Coyote V. Acme

by Ian Frazier

  The following up-to-the-minute listing of unclaimed no-show jobs is provided courtesy of a friend of Janet’s father’s from when he was doing the books for the County Assessor’s office:

  Liaison to the Transportation Safety Committee. A plum no-show, ideal for boy- or girlfriend of higher-up government official. Some signing of documents required;

  Secretary to the Special Counsel to the State Assembly. No typing, dictation, or other office chores mar this great free-ride opportunity. Twice-yearly semi-mandatory attendance at opening of legislative sessions calls for public servant with flexible schedule;

  Administrative Director of the Temporary State Commission to Revise the Social Services Law. After-tax salary of $1,346 biweekly, plus pension and full health and dental, provides peace of mind, walking-around money;

  Special Assistant to the Subcommittee on Transportation. Applicant must have knowledge of all surface routes from home to nearest cash machine. Proof of United States residency suggested;

  Director of Government Operations for the State Senate Majority Leader. Duties include filing for personal parking space in State House Lot No. 1 and making occasional nuisance calls. Eighteen thousand per year, plus benefits;

  Ten-Thousand-Dollar-a-Month Campaign Strategist (Unaffiliated). Payee may endorse compensation either with own name or “For deposit.” Please note that space below endorsement line is for bank use only.

  Planning a midweek getaway? No-show jobholders may take advantage of the lowest off-peak rates at resorts, hotels, and casinos. All you need is a paid associate to cover for you on the remote chance that something comes up, and the latest in sophisticated cellular call-forwarding. In addition, custom communication services such as Call Reversing and Automatic Call Disconnect can buy extra vacation time, should you wish it. The No-Show Jobs Hotline provides free travel arrangements in return for a small promotional announcement stuck on your airline seat back. Don’t forget that you may be entitled to up to six weeks’ paid vacation over and above vacations you take on your own. In most cases, the accounting department is required to cut those checks for you at the beginning of the paid vacation period, before the dates on which such payments would normally fall due. Unless you are watchful. office personnel may withhold money owed simply because they show up regularly and you don’t. Get to know these people! Your ability to match first names with office extension numbers can mean the difference between prompt payment and an inconvenient trip downtown. Obtain a detailed office roster of accounting, payroll, and disbursement staffs and study it in your spare time. You may even wish to meet a few of the more important staffers in person when you happen to be in the neighborhood, on the way to or from the airport. Just because a job requires no effort doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.

  The Frankest Interview Yet

  A: I was having sex. I had had sex previously, found that I enjoyed it, and so was having it again. With a sexual partner, I screwed all over the floor. Orgasms were multiple for the both of us. I took a lover, also. Plus I had a tryst with a fellow in the shower room of the old Grand Avenue Y. I turned an empty office at work into a snuggery, and made use of it. I became proficient not only in standard English, but also in tavern English. I cursed like a sailor or sometimes like a navvy. I mixed obscenities with profanities at will when the spirit moved me, using anatomical and physiological terms, inferences of parentage, and blasphemies. When called upon, I could turn the air blue.

  Oral sex.

  See what I mean? I did not (and do not) shrink from explicit language. If you are shocked, or perhaps are feeling ambivalent about what I am saying, good. Sexual practices should be more open, and no one knows this better than I. When the young shopgirls in their sheer blouses and blank faces come ankling into the elevator, my expression turns unmistakably sensual. I simply drip with sex. It oozes from my every pore, which I like, and they do, too. And when I see a strapping young hoss of a guy the experience is remarkably similar. I wiggle like a streetwalker and go right up to him and say, “Hello, my name is Mr. Bascom.” I garden in the near-nude in the residential community where I live. I put on a pair of coveralls only when the weather is chilly or I’m doing landscaping. If my neighbors are offended, they shouldn’t be. I have an excellent, heavyset body. We are all deeply sexual beings.

  I met a young woman with a criterion figure and bedroom eyes at a sales event the other day. I mentally undressed her, then re-dressed her. She noticed the pertinacious quality of my stare, and asked, “What are you looking at, Mr. Johnsberry?” I mumbled a pleasantry and looked away. She knew as well as I did that if we wanted, we could screw. I could tell she was appraising me, wondering what I’d be like in the sack, and if I was a swordsman. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if she had a mental image of me bare-butt naked. So much the better. I informed her that my name was Mr. Bemis, and that I would very much enjoy her company in my hotel suite later in the evening. We began chatting. The sexual tension, undercurrents, and electricity in the air were so thick you could have seen them, while our colleagues leered at us with a casual knowingness.

