“And when that song has been sung,” the chaplain intoned, “and you’re standing on that other shore…”
The bugler blew taps fifty yards away.
Afterward the warden put his hand on Fred Jr.’s shoulder. Archie put his hand on his head. He was married now and had found another way to work.
She’d moved away.
In college Fred supported himself as a stock boy, a dishwasher, as someone who left a number in the student union and would do small repairs for five dollars. He took part-time work at the dog pound. He majored in history and minored in engineering, but school bored him and his grades were poor save for those he earned in celestial navigation, an elective requirement. The instructor claimed to be a direct descendant of Leif Eric-son, had sailed from Iceland to New York on the replica of a Viking longship. He had long pale hair and blue eyes and his class, with its considerable female enrollment, followed him eagerly back through millennia to the beginning, to wayfinding, the ancient practice of Polynesian sailors who had crossed vast seas without benefit of chart or compass. They studied astronomy and the instruments of navigation, from the crude latitude hooks of the South Pacific and the kamal of Arab desert traders to the quadrant of Columbus, the nocturnals and astrolabes, sextants and octants. They learned about dead reckoning and speed made good, how to find Venus by daylight. They named the bodies of the celestial sphere: Acrux, Aldebaran, Alpha Centauri.
“One day this will become a lost art as well,” the instructor said. “Science will give us eyes in the sky, eyes we haven’t earned.”
Fred sat listening as they sighed behind him, scratches and bites on his arms and face: he ran the gas box at the pound. A shiny sheet-metal cube, five by five by four. One side was removable and in it was a small window of reinforced plastic. If he couldn’t talk them into it, he used a catch pole or snare. Put them to sleep, as parents tell their children and perhaps themselves. A hose ran from the exhaust pipe of the dogcatcher’s van. When the box was at capacity—two dozen, give or take, of the unwanted, the feral, the very old or the very sick—Fred would get in the van, turn the ignition key and, foot on pedal, open the tables of the Nautical Almanac. Rows and columns, latitude and longitude. Practice problems. Sometimes he heard them wailing and struggling, clawing, biting each other and themselves, bouncing off the walls of the box until, plotting sheet in lap, he floored the pedal to speed the arrival of the final silence, found the true bearing of the body, and plotted a line of position.
Acrux, Polaris, Rigil Kentaurus.
The sun, the moon.
You are here.
When it was done he would turn off the engine and get out of the van wearing a mask with a charcoal filter, turn four toggles on the gas box and remove the panel. They would be covered in urine and feces and often blood and he would remove them one at a time, unless the jaws of one were clamped to the fur and flesh of another and he was unable to break this death grip, and so would put both bodies in a single plastic bag and they would accompany each other into the hopper with the rest. A truck took the hopper to an incinerator. He cleaned the box with ammonia and warm water.
All of them weren’t always dead.
Behind him, whispering and giggling.
He suggested to his supervisor reducing the number of animals per procedure, was told of quotas and necessary evil—some of them were better off anyway. Near the end of the semester he presented a design for an improved apparatus featuring a control panel, multiple compartments, utilizing a mix of gases from pressurized cylinders that would induce anesthesia before terminating vital functions. His supervisor said he would pass these plans on to someone at the Department of Agriculture, then ordered Fred back to work. Fred returned to the van and prepared for finals.
The professor announced that the final would be held on his own boat, a thirty-foot schooner not of Viking design. Fred, who was pathologically averse to travel in any conveyance not on wheels, was unable to force himself to attend. He attempted a makeup project by building his own sextant out of acrylic, hand-cut mirrors, a telescopic eyepiece and a hand-drawn Vernier scale. He used Legos to fasten the frame. The instructor was surprised and impressed, admired Fred’s ingenuity and workmanship, declared the instrument both well made and viable but not acceptable as credit. Fred was unable to complete the course and shortly thereafter dropped out of school altogether. Years later he sometimes told people he had studied celestial navigation with a direct descendant of Leif Ericson, but the only Leif most of them knew was a pubescent Canadian pop singer who’d had enormous international success with a song called “I Was Made for Dancing.”
