Easy and Hard Ways Out Read online

  At his mother’s insistence, however, he did get shatterproof glasses.

  e. Probably Nothing

  It seemed to Joan Brank that she might not end up divorced after all. Though she had pictured herself as a Sophia Loren—type loner, her gutsy coping with life’s cruel setbacks making her hopelessly attractive to sensual though protection-minded men, the image had never really settled in. In the first place she had small, un-Loren-like breasts. (Harvey said, when he wanted to be nice, that the smallness there was a sign of sensitivity.) Secondly, a man could have protective impulses but still not want anything much to do with a bony, thirty-four-year-old woman and a three-year-old boy; who, after all, was that protection-crazy? But now, it had begun to look as if lawyers were not in her future. Harvey’s father had stopped calling every day with the weather report, the incredible lawn and cesspool problems with their house had begun to ease, and best of all, Harvey had been at Auerbach Labs for over a year and a half and seemed, finally, finally, to have settled down. Her friend Sheila had invited them to a lawn party this weekend, and for the first time almost since she could remember, Joan did not have to worry about feeling trapped and embarrassed when the girls discussed their husbands’ jobs and their pension benefits and vacations.

  She told Harvey about it at supper.

  “Sheila invited us for Saturday and I accepted. We haven’t seen them since the spring. Ron and Ellen will be there and some other people and all the kids.”

  Brank nodded. “You hear that, Brucie?” he said to his son. “All the kids, too.”

  “Am I a kid?” asked Bruce.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a kid?”

  “No. I’m an adult.”

  “You mean you’re the biggest?”

  “Yes.”

  “When will you be little again like me?”

  “In three months,” said Brank.

  “Oh, Harvey,” said Joan. “Stop. He believes you.”

  “He does not,” said Brank. “Do you believe Daddy, Brucie?”

  “No,” said Bruce, dropping a piece of meat to the floor, which Joan retrieved. “When you get little, Daddy, will you be able to wear my pants?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your legs will be little?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your eyes?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And your penis?”

  “No. That will stay big.”

  “Harvey!” said Joan.

  “I’m telling him the truth as best I perceive it,” said Brank.

  “All right,” said Joan, “all right. So how was work today? Bruce, you’re spilling the soda!”

  “Okay,” said Brank, “Usual Friday.”

  “Dull?”

  “A little. Still working on the plane.”

  “Oh. Isn’t that supposed to be nearly finished?”

  “Couple of weeks. The Air Force is coming soon to inspect.”

  “Is your part okay? Bruce, if you touch that knife once more you’re going right up to sleep.”

  “Hard to say. It just failed a temperature test today.”

  “Daddy,” said Bruce.

  “Is that serious?” said Joan, her pulse quickening slightly.

  “Nah,” said Brank.

  “Daddy,” said Bruce.

  “What?” said Brank.

  “Will my penis be as big as yours someday?”

  “Almost,” said Brank.

  After supper, Brank played with Bruce in the living room for a half hour, the play mostly wrestling and fooling around since Bruce could not seem to concentrate on any more constructive activities. Near the beginning, Brank had tried to play a game in which each player moved a plastic piece to various squares on a board, the location depending upon the color of a card drawn from a deck. When the shouting and screaming became very loud, however, Joan had yelled from the kitchen, “What’s going on there?”

  “He moved his man to a green square even though he drew a red card,” Brank yelled.

  “I love the green,” said Bruce.

  “But it’s not the game,” said Brank.

  “Oh, play something else,” Joan yelled.

  Later, during a break in their wrestling, Bruce brought over a drawing of an amoeba with two birdlike claws protruding from it. “It’s you, Daddy,” he said.

  “Oh, that’s beautiful,” said Brank, wondering if continual minor encouragements might lead Bruce to attempt a career as an artist, only to learn at age twenty-three from a crotchety watercolor teacher that his work showed the talent of a tree stump.

