He looked at Vinnie dully for a moment, wondering if he should speak. This was Ordner’s prize, then. Good doggie. Here’s the bone.
“Get out of it, Vinnie,” he said. “Get out of it just as quick as you can.”
“What, Bart?” Vinnie’s brow wrinkled in honest puzzlement.
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“Do you know what the word ‘gofer’ means, Vinnie?”
“Gopher? Sure. It’s a little animal that digs holes-”
“No, gofer. G-O-F-E-R. ”
“I guess I don’t know that one, Bart. Is it Jewish?”
“No, it’s white-collar. It’s a person who does errands. A glorified office boy. Gofer coffee, gofer Danish, gofer a walk around the block, sonny. Gofer.”
“What are you talking about, Bart? I mean-”
“I mean that Steve Ordner kicked your special case around with the other members of the board-the ones who matter, anyway-and said, Listen, fellas, we’ve got to do something about Vincent Mason, and it’s a delicate sort of case. He warned us that Bart Dawes was riding a rubber bike, and even though Mason didn’t swing quite enough weight to enable us to stop Dawes before he screwed up the waterworks, we owe this Mason something. But of course we can’t give him too much responsibility. And do you know why, Vinnie?”
Vinnie was looking at him resentfully. “I know I don’t have to eat your shit anymore, Bart. I know that. ”
He looked at Vinnie earnestly. “I’m not trying to shit you. What you do doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. But Chrissakes, Vinnie, you’re a young man. I don’t want to see him fuck you over this way. The job you’ve got is a short-term plum, a long-term lemon.
The toughest decision you’re going to have is when to reorder Buttercup containers and Milky Ways. And Ordner’s going to see that it stays that way as long as you’re with the corporation.”
The Christmas spirit, if that was what it had been, curdled in Vinnie’s eyes. He was clutching his packages tightly enough to make the wrappings crackle, and his eyes were gray with resentment. Picture of a young man who steps out his door whistling, ready for the evening’s heavy date, only to see all four tires on his new sports car have been slashed. And he’s not listening. I could play him tapes and he still wouldn’t believe it.
“As it turned out, you did the responsible thing,” he went on. “I don’t know what people are saying about me now-”
“They’re saying you’re crazy, Bart,” Vinnie said in a thin, hostile voice.
“That word’s as good as any. So you were right. But you were wrong, too. You spilled your guts. They don’t give positions of responsibility to people who spill their guts, not even when they were right to do it, not even when the corporation suffers because of their silence. Those guys on the fortieth floor, Vinnie, they’re like doctors. And they don’t like loose talk any more than doctors like an intern that goes around blowing off about a doctor who muffed an operation because he had too many cocktails at lunch.”
“You’re really determined to mess up my life, aren’t you?” Vinnie asked. “But I don’t work for you anymore, Bart. Go waste your poison on someone else.”
Santa Claus was coming back, a huge bag slung over one shoulder, bellowing wild laughter and trailing small children like parti-colored exhaust.
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“Vinnie, Vinnie, don’t be blind. They’re sugar-coating the pill. Sure you’re making eleven-five this year and next year when you pick up the other theaters, they’ll buck you up to maybe fourteen thousand. And there you’ll be twelve years from now, when you can’t buy a lousy Coke for thirty cents. Gofer that new carpeting, gofer that consignment of theater seats, gofer those reels of film that got sent across town by mistake. Do you want to be doing that shit when you’re forty, Vinnie, with nothing to look forward to but a gold watch?”
“Better than what you’re doing.” Vinnie turned away abruptly, almost bumping Santa, who said something that sounded suspiciously like watch where the fuck you’re going.
He went after Vinnie. Something about the set expression on Vinnie’s face convinced him he was getting through, despite the defensive emplacements. God, God, he thought.
Let it be.
“Leave me alone, Bart. Get lost.
“Get out of it,” he repeated. “If you wait even until next summer it may be too late.