  Her name was Ms. Buxbaum, and Christ, what a great lay she turned out to be! After the obligatory postcoital cigarette, I immediately went to church and confessed my sins and was shriven for them, the peace of divine forgiveness filling me as I bent over the prayer rail in my fellow-congregants’ holy, homely scent of soap and dry-cleaned wool and Sunday shoe polish. By the renewed light of the high chancel windows I signed my name, Mr. Randsworthy, in the registry. Then it was back to the hotel. My lover at the time was a male nurse, and you know how nurses are. He was lithe, sloe-eyed, and rather matter-of-fact about sex, as are many young men who work in hospitals. We discovered a mutual pursuit that gave us enormous pleasure: screwing our heads off.

  Yes, I believe in lap dancing. Far from censuring it, I wholeheartedly encourage it as a healthy outlet. At the end of a long day, with my colleagues Mr. Pixley, Mr. Simpkins, et al., I often spend a few wickedly relaxing hours at a small club I know of where lap dancing is done. To have a well-built entertainer of either sex clad in little more than thong, pasties, and/or black bow tie sit in one’s lap and gyrate has a marvellous effect. In this, of course, my views come into direct conflict with those of many. I believe that opposition to lap dancing is a destructive holdover from the Puritans, and have argued my point on a number of occasions, even with members of my own family—my children, and their spouses or companions. By now they know enough not to expect moralizing pabulum from me.

  The children’s mother, Ms. Frampton, and I had great sex throughout our long marriage and, quite candidly, before, when we were just a couple of randy college kids shacking up. In those days, Johnson (my pet name for my or any penis) could become an ivory wand virtually at command and achieve orgasm in just a few penile thrusts. Then, as now, I wore painted-on trousers with stirrups at the cuffs to pull them down even tighter, and my fiancee, Ms. Samples, did the same. We acquired a reputation on campus for unashamed and forthright behavior, which I have maintained ever since. All the kids except Gary know the time, place, and erotic circumstances of their conception, and are stronger for it. All the kids except Gary can tell you the particulars, thus freeing themselves and others from prudery and cant. When I heard that Gary was having problems at school, I flew up on the shuttle first thing the next morning, met with the Dean, Mr. Bentley, had sex, and thrashed out the whole situation. The following term, Gary’s marks were back up where they belonged. Neither I, Gary’s mother, nor his probable biological dad ever spared any effort with Gary, which is why I find some of his recent remarks unsubstantiated.

  From the point of view of one who has spent the balance of his life pursuing vigorous sexual intercourse and sport-screwing, I can say that public attitudes have changed for the better. I give people like myself credit for this. How easy it would have been for me and my contemporaries to continue the backstairs bundling and fondling and frottage that characterized earlier times. But I
am an avowed hedonist and sensualist, whose lasting legacy will be more of the same. I don’t care how the future may judge me, Mr. Spradlin, as long as it acknowledges that I chased after anything in a skirt or trousers and mounted and was mounted freely. The sexual response is a pleasure given by God, in most cases. To deny this is to deny a natural desire to hear about my sex life and the sex lives of thousands of other businesspeople no different from ourselves.

  The Novel’s Main Character

  The novel’s hero … is the English language.

  —Dust-jacket quote

  … The novel is about more than four lives; the bonds among the women … almost seem a character in their own right.

  —New York Times Book Review

  The city of Dublin is the novel’s main character.

  —Introduction to famous book

  … Cicely, Alaska, is as much a central character as the individuals who inhabit it.

  —TV Guide

  The main character is not the narrator but mortality itself.

  —N.Y.T.B.R.

  Troy [New York] is the main character; it dominates the book.

  —N.Y.T.B.R.

  … The novel is always about Bridgeport [Connecticut], which really is the central character.

  —N.Y.T.B.R.

  New York City has been not only a backdrop for television series but a crusty character in its own right.

  —The New Yorker

  The Bob [Marshall Wilderness Area] is more than background; it’s a character in the story.