  Brank knew, of course, that the next day or two days later he’d find the drawing shredded somewhere, or crumpled in a corner, something Bruce did with all the cutouts and paintings and artifacts he made. Though at first Brank had found the boy’s lack of regard for his own work faintly amusing, he’d lately become disturbed by it. When he asked Bruce why he did it, however, all he would say was, “Because I love to,” and never elaborate further.

  After the play period, Bruce went pliantly to bed in his upstairs room, his small body lost and floating in an ocean of mattress and blanket. Later, Brank came up for a minute to watch him sleep, to check on the puffs of breath passing in and out through the slack cherub lips, to feel the perspiration soaking through the tiny pajama top, to see the miniature foot flex and rock in comforting womb-rhythm. His son.

  He came down and read the paper, then he and Joan hung flap-jawed before the TV, scarcely watching as they massaged each other’s backs and legs. He threw the garbage out after the 11 P.M. news, then went upstairs to brush his teeth before going to sleep. She spoke to him from the bedroom as he raised a great blue lather in his mouth.

  “I got those special pellets for the cesspool.”

  “Uh, guh.”

  “And I got that poison for those bugs.”

  “Guh.”

  “And I bought that toilet pipe you told me to.”

  “Ah vuh guh.”

  There was a pause as he reached in and got a usually untouched rear molar.

  “It’s not your fault, is it, Harv?”

  “Wha?”

  “That temperature test?”

  He spit out. “Oh, that. No, it just happened, that’s all. It just means we might not be able to pass all the tests at the inspection.”

  “Does anyone else know? Did you tell your supervisor?”

  He swished, spit out again, then repeated it once more. His mouth felt clean, especially the molars. “Yeah. He said he’ll discuss it with the chief engineer, but no matter what, we’d have to pass those tests.”

  He walked into the bedroom and lay down beside her.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him it might be impossible.”

  She faced away from him. “You’re not going to get in trouble, are you, Harv?”

  “Trouble? No. I did my job. I told him.”

  He shrugged, turned off the light, brought her face over to his, and kissed her deeply on the lips. Later, after they’d moved away from each other, after she’d lain motionless for many minutes, her mind alive with possibilities, with memories, with premonitions, she heard him say in the dark, “It’s really a very minor thing. It’s probably nothing.”

  AUERBACH LABORATORIES

  Inter-Office Memorandum 10/29/66

  From: V. Fish

  To: W. Murphy

  cc: N. Klapholtz, file

  Subject: Soap expenditures

  N. Klapholtz has forwarded me your memo dated 10/28 regarding the increase in lavatory soap expenditures. Further investigation has shown that the specific item involved is bar soap, and that the volume requisitioned of this commodity has increased 22%. Since staff size and working hours have remained constant over the past 3 audit periods, there is no apparent reason for the observed increase. I have therefore asked Security (Sam Brine will probably be in touch with you) to look into the matter.

  Regarding your memo: N. Klapholtz is merely a programmer for EPIC
AC, and the latter is only a machine, however sophisticated. Its letter to you was the result of an automatic sub-routine, and so you needn’t be so touchy about it. For God’s sake, it sends letters to everyone, even me.

  Best,

  V. Fish

  V.P., Accounting

  VF:mp

  AUERBACH LABORATORIES

  Inter-Office Memorandum 10/30/66

  From: H. Ardway

  To: S. Brine

  cc: S. Rupp, file

  Subject: Prank paging

  This is to remind you again that the person or persons who have been using our paging system to play practical jokes is or are still at large, and still causing frequent disruptions. Broadcast requests for Emiliano Zapata to call the stock room, or for Martin Bormann to report to Accounting, or even the name “Dick Hertz,” besides striking certain immature minds as amusing, are apt to be contagious and could result in serious lack of respect for authority, not to say loss of working time. Kindly implement whatever steps are necessary to get this nuisance off the air.

