And I, don’t you see, and I, and I. Imagine, if you will, being me.
When one of our oldest reporters, a not untalented man, wrote a long piece, in three parts, entitled Can the Rich Write? I asked one of my favorite editors why on earth we published it. It’s satire, he said. Satire? I said. It’s the most slavish, interminable, pointless exercise in snobbery I’ve ever seen in print. Ah, well, he said, you see, it’s satire that cuts both ways. I’ve had twenty years to think about this, and I know that, whatever the editor can have meant — satire of subject and author, satire of subject and reader, satire of author and reader — whatever he can have thought he meant, there is simply no such thing as satire that cuts both ways.
In the matter of problem one, hope is almost at an end. Well, need it be all or nothing, dear? No, but do you call these crumbs and stale rinds half a loaf? Crusts, not rinds. Crusts. You call this having your cake and eating it? You call this emotion recollected in tranquility? In the matter of problem two, he does not return our calls. Problem three keeps calling; we have him on hold. Problem four, long-term solutions, there are none. Problem five: we have lost the correspondence, though the subpoena lies here on our desk. Problem six, immediate pleasures, has no active file.
But, look here, my typewriter spoke to me. I mean, I had rented what is called a memory typewriter; I liked it so much that I forgot to read its instructions. When I had typed a page, and pressed the Recall button, what it typed was: “Memo, June 23, 1981: Salary Increases.” At another page, “Any of the deferred weeks which have accumulated may be taken in any year, in addition to the regular time scheduled for that year. Pay for vacation actually taken, including both regular and the deferred vacation time, is based on the employee’s salary.” At every page, there was something from a prior user. Three times, it typed exactly this:
I have scheduled an interview for you on at
If this is not convenient, please let me know so we can make other arrangements for the interview.
Your application is on active file and available for consideration whenever appropriate openings develoo/ Should a suitable opening become available, we will contact you.
Again, thank you for your interest in our company.
We appreciate your interest in our company.
We anticipate a pleasant visit and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Please contact our personnel department and arrange an appointment to discuss job opportunities.
Please complete the enclosed application and return it to us in the enclosed envelope.
Well, I particularly liked the “develoo/”; it occurred in the course of what was evidently, as well, a memo of recommendations concerning Swimming Pool Covers. But I thought, then, of privacy, of thrillers, of secrets, personal and corporate; and that I, too, was about to become a prior user. So, without reading any further, I cleared the memory of all its remaining pages. And immediately, I thought of all that may have been there, and I felt a sense of loss. My typewriter, after all, had tried to speak to me; and I erased it.
At dinner, I said, Can we live this way; what do other people do. He said, It doesn’t matter what other people do. I said, I know. You said, What matters now is this.
Here’s another sort of thing that happens to and around me. There are five wild cats on our road, three black, one white, one orange. They attack Frank and Marilyn’s tame cats, one grey, one calico. One night last spring, Marilyn looked out the window. The white cat was prowling on the hillside. Marilyn heard a flat, understated crack, saw the cat rise and then lie down. Frank had used his rifle, through the window of the upstairs bedroom. I have my own rifle; our whole neighborhood is armed. I would never use that rifle though, have in fact no ammunition. There are vandals here, but so far, though they’ve stolen weathervanes, smashed some headlights on neighbors’ cars parked outside at night, and crushed, as delinquents even in my time used to crush, a lot of mailboxes, I have had no contact with them — except for one foil plate, with french fries and a half-eaten hero sandwich on it, which I found, early one morning, wedged between the screen door and the front door of my house. For some time, though, it has been clear to me that I will buy a handgun. I’ve known it, in a way, since the night Frank shot the cat.
In the same week Frank shot the cat, Marilyn organized a parade of three- and four-year-olds, on tricycles, on Main Street; Frank and Marilyn bought a hotdog stand on wheels, which they brought home attached to the bumper of Frank’s car. It may not, to begin with, seem remarkable that the owner of a kindergarten should organize a parade of very small children on Main Street. But the occasion was Labor Day. The group right behind the tricycles was men on horseback; the group right in front was antique cars. Marilyn had arranged to buy helium balloons for the event, and the woman who brought them arrived, like Mary Poppins, holding the strings of fifty helium balloons and nearly airborne. Marilyn and her partner, Jean, the only other teacher in their kindergarten, tied a balloon to the belt loop at the back of the pants of each child, so that the smallest children, too, seemed nearly airborne. Time passed. The parade did not begin. One child said he needed to go to the bathroom. Marilyn said, Forget it. Another asked how much longer they must wait to start. Marilyn said, Never mind. A half hour later, at ten-thirty, the first groups of the long parade set out, with music and spectators along the route. When the crowd saw the tricycles, cheers went up. The children, heartened, speeded up. The drivers of antique cars were extremely worried as they looked back, not for the safety of the children but that the accelerating tricycles would hit and scratch the finish of the cars. Main Street also has a hill, not a steep hill, but the parade route went down it. Jean and Marilyn, who had not thought of the hill, began, for the first time, to worry. Marilyn, walking backward down the hill, faced the children and made braking motions. Her partner paced the roadside, rounding up and slowing strays. All the mothers who had come were marching, some bearing signs that read We Are the Trinity School. Only two fathers had appeared, both airline pilots, both skeptical throughout the parade and therefore keeping their distance from it. An hour later, when the event was safely over, both pilots shook Marilyn’s hand, as though she had made a brave and perilous landing. As she had.
Well, here’s how it was about the handguns. I went, in my professional capacity I think, to buy one. In the glass case at the gunshop, there they were. To my surprise, there were so many sizes, kinds, and varieties of them, heavy as tennis rackets, most of them, glistening like snakes. So I turned back. And, embarrassed to leave the shop without buying something, I bought a few periodicals for gun buffs. And many of the articles had to do with the sort of gun you would want your wife to have, if she’s alone in the house, and, this is what they call him, the Incredible Hulk breaks in. For months, I thought no more about it. Then, there was another wave of assassinations and attempted assassinations, and I thought, They are going to outlaw handguns, and everyone who should not have them already has them, and, when guns are outlawed, only our side, and I knew in a general way what I thought was our side, only our side will not have guns. So I thought it would be foresighted to buy one, against the day, I vaguely, no, rather distinctly, imagined this, against the day when a call should go out from our side that guns are needed, and that anyone who has one should bring it, at some appointed hour, to some place, or meeting at the corner, so that the people who need them will have guns.