Abnormal Occurrences: Short Stories

by Thomas Berger

  When Annemarie left the apartment, firmly rejecting his offer of an escort home, the first thing he did on closing the door was to pad barefooted, towel-wrapped, to the coffee table and sort through the papers and magazines strewn there, in search of the brochure advertising the means by which to attain power over others, presumably without violence. He had saved it to show her for purposes of mutual amusement, but as things turned out, he no longer saw the idea as inevitable farce. Maybe there was something to it. He could hardly do worse than to continue through life as what he had been to date, an object whose effective energy came only from outside, ever the moved and not the mover.

  That very night he tore off the attached coupon and wrote a check for $29.95, and next morning, though having already returned to much of the derisive scepticism with which he had first scanned the brochure, he anyway dropped the postpaid envelope into the box on the corner—and went to work, where as always he helplessly deferred to many people far his inferiors in every talent but self-assertion. These experiences, along with more dates (though not with Annemarie, who soon dumped him in the forthright style with which she performed in all areas of life), continued without relief for five long weeks. There was no response to his coupon and check, though the latter had been promptly cashed within five days of his posting it to the address printed on the envelope, a postal box in a town in Iowa he had never heard of.

  Devlin might lack in a certain kind of force, but he was not one to play the victim of a blatant swindle. He had once gone so far as to threaten to punch a dry cleaner who had shrunk a sweater, then claimed it had been received in that condition. On his next lunch hour he went to the main post office and sought to find the department in which to file a formal complaint, but the lines at all the windows seemed endless, and while he was waiting he was so pestered by panhandlers, who grew even more importunate after they received a contribution, that he left the building. He was well aware that some people were never approached by beggars, and others turned them down with impunity. Presumably these gentry were the same who sent restaurant wine back when it did not please their palates, got apologies from the IRS, and were accepted as ultimate authorities on any subject on which they voiced an opinion, effortlessly intimidating other men with a command of the moment, while intriguing women with the suggestion that more was forthcoming than was, at any time, at hand.

  But as it turned out, when he came home from work that evening and collected the mail from the lobby box, among the bills and the throwaways was a long but neither thick nor heavy envelope from Krafft, Inc., the name to which he had written the check for a manual of instruction in the technique of dominating other people.

  What arrived was not a manual but a letter acknowledging receipt of an initial payment of 29.95, entitling him to sign up for what was apparently much more than the anticipated instructional booklet, being rather a course of some extent, the specificities of which were not given except for the price, which was 199.95.

  Devlin indignantly tore the letter into many small fragments before remembering the promise, in the original offer, promptly to refund any and all payments on request: he had just destroyed what, with his cancelled check, might be needed as receipt. On his knees he reclaimed all the pieces, some very tiny, from the kitchen wastecan, thanking the gods that they had not fallen onto chicken skins or wet coffee grounds. But when the fragments had been painstakingly reassembled and Scotch-taped into a whole, the result was so wretched-looking he could not in good conscience return the letter for a refund: it would hardly look as if he were operating in the same good faith as he expected of Krafft, Inc. Or so anyway it seemed to Devlin, whose second wife had once charged him with confusing scruples with virtues but characteristically refused to elaborate.

  Which left him with but two choices. To go no further, and let them keep the 29.95, would be an abject surrender to loss. Therefore with full awareness of the possibility that he was throwing good money after bad, he wrote a check for $199.95 and immediately posted it before there was time for craven second thoughts.

  The response of the folks at Krafft this time was, given the current speed of the mails, prompt, not even really long enough for them to have waited for his out-of-state check to clear. So they had put themselves in as vulnerable a position as his own: he could after all stop payment. However, what he got for his 199.95—really now, in total, 229.90—was but two sheets of typescript faintly xeroxed, joined by a staple only one prong of which pierced paper, the other dangling.

  Reading the text so poorly reproduced removed any possible doubt. Devlin could only conclude that he had paid more than two hundred dollars to arrant charlatans for that which was utterly bogus. The “course” in how to dominate others consisted of a collection of restatements of the Golden Rule, with twists that in the wrong hands could be treacherous: treating others as they think you would treat yourself; giving people what they don’t realize they need until so persuaded; using strangers as if they were close relatives over whom you have a natural advantage. Irrespective of the questionable morality (if that could ever be said), whether these principles would work effectively could be called doubtful. The members of Devlin’s family (two parents, two older sisters) were the last people he would expect to influence—as they had been the first on whom he tried it as a boy. And before he could get anywhere near being able to con others (if that was his aim), he must first get them simply to listen to him, something which seemed to him to be a basic right, not a privilege to be gained by dupery.

  It had been conclusively proved, so far as he was concerned, that the Krafft operation was blatantly dishonest. Instead of stopping the check, however, he believed he had a better idea. One of the local television channels made much of consumer advocacy, devoting five minutes of each nightly newscast to dealing with viewers’ grievances against sharp practices by businessmen, doctors and dentists, and of course, lawyers. A cheerfully aggressive reporter, accompanied by a camera operator, would push into an electronics store and, bearding the manager thereof, demand satisfaction for the defective radio fobbed off, at a price illegally misrepresented to be below wholesale, on some impoverished widow. Or a young female assistant producer would go undercover and listen to a plastic-surgery hustler lie about her need for a job on her impeccable nose, videoing the performance with a minicam hidden in a tote bag.