  Yours,

  H. Ardway

  Chief Engineer

  HA:sl

  THE GREATEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO POINTS IS AT 6:45 A.M.

  a. The Direction of the Undershirt

  It happened with greater frequency as he grew older, and today was one of the days. Brank found himself by the side of the bed, his undershirt half on, half off, and for the life of him he couldn’t think whether he was going to sleep at night or getting up in the morning. It was dark outside, and his mind was absolutely empty, numb actually, and he remained in stasis for nearly a minute. His eyes finally found a clock. Seven. He did not go to sleep at seven o’clock. Good. He was getting up, and therefore he must be putting the undershirt on. Good.

  “It’s late,” said Joanie, in a sleep-muffled voice from the other side of the bed. “Come on, Harv, it’s time.”

  He remembered he’d had a dream. He’d been about to cup the left breast of Mavis, from Accounting, in his palm. An excellent dream. He made a mental note to try and somehow resume the cupping tonight. He staggered into the bathroom, ran an electric razor over his face, and stood in front of the bowl to urinate. A face appeared between his legs.

  “Brucie! Watch out, Brucie! I’m making.”

  Brucie backed away on all fours, then stood up and peered in the side of the bowl. “I want to see the bubbles.”

  “Brucie, I haven’t got time now,” said Brank, flushing, then walking back to the bedroom, where he withdrew a pair of pants, a tie, and a shirt from a closet. Joan was sitting up in bed watching him.

  “I feel sick,” said Brank.

  “It’s because you just got up.”

  “No, my stomach hurts.”

  “You have to eat something. I keep telling you this no-breakfast business is bad for you.”

  “I need the extra sleep.”

  “You’ll feel better as the day goes on.”

  Brank finished dressing. “Are you going to be home today, Mommy?” said Brucie.

  “Daddy,” corrected Brank. “And the answer is no. I have to go to work today.”

  “Why?”

  “To make money.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we need money to live.”

  “Why?”

  “Because our society has designated money as a medium of—Joanie, will you take him downstairs?”

  Joan, nightgown-clad, marched Bruce downstairs as Brank finished putting on his shoes. He grabbed his wallet and keys and quickly followed. Joan was waiting with his coat.

  “Listen, maybe I should take a little rest today. Maybe—”

  “Harv,” she said sharply, and in her look was all the suppressed anger and disappointment and anxiety of the fifteen years they’d spent together, years in which he’d held twelve different jobs, three alone since Bruce was born.

  “All right,” he said.

  She slipped the coat on his back, and he struggled into it. When he was ready, he kissed her on the cheek, peering absent-mindedly down the front of her loose nightgown. From the second step, Bruce was peering too.

  “What are those?” he said. “Elbows?”

  “Never mind,” said Brank, sweeping him up and kissing him good-bye.

  “Will you be home tonight, Mommy?” said Bruce.

  “Yes,” said Brank, opening the door.

  “Is Mommy an engineer?” said Bruce.

  “Yes,” said Joan.

  “And he drives a train?”

  Brank stepped outside. “Not that kind of engineer,” he said, walking toward the curb. He stopped suddenly and turned around. “And will you stop calling me Mommy, for chrissake?” he yelled. But the door had already closed.

  It was cold and still dark out, the sky an icy landscape of chilled grays and blacks. The frost on his blighted lawn crinkled under Brank’s shoes as he made his way to his car, opened the hood, and reached in with his hand to free the linkage leading to the choke. Finished, he let the hood slam shut, then walked around to unlock the door, and slid into the torn leatherette seat. He floored the gas pedal twice and turned the key in the ignition. Ruhruhruhruhruh. Ahruhruhruhruhruh. Nothing. Again. Ruhruhruhruh. Ahruhruhruhruhruh. Well, thought Brank, I mean if she doesn’t start, I guess I can’t go. I mean you can’t fight nature. He began to spring from the car, then decided on a last attempt, proof he’d spared no effort. Ruhruhruhroooooooooooonnnnnnnnn.

  Shit.

