Easy and Hard Ways Out Read online

  Peretz looked stunned, and quickly glanced around the room to see if anyone had overheard Brank’s remark. Cohen and Hands were both grinning. “He’s the Chief Engineer,” whispered Peretz.

  “He’s a prick,” whispered Brank.

  “They’ll hear you,” whispered Peretz urgently, looking around.

  “They’re pricks, too,” whispered Brank loudly.

  Peretz looked up, then closed his eyes again.

  “Why did he suggest you buy the tape recorder?” said Brank.

  “Mr. Brank, I don’t mean to be discourteous, but my eyes are starting to bother me again. Maybe we could continue some other time.”

  “Look, Mr., uh, Leon, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I really am. I didn’t mean—”

  “You didn’t embarrass me, it’s just that my eyes—”

  “I’m sincerely sorry about it.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “I apologize.”

  “No need for that. Maybe some other time we—”

  “So why did he suggest the recorder?”

  “I really can’t discuss it right now. I’m really not—”

  “I won’t comment on your answer at all. I’m just curious.”

  “Mr. Brank, I simply can’t get into a long discussion of—”

  “All right, just tell me why he made you get the recorder.”

  “He didn’t make me.”

  “Then why did you?”

  Peretz sighed and opened his eyes. “He suggested it. He called me in one day and told me he’d like me to give a speech before the IEEE Antennas and Propagation group. I told him I couldn’t speak in front of a group, I get extremely, extremely … well, I just can’t. He said I’d have to do it. He said it was important for Auerbach Labs, important for him, and important for my technical growth and maturity.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I said I couldn’t do it.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said it would develop my character and make me a better individual. Then he said if I didn’t do it, he’d fire me.”

  “No doubt to develop your character still further.”

  “Then he suggested I buy the tape recorder. He said I should practice talking into it, that getting used to the sound of your own voice is the big obstacle.”

  “Have you tried it?” said Brank.

  Peretz stared at him for an instant, then turned a knob on the instrument and adjusted it. Brank strained to hear. “Good evening, lad, uh, ladies and, uh, chent, uh, gen, gen, gentlemein, gentlemain. Ve diss, ve vill, tonigh, uh, tonight we will di, di, di, uh, ve—” Peretz turned it off.

  Brank looked down. “You know, years ago I went through a period where I was very shy. Extremely so. I don’t know what it was. I was so shy I was ashamed to buy Kotex for my wife in the drugstore. At parties, I would stuff garbage into my pockets because I was too timid to ask where the trash can was.”

  Peretz’s lips were hanging loosely. His eyes seemed glazed. “Once,” he said, “I drank a malted in a luncheonette, a big one served from a big metal container that made several glassfuls. At the bottom of the container, after I’d finished the whole drink, I discovered a water bug. It was over an inch long, and it just lay there with its legs curled. And you know what I did? I just paid for the drink and left, and didn’t say anything to anybody. That’s what I did. I even left a tip.”

  “I once found half a roach in the cake I was eating,” said Brank. “Half. I never told anyone.”

  “Yesterday I took a haircut,” said Peretz. “After five minutes the barber whisked off the sheet and said I was through. He’d hardly cut anything at all. I screwed up all my courage and said, ‘Maybe you could take a little more off. Just a tiny bit.’ He looked at me for a while, and then he said, ‘You take any more off and it defeats the whole purpose.’ You know what I said? I said, ‘Oh.’ And then I gave him his money, including, of course, a tip.”

  “What did he mean, ‘the whole purpose’?” asked Brank. “You mean barbers have purposes?”

  “Everyone has,” said Peretz. “Everyone but me.”

  “But I’m not that way anymore, Leon,” said Brank. “I grew out of it, at least I think I did. I grew out of it because I don’t care about people that much anymore. That’s what it is after all, you know, the shyness, timidness, the fear. It’s an obsessive, excessive concern with what people think. Only people who care about others are shy. The louses and sons of bitches in the world are extroverts. Screw everybody, they say to themselves. They don’t worry. I’m more like that now, Leon. And it’s better, you’re better off.”

  Peretz nodded slowly. “You’re telling me these things because you want me to see Brundage for you, is that right?”