Jobs are going to be tighter than a virgin’s chastity belt if this energy crisis goes into high gear, Vinnie. This may be your last chance. It-”
Vinnie wheeled around. “I’m telling you for the last time, Bart.”
“You’re flushing your future right down the john, Vinnie. Life’s too short for that.
What are you going to tell your daughter when-”
Vinnie punched him in the eye. A bolt of white pain flashed up into his head and he staggered backward, arms flying out. The kids who had been following Santa scattered as his packages-dolls, GI Joe, chess set-went flying. He hit a rack of toy telephones, which sprayed across the floor. Somewhere a little girl screamed like a hurt animal and he thought Don’t cry, darling, it’s just dumb old George falling down, I do it frequently around the house these days and someone else jolly old Santa, maybe-was cursing and yelling for the store detective. Then he was on the floor amid the toy telephones, which all came equipped with battery-powered tape loops, and one of them was saying over and over in his ear: “Do you want to go to the circus? Do you want to go to the circus? Do you . . .”
December 17, 1973
The shrilling of the telephone brought him out of a thin, uneasy afternoon sleep. He had been dreaming that a young scientist had discovered that, by changing the atomic composition of peanuts just a little, America could produce unlimited quantities of low-polluting gasoline. It seemed to make everything all right, personally and nationally, and the tone of the dream was one of burgeoning jubilation. The phone was a sinister counterpoint that grew and grew until the dream split open and let in an unwelcome reality.
He got up from the couch, went to the phone, and fumbled it to his ear. His eye didn’t hurt anymore, but in the hall mirror he could see that it was still colorful.
“Hello?”
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“Hi, Bart. Tom.”
“Yeah, Tom. How are you?”
“Fine. Listen, Bart. I thought you’d want to know. They’re demolishing the Blue Ribbon tomorrow.”
His eyes snapped wide. “Tomorrow? It can’t be tomorrow. They . . . hell, it’s almost Christmas! ”
“That’s why.”
“But they’re not up to it yet. ”
“It’s the only industrial building left in the way,” Tom said. “They’re going to raze it before they knock off for Christmas.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. They had a news feature on that morning program. ‘City Day.’ ”
“Are you going to be there?”
“Yeah,” Tom said. “Too much of my life went by inside that pile for me to be able to stay away.”
“Then I guess I’ll see you there.”
“I guess you will.”
He hesitated. “Listen, Tom. I want to apologize. I don’t think they’re going to reopen the Blue Ribbon, in Waterford or anyplace else. If I screwed you up royally-”
“No, I’m not hurting. I’m up at Brite-Kleen, doing maintenance. Shorter hours, better pay. I guess I found the rose in the shitheap. ”
“How is it?”
Tom sighed across the wire. “Not so good,” he said. “But I’m past fifty now. It’s hard to change. It would have been the same in Waterford.”
“Tom, about what I did-”
“I don’t want to hear about it, Bart.” Tom sounded uncomfortable. “That’s between you and Mary. Really.”
“Okay.”
“Uh . . . you getting along good?”
“Sure. I’ve got a couple of things on the line.”
“I’m glad to hear that. ” Tom paused so long that the silence on the line became thick, and he was about to thank him for calling and hang up when Tom added: “Steve Ordner called up about you. Called me right up at my house.”
“Is that so? When?”
“Last week. He’s pissed like a bear at you, Bart. He kept asking if any of us had any idea you had been sandbagging the Waterford plant. But it was more than that. He was 224
asking all sorts of other things.”
“Like what?”
“Like did you ever take stuff home, office supplies and stuff like that. Did you ever draw from petty cash without putting in a voucher. Or get your laundry done on the company clock. He even asked me if you had any kind of kickback deal going with the motels.”
“That son of a bitch,” he said wonderingly.
“Like I say, he’s hunting around for a nice raw cob to stick up your pump, Bart. I think he’d like to find a criminal charge he could get you on.”