The Cry of the Sloth

by Sam Savage

  Currently, from my present position in the room, leaning a shoulder against a wall next to the door, I am able to survey all five cabinets, and it strikes me that, if we take the word “contain” in its strict and proper sense, then they in fact contain only twelve drawers, since four of the drawers are so overfilled with stuff it is impossible to push them shut, and in that condition, hanging out over the floor like that, they cannot, without a laxity of speech which in my view we ought to avoid, be described as contained.

  Earlier this year, when my health permitted exertions of that stripe, I endeavored to force those drawers back in with my feet. By kicking, of course, which was completely ineffective, but also by lying supine on the floor, knees bent, and pushing with the flat of my feet against the front of the drawer. The outcome was not as I had hoped. When I straightened my knees and shoved, my whole body slid, indeed shot, across the linoleum floor in the opposite direction. I tried this with all four drawers, and in every case the same thing happened, and in no case did a drawer budge so much as an inch. I did succeed, however, in bending in the front part or “facing” of all four drawers and flattening the silver-metal pull handle tightly against it. Now, on further reflection, this—the fact that the drawers did not slide in—seems to me a fortunate accident. Had I succeeded in forcing them shut with my feet, I can’t imagine how, without handles, I could ever have opened them again, in which case your document, if it is in one of them, would be irretrievable.

  Yet even as things stand and by virtue of no footwork on my part, the cabinets already contain three drawers firmly stuck in the “in” or “shut” position. In fact they have been stuck in that position since before she bolted, a period when I was not “in charge.” I really ought to have subtracted those three from the drawer list at the outset, since, functionally speaking, they are ex-drawers. Making this belated correction, we find the total number of genuine drawers actually contained has shrunk to nine, which probably sounds like a manageable number to you, as it did to me when I first arrived at it yesterday morning. I was lying on the sofa after a sleepless night, listening to the first birds calling plaintively from somewhere. Despite exhaustion, my initial impulse on finally reaching this number was to jump right in, just spring up from the sofa and excavate those nine drawers, one drawer at a time, one sheet of paper at a time. But scarcely had I swung my feet to the floor and planted them firmly there (resolved, as I said, to dig in), than it dawned upon me that in my enthusiasm at getting there at last I was about to behave in a manner which was anything but rational. You see, I had nothing to go on—nothing, that is, more substantial than a wild hope that the document was, somehow, somewhere, in one of the nine. Yet for me actually to know that this was the case—and not merely an illusion born of wishful thinking—would necessitate hours, even days, of tedious labor carried out from an uncomfortable posture. And at the end of it all, should I choose to go that route, I might still come up empty-handed, since it is possible, even plausible, that the document is not in any of the drawers that are accessible to me but in one of the three that are presently stuck hopelessly shut or even, as I said before, in one of the stacks on the desk. And if that is the case, as now seems likely, then all those hours, even days, on my knees, practically up to my hips in waste paper, would be just precious time squandered. In short, I considered it crucial at that point in my enquiry, even before I started looking anywhere, to make certain that I could look everywhere, including in the stuck drawers. Then, though I might still not find your document, I could in good conscience at least write you a letter beginning, “After an exhaustive search, I regret …”

  You will note that this is not how I began this letter, and with reason. After working step by step through the reflections I have sketched above, I felt that out of deference to you I had no choice but to try and get the stuck drawers open, pry them out by main force should that prove necessary. Yet just as I was working the blade of a large screwdriver into the crack between one of the drawers and the frame of the cabinet, and was preparing to lean heavily upon it, I lost it down an air vent, lost the screwdriver down there. It flew out of my hand, did a kind of double somersault in the air, and dove straight through the grillwork of the vent. If I lie on the floor and put my eye to the vent, I can see it on a little ledge about two feet down into the duct, but I can’t reach it. I have tried a coat hanger, but only managed with that to move it into a more precarious position at the rim of the ledge, with all of its handle and a portion of its shank hanging out over what seems to be a bottomless drop. Another quarter inch and it’s gone. I thought of removing the grill that covers the vent in order to be able to reach in with my arm, only to discover that it, the grill, is fastened down with screws.

  All this is very distressing, and to make matters worse I have syncopes. I am, fortunately, usually warned of an impending attack by seeing spots, dark fuzzy disks floating across my vision. This is an eerie sensation; the spots seem to flit in the air a foot or two in front of my face, and I feel I could, if I wanted, reach out and snag one. I imagine, were this possible, that it would feel like something furry in my hand. The moment I see the spots, I try to situate myself near a soft receptacle of some sort, a sofa for example, or if I am in the street, I step into the flower beds, if there are any. If there are not, I sit down on the pavement. But sometimes the syncopes come without warning when I am walking past my desk, and then, as I go down, I drag piles of stuff with me onto the floor. This is part of the reason there is such a mess down there now. I had not mentioned the floor part, the incredible mess there, before, for fear of appearing discouraged at the outset, and of giving you the impression that I was not even trying. I have a dreadful inkling that your document is down there somewhere, though the syncopes make it difficult for me to be certain, since whenever I bend down to take a look, I get spots. Instead of auditors, I think you would do better to send one or two of your girls over to help me clean up. Also, if they could bring some large plastic bags with them, for the stuff we don’t want, and a screwdriver.