  —Great Falls (Montana) Tribune

  “THE NOVEL’S MAIN CHARACTER”

  A play in three acts

  TIME: The President

  PLACE: Hedda Gabler

  Dramatis personae (in order of appearance):

  The English Language Sir Ralph Richardson

  The Bonds Among the Women Sir John Gielgud

  The City of Dublin Joan Plowright

  Cicely, Alaska Claire Bloom

  Mortality Itself Itself

  Troy Kenneth Branagh

  Bridgeport Kenneth Branagh

  New York City Sally Kirkland

  The Bob Dame Edith Evans

  ACT I, SCENE I

  Enter THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, in blue tights and red cape.

  THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:

  I before e, except after c,

  or when sounded as a,

  as in neighbor or weigh.

  Enter THE BONDS AMONG THE WOMEN, THE CITY OF DUBLIN, and CICELY, ALASKA, in appropriate costumes.

  THE BONDS AMONG THE WOMEN (in a loud whisper): You’re upstaging me, you know.

  THE CITY OF DUBLIN: Oh, yeah? You almost-a-character, you! I oughta—

  They fight.

  CICELY, ALASKA: Help! Murder!

  Enter MORTALITY ITSELF, in the form of a speeding tow truck, from stage right.

  ALL: Save us!

  CURTAIN.

  ACT II, SCENE I

  The lights come up to reveal TROY, clad in black except for a headpiece representing the city skyline.

  TROY: I am Troy, a city of over fifty-four thousand, situated just minutes north of Albany. My principal industries are education, service, and local government.

  Changes quickly to a headpiece representing BRIDGEPORT.

  BRIDGEPORT: And I, in my valley of the Pequon-nock, am substantial Bridgeport, proud employer of nearly two hundred thousand in the manufacture of transportation equipment, machinery, electrical equipment, fabricated metals, and other, nonspecified manufacturing.

  Enter NEW YORK CITY, in even fancier costume.

  NEW YORK CITY (crustily): Oh, shove it along, you scene-stealing, part-padding little—

  Kicks him in shins.

  BRIDGEPORT: Bloody hell!

  Lunges at her. They grapple to the floor.

  CURTAIN. INTERMISSION.

  ACT III, SCENE I

  Enter THE BOB, in an endless-mountainous-waste-of-snow-trees-and-sky costume.

  THE BOB: Created by act of Congress in 1966, I am the largest officially designated Wilderness Area in the contiguous forty-eight states. I can beat anybody.

  Enter omnes. General free-for-all ensues.

  MORTALITY ITSELF crushes TROY/BRIDGEPORT under its wheels.

  THE BONDS AMONG THE WOMEN and THE CITY OF DUBLIN stab each other.

  NEW YORK CITY and CICELY, ALASKA, butt heads, fall unconscious.

  THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE is killed attempting to intervene.

  None are left standing but MORTALITY ITSELF and THE BOB.

  THE BOB: I am the land, I endure.

  Fires a grenade launcher through MORTALITY ITSELF’ S windshield.

  MORTALITY ITSELF explodes in flames, siren screeching. Siren fades.

  CURTAIN.

  “The Novel’s Main Character” was first performed before a live audience in the Old Ben Theatre in London, England. Subsequently, a production featuring the original cast was mounted in New York, using a text in which a few words had been changed—“lorry” to “flashlight,” for example—to make it more acceptable to an American ear. Critics agreed that no cast could have better suited the roles. As The English Language, Sir Ralph invested the part with shadings that gave the audience a sense of what it felt like to be a modern language from the inside; at the character’s tragic and unnecessary death in Act III, some had to look away. Sir John, departing from typecasting to play The Bonds Among the Women, fleshed out the role beautifully with expressive hand gestures. The supporting players—Mmes. Plowright and Bloom—did all that could be asked, despite their relatively brief stage time, while Miss Kirkland and Mr. Branagh portrayed large metropolitan areas with aplomb. The evening, however, belonged to Dame Edith as The Bob, who always brought the house down with her entrance, carrying her costume as lightly as if it were silk and not a two-hundred-pound construction of dentist’s plaster, model-railroad evergreens, and artificial snow. After a long run on Broadway, the company toured the States, and then the play became a popular radio show, a movie, and then a play again, with a different title but the same idea. Many of the original cast members went on to newfound fame in their adopted country in a variety of stage and screen roles. Dame Edith, a victim of her own success, grew tired of always being cast as scenery, and so returned home.

