Read Online The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace - Free Book Online Page A

figure it out, I don’t see nothing wrong,” a voice came from under the console counter, under Lenore’s chair, by her legs. Lenore looked down. There were big boots protruding from under the counter. They began to jiggle; a figure struggled to emerge. Lenore shot her chair back.
    “Lenore, there’s line trouble that I guess started last night, Vem said,” Candy said. “This is Peter Abbott. He’s with Interactive Cable. They’re trying to fix the problem. ”
    “Interactive Cable?”
    “Like the phone company, but not the phone company.”
    “Oh.” Lenore looked listlessly at Peter Abbott. “Hi.”
    “Well hello hello,” said Peter, winking furiously at Lenore and pulling up his collar. Lenore looked up at Candy as Peter played with something hanging from his tool belt.
    “Peter is very friendly, it seems,” said Candy Mandible.
    “Hmm.”
    “Well I can’t see nothing wrong in there, I’m stumped,” Peter said.
    “What’s the problem?” Lenore asked.
    “It’s not good,” said Candy. “We I guess more or less don’t have a number anymore. Is that right?” She looked at Peter Abbott.
    “Well, you got line trouble,” said Peter.
    “Right, which apparently in this case means we don’t have a number anymore, or rather we do, but so does like the whole rest of Cleveland, in that we now all of a sudden share a single number with all these other places. All these places that share our line tunnel. You know all those numbers we were just one off of, and we’d just get the wrong numbers all the time—Steve’s Sub, Cleveland Towing, Big B.M. Cafe, Fuss ‘n’ Feathers Pets, Dial-a-Darling? Well now they’re like all the same number. You dial their numbers, and the F and V number rings. Plus a whole lot of new ones: a cheese shop, some Goodyear service office, that Bambi’s Den of Discipline, which by the way gets a disturbing number of calls. We’ve all got the same number now. It’s nuts. Is that right what I said?” she asked Peter Abbott. She got her stuff and got ready to leave, looking at her watch.
    “Yeah, line trouble,” Peter Abbott said.
    “At least now you’ll have calls. At least now you’ll have something to do for a change,” said Judith Prietht. “Bombardini Company. Bombardini Company.”
    “How come she’s not messed up?” Lenore gestured at Judith.
    “Different line tunnels,” Peter Abbott said. “Bombardini Inc.’s lines are actually it turns out in this tunnel pretty far away, a few blocks west of Erieview. The calls just get into here via a matrix sharing-thread transfer, which is a real complicated plus ancient thing. Your lines are in a tunnel right under this building, under the lobby, out under that guy’s skeleton.” Peter Abbott pointed at the floor.
    “So then why are you up here instead of down with the lines?” Candy Mandible wanted to know.
    “I’m not a tunnel man. I’m a console man. I don’t do tunnels. They sent some guy from Tunnels down there early this morning. It’s gotta be his problem. I can’t find nothing up here with what you girls got. This’s a twenty-eight, right? I haven’t lost my mind?”
    “Right, Centrex twenty-eight.”
    “I know it’s a Centrex, that’s all I do, I’m bored as shit with Centrexes, excuse my French.”
    “Well what did the guy from the tunnel say?” Lenore asked. Candy was answering a phone.
    “Dunno, ‘cause I haven’t talked to him. I sure can’t call him, am I right?”
    “What, we can’t dial out on this, either?”
    “I was just makin’ a joke. You can call out OK. Just try again if you get an automatic loop into one of the other in-tunnel points. No, I just hafta talk to the tunnel guy in person, back at the office. We hafta write up reports.” Peter looked at Lenore. “You married?”
    “Oh, brother.”
    “This one’s not married either, right?” Peter Abbott asked Candy, nodding over at Lenore. His hair wasn’t blond so much as just yellow, like a crayon. His face had