Pastoralia

by George Saunders

  Because what is truth? Truth is that thing which makes what we want to happen happen. Truth is that thing which, when told, makes those on our team look good, and inspires them to greater efforts, and causes people not on our team to see things our way and feel sort of jealous. Truth is that thing which empowers us to do even better than we are already doing, which by the way is fine, we are doing fine, truth is the wind in our sails that blows only for us. So when a rumor makes you doubt us, us up here, it is therefore not true, since we have already defined truth as that thing which helps us win. Therefore, if you want to know what is true, simply ask what is best. Best for us, all of us. Do you get our drift? Contrary to rumor, the next phase of the Staff Remixing is not about to begin. The slightest excuse, the slightest negligence, will not be used as the basis for firing the half of you we would be firing over the next few weeks if the rumor you have all probably heard by now about the mass firings were true. Which it is not. See? See how we just did that? Transformed that trashy negative rumor into truth? Go forth and do that, you’ll see it’s pretty fun. And in terms of mass firings, relax, none are forthcoming, truly, and furthermore, if they were, what you’d want to ask yourself is: Am I Thinking Positive / Saying Positive? Am I giving it all I’ve got? Am I doing even the slightest thing wrong? But not to worry. Those of you who have no need to be worried should not in the least be worried. As for those who should be worried, it’s a little late to start worrying now, you should have started months ago, when it could’ve done you some good, because at this point, what’s decided is decided, or would have been decided, if those false rumors we are denying, the rumors about the firings which would be starting this week if they were slated to begin, were true, which we have just told you, they aren’t.

  More firings?

  God.

  I return to the log.

  Sort of weird without Janet.

  Someone pokes their head in.

  A young woman in a cavewoman robe.

  26.

  She walks right in and hands me a sealed note.

  From Nordstrom:

  Please meet Linda, it says. Your total new Partner. Sort of cute, yes? Under that robe is quite a bod, believe me, I saw her in slacks. See why I was trying to get rid of Janet? But also you will find she is serious. Just like you. See that brow? It is permanent, she had it sort of installed. Like once every six months she goes in for a touch-up where they spray it from a can to harden it.You can give it a little goose with your thumb, it feels like real skin. But don’t try it, as I said, she is very serious, she only let me try it because I am who I am, in the interview, but if you try it, my guess is? She will write you up. Or flatten you! Because it is not authentic that one caveperson would goose another caveperson in the brow with his thumb in the cave. I want us now, post-Janet, to really strive for some very strict verisimilitude. You may, for example, wish to consider having such a perma-brow installed on yourself. To save you the trouble of every day redoing that brow, which I know is a pain. Anyway, I think you and Linda will get along super. So here is your new mate! Not that I’m saying mate with her, I would not try that, she is, as I said, very serious, but if you were going to mate with her, don’t you think she looks more appropriate, I mean she is at least younger than Janet and not so hard on the eyes.

  I put out my hand and smile.

  She frowns at my hand, like: Since when do cavepeople shake hands?

  She squats and pretends to be catching and eating small bugs.

  How she knows how to do that, I do not know.

  I squat beside her and also pretend to be catching and eating small bugs.

  We do this for quite some time. It gets old but she doesn’t stop, and all the time she’s grunting, and once or twice I could swear she actually catches and eats an actual small bug.

  Around noon my fax makes the sound it makes when a fax is coming in.

  From Louise? Probably. Almost definitely. The only other person who ever faxes me is Nordstrom, and he just faxed me last night, plus he just sent me a note.

  I stand up.

  Linda gives me a look. Her brow is amazing. It has real actual pores on it.

  I squat down.

  I pretend to catch and eat a small bug.

  The fax stops making the sound it makes when a fax is coming in. Presumably the fax from Louise is in the tray, waiting for me to read it. Is something wrong? Has something changed? What did Dr. Evans say about Nelson’s complete loss of mobility?

  Five more hours and I can enter my Separate Area and find out.

  Which is fine. Really not a problem.

