and sat down. He began another sheet, drew three lines, erased one, smudged another horribly. He carefully saved the tiny eraser shavings, which he collected in a small box that he periodically dumped on Dorfman’s desk when Dorfman wasn’t there. It drove Dorfman crazy. He started a calculation but lost his trend of thought in the middle. At ten thirty, Steinberg emerged from his cubicle and said, “Okay, men, let’s call it a night, huh?”

  Brank put on his jacket and walked through the corridors with Dubrowolski.

  “You probably don’t even mind this, do you, Dubrowo?”

  Dubrowolski puffed his cheeks, smoothed down his blond hair. “Oh, who? Me? You mean the overtime?”

  “Yes, John.”

  “No, I don’t mind. I enjoy derivations. I’d do them anyway. I have nothing else to do at night.”

  They passed the guard at the door.

  “Ever try getting laid?”

  Dubrowolski smiled knowingly. “Oh, you mean intercourse? With girls?”

  “Yes, John.”

  “Never during the week.”

  They separated, and Brank walked to his car. Bright spotlights blazed away, fighting off the blackness of the night and the asphalt. Brank listened to his footsteps, saw his car in the distance, standing by itself, freezing no doubt, even as he was. He imagined himself in the courtyard of a foreign prison, spied on, studied, machine-gun towers ready to open up should he make a wrong move. His head hurt. He began to jog. By the time he reached the car, he could hardly stand.

  Progress Report—Job 6145—H. Brank—12/4

  Working on shop sketches of fixture to hold spheres on rods without epoxy.

  He felt sick. His throat burned and his eyes itched and Steinberg had told him they’d all have to work overtime for the rest of the week. “It’s mainly for the appearance, Harvey,” he’d said. “Nobody enjoys it really, but sometimes the appearance of a thing is more important than the thing itself. I’ve been in the field nearly thirty-two years, and I know.”

  Brank worked listlessly during the day, unable to concentrate. He paged Dr. Vincent Nardiello, Vincent Price, and Vincent Impelliteri, the first paging he’d done since that oaf, Brine, had stopped watching him. He dialed the weather, and spoke in hushed tones so Dorfman would be curious and overhear. A soft female voice relayed important facts.

  “—becoming south to southwest later on. Small craft warnings are in—”

  “I’d like to fuck you,” whispered Brank into the phone, as Dorfman suddenly stopped writing.

  “Tides running one and a half to two feet above normal may cause minor flooding over low-lying coastal sections. Probability—”

  “If you don’t like it the regular way we could do variations, just as long as I get into your low-lying coastal sections.”

  “Good morning. National Weather Service forecast for Nassau and—”

  Dorfman was staring openly now, and even Dubrowolski had looked up.

  “I’ll meet you at lunchtime, but only if the weather holds out.”

  Brank hung up and walked out of the lab. His body ached and he felt feverish. Psychosomatic, of course. He wandered through the halls till lunchtime, when he ate half a sandwich, felt nauseated, and went into the Accounting men’s room to throw up. Just as he entered his favorite stall, the nausea abated slightly and switched instead to stomach cramps. He sat down on the toilet and soon the cramps passed, to be replaced again by head pains and perspiration. He glanced at the wall of the cubicle and saw the familiar scrawled lines of equations and dirty pictures he’d come to expect. One sketch, labeled “Laocoön,” showed nude Ardway-and Rupp-like figures obscenely intertwined with a giant letter A. Brank corrected a minor algebraic error with a pencil, added some hair to one of the drawings, and wrote “Good—Seems Publishable” near the bottom. He stood up and zipped his pants. The intelligent graffiti were his only reason for using the Accounting men’s room. The mixture of mathematical formulas, scatological depictions of A, Rupp, and Ardway, and occasional philosophical remarks was always interesting, and demented.

  Nine thirty at night his father, a man caught up in the mechanics of using the telephone, called him at the office.

  “Hello? Hello? Harvey? Is Harvey Brank there? I’d like to speak to Mr. Harvey Brank, please.”

  “Dad? Dad, it’s me.”

  “Hello? Is Harvey Brank there?”

  “Yes. Dad? It’s me, Harvey.”

  “Is this Harvey Brank?”

  “Yes. Dad, it’s me, your son, Harvey.”

  “Oh, Harvey, yes, my son. Yes, now I can hear you.”

  “Good.”

  “I got a new tone dialing the operator.”

  “What’s doing, Dad?”

