Easy and Hard Ways Out (10 page)

Very truly yours,

S. Brine

SB:sb

OFFERS AND COUNTEROFFERS

a. The Man Who Could See in the Dark

Leon Peretz was the type of guy who, as a guest in someone's house, would take a tremendous crap, only to discover at the end that there was no toilet paper left, and that he had to call out to the host to hand a roll in. It was as though life were punishing him for his natural meekness and fearfulness by dishing out heaping doses of what he could least tolerate. Peretz was a tall man with wavy black hair and brittle, ceramic ears. He lived with his mousy, timid wife in a posh Brooklyn apartment house protected by a Negro doorman, of whom Peretz was afraid. He'd come to the United States from Israel, a seeker of the promised land with his wires crossed, a graduate engineer with ideals, believing he would find marvelous opportunities for scientific advancement. Instead, he found the shielded basement at Auerbach Laboratories, where he spent the days immersed in pitch-blackness, looking for signs of corona discharge from high-power antennas. Though he had a master's degree, Peretz did all his bench work himself since he was too shy to ask for a technician.

Brank spotted him immediately, sitting erect and motionless at his desk near the rear of the Advanced Devices lab. Brank strode over. “Excuse me,” he said, “you're Leon Peretz, aren't you? Uh, I'm Harvey Brank. Phil Sussman-Smollen suggested I speak to you.” Brank extended his hand, but Peretz ignored it. It was then that Brank noticed his eyes were closed. “Mr. Peretz?”

Peretz made no move. “Is someone talking to me?”

“Yes. I am,” said Brank. “Are you Leon Peretz?”

“Yes, I'm sorry, but I can't open my eyes just yet. I work in pitch-blackness all day. The basement. Corona discharges. I just came up and it takes several minutes before I adjust.”

“Oh,” said Brank. “Oh, maybe I'll come back.”

“No, no. Absolutely not. Please. It'll just be a few minutes. Stay. Besides, I can hear perfectly, so you can tell me what you want anyway.”

Brank looked at Peretz's desk, bare except for a tape recorder near the In box. “How long have you been working in the basement?” he asked.

“Uh, let's see … four … no, four and a half years. Right. Four and a half.”

Brank thought, there is something wrong with this guy, this guy is sick.

“That's a long time to spend in the dark,” he said.

“At night,” said Peretz, “even with no moon, I can see as well as other people during the day.”

“Remarkable,” said Brank, thinking: this guy needs help, Civil Liberties Union, Legal Aid, Sick People Anonymous, something. “Listen,” he said, “the reason I'm here is this. I have a technical problem that I'd like to discuss with Dr. Brundage. I'm having difficulty with the epoxy in a Yig filter, and I know he's worked on Yig filters. The trouble is I can't get to see him. Every time I get near his office, that secretary says he's busy, and every time I spot him in the hall and ask for an appointment he says ‘See my secretary.' Smo, uh, Sussman-Smolleh said that you might be able to help me out.”

“Well,” said Peretz, and for the first time Brank noticed a trace of foreign accent, a slight slowing and overemphasis of some consonants. “Well, uh, yes. Yes, maybe. I mean, he speaks to me. I can get in to see him. Of course, I don't know if he'll speak to you.”

Peretz's eyelids began to flutter open.

“Would it be possible for you to try?” asked Brank.

“Well,” said Peretz. “Well, I, I, I don't, uh …”

Brank caught the panic, the fear; he knew this man must not be pressed. He changed the subject. “Nice tape recorder you have,” he said, reaching over the desk to finger one of the little reels.

Peretz's eyes were opened fully now. “Mr. Ardway suggested I buy it,” he said.

“Ardway?” said Brank. “What does he have to do with it? If he said to buy it, you probably shouldn't have.”

Peretz looked stunned, and quickly glanced around the room to see if anyone had overheard Brank's remark. Cohen and Hands were both grinning. “He's the Chief Engineer,” whispered Peretz.

“He's a prick,” whispered Brank.

“They'll hear you,” whispered Peretz urgently, looking around.

“They're pricks, too,” whispered Brank loudly.

Peretz looked up, then closed his eyes again.