  He released the emergency brake and pulled away from the curb, night lights from the utility poles and houses still brilliant in the darkness. In his rear-view mirror, he watched the frozen vapors of his exhaust curl out behind him. He came to a main street and drove faster, joined now by several other cars, all heading toward the highway. It was only autumn and he was already shivering; he’d have to get that damn heater fixed, it was impossible. The sky began to lighten a bit, the hard edges of the clouds blurring into a reddish-gray haze. He came to the highway, made his way down the entrance ramp, and waited for an opening. When one came, he adroitly blended in, a skillful segment in a great serpentine procession, a metallically churning, tormented monster that daily bucked and jerked the punishing million-mile distance from home to work.

  b. Suffering In

  In another part of the procession, a small, thin-haired man concentrated intently on steering his Buick in the increasingly heavy traffic. He sat propped up on several pads, and his diminutive fingers gripped the wheel so tightly they were numb. Because of some odd muscular or skeletal construction, his natural expression when tense was that of a slight grin, and that, combined with his small size and the large steering wheel, made it appear as if a child had taken over the car. Of course, no child could have even begun to cope with what Stanley Steinberg contended with every day just getting to work.

  In the first place, he had tunnel vision—his sight was limited to two imaginary tubes that extended directly in front of him and excluded everything else. In the second place, he had a condition that involved the manufacture of large amounts of mucus by the linings of his nasal passages. The condition, neither allergy nor cold nor sinus, was there nevertheless, and produced extreme and consistent discomfort in Steinberg and amusement in others, who called it psychosomatic. The third problem was an acute awareness of the openness of windows, or more precisely, the amount certain windows were opened and the necessity of controlling this very important parameter. Thus, the process of making it into work in the morning involved the delicate counterbalancing of these very powerful forces—the need to keep both hands on the wheel and oversteer wildly to compensate for lack of peripheral vision, the need to remove at least one hand from the wheel to blow his nose, which if unblown would make his eyes water and blur what little vision he had, and the need to remove at least one more hand to adjust the window opening, which if too small would expose him to possible asphyxiation from the imaginary carbon monoxide filtering up through the floorboards, and, if too large, would create a draft and cau
se him to sneeze uncontrollably.

  Superimposed on these physical difficulties, interwoven and patterned around them in some arcane psychological motif, was a set of what could only be called longings—incomplete, half-verbalized, and often contradictory desires that took turns preying on his mind. He’d forgotten to shave again today, and a button was missing from his coat—how many times had these things happened since Rose had been confined to the wheelchair? How many nights had he spent working on reports till 2 A.M. because there was no reason to go to bed, no sleep without exhaustion? And why was he now pushing himself in to work on this freezing, worst of all possible mornings? The obvious reasons were not real, the real ones obscure. He thought about getting off the highway at the next exit. Ah, but what if he didn’t show up and something important happened? What if just today they decided to fill the often-mentioned, about-to-be-created Assistant Chief Engineer vacancy, and he was out and they gave it to Brundage, or worse, to Pat? What then? He’d kill himself, that’s what. Because at fifty-two years of age, you don’t get any more chances. He’d been Microwave Section Head now for fourteen years and he’d bided his time most carefully. No, he’d have to go in. Even if it meant tortured explanations to Ardway as to why he was nearly six weeks late with the phase shifter, and painstaking extraction of minute amounts of useful work from the paper-bound and erratic Dubrowolski, and avoidance of Brank and Dorfman, who made a mockery of lab discipline. For Rose, he’d go in.

  For an instant, his car veered out of lane. Someone blew a horn and yelled “Sonofabitch!” as Steinberg quickly corrected while simultaneously suctioning a glob of escaping mucus back into his nose. When the first tentative crescent of sun appeared in the sky, he opened the window an additional eighth of an inch, which in no way interfered with his doing what nature had so superbly equipped him for: suffering.

  c. The Three

  Across the Long Island Sound from Steinberg rode the Three, Dorfman, Potamos, and Cohen, a car pool from the depths of the Bronx. The driver this day was George Potamos, a stoic, heavy-set individual who bore without complaint his colleagues’ obvious and continual perversion of his name. Potamos’s car was a piece of rolling junk with many pointless, impressive extras that he had installed himself.