  “I’m telling you these things because I feel like it. I also want you to see Brundage. If you don’t, you don’t. I don’t care that much. It’s company business and I’m not a company man. The company suffers, I don’t give a microshit. If you want my personal advice, you should take that tape recorder, say ‘Fuck you where you breathe’ very clearly into it, and leave it on Ardway’s desk.”

  Peretz stood up slowly, pushed in his chair. “Wait here,” he said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  He walked toward Brundage’s closed, partitioned office, said a few words to Amelia, whose desk guarded the door, and waited while she disappeared inside. A moment later she emerged and motioned for Peretz to enter.

  b. Bargains

  Cohen approached Brank as he stood watching. “Still drivin’ that pig?” said Cohen.

  Brank broke his concentration on Brundage’s enclosure and focused on the little man beside him. He knew what Cohen would say. “You mean my Chrysler?” asked Brank innocently.

  “It’s a pig,” said Cohen. “A terrible, rolling bomb, a disaster on wheels. It’s a piece of junk. It’s collapsing, unsafe. It’s a disgrace for someone in your position, an engineer, a professional, someone earning a decent salary, it’s a disgrace to be seen driving that hulk.”

  “So?” said Brank.

  “So I’ll give you fifty for it,” said Cohen. “No questions asked.”

  Both of them chuckled. Cohen was a man with a “policy” on everything, whose natural engineering instincts had bloomed into obsessions in certain areas. Before he was married, during the time of his engagement, Cohen had sold car parts and cigarettes to his fiancée—keeping the profits minimal, he’d once explained to Brank, “since she was a good friend.” Now, when his wife bought frivolous things at a store, such as lightbulbs or clothing, Cohen often experienced dizzy spells and had to lie down.

  “Hey, next time you see your friend LoParino, thank him for me,” said Cohen. “I tried out his method of partially bypassing the electric power meter and cut my bill in half last month. He’s a real genius, your friend.”

  “He’s crazy,” said Brank, remembering stories he’d heard that Cohen never heated his house unless the outside temperature fell below twenty degrees. You’re crazy too, thought Brank, and then he realized that lately nearly everyone had seemed unbalanced in one way or another. Perhaps that was the only way people survived, obsession substituting for motivation.

  “Hey, Cohen,” he said, “you still keep your chart?”

  Cohen smiled. “How’d you remember that? You’re an odd bird, Brank. I never remember those things. Wanna see it?”

  He motioned Brank over toward his desk near the door. The top was scrupulously neat; Brank recalled that was another of Cohen’s peculiarities. Cohen opened the top drawer and withdrew an oaktag sheet upon which were ruled boxes for each day of the month. In each box were short descriptions followed by sums of money.

  “My expenses,” said Cohen. “To the penny.”

  Brank scanned the chart, noting items such as “haircut—$1.65, tip—.10,” and “tie—.50.”

  “Why must you know your expenses to the penny?” asked Brank.

  Cohen thought: he’s mocking me, but meanwhile
he wishes he could control his life the way I control mine.

  “It’s a policy I have,” said Cohen. “It helps me see if any area is getting out of hand. My wife’s phone bill exceeds the minimum, pluchah!—I rip the instrument from the wall. Simple as that.”

  “You still steal milk and cookies from the secretarial pool?” asked Brank.

  “They don’t mind,” said Cohen, grinning.

  “Because you’re so cute, no doubt,” said Brank.

  “I tell them where they can get bargains,” said Cohen. “Also I sell them things cheap, at really small profits, things like jewelry and wallets. I make next to nothing on it. I figure what the hell, they’re co-workers, and they’re so dumb some of them, I feel sorry, it’s a pol—”

  “I know, I know,” said Brank. “You’re an altruist. It’s a policy of yours.” He saw Brundage’s door open a crack and he began moving away.

  “I’d love to boff that little Franny in Accounting,” said Cohen. “But she’s so dumb. I offered her a blouse the other day, a real bargain, and you know what she says? ‘I like it but the price seems exuberant, Bernie.’ Those were her exact words. Can you believe it? But I’d love to boff her.”