“Why did he suggest you buy the tape recorder?” said Brank.

“Mr. Brank, I don't mean to be discourteous, but my eyes are starting to bother me again. Maybe we could continue some other time.”

“Look, Mr., uh, Leon, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you. I really am. I didn't mean—”

“You didn't embarrass me, it's just that my eyes—”

“I'm sincerely sorry about it.”

“It's all right.”

“I apologize.”

“No need for that. Maybe some other time we—”

“So why did he suggest the recorder?”

“I really can't discuss it right now. I'm really not—”

“I won't comment on your answer at all. I'm just curious.”

“Mr. Brank, I simply can't get into a long discussion of—”

“All right, just tell me why he made you get the recorder.”

“He didn't make me.”

“Then why did you?”

Peretz sighed and opened his eyes. “He suggested it. He called me in one day and told me he'd like me to give a speech before the
IEEE
Antennas and Propagation group. I told him I couldn't speak in front of a group, I get extremely, extremely … well, I just can't. He said I'd have to do it. He said it was important for Auerbach Labs, important for him, and important for my technical growth and maturity.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said I couldn't do it.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said it would develop my character and make me a better individual. Then he said if I didn't do it, he'd fire me.”

“No doubt to develop your character still further.”

“Then he suggested I buy the tape recorder. He said I should practice talking into it, that getting used to the sound of your own voice is the big obstacle.”

“Have you tried it?” said Brank.

Peretz stared at him for an instant, then turned a knob on the instrument and adjusted it. Brank strained to hear. “Good evening, lad, uh, ladies and, uh, chent, uh, gen, gen, gentlemein, gentlemain. Ve diss, ve vill, tonigh, uh, tonight we will di, di, di, uh, ve—” Peretz turned it off.

Brank looked down. “You know, years ago I went through a period where I was very shy. Extremely so. I don't know what it was. I was so shy I was ashamed to buy Kotex for my wife in the drugstore. At parties, I would stuff garbage into my pockets because I was too timid to ask where the trash can was.”

Peretz's lips were hanging loosely. His eyes seemed glazed. “Once,” he said, “I drank a malted in a luncheonette, a big one served from a big metal container that made several glassfuls. At the bottom of the container, after I'd finished the whole drink, I discovered a water bug. It was over an inch long, and it just lay there with its legs curled. And you know what I did? I just paid for the drink and left, and didn't say anything to anybody. That's what I did. I even left a tip.”

“I once found half a roach in the cake I was eating,” said Brank. “Half. I never told anyone.”

“Yesterday I took a haircut,” said Peretz. “After five minutes the barber whisked off the sheet and said I was through. He'd hardly cut anything at all. I screwed up all my courage and said, ‘Maybe you could take a little more off. Just a tiny bit.' He looked at me for a while, and then he said, ‘You take any more off and it defeats the whole purpose.' You know what I said? I said, ‘Oh.' And then I gave him his money, including, of course, a tip.”

“What did he mean, ‘the whole purpose'?” asked Brank. “You mean barbers have purposes?”

“Everyone has,” said Peretz. “Everyone but me.”

“But I'm not that way anymore, Leon,” said Brank. “I grew out of it, at least I think I did. I grew out of it because I don't care about people that much anymore. That's what it is after all, you know, the shyness, timidness, the fear. It's an obsessive, excessive concern with what people think. Only people who care about others are shy. The louses and sons of bitches in the world are extroverts. Screw everybody, they say to themselves. They don't worry. I'm more like that now, Leon. And it's better, you're better off.”

Peretz nodded slowly. “You're telling me these things because you want me to see Brundage for you, is that right?”

“I'm telling you these things because I feel like it. I also want you to see Brundage. If you don't, you don't. I don't care that much. It's company business and I'm not a company man. The company suffers, I don't give a microshit. If you want my personal advice, you should take that tape recorder, say ‘Fuck you where you breathe' very clearly into it, and leave it on Ardway's desk.”

Peretz stood up slowly, pushed in his chair. “Wait here,” he said, “I'll see what I can do.”