There were always problems with the older machines: jamming, misfeeds, little black spots. When there was a problem with one of the older ones—the 914, the 1000, the 2400—you called toll-free and gave an operator the serial number. You would tell the operator what the problem was and he or she would try to walk you through a solution over the phone. If you couldn’t be helped over the phone, the operator would have to page a service technician and you would have to use the 813 or the 660, or the Kodak next door, until sometime later in the day, depending on how busy he was and how far he had to travel, when the tech walked through the door in his short sleeves and clip-on tie, black frame glasses and pocket protector, carrying in one hand a satchel full of strange-looking tools and meters, in the other a cup of coffee. The bag looked so heavy he almost limped with it, and he only worked on consoles.
“The doctor is in,” he might say then, cigarette in mouth, and you would take him down the hall to the copier room, to the 914, trying not to walk in front of him, and he would tell you what a nice office you had, the furnishings and the carpet, the pictures, would say hello to the other employees, would tell you his name, by the way, though you already knew it.
“The 914,” the tech would say in the copier room. Old Unfaithful, you wanted to say, but knew you shouldn’t because he might remind you then that the 914 had made Xerox what it was, and Xerox was making the world what it would be, and the world would be in color, a hundred and twenty clicks a minute, a computer you could put on your desk, so you didn’t call it anything, you just told him what the problem was while he put on latex gloves.
He would get on his knees and take off the service panel. He would invite you in, closer, to crouch down over the paper path with him and show him where it happened, where it hurt. Smile wider than a man who smoked and drank as much coffee as he did should, which was to say at all.
You couldn’t help thinking he was smelling you.
The world had little black spots.
“Artifacts,” he called them, and asked to see a sample print. You gave it to him expecting him to touch your hand, the way Jim Dolly sometimes did, and though he didn’t, and though he never looked at you quite the way Jim Dolly looked, nor said things the way he said them, you would leave him in the copier room grounded to the carpet, his head stuck in the print engine, and walk back down the hall to your desk without having ever once said his name.
Maybe it was just your imagination. Jim Dolly was not your imagination.
Jim Dolly was big, red-faced, prematurely white-haired. Or maybe he was born that way. He liked to wear black. He took your hand like it wasn’t your hand, looked at your nameplate and used your name. He was here to see the office manager about the laser printer, the 9200, because after lasers there was no turning back, but he was early and the office manager wasn’t in yet, so he could have a seat and wait, and that was fine with Jim Dolly because he was here to do that, too. Jim Dolly knew how to tell time.
Fine with me, he would say like you’d talked him into it, having a seat, sitting, not getting much smaller. He would be quiet for a time. Flip through Newsweek. You could hear him flipping, waiting, you could smell him. You could do some filing. Do something before it was too late, then it was: he offered gum. Told you about himself, about life before Xerox: cars, insurance, commodities, ad space, even cemetery plots. He didn’t tell you about certain
other things, certain misunderstandings misconstrued as misconduct; Jim Dolly would tell you some things and ask you others, in a whisper you didn’t want to hear, so you asked him about the 9200 but that seemed to be what he’d been waiting for. Anything was.
Hadn’t you seen the commercial?
What commercial?
Super Bowl ad. Monks in a monastery. You hadn’t seen it?
You didn’t like football.
Bet you didn’t like monks, either.
Your boyfriend watched it, though. Vikings fan.
Never had a chance.
You wouldn’t know.
Jin Dolly would. Jim Dolly tell you he played college ball?
Would Jim Dolly know how many copies a minute?
All-Conference.
Was that good?
It wasn’t bad. Left tackle, freshman. No big deal. Not a happy ending though. (Dividing air with the edge of his hand.) Helmet to knee. Now it was made of plastic.
Wasn’t everything anymore?
He couldn’t tell you how many operations.
Could he tell you how many goddamn copies?
If he did he’d have to take you to lunch.
Not necessarily.
Jim Dolly wasn’t no monk.
So how many?
Seriously.