  Brank saw Peretz emerge.

  “Listen, I’ll give you sixty for the pig,” called Cohen. “My final offer.”

  c. “If You’re Busy, I’ll Come Back”

  After the break, Brundage had signed some purchase orders for new equipment, and then spent the afternoon as usual in adolescent mooning over Christine. He recalled how he’d first hired her as a technician, someone to vacuum-deposit and sputter the thin chemical films he conceived, and how excellent her work had been right from the first day. He hadn’t paid her much attention at the beginning, noticing only that she kept a carefully organized notebook, until Hands had come in with the results of her first films.

  “She keeps a neat book,” Brundage had observed.

  “She has big tits,” observed Hands, the huge, bald, black technician.

  Christine’s attractiveness had seeped into Brundage slowly—her heavily mascaraed cat eyes, her slightly bent nose, her barely too thick lips, her dyed auburn hair—gradually they had blended into a symphony of canceling imperfections, specks of earth on the earth mother. Staunch, trusslike brassieres and high-necked blouses could no longer conceal the huge, bubbling breasts. Demure dresses could not prevent occasional glimpses of lusciously nyloned thighs. Six months after everyone else, Brundage realized that not only was she an excellent, diligent employee but a terrific piece of ass.

  “I’d like to marry her for the weekend,” said Odz, in the machine shop.

  “I’d like to strap her on,” said Van Lamm, in Purchasing.

  Brundage had seen her ignore Bill Murphy on two occasions when he’d tried to start a conversation while leering over the handles of his floor-waxing machine. He’d seen her give curt, efficient answers to Potamos and Brennan and several of the techs when they’d asked her silly questions. He’d seen her smile at times, but always remain stiff and formal when Cohen would amble over ingratiatingly during coffee break and offer a onetime-only bargain in lingerie. And he’d heard her voice, all honeyed and melting, “Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Brundage,” when he told her she’d made a good-quality film.

  During their exchanges, though they were brief and usually limited to work-related subjects, Brundage had gradually grown convinced that her attitude toward him was different from her response to everyone else. Softer, more concerned, interested. Most likely, of course, because he was department head and she was trying to impress him, but still, still… Once, she asked him if she might take home and read a reprint of an article he’d written.

  “I’m surprised you’re interested in this type of thing,” he’d said as he handed it to her. “It’s rather technical.”

  “Oh, I’ve read quite a few of your papers, Dr. Brundage,” she had purred. “They’re really the best written in the field.”

  “Well,” said Brundage, “I mean I wouldn’t exactly say … Well, heh, well, thank you.”

  Twice he’d made mildly droll remarks about Ardway in her presence and she had responded with great bursts of laughter, the second time touching his sleeve as she did so and giving him the chills.

  “Hey,” said Plotsky, in Drafting, “I think Chris has the hots for the doc.”

  “Are you kidding?” said Potamos, from the next table. “He doesn’t have the coordination for intercourse. Besides, his briefcase would get in the way.”

  “That’s a lovely tie, Dr. Brundage,” Chris had told him one morning when he came out of his office to check the vacuum monitoring system. And later, in the afternoon, when he had filled the knot with blueberries, she had taken it from him and gotten most of the stain out with cleaning fluid, Brundage watching her breasts jiggle as she rubbed the tie vigorously.

  “You should’ve let me do it,” snapped giant, cranky Amelia when he returned to his office. “I’d have done it better.”

  “Doubtful,” Brundage had remarked.

  He sat now in his cubicle, unable to work, non-engineering images tumbling about in his mind. Fifty-four years old. In two more weeks he’d be fifty-four. And what had he had in his life? What real pleasures could he point to in his mind’s eye? Life was passing him by, passing, passing, girls like Christine were other men’s dreams, forever beyond reach, passing. He glanced down at his desk and saw a petty cash voucher put in by Cohen, who’d taken a visiting engineer to the cafeteria and filled in “two teas—.20, cookie—.07.” Brundage signed it, not knowing the cookie had never been purchased and that Cohen would gleefully list “.07” as income for this date on his chart. Amelia knocked and immediately entered, depositing Ardway’s afternoon set of memos in the In box. Brundage waited until she’d left before transferring them to the “Secret” disposal file for shredding. He spied Hands at the door.