  Because I’m Thinking Positive / Saying Positive. Maybe if I explained to Linda about Nelson it would be okay, but I feel a little funny trying to explain about Nelson so early in our working relationship.

  All afternoon we pretend to catch and eat small bugs. We pretend to catch and eat more pretend bugs than could ever actually live in one cave. The number of pretend bugs we pretend to catch and eat would in reality basically fill a cave the size of our cave. It feels like we’re racing. At one point she gives me a look, like: Slow down, going so fast is inauthentic. I slow down. I slow down, monitoring my rate so that I am pretending to catch and eat small bugs at exactly the same rate at which she is pretending to catch and eat small bugs, which seems to me prudent, I mean, there is no way she could have a problem with the way I’m pretending to catch and eat small bugs if I’m doing it exactly the way she’s doing it.

  No one pokes their head in.

  • WINKY •

  EIGHTY PEOPLE WAITED in a darkened meeting room at the Hyatt, wearing mass-produced paper hats. The White Hats were Beginning to Begin. The Pink Hats were Moving Ahead in Beginning. The Green Hats were Very Firmly Beginning, all the way up to the Gold Hats, who had Mastered Living and were standing in a group around the Snack Table, whispering and conferring and elbowing one another whenever someone in a lesser hat walked by.

  Trumpets sounded from a concealed tape deck. An actor in a ripped flannel shirt stumbled across the stage with a sign around his neck that said “You.”

  “I’m lost!” You cried. “I’m wandering in a sort of wilderness!”

  “Hey, You, come on over!” shouted a girl across the stage, labeled “Inner Peace.” “I bet you’ve been looking for me your whole life!”

  “Boy, have I!” said You. “I’ll be right over!”

  But then out from the wings sprinted a number of other actors, labeled “Whiny” and “Self-Absorbed” and “Blames Her Fat on Others” and so on, who draped themselves across You and began poking him in the ribs and giving him noogies.

  “Oh, I can’t believe you love Inner Peace more than you love me, You!” said Insecure. “That really hurts.”

  “Frankly, I’ve never been so disappointed in my life,” said Disappointed.

  “Oh God, all this arguing is giving me a panic attack,” said Too High-Strung to Function.

  “I’m waiting, You,” said Inner Peace. “Do you want me or not?”

  “I do, but I seem to be trapped!” You shouted. “I can’t seem to get what I want!”

  “You and about a billion other people in this world,” said Inner Peace sadly.

  “Is there no hope for me?” asked You. “If only someone had made a lifelong study of the roadblocks people encounter on their way to Inner Peace!”

  “And yet someone has,” said Inner Peace.

  Another fanfare sounded from the tape deck, and a masked Gold Hat, whose hat appeared to be made of actual gold, bounded onto the stage, flexed his muscles, and dragged Insecure to a paper jail, on which was written: “Pokey for Those Who Would Keep Us from Inner Peace.” Then the Gold Hat dragged Chronically Depressed and Clingy and Helpless and the rest across the stage and shoved them into the Pokey.

  “See what I just did?” said the Gold Hat. “I just liberated You from those who would keep him from Inner Peace. So good for You! Question is, is You going to be able to stay liberated? Maybe what You
needs is a repeated internal reminder. A mantra. A mantra can be thought of as a repeated internal reminder, can’t it? Does anyone out there have a good snappy mantra they could perhaps share with You?”

  The crowd was delighted, because they knew the mantra. Even the lowly White Hats knew the mantra—even Neil Yaniky, who sat spellbound and insecure in the first row, sucking his mustache, knew the mantra, because it was on all the TV commercials and also on the front cover of the Orientation Text in big bold letters.

  “Give it to me, folks!” shouted the Gold Hat. “What time is it?”

  “Now Is the Time for Me to Win!” the crowd shouted.

  “You got that right, baby!” said the Gold Hat exultantly, ripping off his mask to reveal what many already suspected: This was not some mere Gold Hat but Tom Rodgers himself, founder of the Seminars.