  “Like a whistling noise, ooo-eeeeeeeeeeee. You ever hear of such a thing?”

  “No, I haven’t. Uh, what’s new?”

  “So I hung up and tried again, but this time I got a busy signal, a trunk line type, you know, very closely spaced buzzes. So I hung up again and dialed the operator, but then a loud beeping started up and—”

  “Dad, I’m a little busy now. Are you calling for anything special?”

  “Now you’re coming in loud and clear, though. We really have an excellent connection now.”

  “Dad, I’m—”

  “I just spoke to Joan and she said you were working late. Is this something new?”

  “It’s just a project that has to get out.”

  “I hear it’s going to pour tonight, maybe turning to snow. You have a raincoat with you?”

  “Dad, I thought we agreed—no more weather reports.”

  “All right, make believe you didn’t hear me. Listen, your mother and I thought we’d take a ride out on Sunday. You want us?”

  “I’m not sure, Dad. Lemme check with Joan and I’ll call you back tomorrow.”

  “No, no. Listen. Do it this way. On Sunday, give us one ring if you want us to come, and we’ll give you one ring back if we’re coming.”

  “Dad, wouldn’t it be easier if I just spoke to you?”

  “But why? Why waste a call? I don’t know, Harvey, sometimes, for an engineer, you don’t think.”

  “All right, Dad. One ring.” There was a long pause. “Dad? Is there anything else?”

  “Huh? Oh. Oh, no. No, I just hate to break the connection, that’s all. This type of hookup you get once in a million years.”

  Progress Report—Job 6145—H. Brank—12/5

  Completed sketches of fixture and submitted them to model shop.

  “So, uh, it looks like, you know, like we’re at the end of the rope,” said Dubrowolski.

  “What rope?” asked Brank.

  “Oh, that was just an analogy,” said Dubrowolski cheerfully, his blond hair hanging over his eyes, his large frame looming over Brank’s desk. “I meant the rope was analogous to the situation about the Yig filter.”

  “I don’t think a rope is like a Yig filter.”

  “No, no. See, what I meant was—”

  “John, John, I’m teasing you. I know what you meant. You’re right. Auerbach Labs is going to have to tell the Air Force we have a problem that’ll take a couple of months to solve, that’s all.”

  “Yes, that’s what I meant.”

  “Dubrowo, who’s going to protect you after I’m gone?”

  “I got another letter from my draft board,” said Dubrowolski. “Boy, are they after me. They said I didn’t answer their last questionnaire.”

  “Did you?”

  “No, I lost it.”

  “Did they send you another one?”

  “Yes. But,” he giggled, “I don’t know where
it is. I think I wrote a derivation on the back of it.” He saw Brank staring at him. “I can’t help it. I get ideas. I’ve been getting them lately just before I go to bed at night. I don’t have paper in my bedroom so I write a lot on the sheets.”

  “Dub, you better find the questionnaire.”

  “I know. It’s either that or the Viet Cong.”

  By 8 P.M. Brank was wandering again through the half-deserted halls. He passed outside the Production shop, looked in at the endless greenhouse rows of oil-washed, chip-spitting machines, at the acres of fluorescent lights, at the hunched-over night-shift workers poring over their bits of precious metal. He glanced in at Plating, at the jars of chemicals, at the lines of huge, smoking vats and masked attendants. He walked through the neat, unattended desks of Legal and out through the plush, carpeted conference rooms of Sales. He leaned in to say hello to Bea, secretary to the empty room. (Her boss, Mr. Frankel, a minor Production Control functionary, had died four months before, but an EPICAC programmer’s error had failed to remove him from either the payroll or company records, and Bea had continued taking his messages, sorting his mail, and handling routine business to the satisfaction of everyone except Accounting, which sent occasional cranky memos about failure to cash paychecks.)

  At ten o’clock, Steinberg called Brank into his cubicle, just after dismissing the rest of the staff. A thin line of clear fluid trickled from one of Steinberg’s nostrils, and he swiped at it hopelessly with the edge of one hand. His eyes were red; he seemed about to cry.

  “I gather your fixture isn’t ready,” he said.

  Brank shook his head. “Shop said it’ll take at least three weeks with their present work load. Vargas said he’s had to put another man on Rupp’s boat. Surprisingly, a new epoxy sample did come in”—Steinberg’s eyes brightened momentarily—“but Incoming Inspection, Holtzmann and Boltzmann, rejected it. Improperly marked can.”