  Dear Mr. Freewinder, I have now been leaning my elbows against a wall for over forty minutes. In order to make my pen write in this position I have had to pause every dozen or so words and shake it violently. And yet, with all that, I have not addressed your central question, about the financial “viability” of the business. You are wondering if it is going bust. I sympathize with your concern, and I would have answered with a firm Yes or No at the outset, to spare you anxiety, had I been able, but the truth is, I haven’t the foggiest. And this is really the point I have been trying to drive home all along, the reason I went on about the mess, the syncopes, and so forth, in the first place, “carrying on,” as it must seem to you, about things which are not terribly interesting and which you might consider depressing. Are you aware that I publish a literary magazine that is read all over the country, a magazine that makes enormous demands on my time? Are you aware that, on top of this, I have a literary vocation of my own and better things to do with my waking hours than rack rents and unplug toilets? Probably not. Ever since she bolted, I have been forced by circumstances to adopt the most primitive—yet, for that very reason, the most tried and true—business practice short of the abacus. When money comes in, I put it in a jar. It is a large jar of clear glass, so it can hold a lot, should that ever happen, and I can see at a glance how much is in there. The mail arrives each day. If there is a bill, I look in the jar to see if I can pay it. If I can, I do. If I can’t, I put it on the desk. In order to maintain some semblance of fairness—the old idea of “first come, first served”—I try to work it in at the bottom of one of the stacks, with the help of a table knife. I also sometimes take money out of the jar in order to buy things for myself—food and items of personal hygiene. However, I am scrupulous on this point: I always replace the extracted funds with a corresponding slip of paper bearing the exact amount extracted and the date. So, to return to your question as to whether Whittaker Company is broke, or not broke, the bes
t I can do is report what I presently see in the jar: several greenbacks, at least one of which is a fiver, and a great many paper slips.

  In closing, let me say that I am pleased that American Midlands still thinks of us as partners. I, likewise, am always ready to work with you in order to move forward together.

  Sincerely,

  Andrew Whittaker

  ¶

  Dear Dahlberg,

  I can’t imagine what a meeting between us would accomplish. You have already heard everything I have to say. You complain about no vacation time and no money, so WHAT IS THE POINT of a long trip like that? We have absolutely no room here, so you would have to pay for a hotel.

  Andy

  ¶

  Dear Fern,

  Even though I knew Mr. Crawford had been, as you have said repeatedly, a “huge figure” in your life, I was not prepared for this. I just assumed you had asked a girlfriend from school to hold the camera. I still can’t fathom why you would find that “horribly embarrassing,” while asking your old English teacher to do the same thing is not. Nor do I grasp what you mean by saying he was the “logical” person to ask because “he was in on the ground floor anyway.”

  I don’t want to sound unsympathetic. I know it must be much more relaxing for you not to have to worry about the self-timer—after all, I was the one who spotted the problem. As to the presence of Mr. Crawford, being something of an amateur clown myself—did I ever tell you that?—I know how stimulating a live audience can be, no matter how meager or aged. After all, what good are antics if there is no one around to laugh? Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that Mr. Crawford was laughing. On the contrary, what was he doing? No sooner do I ask this than I am besieged by swarms of mental pictures, which I am doing my best to swat. Even though he was in on the ground floor and knows all about cameras, are you sure he is the best person for this? How old is he?

  Plans for the festival are roaring on. It swells apace even as we speak. Here at the office we shade our eyes and gaze ahead; it balloons before us. Though knocked to the floor by the bulges of its massiveness, we wrestle with it. We have set up committees to control its aspects and appendages. Do you think bumper cars would be de trop? I thought we could give the cars the names of literary fashions—Romanticism, Realism, etc.—and a person could choose his affiliation and crash it into the others. Have you read Rimbaud?

  There will be a parade on the final day featuring huge papier-mâché puppets representing the great authors. We’ll have the local schoolchildren make them in art class (I expect to enlist the whole community in some aspect of this gigantic effort). In addition to the lecture series and the rides, there will be elephants. And a parade, of course. You have no idea how much it costs to rent even one elephant, and to feed it while you have it, so we can’t leave them just standing around eating. The parade’s pinnacle, the pièce de résistance, coming I think about midway along in the procession, will be a magnificent flower-encrusted float bearing a beautiful woman reclining on a gigantic plywood replica of an open book. The book’s title will be clearly visible—A Thousand and One Nights—set in flashing colored lights. That way even the semiliterates and country people from miles around, who will have been attracted in droves by rumors of elephants, will recognize Scheherazade, literature’s own concubine, mistress and muse of storytellers, diaphanous in Persian silks. She will be the same woman whom the night before I will have named “Miss Soap” to the deafening applause of assembled dignitaries on the State House steps. Whenever I think of this eventual person the photograph of you in that garment soars into my mind and sticks there like a wet leaf. And your being an author makes it doubly perfect. Would you consent? Naturally the festival will cover all your expenses including wardrobe (or lack thereof—ha ha) and meals. The schedule is tight, the pace frenzied, the days (I hope) will be sunny. I must have your answer soon.

