Look at the Birdie (4 page)

“This is my very first minute of my very first hour of my very first day of my very first job,” said Francine, her eyes shining.

“That so?” said Fuzz.

“Yes,” said Francine. In all innocence, Francine Pefko now spoke a simple sentence that was heartbreakingly poetic to Fuzz. The sentence reminded Fuzz, with the ruthlessness of great poetry, that his basic misgivings about Francine were not occupational but erotic.

What Francine said was this:
“I came here straight from the Girl Pool.”
In speaking of the Girl Pool, she was doing no
more than giving the proper name to the reception and assignment center maintained by the company for new woman employees.

But when Fuzz heard those words, his mind whirled with images of lovely young women like Francine, glistening young women, rising from cool, deep water, begging aggressive, successful young men to woo them. In Fuzz’s mind, the desirable images all passed him by, avoided his ardent glances. Such beautiful creatures would have nothing to do with a man who was fubar.

Fuzz looked at Francine uneasily. Not only was she, so fresh and desirable from the Girl Pool, going to discover that her supervisor had a very poor job. She was going to conclude, as well, that her supervisor wasn’t much of a man at all.

The normal morning workload in the General Company Response Section was about fifteen letters. On the morning that Francine Pefko joined the operation, however, there were only three letters to be answered.

One letter was from a man in a mental institution. He claimed to have squared the circle. He wanted a hundred thousand dollars and his freedom for having done it. Another letter was from a ten-year-old who wanted to pilot the first rocket ship to Mars. The third was from a lady who complained that she could not keep her dachshund from barking at her GF&F vacuum cleaner.

By ten o’clock, Fuzz and Francine had disposed of all three letters. Francine filed the three letters and carbons of Fuzz’s gracious replies. The filing cabinet was otherwise empty. The General Company Response Section had lost all its old files in the Building 181 fire.

Now there was a lull.

Francine could hardly clean her typewriter, since her typewriter was brand new. Fuzz could hardly make busywork of shuffling gravely through papers, since he had only one paper in his desk. That one paper was a terse notice to the effect that all supervisors were to crack down hard on coffee breaks.

“That’s all for right now?” said Francine.

“Yes,” said Fuzz. He searched her face for signs of derision. So far there were none. “You—you happened to pick a slack morning,” he said.

“What time does the mailman come?” said Francine.

“Mail service doesn’t come out this far,” said Fuzz. “When I come to work in the morning, and again when I come back from lunch, I pick up our mail at the company post office.”

“Oh,” said Francine.

The leaking showerheads next door suddenly decided to inhale noisily. And then, their nasal passages seemingly cleared, they resumed their dribbling once more.

“Is it real busy around here sometimes, Mr. Littler?” said Francine, and she shuddered because the idea of being thrillingly busy pleased her so much.

“Busy enough,” said Fuzz.

“When do the people come out here, and what do we do for them?” said Francine.

“People?” said Fuzz.

“Isn’t this public relations?” said Francine.

“Yes—” said Fuzz.

“Well, when does the public come?” said Francine, looking down at her eminently presentable self.

“I’m afraid the public doesn’t come out this far,” said Fuzz. He felt like a host at the longest, dullest party imaginable.

“Oh,” said Francine. She looked up at the one window in the office. The window, eight feet above the floor, afforded a view of the underside of a candy wrapper in an areaway. “What about the people we work with?” she said. “Do they rush in and out of here all day?”

“I’m afraid we don’t work with anybody else, Miss Pefko,” said Fuzz.

“Oh,” said Francine.

There was a terrific bang from a steam pipe upstairs. The huge radiator in the tiny office began to hiss and spit.

“Why don’t you read your pamphlets, Miss Pefko,” said Fuzz. “Maybe that would be a good thing to do,” he said.

Francine nodded, eager to please. She started to smile, thought better of it. The crippled smile was Francine’s first indication that she found her new place of employment something less than gay. She frowned slightly, read her pamphlets.

Fuzz whistled reedily, the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

The clock on the wall clicked. Every thirty seconds it clicked, and its minute hand twitched forward microscopically. An hour and fifty-one minutes remained until lunchtime.

“Huh,” said Francine, commenting on something she’d read.

“Pardon me?” said Fuzz.

“They have dances here every Friday night—right in this building,” said Francine, looking up. “That’s how come
they’ve got it all so decorated up upstairs,” she said. She was referring to the fact that Japanese lanterns and paper streamers were strung over the basketball court. The mood of the next dance was apparently going to be rural, for there was a real haystack in one corner, and pumpkins and farm implements and sheaves of corn stalks were arranged with artistic carelessness along the walls.

“I love to dance,” said Francine.

“Um,” said Fuzz. He had never danced.

“Do you and your wife dance a lot, Mr. Littler?” said Francine.

“I’m not married,” said Fuzz.

“Oh,” said Francine. She blushed, pulled in her chin, resumed her reading. When her blushing faded, she looked up again. “You bowl, Mr. Littler?” she said.

“No,” said Fuzz quietly, tautly. “I don’t dance. I don’t bowl. I’m afraid I don’t do much of anything, Miss Pefko, but take care of my mother, who’s been sick for years.”

Fuzz closed his eyes. What he contemplated within the purple darkness of his eyelids was what he considered the cruelest fact of life—that sacrifices were
really
sacrifices. In caring for his mother, he had lost a great deal.

