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1983: Gobless us every one.
W
ILLIE
B
LIND
6:15 A.M.
He wakes to music, always to music; the shrill
beep-beep-beep
of the clock-radio's alarm is
too much for his mind to cope with during those first blurry moments of the day. It sounds
like a dump truck backing up. The radio is bad enough at this time of year, though; the easy-
listening station he keeps the clock-radio tuned to is wall-to-wall Christmas carols, and this
morning he wakes up to one of the two or three on his Most Hated List, something full of
breathy voices and phony wonder. The Hare Krishna Chorale or the Andy Williams Singers
or some such. Do you hear what I hear, the breathy voices sing as he sits up in bed, blinking
groggily, hair sticking out in every direction. Do you see what I see, they sing as he swings
his legs out, grimaces his way across the cold floor to the radio, and bangs the button that
turns it off. When he turns around, Sharon has assumed her customary defensive posture -
pillow folded over her head, nothing showing but the creamy curve of one shoulder, a lacy
nightgown strap, and a fluff of blond hair.
He goes into the bathroom, closes the door, slips off the pajama bottoms he sleeps in, drops
them into the hamper, clicks on his electric razor. As he runs it over his face he thinks,
Why
not run through the rest of the sensory catalogue while you're at it, boys? Do you smell what
I smell, do you taste what I taste, do you feel what I feel, I mean, hey, go for it.
'Humbug,' he says as he turns on the shower. 'All humbug.'
Twenty minutes later, while he's dressing (the dark gray suit from Paul Stuart this morning,
plus his favorite Sulka tie), Sharon wakes up a little. Not enough for him to fully understand
what she's telling him, though.
'Come again?' he asks. 'I got eggnog, but the rest was just ugga-wugga.'
'I asked if you'd pick up two quarts of eggnog on your way home,' she says. 'We've got the
Aliens and the Dubrays coming over tonight, remember?'
'Christmas,' he says, checking his hair carefully in the mirror. He no longer looks like the
glaring, bewildered man who sits up in bed to the sound of music five mornings a week -
sometimes six. Now he looks like all the other people who will ride into New York with him
on the seven-forty, and that is just what he wants.
'What about Christmas?' she asks with a sleepy smile. 'Humbug, right?'
'Right,' he agrees.
'If you remember, get some cinnamon, too—'
'Okay.'
'—but if you forget the eggnog, I'll
slaughter
you, Bill.'
'I'll remember.'
'I know. You're very dependable. Look nice, too.'
'Thanks.'
She flops back down, then props herself up on one elbow as he makes a final minute
adjustment to the tie, which is a dark blue. He has never worn a red tie in his life, and hopes
he can go to his grave untouched by that particular virus. 'I got the tinsel you wanted,' she
says.
'Mmmm?'
'The
tinsel,
' she says. 'It's on the kitchen table.'
'Oh.' Now he remembers. 'Thanks.'
'Sure.' She's back down and already starting to drift off again. He doesn't envy the fact that
she can stay in bed until nine — hell, until eleven, if she wants — but he envies that ability of
hers to wake up, talk, then drift off again. He had that when he was in the bush — most guys
did — but the bush was a long time ago.
In country
was what the new guys and the
correspondents always said; if you'd been there awhile it was just the bush, or sometimes the
green.
In the green, yeah.
She says something else, but now she's back to ugga-wugga. He knows what it is just the
same, though: have a good day, hon.
'Thanks,' he says, kissing her cheek. 'I will.'
'Look very nice,' she mumbles again, although her eyes are closed. 'Love you, Bill.'
'Love you, too,' he says and goes out.
His briefcase — Mark Cross, not quite top-of-the -line but close — is standing in the front
hall, by the coat tree where his topcoat (from Tager's, on Madison) hangs. He snags the case
on his way by and takes it into the kitchen. The coffee is all made — God bless Mr Coffee —
and he pours himself a cup. He opens the briefcase, which is entirely empty, and picks up the
ball of tinsel on the kitchen table. He holds it up for a moment, watching the way it sparkles
under the light of the kitchen fluorescents, then puts it in his briefcase.