  “Mr. Hands here to see you, Dr. Brundage,” said Amelia.

  “Yes, send him in,” said Brundage.

  Hands entered, a friendly, erudite Negro who imagined that in some mysterious manner he was gradually working his way up in the company and would someday be an executive. His main job was to repair faulty instruments, although no one had ever seen him do much more than shine the glass on the meters or clean the cases using the spray can he always carried. “He cleans behind knobs the way other people clean behind the ears” was the saying among the other techs. “Ken,” he said now to Brundage, “Mrs. Parness is in the midst of a vacuum run that requires about two hours’ cooling, which will mean some overtime. I’ve told her it’s okay, subject to your approval, of course.”

  “I approve,” said Brundage.

  “Oh, there’s one other thing,” said Hands. “She’ll miss her bus that she takes going home and the next one won’t run for about an hour.”

  “Can anyone give her a lift?”

  “Well, I would myself,” said Hands, “but I think she might be a little afraid of me. I sort of hinted at it and she nearly jumped out of her pants.”

  “Does she have reason to be afraid?” asked Brundage, smiling.

  “Oh, yes,” said Hands.

  Brundage’s aluminum-trap mind snapped shut. “Tell her I’ll take her home myself,” he said decisively.

  Hands grinned.

  “I’m only doing this for the sake of the department,” said Brundage.

  “And her frontal lobes?” said Hands.

  “Nothing to do with it,” said Brundage.

  Hands left, and Brundage watched him walk to the vacuum area and speak to Christine. She looked over at Brundage’s office, smiled, mouthed thank-you to him, and he smiled back and then shyly looked down at his desk.

  He called his wife. “Hello? Harriet? Is that you? Oh. Oh, listen, I’m going to have to work late tonight, so that’s why I’m calling.”

  He heard her begin complaining about some disaster to the supper he had just brought on, and then generalize her complaints to the problems inv
olved in all his suppers. How slowly he ate. How poor his manners. She was expert at this; he knew the generalizations would expand soon to include all meals, then all of their necessities, and finally, everything needed by the human race. By staying late that night, he would eventually wreak ecological havoc on three-fourths of the planet.

  “Well, I’ll do the best I can,” he said meekly, conscious of the time going by, and of what Rupp must be thinking as he secretly monitored their conversation.

  “Of course you’ll do your best,” said Harriet. “What then should you do, your worst? Frankly, Kenneth, I don’t understand why someone with your background—”

  He pictured her at the phone, obese, stringy-haired, high-pitched machine voice whining out of a paper-bag face. He had known in a vague sort of way when he married her that he probably needed someone slightly domineering, someone strong-willed where he was indifferent, pushy where he was retiring. And she hadn’t been bad to look at. But over the years her sighs had turned to screeches, her hair to threads, and her body to fat—great wads of thick blubber that hung from every part of her like melting tar, and which made Brundage think of walruses and whales and the abdomens of spayed cats.

  He closed his mind to her words and when, finally, they seemed to be coming a bit more slowly, he said quickly, “Harriet … uh … listen … I’m wanted on another phone so I’m gonna have to go now, okay? I’ll see you later.”

  Amelia came in as he hung up. “Mr. Peretz to see you, Dr. Brundage.”

  Brundage nodded. His brain was alive, racing.

  Peretz entered. “Uh, Ken, uh, I wonder if I could ask you, uh … Oh, are you busy? Oh, if you’re busy I’ll come back.”

  Brundage wanted to be alone to savor his anticipation. Peretz, however, was a special case. Brundage saw in him, sensed really, a kindred battered spirit, someone to be handled with care. “Tell me quick,” he said. “I’m not busy for the next minute.”

  “It’s not really that important.”

  “Leon, stop talking yourself out of whatever it is you want. Don’t be so negative, Leon. Be positive. Be a proton instead of an electron. The world is full of shmuck electrons, maniacs, who whirl around all day in dizzy circles. Be a proton, Leon. Cluster with the hoi poloi in the nucleus. I’m sorry. What exactly did you want?”