He walked toward Brundage's closed, partitioned office, said a few words to Amelia, whose desk guarded the door, and waited while she disappeared inside. A moment later she emerged and motioned for Peretz to enter.

b. Bargains

Cohen approached Brank as he stood watching. “Still drivin' that pig?” said Cohen.

Brank broke his concentration on Brundage's enclosure and focused on the little man beside him. He knew what Cohen would say. “You mean my Chrysler?” asked Brank innocently.

“It's a pig,” said Cohen. “A terrible, rolling bomb, a disaster on wheels. It's a piece of junk. It's collapsing, unsafe. It's a disgrace for someone in your position, an engineer, a professional, someone earning a decent salary, it's a disgrace to be seen driving that hulk.”

“So?” said Brank.

“So I'll give you fifty for it,” said Cohen. “No questions asked.”

Both of them chuckled. Cohen was a man with a “policy” on everything, whose natural engineering instincts had bloomed into obsessions in certain areas. Before he was married, during the time of his engagement, Cohen had sold car parts and cigarettes to his fiancée—keeping the profits minimal, he'd once explained to Brank, “since she was a good friend.” Now, when his wife bought frivolous things at a store, such as lightbulbs or clothing, Cohen often experienced dizzy spells and had to lie down.

“Hey, next time you see your friend LoParino, thank him for me,” said Cohen. “I tried out his method of partially bypassing the electric power meter and cut my bill in half last month. He's a real genius, your friend.”

“He's crazy,” said Brank, remembering stories he'd heard that Cohen never heated his house unless the outside temperature fell below twenty degrees. You're crazy too, thought Brank, and then he realized that lately nearly everyone had seemed unbalanced in one way or another. Perhaps that was the only way people survived, obsession substituting for motivation.

“Hey, Cohen,” he said, “you still keep your chart?”

Cohen smiled. “How'd you remember that? You're an odd bird, Brank. I never remember those things. Wanna see it?”

He motioned Brank over toward his desk near the door. The top was scrupulously neat; Brank recalled that was another of Cohen's peculiarities. Cohen opened the top drawer and withdrew an oaktag sheet upon which were ruled boxes for each day of the month. In each box were short descriptions followed by sums of money.

“My expenses,” said Cohen. “To the penny.”

Brank scanned the chart, noting items such as “haircut—$1.65, tip—.10,” and “tie—.50.”

“Why must you know your expenses to the penny?” asked Brank.

Cohen thought: he's mocking me, but meanwhile he wishes he could control his life the way I control mine.

“It's a policy I have,” said Cohen. “It helps me see if any area is getting out of hand. My wife's phone bill exceeds the minimum,
pluchah!
—I rip the instrument from the wall. Simple as that.”

“You still steal milk and cookies from the secretarial pool?” asked Brank.

“They don't mind,” said Cohen, grinning.

“Because you're so cute, no doubt,” said Brank.

“I tell them where they can get bargains,” said Cohen. “Also I sell them things cheap, at really small profits, things like jewelry and wallets. I make next to nothing on it. I figure what the hell, they're co-workers, and they're so dumb some of them, I feel sorry, it's a pol—”

“I know, I know,” said Brank. “You're an altruist. It's a policy of yours.” He saw Brundage's door open a crack and he began moving away.

“I'd love to boff that little Franny in Accounting,” said Cohen. “But she's so dumb. I offered her a blouse the other day, a real bargain, and you know what she says? ‘I like it but the price seems exuberant, Bernie.' Those were her exact words. Can you believe it? But I'd love to boff her.”

Brank saw Peretz emerge.

“Listen, I'll give you sixty for the pig,” called Cohen. “My final offer.”

c. “
If
You're Busy, I'll Come Back”

After the break, Brundage had signed some purchase orders for new equipment, and then spent the afternoon as usual in adolescent mooning over Christine. He recalled how he'd first hired her as a technician, someone to vacuum-deposit and sputter the thin chemical films he conceived, and how excellent her work had been right from the first day. He hadn't paid her much attention at the beginning, noticing only that she kept a carefully organized notebook, until Hands had come in with the results of her first films.

“She keeps a neat book,” Brundage had observed.

“She has big tits,” observed Hands, the huge, bald, black technician.