  Your Face or Mine

  WE CAN KICK YOUR CITY’S ASS

  —New slogan for New York City, proposed on a TV show, embraced by Mayor Giuliani, and offered as a button from the New York Daily News

  First thing every morning when I sit down to eat, I get in my breakfast’s face. I violate the space of that breakfast—the dry cereal, one-per-cent skim, fruit juice, what have you—I really get loud with it. I tell it what I want it to do for me that day from a nutritional standpoint. Hey, I’m a New Yorker—my food doesn’t give me ulcers, I give it ulcers. Then I eat it. I go at that breakfast one hundred percent. And I don’t care what you’re havin’, eggs over, hash browns, grits like they got down South (grits! what a joke!), my breakfast can kick whatever you’re havin’ ’s ass. It’s not what’s on the plate, it’s the attitude. With the right New York attitude, I can take my breakfast and beat your breakfast, then take your breakfast and beat my breakfast.

  A word of warning here, in case you’re thinking that because I get in my breakfast’s face you can just come up and get in my face. Think twice about that, my friend. You want to get in my face, take a number. Let me explain: I’m a New Yorker, so naturally I’m not going to hear you unless you get in my face. In fact, I restrict myself exclusively to in-your-face people, places, and things, because that’s the way I like it. Unfortunately, there’s just one problem. Recently, I measured my face, and I don’t think I’ve got more than about seventy square inches of surface area there. Think about it: not a lot of room. The Daily News gets in my face every morning, and that more than fills my face right there. So I guess, loving this ass-kicking city as I do, what I really need is a hell of a lot bigger face.

  The other day,
I went ballistic, which I like to do. We—some fellow New Yorkers and I—were out kicking some other cities’ asses. We started in Jersey, on the bank of the Hudson, and worked our way south. First we kicked Englewood’s ass, then we kicked Englewood Cliffs’ ass, then Fort Lee’s ass, then Ridgefield’s ass. I mean, we were taking no prisoners. Suddenly, I got distracted, and as we were kicking the ass of North Bergen I inadvertently took some prisoners. Dumb mistake. Now I got all these prisoners chained to the fence in the twenty-four-hour parking lot across the street. It so happens that my friend Bill lives, or lived, in North Bergen. Now the guy is yelling at me from the lot every morning, “So, you kicked our city’s ass! Big deal! In New York, you got—what?—eight, nine million people? In North Bergen we got forty-eight thousand four hundred and fourteen, counting my wife and me. How fair is that?” He just doesn’t understand. I don’t care about fair. Fair is for horseshoes and hand grenades, whatever that means. I don’t play nothin’ I can’t win, and I don’t win nothin’ I can’t etc. Help me out, here, Shirley!

  Luckily for me and others, I work as hard as I play. Weekdays, I’m all business. But come Friday I strip off the coat and tie and Merry Widow waist-cincher corset, and change into baggy sweatshirt, jeans, and heels. Then it’s down to the playground for an arms-and-elbows game of big-city asphalt-court basketball. In my game, there are two rules: (1) No blood, no foul; and (2) It’s not over till the other guys lose. Which, to be up front about it, they always do. I drive on my opponents, I fake them out of their shoes, I stuff them like a Christmas turkey. My game’s butter and they’re toast, and the only way they’re ever going to check me is if they check my groceries at A. & P. If they are smaller and weaker than I am, I flatten them, but if they are my size or bigger—hey, I’m not too proud to back off. I sort of shuffle and bow down, sometimes all the way to their sneaker tops, to let them know I’m making a sincere effort here. Afterward, in my apartment, suddenly something comes over me and I kick my own ass. Hey, it happens, it’s nothing I can help. My doctor says it’s a medical condition. Unlike most people, due to my specific metabolism, I do need the aggravation. Kick! Ouch! Kick! Ouch! I’m writhing around like a carp here. But I’m a New Yorker: I scream and I yell, but then I hug and I kiss. My foot says it’s sorry, and makes up with my ass, and my ass accepts the apology, and we all go out for coffee and Danish. I eat standing at the counter in the toughest city in the world.