They spent part of their last day together at the Broadmoor with Patty analyzing the handwriting in the logos of some of Ben’s franchises. They found their samples in the advertisements of the Colorado Springs Yellow Pages. She told him that the Fin the “Fred Astaire Dance Studios” was very interesting.
“See,” she said, “how at the lowest point of the downstroke there begin to be right and left tending upward spirals. The F is practically a caduceus. God, Ben, it is a caduceus. In classical mythology this was the staff carried by Mercury. Mercury the messenger, fleet and nimble-footed in the sky. What is dance if not the defiance of gravity? Oh, I say, Ben, see the A, the hiatus at the top of the oval, the long l loop that doesn’t touch the base line. These are ‘irresistible eyes.’ This writer exerts a compelling influence on people. He wins their affection and confidence.”
“That’s Fred.”
Dairy Queen wasn’t in cursive, or Radio Shack, or Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken or Econo-Car, or most of the other of his franchises that had branches in Colorado Springs. But he’d had a Ford dealership once and Patty had a lot to say about the r in Ford, though it was poorly printed and didn’t show up clearly on the page.
He asked her to analyze Holiday Inn, said it might be useful to know about the competition when he opened his Travel Inn.
“When one leg of the H has a firm downstroke and the other is generally the same length but has a generously deflated concave loop, these are ‘horns,’ and the writer can become very obstinate and will almost always insist on his own way of doing things regardless of opposition or consequences. See how the H is crossed? Graphologists call this ‘airplane wings’ and think it indicates a tendency to press people for information which will be of advantage to the writer. When the wings cross both downstrokes, these are ‘riding crops one upon the other’ and the writer—”
“Do you believe this crap?”
“I get many prospectuses from corporations offering their stocks,” she said. “The numbers mean nothing to me. I’ve a head for figures but figures change. I look only at the signatures of the corporation’s officers. I am a rich woman.”
Ben nodded and they went to bed together one last time. It was, from Ben’s point of view and almost certainly from hers, the most satisfactory screwing they had yet done. As usual, at climax, the insights came pouring out of her, a mile a minute and on every subject under the sun. Ben tried to follow, for she was very interesting and made a lot of sense, but his own groans and whimpers interfered, blocking out much of what she had to say, until all that he could hear at last were his own cries of pleasure, the baritones of his fulfillment and tenors of his dude ecstasy and, listening to these, to his own forceful shouts of completion and triumph, it was as if he tried to distinguish between speakers on two contending frequencies on the radio — they were now truly in nature — and as he concentrated, squeezing all meaning from Patty’s lucid, fastidious orgasm, the better to hear his own barks and cackles and yaps of relish, he heard his noises coalesce, thicken into speech, the vowels and consonants of violence contained, intelligently rearranging themselves into an order and form that may have been there from the beginning.
“I,” he roared — from “ahh”—“want,” he demanded — from “oh,” “nh”—“my remission”—from “mnmnh,” from “shhh”—“back!” From shudders caught in his throat like chicken bones. “I want my remission back,” he said quietly.
He rolled off her and onto his back, his penis wetting her thigh, marking it with its contact and scent as animals mark other animals.
They turned on their sides away from each other, joined curiously at the ass, making an X. These were “railroad crossings” and the writer wants his remission back.
“Yes?” the Insight Lady said. “You want your remission back? Yes? Ben, you know ever since you first told me that, I’ve wanted to say certain things to you. I think I have an insight that might help you. It seems to me, Ben, with all this talk of remission, that you want to live like a man with his bladder empty, to travel light and even weaponless, but be protected anyway. It’s interesting, for example, that you have always had all that power equipment in your automobiles. Power steering, and power brakes, Ben, power windows. A power aerial that rises from a hole in the front fender. Oh yes,” she said, “you want to live even emptier-handed than the rest of us.”
“My hand?” he shouted angrily. “My hand? Graphologist! What about my hand? Did you ever once analyze that?” he yelled. “What the fuck do you think it would show?” he screamed. “The sand, the fucking sand! It’s a Sahara. Riffs ride their horses in it and shoot at the Foreign Legion. It’s a sandbox. Kids piss in it and make mud pies. My hand? This? The writer is in agony and only wishes, only prays he were fucking contagious!” he cried. “Silly bitchbody with your jerk-off insights and your pukey mind!” he thundered at her.
Patty turned to him. She touched his shoulder, pulling on it, turning him toward her. She leaned forward and kissed him sweetly on the lips and smiled.
“Oh, Ben,” she said, “it’s been a wonderful week. You’re a good listener,” she told him. “I wish my husband were. Well. I guess I’d better get dressed now. It’s only two hours till my plane. I love you, sweetheart. I love you, Ben.”
For of course she hadn’t heard him, hadn’t heard even the least of his loud noises.