Seriously you believed him, and then the office manager got in. Jim Dolly spat his gum in the ashtray and spent the rest of the morning in the office manager’s office. Even behind closed doors you could still hear the whisper. Then Xerox took them both to lunch. Then they sat in the conference room for the rest of the afternoon; the tech did the install two weeks later. Still flush with his commission, Jim Dolly lingered at the account like he always did after a sale, glad-handing the help, passing out his card like another form of promiscuity, paying compliments you couldn’t afford to accept. Calling the tech Freddy, saying, “Guess who’s buying your lunch today, and it ain’t me.” Looking closely at him, saying, “You look like you need some titties in your face. We’ll take the Linc.”
Within fifteen minutes they were sitting in a leather booth in a dark room downtown, and a girl Fred wouldn’t look at was asking them what they’d like to drink. A piano was playing somewhere.
Jim Dolly laughed. “When I said topless I didn’t mean the roof caved in.” He ordered a gin and tonic. Fred had coffee. “Live a little,” Jim Dolly said.
“This is how I live,” Fred said.
Jim Dolly watched the waitress head for the bar. “I should give her a tip just to put her shirt back on.” He looked apologetic. “It’s better in the evening.”
“Happy hour?” Fred said.
“If you like dark meat,” Jim Dolly said. “Rest of the band shows up, too.”
She came back with their drinks under her breasts.
“He wants a little cream with his coffee.”
“Black is fine.”
“I think he’s blushing.”
Fred felt his face. “Just a little warm in here…”
“Red as a baboon’s ass,” Jim Dolly said and raised his glass. “Fuckin Raiders.”
“Who?” Fred said. So they toasted Xerox instead.
“While it’s still around,” Jim Dolly said.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
Jim Dolly made a face at his drink. “Friggin nail polish remover.”
“I heard revenues…”
“You see any of that let me know. Revenues and profit ain’t the same thing—we’re spinning our wheels here. Rochester’s buzzing like a beehive but they’re not putting out any new toys. Can’t agree on anything.” He broke ice with his teeth. “Haven’t had a new product line in how many years.”
“The Star.”
“The Star. Typewriter with a TV sitting on top. You gonna pay sixteen grand for that?”
“The 9700.”
“Half a million. And you need a tech onsite full-time just to keep it running. It’ll never pass beta.” Jim Dolly looked around the room and waved. “We should be going smaller, not bigger. Our desktop’s a joke. And don’t look behind you: here comes
Canon. Here comes IBM, the Japs—the Japs. We might have to drop another one.”
Fred looked down at his menu but didn’t pick it up. “So what’s good here?”
“Open your eyes, man. Sure isn’t the gin.” The waitress came back and Jim Dolly ordered a whiskey and soda for Fred. “Live a little more,” he said, put his glass back on the tray, told her to pour it back down the toilet and ordered a drink like a chemistry lesson. Then he gave her a buck and told her to go drink some milk.
He looked at Fred. “Know what we need?” and someone in the booth behind them said, “Hey big mouth.”
Jim Dolly turned his head halfway and then back. “We need another whatshisname.”
Fred picked up his coffee. “That narrows it down.”
“Whatshisname…Chester.”
“Hey big time,” the guy in the booth behind him said. “How about you give her a break? She’s just trying to make a living.”
Jim Dolly turned his head halfway again. “If she’s got mouths to feed I hope they’re on the bottle.” He turned the rest of the way. “Otherwise they must be starving to death.” The guy laughed. He said something else and Jim Dolly laughed and Fred wondered if they knew each other.
He lit a cigarette. Jim Dolly watched with disdain, as he did in the presence of vices he hadn’t acquired. “Carter, Carson, you know. The guy in his living room.”
“It was his kitchen,” Fred said.
“In fucking Queens for Christsake. Wherever the hell that is.”
“You don’t know where Queens is?”
“I know where the fuck the point is he started out, what? Rubbing a piece of paper with his handkerchief, sprinkling some magic powder on it.”
“Sulfur,” Fred said. “Sulfur and lycopodium.”
