Read Online CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella by George Saunders - Free Book Online
Authors: George Saunders
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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 office 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
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 office 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
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