'Do you hear what I hear,' he says to no one at all and snaps the briefcase shut.
8:15 A.M.
Outside the dirty window to his left, he can see the city drawing closer. The grime on the
glass makes it look like some filthy, gargantuan ruin — dead Atlantis, maybe, just heaved
back to the surface to glare at the gray sky. The day's got a load of snow caught in its throat,
but that doesn't worry him much; it is just eight days until Christmas, and business will be
good.
The train-car reeks of morning coffee, morning deodorant, morning aftershave, morning
perfume, and morning stomachs. There is a tie in almost every seat — even some of the
women wear them these days. The faces have that puffy eight o'clock look, the eyes both
introspective and defenseless, the conversations half -hearted. This is the hour at which even
people who don't drink look hungover. Most folks just stick to their newspapers. Why not?
Reagan is king of America, stocks and bonds have turned to gold, the death penalty is back in
vogue. Life is good.
He himself has the
Times
crossword open in front of him, and although he's filled in a few
squares, it's mostly a defensive measure. He doesn't like to talk to people on the train, doesn't
like loose conversation of any sort, and the last thing in the world he wants is a commuter
buddy. When he starts seeing the same faces n any given car, when people start to nod to
him or say 'How you doin today?' as they go to their seats, he changes cars. It's not that hard
to remain unknown, just another commuter from suburban Connecticut, a man conspicuous
only in his adamant refusal to wear a red tie. Maybe he was once a parochial-school boy,
maybe once he held a weeping little girl while one of his friends struck her repeatedly with a
baseball bat, and maybe he once spent time in the green. Nobody on the train has to know
these things. That's the good thing about trains.
'All ready for Christmas?' the man in the aisle seat asks him.
He looks up, almost frowning, then decides it's not a substantive remark, only the sort of
empty time-passer some people seem to feel compelled to make. The man beside him is fat
and will undoubtedly stink by noon no matter how much Speed Stick he used this morning . .
. but he's hardly even looking at Bill, so that's all right.
'Yes, well, you know,' he says, looking down at the briefcase between his shoes — the
briefcase that contains a ball of tinsel and nothing else. 'I'm getting in the spirit, little by little.'
8:40 A.M.
He comes out of Grand Central with a thousand other topcoated men and women, mid-level
executives for the most part, sleek gerbils who will be running full tilt on their exercise
wheels by noon. He stands still for a moment, breathing deep of the cold gray air. Lexington
Avenue is dressed in its Christmas lights, and a little distance away a Santa Claus who looks
Puerto Rican is ringing a bell. He's got a pot for contributions with an easel set up beside it.
HELP THE HOMELESS THIS CHRISTMAS
, the sign on the easel says, and the man in the blue tie
thinks,
How about a little truth in advertising, Santa? How about a sign that says
HELP ME
SUPPORT MY COKE HABIT THIS CHRISTMAS
?
Nevertheless, he drops a couple of dollar bills into
the pot as he walks past. He has a good feeling about today. He's glad Sharon reminded him
of the tinsel — he would have forgotten to bring it, probably; in the end he always forgets
stuff like that, the grace notes.
A walk of ten minutes takes him to his building. Standing outside the door is a black youth,
maybe seventeen, wearing black jeans and a dirty red hooded sweatshirt. He jives from foot
to foot, blowing puffs of steam out of his mouth, smiling frequently, showing a gold tooth. In
one hand he holds a partly crushed styrofoam coffee cup. There's some change in it, which he
rattles constantly.
'Spare a lil?' he asks the passersby as they stream toward the revolving doors. 'Spare me a
lil, sir? Spare just a lil, ma'am? Just trying to get a spot of breffus. Thank you, gobless you,
merry Christmas. Spare a lil, my man? Quarter, maybe? Thank you. Spare a lil, ma'am?'