  Devlin rang up the station and having been referred to the appropriate department, was courteously listened to by a woman with a kind, even motherly voice. He therefore found it difficult to show indignation when, after hardly listening to his story, she declared that he really had no case against Krafft, Inc., unless something had been offered that was not subsequently delivered.

  “But it wasn’t,” said Devlin. “They call two pages a course?”

  “Interpretation,” the woman answered, “is arguable, unless the terms are cut-and-dried. Now, if you’re promised a hundred pages, and you get only two, then you have a case.”

  He talked some more but got nowhere, for had he been gifted with persuasive powers he would never have been in this situation.

  Yet he was not ready supinely to accept the defeat. In his abusive letter to Krafft he positively reveled in the use of obscenities he would not have put into writing under other conditions, for he had no fear the addressee would complain to the postal authorities. If this was a degrading sort of revenge, at least no third party knew of it, and in fact Devlin did thereafter feel, if not exactly fulfilled, then at least not so bitter as to be emotionally maimed. He even began to think again about resuming the social life to which this unfortunate experience had brought a halt.

  He had on several recent occasions seen the same attractive woman in the local delicatessen where these days he was wont to acquire the elements of his evening meal. Whenever observed, she had been buying the cold cooked chicken, a dish that as it happened Devlin knew from experience was dry and overdone, though the adjoining turkey legs were edible enough and the cold roast meats, especiall
y the pork, were unexceptionable. This gave him a subject on which to address the woman, who was as fair as his first wife and as tall as Annemarie and finer of feature. Therefore the next time he saw her at the appropriate counter, he drifted there and asked, as if casually, whether she could recommend the chicken.

  She winced at him. “Hardly.”

  He was taken aback, but quickly decided to come clean. “I’ve seen you buying it several times. I wanted to meet you. I guess I chose the wrong topic. You buy it for your husband or live-in boy friend. I apologize.”

  “All right,” she said, smirking. “It’s for my dog. I know I should cook myself, and sometimes I do, weekends, but during the week I’m too exhausted, frankly.”

  Devlin said he had owned several dogs during his life and spoiled them all, and having made what he hoped was a good impression, nodded goodbye to her at the frozen-yoghurt case. Such was the discreet style he had long since fashioned for city life. It was very likely he would encounter her again, at which time they would already have a precedent on which to build. Meanwhile she had nothing, in this stalker era, to give her concern. Nor had he done anything, as yet, that could be used as a pretext for rejection.

  When he got home with his sliced corned beef and cole slaw, he found in the box a letter from Krafft, Inc., indeed from someone who signed himself H. Krafft, no title given.

  Dear Mr. Devlin:

  I’m rising above your abuse, though it is likely such language would be actionable. I do this because my sole interest is in control and not reaction.

  Normally, the course in my technique consists of ten lessons in as many weeks, each at the low, low price of $199.95. Believe me when I say that though this schedule might seem endless to you, and the early lessons might not appear to break new ground, experience has taught me that it is necessary for the beginner to proceed slowly, until he is equipped psychologically, emotionally, to handle the extraordinary power he will have at his command by the end of Lesson 10.

  Were the situation otherwise, I would not want to be in any way responsible for what might happen were an individual not so carefully prepared. But you, sir, have questioned my honor and challenged a good name that has never previously been sullied. I confess that you have so insulted me as to have relieved me of any concern for your wellbeing. Therefore I enclose, free of charge, Lesson 10. I suspect you will use it badly.

  Contemptuously yours,

  H. Krafft

  The so-called Lesson 10 was printed on the second piece of paper yielded by the envelope. The sheet was of standard size though its message could have been accommodated on a notepad with room to spare. Reading it alone in the elevator, Devlin sounded a loud, bitter laugh. As soon as he reached his apartment, he threw his parcels of food onto the kitchen counter and sat down to write a furious answer.

  Dear Crook:

  That’s it? That’s the great secret at the end of all this? To dominate a person, all you have to do is stare between his eyes? For this your dupes pay (counting the first $29.95) 2,029.45?

  You dirty son of a bitch, don’t think I’m going to take this lying down. I intend to report you to every authority I can find.

  Your nemesis,

  Victor Devlin

  But the fact was that when his indignation had had time to subside, Devlin was left only with the kind of disgust that saps the will, and he did nothing to carry out his threat. His life proceeded as before. At work he was jollied along by his colleagues, and the boss rarely passed his desk without patting him on the shoulder, but when it came to staff conferences, his proposals—including that for an exciting new marketing procedure on which he had been laboring for months—were politely, even affectionately tabled.

  He failed to encounter the attractive dog-owner on many consecutive visits to the deli. He went to dinner once with a woman from the accounting department of his firm. All she talked about was her own divorce, and continued to be oblivious to his efforts to compare notes on something at which he had had much experience. At the restaurant door she shook his hand, saying, “Thanks, Dick. Next time it’s my treat,” and caught her own cab.

