/d/
I am in receipt of the following communication, dated 1 September 1990, from a Mr. Karl Rummage, of the legal firm of Rummage and Naw, Cleveland, acting at the corporate behest of Mr. Stonecipher Beadsman III, President and Chief Executive Officer of Stonecipheco Baby Food Products:
Dear Mr. Vigorous:
Having been exposed to and in admiration of Frequent and Vigorous Publishing Inc.’s performance with respect to the publications “Norslan, Big Iron, and You” and “Norslan: The Third-World Herbicide That Likes People,” etc., for some time, Mr. Stonecipher Beadsman III, President and Chief Executive Officer of Stonecipheco Baby Food Products, Cleveland, Ohio, has authorized me to extend to you an offer to undertake for us the publication of three product-information packages concerning a new infant benefit service currently in the final stages of development at Stonecipheco Baby Food Products. Initial drafts of said informational packages have been composed and compiled by Stonecipheco’s Division of Advertising and Product-Perception-Gauging, and are enclosed under separate cover.
Mr. Beadsman has authorized me to extend to you an offer of significantly generous compensation for the firm of Frequent and Vigorous, and an even more significantly generous personal bonus for you, Richard Vigorous, for the acceptance of and satisfactory realization of the goals set forth under the proposed contract (see also enclosure).
Stipulations attached to the tender of such an offer include, but are not necessarily exhausted by, the following: (1.) The retention by the firm of Frequent and Vigorous of some personnel familiar with the culture and language of the inhabitants of the island of Corfu (see enclosure); (2.) The withholding of information concerning the tendering of and details concerning any part of the proposed contract from Ms. Lenore Beadsman, East Corinth, Ohio, with whom you are known to enjoy some personal connection, until such time as such withholding is deemed inadvisable by Mr. Stonecipher Beadsman III; (3.) The firm of Frequent and Vigorous’s granting Ms. Lenore Beadsman a leave of absence of two (2) days from switchboard duties, for a trip to see her brother, Mr. Stonecipher Beadsman IV, on Beadsman family business at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, an institution of which I am given to understand you are an alumnus. Your accompanying Ms. Beadsman on this trip, with travel accommodations provided and all legitimately incurred expenses absorbed by Stonecipheco, Inc., would be welcome, but should not be regarded as a stipulation attached to the tendering of the original contract offer. Etc. etc. etc. etc.
What are we to make of this? I have yet to open the enclosure. I can feel the Erieview shadow creeping over and through the lamps behind me, at the licorice window. It is noon. Today Lenore and I do not lunch. Tonight she goes to visit her sister. Another day of missing.
/e/
Stoney was addressing the television audience. “Since every member of the Snapiard family thought of themselves just as family-members, it meant that if there was less of a family, they were less people, and if there wasn’t a family, they weren’t people.”
“… in the full sense.”
“Weren’t people in the full sense.”
Alvin stepped to the television. “Each family-member, then, in a natural and understandable attempt to preserve individual identity and efficacy of will…”
Spatula made knee-motions indicating that she needed to go potty. Lenore continued eating her now not quite so frozen peas.
“… sought to restore identity, and a sense of belonging, by attaching themselves to things in the world, extrafamilial objects and pursuits; they sought identity and shelter in things. Alvin held up his Spiro Agnew watch; Spatula hugged English Muffin the teddy bear to her chest as she bobbed; Stoney made motions as if to kiss his Richard Scarry cut-out book, while Clarice made as if to tango with her Visa Gold Card. The cracked white faceless masks came off, and so everyone was back to his or her original mask. The audience made soft sounds. And now extremely tiny but still accurate Clarice-, Alvin-, Stoney-, and Spatula-masks were affixed to the objects by their owners.
“Hell of a lot of masks, here,” Lenore muttered.
“The problem, again, however,” Alvin continued, “was that in making their own sense of self and rightness-with-themselves-as-people depend on things outside them, the family-members were letting themselves in for riskiness and trouble. Things couldn’t be people, not even the people they belonged to.” The tiny masks on the objects were taken off and discarded with wide arm-motions. Alvin said, “And now a lost or a misplaced thing meant what, for the Snapiard family?”
“What?” shouted the audience on the television.
There was silence. Alvin took Clarice’s Visa Gold Card, and she the watch, and they traded masks. Alvin’s nose had been sweating heavily, and Clarice was clearly less than pleased about putting his mask on. Clarice took English Muffin and gave Spatula the Alvin-mask. Soon each member of the family was wearing an incorrect mask and was twirling around, symbolizing disorientation and despair, although the despair-effect was compromised somewhat by the fact that Spatula really liked to twirl, and was giggling.
/f/
Lenore’s sister is ravingly lovely, if one likes the ravingly lovely type, with soft honey hair and dark blue eyes and breasts like artillery; but she is cocky and serious and dull and utterly (and un-attractively unaware that she is utterly) dependent on the Latest Thing for her sense of direction and worth. Her husband is a civil man, though that he lusts after Lenore I do not for one second doubt. Alvin Spaniard is randy. My understanding — which is arrived at via Lenore and so is of course vague — is that on four occasions early last year Alvin Spaniard had sexual intercourse with his Georgia peach of a receptionist. Clarice Spaniard found out about the incidents from Sigurd Foamwhistle, Stonecipher Beadsman III’s executive aide and possibly the half brother of Lenore’s younger brother, and in any event a man about whose unsavory desires with respect to Clarice and Lenore both I am in no doubt whatsoever. So Clarice found out, and there were, for a while, various kickings of emotional ass. They subsided, and Alvin and Clarice finally sat down and conferred, and it was decided marriage therapy was needed, Alvin agreeing vigorously, obviously — loving his wife, also liking his job. Marriage therapy degenerated into family therapy. God knows what all went on. I know there were stages concerned with human sculpture, in which each member of the family molded the others into those positions reflecting perceived relationships, etc. There were fights involving toy clubs made of Nerf material. The Spaniard vogue now is apparently drama, carried on in front of a fabricated audience; rather, at least tonight, at least one real person — regardless of what that person herself may happen to think. Lenore and Clarice are not close. As are not Monroe and I. She says she avoids going over. But where does she go, then?
A bad day. The urine dream has so upset me that I find it hard to function. As it were. I miss Lenore. I feel physical pain, now, when I am absent or apart from Lenore Beadsman. Which is, of course, always. Too bad a day to think actively of what her father might be trying to do. On the face of it I must say that it seems to me that whatever I can do to establish connections with Lenore’s family, to deepen and strengthen the personal bonds that join Lenore and me, can only hasten that day when I am able truly and completely and finally to take Lenore Beadsman inside myself.