As he passes, Bill drops a nickel and two dimes into the young black man's cup.
'Thank you, sir, gobless, merry Christmas.'
'You, too,' he says.
The woman next to him frowns. 'You shouldn't encourage them,' she says.
He gives her a shrug and a small, shamefaced smile. 'It's hard for me to say no to anyone at
Christmas,' he tells her.
He enters the lobby with a stream of others, stares briefly after the opinionated bitch as she
heads for the newsstand, then goes to the elevators with their old-fashioned floor dials and
their art deco numbers. Here several people nod to him, and he exchanges a few words with a
couple of them as they wait — it's not like the train, after all, where you can change cars.
Plus, the building is an old one; the elevators are slow and cranky.
'How's the wife, Bill?' a scrawny, constantly grinning man from the fifth floor asks.
'Carol's fine.'
'Kids?'
'Both good.' He has no kids and his wife's name isn't Carol. His wife is the former Sharon
Anne Donahue, St Gabriel the Steadfast Secondary Parochial School, Class of 1964, but that's
something the scrawny, constantly grinning man will never know.
'Bet they can't wait for the big day,' the scrawny man says, his grin widening and becoming
something unspeakable. To Bill Shearman he looks like an editorial cartoonist's conception of
Death, all big eyes and huge teeth and stretched shiny skin. That grin makes him think of
Tam Boi, in the A Shau Valley. Those guys from 2nd Battalion went in looking like the kings
of the world and came out looking like singed escapees from hell's half acre. They came out
with those big eyes and huge teeth. They still looked like that in Dong Ha, where they all got
kind of mixed together a few days later. A lot of mixing-together went on in the bush. A lot
of shake-and-bake, too.
'Absolutely can't wait,' he agrees, 'but I think Sarah's getting kind of suspicious about the
guy in the red suit.' Hurry up, elevator, he thinks, Jesus, save me from these stupidities.
'Yeah, yeah, it happens,' the scrawny man says. His grin fades for a moment, as if they
were discussing cancer instead of Santa. 'How old's Sarah now?'
'Eight.'
'Seems like she was just born a year or two ago. Boy, the time sure flies when you're havin
fun, doesn't it?'
'You can say that again,' he says, fervently hoping the scrawny man
won't
say it again. At
that moment one of the four elevators finally gasps open its doors and they herd themselves
inside.
Bill and the scrawny man walk a little way down the fifth-floor hall together, and then the
scrawny man stops in front of a set of old-fashioned double doors with the words
CONSOLIDATED INSURANCE
written on one frosted-glass panel and
ADJUSTORS OF AMERICA
on
the other. From behind these doors comes the muted clickety-click of keyboards and the
slightly louder sound of ringing phones.
'Have a good day, Bill.'
'You too.'
The scrawny man lets himself into his office, and for a moment Bill sees a big wreath hung
on the far side of the room. Also, the windows have been decorated with the kind of snow
that comes in a spray can. He shudders and thinks,
God save us, every one.
9:05 A.M.
His office — one of two he keeps in this building — is at the far end of the hall. The two
offices closest to it are dark and vacant, a situation that has held for the last six months and
one he likes just fine. Printed on the frosted glass of his own office door are the words
WESTERN STATES LAND ANALYSIS
. There are three locks on the door: the one that was on it
when he moved into the building, plus two he has put on himself. He lets himself in, closes
the door, turns the bolt, then engages the police lock.
A desk stands in the center of the room, and it is cluttered with papers, but none of them
mean anything; they are simply window dressing for the cleaning service. Every so often he
throws them all out and redistributes a fresh batch. In the center of the desk is a telephone on
which he makes occasional random calls so that the phone company won't register the line as
totally inactive. Last year he purchased a color copier, and it looks very businesslike over in
its corner by the door to the office's little second room, but it has never been used.
'Do you hear what I hear, do you smell what I smell, do you taste what I taste,' he
murmurs, and crosses to the door leading to the second room. Inside are shelves stacked high
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