  His luck changed, one evening when he stopped off at the deli to buy cornflakes for the next breakfast. He was standing before the dairy case, trying to remember the expiration date on the carton of milk at home, when he saw her reflection in the glass door. He eagerly spun around.

  “Hi!”

  “Do I know you?” She was dubious but not quite hostile.

  “You buy cooked chicken for your dog.”

  She nodded judiciously. “I’ve certainly done that in my day.”

  “I’ve been looking for you for some time,” Devlin said with some urgency.

  “Why in the world?”

  The fact had to be accepted that she had no memory of him whatever. Suddenly he was desperate enough to try anything nonviolent. He stared at an imaginary spot on her forehead, just above the nose, midway between her eyes. “You don’t recognize me?”

  For an instant she seemed to tremble slightly. Then she said, with animation, “Of course! You’re the best-dressed guy who comes in here. Those fabulous paisley ties, and the great belts!”

  He brought his eyes down to hers. It was remarkable to have one’s belt noticed, let alone admired. “Thank you. I’ve been thinking about that chicken. They charge an awful lot for it here. Your savings would be enormous it you bought it fresh at the supermarket and just boiled it up, and probably better for the dog anyhow.”

  “What a great idea!”

  “If you’ve got a minute, we could go there right now.” He assumed she was aware that the store was just around the corner.

  She smiled. “If you have the time, I’d really be grateful for your company. Those places make my head spin: too many colors, too many choices.” Her voice was as silken as her jacket, and obviously she was prosperous, to speak so cavalierly of supermarkets. However, it was clear that he had assumed authority.

  They had almost reached the door when a tall young man loped through it and thrust a huge pistol at the clerk nearest the cash register. Though as yet the gunman had ignored the half-dozen customers and the two remaining deli workers, all froze in position as if so ordered. But in Devlin’s case this was true for less than a second, after which he stepped near the would-be robber, spoke sharply to him, and when the man turned malevolently, stared between his fierce eyes.

  Now it was the gunman who froze. Devlin put out a hand. “Give me that.”

  The other docilely, politely, surrendered the weapon, butt-first.

  “Now, you,” Devlin said to the ashen clerk at the register, gesturing at the front window with the gunbarrel. “See those cops in the car in front of the drugstore? Go to the door and yell at them. Quicker than dialing nine-eleven.”

  When this had been done and Devlin saw one of the officers leave the vehicle, he gave the pistol to the clerk. “I’ve got an appointment. If he moves, pull the trigger.” Even so, the deli employee, a thin, graying man, stayed frightened. Devlin therefore stared between his eyes and said, “You can do it. He’s unarmed now. He’s nothing.”

  The clerk grinned cockily. “Sure.” He brandished the weapon at the criminal. “Hit the desk, face down, and spread ’em.”

  Devlin and the young woman walked to the nearby supermarket, just outside the entrance to which she stopped and said, in a certain awe, “That was impressive. I know you took it in your stride, but I can’t. I’m still shaking. Are you some kind of detective? How in the world—?”

  Devlin had impressed himself, insofar as he believed the incident happened in fact and not in a waking dream. “I don’t know,” he said with genuine modesty. “I just had an idea, and it worked. Come on, let’s find that chicken.”

  Miranda turned out to have an executive position in the advertising department of a major television network. Her marvelous body came from nature: like him, she hated exercise for its own sake though would swim some, when the spirit moved, in the po
ol at her weekend house, or bike over to see the new ducklings on the town pond. They also shared a preference for Indian food over the cuisines from farther East. Neither liked horror films; gaudy running shoes; any kind of pasta but the standard three: spaghetti, macaroni, noodles; and rude drivers. Both enjoyed the British convention of afternoon tea as a light meal; going without socks in the country; privately deriding those who used the word “graduated” without an accompanying “from”; and listening to vintage jazz on ten-inch 78’s of the late 1920’s, recorded on only one side. Actually, these tastes were originally Devlin’s. Whether or not Miranda would have shared them without special preparation was probably not important. What mattered is that she could be counted on to agree with him on every opinion and taste. This situation was all the more gratifying in that she was otherwise a dominant person, successful in her career, beautiful, and even more prosperous than he was aware until after they had lived together for a while at her midtown duplex and decided to get married: she was the only child of an investment banker who had close links to the current Administration.

  Devlin had yet to meet his prospective father-in-law, who was abroad at the moment, advising the Chinese on the free market, but he was anxious to try on this powerful individual the technique of H. Krafft. If it was effective on the likes of Virgil C. Harrelson, with his access to the White House... But Devlin tried to restrain himself from too extravagant projections. Life was going fabulously well as things stood. He had certainly used the technique to good advantage at his company, where staff conferences now went as he wanted them to. His marketing system had been instituted and though the early results were disappointing, putting the firm a good four points behind their chief competitor, nobody whose eyes he had stared between blamed him, including the head of the department, who had in fact been asked to resign, whereas Devlin had got himself elevated to the newly created post of special assistant to the CEO, a place of the most power conjoined with the least responsibility, much preferable to that of the conspicuous chief executive, who could too easily be made a target by press and government snoops and disgruntled stockholders.