Eyes Like Kumquats, Lips Like a Cocked Gun
The computer is humming, but Gerson cannot hear it above the clanking
and clinking of the antiquated ventilation system purportedly designed
to provide some sort of air conditioning relief to his steamy office.
He looks at the proposed legislation in front of him, then the screen.
The bill, the screen. A dropped glance at the sheaf of cases he thinks
may have the answer to the constitutional quandary. Back to the bill.
Then the screen. The bill, the sheaf of cases, the screen. The office
is very, very hot. It is twelve o' clock. Gerson breaks for lunch.
In the lunchroom, a group of young attorneys, his colleagues, shod in
various shades of grey or blue wool, are discussing the reality
television show from last night. Not having seen the show, Gerson has
nothing to contribute, but he listens intently.
You speak to me, and it is like geraniums.
Morphology, Radge says, is the study of shapes, but I can't be sure he
is telling the truth, for he oft dissembles. The kitchen is stuffy. I
spin my head at the sound of a slamming refrigerator door, but all I see
is trains. Locomotives, those things at the end, what are they called,
cabooses? I guess it is true what Caroline has often told me. I live
in something they call "beyond this".
Gerson munches his sandwich, it is deviled ham. The colleagues discuss
theories, suppositions. He takes a sip of lemonade. It is tart, but
yet sweet, and he cannot participate.
This is the foundation. Or something.
It has been six, perhaps seven years since I have laid eyes on you, and
now you have something to offer, it would seem. A consulting deal, a
trilateral barometric something or other, what the hell do I know what
you're talking about. You have on a red wool suit, who would have
chosen such a thing? The papers you hand me are inscrutable. I look
through them in search of some paragraph, some sentence, some phrase I
can hold on to, but it is in vain. You shake your head. I don't know.
Gerson stands and looks out the window upon Pennsylvania Avenue. The
tourists are flocking to the FBI building, but there are no tours there
anymore. In the background, one colleague says something about the
Falkland war to another. The second colleague compares the conflict to
others that have come since, and a few that predated it. There is some
discussion of the art of analogy, but Gerson can't focus on it. Outside,
on the sidewalk, a man wearing tattered rags appears to be speaking to a squirrel. It is unclear whether the rodent responds, and
if it doesn't, whether this is because it lacks the capability or the
will.
When Radge returned from the West Pacific, he had stories to tell and
knickknacks to distribute. Mine was a magnet, there was a slogan. Once
again I glance at the door of the electric rectangular cooling device
but see only automated transport units. The magnet has disappeared, it
could be under the pillow. I am not allowed near the pillow anymore,
though, because I will not fully shower. There are rules, this is one
of them. I run my hand over the smooth metal and turn to look at you.
Is there a field of daffodils nearby, or is it simply "happening" again?
Gerson has had his fill, and he returns to the office. The work that
has drawn him to the District has become unwieldy; it no longer makes
any sense. He too thinks of Radge and the trinket from the islands that
was lost soon thereafter. Gerson has always dreamed of visiting
Constantinople, but the diagnosis has put his dreams on hold. This
Radge, this friend of ours, his campaign has hit the headlines, but
somehow he cannot evade the Fourth Estate's insistent questioning. They
have discovered certain transactions involving diamonds that went on
long ago, under cover of night, in the shadows of ivy draped classroom
buildings. You will not come clean, and so we all suffer.
You with your face, it has wiped us out. We will all land in the grave
soon because of it.