“Yeah lickapo my point is he couldn’t get arrested for what? Five years? Ten? IBM wouldn’t give him the time of day. How much you figure he’s worth today?”
“He left most of it to charity.” He’d licensed the patent to Xerox before it was Xerox—twenty thousand shares, but his ambition was to die a poor man.
“Well you know how much trim he must’ve taken down?” Jim Dolly said. “Try giving that to the Goodwill.”
He’d practiced Zen meditation. Built a Buddhist monastery.
“Doesn’t make him a monk,” Jim Dolly said. “Here we go.”
She came back and put down their drinks and stood at the table, waiting. Jim Dolly looked at her. “You know you just gave a whiskey and soda to the next Thomas Edison?”
“Yeh?” She nodded and looked at Fred. “Is Mr. Edison ready to order?”
Fred tried his drink. The piano played single notes you would never hear again. “Can you give me a minute?”
“Give us a minute,” Jim Dolly said, and she went away again.
“How do you know about that?” Fred said.
“What is it, national security?” Jim Dolly said. “So you have a hobby. We’re just two guys talking.”
“I don’t have hobbies.” He had a couple of patents pending. Small stuff. Specialized. He had a tendency to let things slip.
“Stereo helicopter mapping system,” he mumbled, and Jim Dolly tried to follow till his eyes glazed over.
“What’s the thing on TV?” he interrupted. “The thing that slices and dices.”
“I forget,” Fred said.
“See what I’m saying?” Jim Dolly said. He beckoned at the darkness over Fred’s shoulder. Fred gave the whiskey and soda another chance and Jim Dolly reached into the lining of his jacket. He took out a card. He seemed to be whispering for some reason. “Know what this is?”
“I have one,” Fred said, and in fact had several.
“A ticket,” Jim Dolly said. “Anywhere you want to go. Wild card.” It was also a passport, a blank check, and a free pass. When the waitress came back he tried to slip it under her breast but she too
k it and said, “Thank you. You gentlemen like some lunch?”
“No, we’re on a hunger strike,” Jim Dolly said. “Go ahead.”
Fred looked her in the face. “What do you recommend?”
“It’s a friggin steakhouse,” Jim Dolly said, and Fred liked his bloody. Jim Dolly told her to burn it and ordered a double. They had another toast.
“You know he didn’t invent the light bulb,” Fred said.
“Bullshit,” Jim Dolly said. He kept looking around the jazzy dimness, restless, widening his eyes and nodding at someone he knew, or thought he did, or wanted to know. Drumming the tabletop to some beat that had nothing to do with the piano, shaking the booth till the guy behind him tapped his shoulder: “Hey Buddy Rich, can you save it for the solo? You’re spilling half my scotch here.”
When Fred got back to the account he told the office manager he needed to break in the developer on the 9200. He said it would take an hour or so, his hand over his mouth. He shut the doors and ran five thousand more copies of a flyer he’d laid out the previous weekend. It wasn’t stealing if the clicks were already paid for.
At five thousand feet someone touched his shoulder. He pulled his face up out of his lap and saw the airfield mechanic standing over him, looking at what used to be scrambled eggs on the front of his coat. Looking like, Are you sure you’re up to this? and, though of course he wasn’t, here he was. Making sure.
He was seatbelted to the jumpers’ bench, next to the door. He’d gotten some on the harness.
The cabin was cold. His ears popped. The engine buzzed and everything buzzed with it. They seemed to ride a bumpy surface of air. The pilot, a gun owner like the mechanic, looked over his shoulder and shouted something. The plane banked, a traumatic shift of gravity. It straightened and the pilot shouted again. The mechanic looked out the window, signaled to Fred. Fred did not want to unlatch his belt, did not want to stand. When he’d managed it, one hand on the cold metal of the frame, the mechanic hooked the lanyard of his harness to the anchor cable overhead. Pulled one of the boxes from under the bench, pushed it stiffly with his foot to the door. He grabbed the handle and looked at Fred and Fred closed his eyes and the mechanic opened the door.
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