  “What fun!” he shouted. “To have something to give, and people who so badly need what I have to offer. Here’s what I have to offer, folks, although it’s not much, really, just two simple concepts, and the first one is: oatmeal.”

  From out of his suit he pulled a bowl and a box of oatmeal, and filled the bowl with the oatmeal and held the bowl up.

  “Simple, nourishing, inexpensive,” he said. “This represents your soul in its pure state. Your soul on the day you were born. You were perfect. You were happy. You were good.

  “Now, enter Concept Number Two: crap. Don’t worry, folks, I don’t use actual crap up here. Only imaginary crap. You’ll have to supply the crap, using your mind. Now, if someone came up and crapped in your nice warm oatmeal, what would you say? Would you say: ‘Wow, super, thanks, please continue crapping in my oatmeal’? Am I being silly? I’m being a little silly. But guess what, in real life people come up and crap in your oatmeal all the time—friends, co-workers, loved ones, even your kids, especially your kids!—and that’s exactly what you do. You say, ‘Thanks so much!’ You say, ‘Crap away!’ You say, and here my metaphor breaks down a bit, ‘Is there some way I can help you crap in my oatmeal?’

  “Let me tell you something amazing: I was once exactly like you people. A certain someone, a certain guy who shall remain nameless, was doing quite a bit of crapping in my oatmeal, and simply because he’d had some bad luck, simply because he was in some pain, simply because, actually, he was in a wheelchair, this certain someone expected me to put my life on hold while he crapped in my oatmeal by demanding round-the-clock attention, this brother of mine, this Gene, and whoops, there goes that cat out of the bag, but does this maybe sound paradoxical? Wasn’t he the one with the crap in his oatmeal, being in a wheelchair? Well, yes and no. Sure, he was hurting. No surprise there. Guy drops a motorcycle on a gravel road and bounces two hundred yards without a helmet, yes, he’s going to be somewhat hurting. But how was that my fault? Was I the guy riding the motorcycle too fast, drunk, with no helmet? No, I was home, studying my Tacitus, which is what I was into at that stage of my life, so why did Gene expect me to consign my dreams and plans to the dustbin? I had dreams! I had plans! Finally—and this is all in my book, People of Power—I found the inner strength to say to Gene, ‘Stop crapping in my oatmeal, Gene, I’m simply not going to participate.’ And I found the strength to say to our sister, Ellen, ‘Ellen, take the ball that is Gene and run with it, because if I sell myself short by catering to Gene, I’m going to be one very angry puppy, and anger does the mean-and-nasty on a person, and I for one love myself and want the best for me, because I am, after all, a child of God.’ And I said to myself, as I describe in the book, ‘Tom, now is the time for you to win!’ That was the first time I thought that up. And do you know what? I won. I’m winning. Today we’re friends, Gene and I, and he acknowledges that I was right all along. And as for Ellen, Ellen still has some issues, she’d take a big old dump in my oatmeal right now if I gave her half a chance, but guess what folks, I’m not giving her that half a chance, because I’ve installed a protective screen over my oatmeal—not a literal screen, but a metaphorical protective screen. Ellen knows it, Gene knows it, and now they pretty much stay out of my hair and away from my oatmeal, and they’ve made a nice life together, and who do you think paid for Gene’s wheelchair ramp with the money he made from a certain series of Seminars?”

  The crowd burst into applause. Tom Rodgers held up his hand.

  “Now, what about you folks?” he said softly. “Is now the time for you to win? Are you ready to screen off your metaphorical oatmeal and identify your own personal Gene? Who is it that’s screwing you up? Who’s keeping you from getting what you want? Somebody is! God doesn’t make junk. If you’re losing, somebody’s doing it to you. Today I’ll be guiding you through my Three Essential Steps: Identification, Screening, Confrontation. First, we’ll Identify your personal Gene. Second, we’ll help you mentally install a metaphorical Screen over your symbolic oatmeal. Finally, we’ll show you how to Confront your personal Gene and make it clear to him or her that your oatmeal is henceforth off-limits.”