  Andy

  ¶

  socks

  checks

  copy keys

  different kind deli meat

  next 5 days

  t.p.

  sponge

  vodka mix

  what else

  ¶

  Dahlberg,

  I FORBID you to come. The mere fact that we do not agree on artistic matters does not mean that I need “straightening out.” What do you mean by that anyway? I am a sick man. I cannot have house guests. Forget it.

  Andy

  ¶

  Dear Jolie,

  My last letter to you was filled with warm feelings, and in reply I get that photograph—an interesting lesson in the art of backstabbing. However, you seem to have forgotten that I have grown thick calluses over my most vulnerable organ. Thanks to this innovation your blade failed to penetrate it, though I bled. Have you also forgotten your reaction a few years back when you saw the picture in the paper of Quiller on his motorcycle? To refresh your memory: there was a mouse-faced leather-clad Lolita clinging like a monkey-child to his back, and the photo bore the caption “Best Selling Novelist at Full Throttle.” I think I sneered. I think you said, “Poor Marcus, how embarrassing.” And then you chuckled. And now it’s you. By right it should be my turn to shake the chuckle box, but I’ve lost the knack, or the taste. Why do you tell me now how great you feel in leather? What am I supposed to do with this information? What am I suppose to do with this photograph? Show it around? “And here’s my ex on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with the famous Pulitzer-hunting ass-kissing poseur Marcus Quiller?” You are not eighteen. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look? Is your purpose to torment me? By doing that do you suppose I will feel encouraged to buckle down and “do something” about the properties as you suggest? I am doing something about them, and it doesn’t work. Instead of hauling in the dough, I am crawling around the house on all fours, afraid to stand up for fear of heavy objects arriving rapidly through a window. There is also an oversexed female with a blowtorch on the loose, not to mention her husband the poison toad. I am trying to keep my head up. No, I am trying to keep my head down. The nights are getting colder. How am I to pay to heat this place when winter comes?

  As you gather from the above, there is a certain iffyness to my life these days, as in “If I put a bullet through my brain will I regret it later?” The house feels more and more like a lonely place. I think those people are fantastically lucky who live in houses where they can call out and expect someone to answer. I have started eating with my fingers because I can’t stand the clinking of the cutlery against the plate. It is too evocative of someone eating by himself.

  I am not having hysterics, and how dare you call my ants histrionic?

  Andy

  ¶

  Pistol to the temple

  Pistol in the mouth

  Pistol to the heart

  Pistol to the foot

  Pistol to the foot plus sepsis

  Hanging, drowning

  Lysol

  ¶

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  ¶

  Dear Harold,

  So glad you like my dictionary of pain idea. I, likewise, am intrigued by your idea for an appendix on pronouncing animal sounds, and especially your suggestions of ways to transcribe their cries. When you say you have been turning these over in your mind as you go about your chores, I picture you emitting all sorts of hoots, howls, and whistles, while you bounce over the furrows with troops of excited animals running behind. As you point out, some of the cries are almost human. I hadn’t realized that farm life was so gruesome, and I’m sorry about your little boy.

  Which reminds me of a funny story I almost told you in my last letter, about pain and how we express it or not. It ties in with the rough times you said you and Catherine had at the outset. It is actually two stories, or one story with two parts, and only the second p
art is funny.

  Jolie and I had been married for less than two years when her stepfather died and left us some money, though it was not the amount we expected. We had fallen into the habit, just as a joke, of referring to it as a pile, as in “Wait till we get John’s pile,” and after a while we believed it. But in the end it was not a pile, and we spent the whole of it on half a summer in Paris instead of the full year we had planned. Jolie wanted very much to go to Rome, where her real father is buried (he was killed in the war), and I think it was my insistence on Paris that got her started. She is, despite a very pleasant exterior, at bottom a sullen creature capable of cold-hearted resentments. Though I was in love with her, I knew even then that she was not an attractive person in every respect. Her carping and backbiting on the boat going over—constantly pointing out that after all it was her money—had so worn me down by the time we reached Paris it was hardly surprising when I fell violently ill our first evening there, embarrassing us both by losing my supper on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. I was laid up in our little apartment for a good ten days after that.

  Jolie, indefatigable tourist that she was, or appeared to be, did not let this alter her plans. And I agreed she shouldn’t, though in fact I felt betrayed and abandoned. Every morning she would descend the five flights of narrow wooden stairs to the street for a coffee and croissant at a dingy little bistro on the corner, and return with a large bottle of Vichy water for me. Following the strict regimen endorsed by the patronne of the bistro (Jolie: “French people know all about this kind of thing”), I was supposed to sip the water at half-hour intervals throughout the day, plus a full glass with a boiled potato at meal times. After handing over the water, there would be a kiss of quick good-bye, and, Fodor’s in hand, off she would trot on her adventures. Except for precipitous visits to the reeking WC in the hall, I stayed put all day, prisoner in our matchbox apartment, dozing or sitting miserably at the kitchen window gazing at the stupid pigeons on the rooftops across the street, waiting for evening and her return.