  Tom Rodgers looked intensely out into the crowd.

  “So what do you think, guys?” he asked, very softly. “Are you up for it?”

  From the crowd came a nervous murmur of assent.

  “All right, then,” he said. “Let’s line up. Let’s line up for a change. A dramatic change.”

  He crisply left the stage, and a spotlight panned across five Personal Change Centers, small white tents set up in a row near the fire door.

  Neil Yaniky rose with the rest and checked his Line Assignment and joined his Assigned Line. He was a tiny man, nearly thirty, balding on top and balding on the sides, and was still chewing on his mustache and wondering if anyone or everyone else at the Seminar could tell that he was a big stupid faker, because he had no career, really, and no business, but only soldered little triangular things in his basement, for forty-seven cents a little triangular thing, for CompuParts, although he had high hopes for something better, which was why he was here.

  The flap of Personal Change Center 4 flew open and in he went, bending low.

  Inside were Tom Rodgers and several assistants, and a dummy in a smock sitting in a chair.

  “Welcome, Neil,” said Tom Rodgers, glancing at Yaniky’s name tag. “I’m honored to have you in my Seminar, Neil. Now. The way we’ll start, Neil, is for you to please write across the chest of this dummy the name of your real-life personal Gene. That is, the name of the person you perceive to be crapping in your oatmeal. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes,” said Yaniky.

  Tom Rodgers was talking very fast, as if he had hundreds of people to change in a single day, which of course he did.Yaniky had no problem with that. He was just happy to be one of them.

  “Do you need help determining who that person is?” said Tom Rodgers. “Your oatmeal-crapper?”

  “No,” said Yaniky.

  “Excellent,” said Tom Rodgers. “Now write the name and under it write the major way in which you perceive this person to be crapping in your oatmeal. Be frank. This is just between you and me.”

  On an erasable markerboard permanently mounted in the dummy’s chest Yaniky wrote, “Winky: Crazy-looking and too religious and needs her own place.”

  “Super!” said Tom Rodgers. “A great start. Now watch what I do. Let’s fine-tune. Can we cut ‘crazy-looking’? If this person, this Winky, were to get her own place, would the fact that she looks crazy still be an issue? Less of an issue?”

  Yaniky pictured his sister looking crazy but in her own apartment.

  “Less of an issue,” he said.

  “All right!” said Tom Rodgers, erasing “crazy-looking.” “It’s important to simplify so that we can hone in on exactly what we’re trying to change. Okay. At this point, we’ve determined that if we can get her out of your house, the crazy-looking can be lived with. A big step forward. But why stop there? Let me propose something: if she’s out of your hair, what the heck do you care if she’s religious?”

  Yaniky pictured Winky looking cra
zy and talking crazy about God but in her own apartment.

  “It would definitely be better,” he said.

  “Yes, it would,” said Tom Rodgers, and erased until the dummy was labeled “Winky: needs her own place.”

  “See?” said Tom Rodgers. “See how we’ve simplified? We’ve got it down to one issue. Can you live with this simple, direct statement of the problem?”

  “Yes,” Yaniky said. “Yes, I can.”

  Yaniky saw now what it was about Winky that got on his nerves. It wasn’t her formerly red curls, which had gone white, so it looked like she had soaked the top of her head in glue and dipped it in a vat of cotton balls; it wasn’t the bald spot that every morning she painted with some kind of white substance; it wasn’t her shiny-pink face that was always getting weird joyful looks on it at bad times, like during his dinner date with Beverly Amstel, when he’d made his special meatballs to no avail, because Bev kept glancing over at Winky in panic; it wasn’t the way she came click-click-clicking in from teaching church school and hugged him for too long a time while smelling like flower water, all pumped up from spreading the word of damn Christ; it was simply that they were too old to be living together and he had things he wanted to accomplish and she was too needy and blurred his focus.