Fuzz was reluctant to open his eyes, for he knew that what he would see in Francine’s face would not please him. What he would see in Francine’s heavenly face, he knew, would be the paltriest of all positive emotions, which is respect. And mixed with that respect, inevitably, would be a wish to be away from a man who was so unlucky and dull.

The more Fuzz thought about what he would see when he opened his eyes, the less willing he was to open them. The
clock on the wall clicked again, and Fuzz knew that he could not stand to have Miss Pefko watch him for even another thirty seconds.

“Miss Pefko,” he said, his eyes still closed, “I don’t think you’ll like it here.”

“What?” said Francine.

“Go back to the Girl Pool, Miss Pefko,” said Fuzz. “Tell them about the freak you found in the basement of Building 523. Demand a new assignment.”

Fuzz opened his eyes.

Francine was pale and rigid. She shook her head slightly, incredulous, scared. “You—you don’t like me, Mr. Littler?” she said.

“That has nothing to do with it!” said Fuzz, standing. “Just clear out of here for your own good!”

Francine stood, too, still shaking her head.

“This is no place for a pretty, clever, ambitious, charming little girl like you,” said Fuzz unevenly. “Stay here and you’ll rot!”

“Rot?” echoed Francine.

“Rot like me,” said Fuzz. In a jangling jumble of words he poured out the story of his fubar life. And then, beet red and empty, he turned his back on Francine. “Good-bye, Miss Pefko,” he said, “it’s been extremely nice knowing you.”

Francine nodded wincingly. She said nothing. Blinking hard and often, she gathered up her things and left.

Fuzz sat down at his desk again, his head in his hands. He listened to Miss Pefko’s fading footfalls, awaited the great, echoing
ka-boom
that would tell him Francine had left his life forever.

He waited and he waited and he waited for the
ka-boom
.
And he supposed, finally, that he had been cheated out of that symbolic sound, that Francine had managed to close the door noiselessly.

And then he heard music.

The music Fuzz heard was a recording of a popular song, cheap and foolish. But, turned back on itself by the countless echo chambers of Building 523, the music was mysterious, dreamlike, magical.

Fuzz followed the music upstairs. He found its source, a large phonograph set against one wall of the gym. He smiled bleakly. The music, then, had been a little farewell present from Francine.

He let the record play to the end, and then he turned it off. He sighed, let his gaze travel over the decorations and playthings.

If he had raised his eyes to the level of the balcony, he would have seen that Francine hadn’t left the building yet. She was sitting in the front row of the balcony, her arms resting on the pipe railing.

But Fuzz did not look up. In what he believed to be privacy, he tried a melancholy dance step or two—without hope.

And then Francine spoke to him. “Did it help?” she said. Fuzz looked up, startled.

“Did it help?” she said again.

“Help?” said Fuzz.

“Did the music make you any happier?” said Francine.

Fuzz found the question one he couldn’t answer promptly.

Francine didn’t wait for an answer. “I thought maybe music would make you a little happier,” she said. She shook
her head. “I don’t mean I thought it could solve anything. I just thought it would maybe—” She shrugged. “You know—maybe help a little.”

“That’s—that’s very thoughtful of you,” said Fuzz.

“Did it help?” said Francine.

Fuzz thought about it, gave an honest, hesitant answer. “Yes—” he said. “I—I guess it did, a little.”

“You could have music all the time,” said Francine. “There’s tons of records. I thought of something else that could help, too.”

“Oh?” said Fuzz.

“You could go swimming,” said Francine.

“Swimming?” said Fuzz, amazed.

“Sure,” said Francine. “Be just like a Hollywood movie star with his own private swimming pool.”

Fuzz smiled at her for the first time in their relationship. “Someday I just might do that,” he said.

Francine leaned out over the railing. “Why someday?” she said. “If you’re so blue, why don’t you go swimming right now?”

“On company time?” said Fuzz.

“There isn’t anything you can do for the company now anyway, is there?” said Francine.

“No,” said Fuzz.

“Then go on,” said Francine.

“No suit,” said Fuzz.

“Don’t wear a suit,” said Francine. “Skinny-dip. I won’t peek, Mr. Littler. I’ll stay right here. You’ll feel
so
good, Mr. Littler.” Francine now showed Fuzz a side of herself that he hadn’t seen before. It was harsh and strong. “Or maybe you shouldn’t go swimming, Mr. Littler,” she said unpleasantly.

“Maybe you like being unhappy so much, you wouldn’t do anything to change it.”

Fuzz stood on the edge of the swimming pool at the deep end, looked down into eleven feet of cool water. He was stark naked, feeling scrawny, pale, and a fool. He thought he was surely a fool for having become the plaything of the logic of an eighteen-year-old.

Pride made Fuzz turn his back on the water. He started for the locker room, but Francine’s logic turned him around again. The cool, deep water undeniably represented pleasure and well-being. If he refused to throw himself into all that chlorinated goodness, then he really was a contemptible thing, a man who enjoyed being miserable.

In he went.

The cool, deep water did not fail him. It shocked him delightfully, stripped away his feelings of paleness and scrawniness. When Fuzz came to the surface after his first plunge, his lungs were filled with a mixture of laughter and shouts. He barked like a dog.

Fuzz gloried in the echoes of the barking, so he barked some more. And then he heard answering barks, much higher in pitch, and far away. Francine could hear him and was barking back at him through the ventilator system.

“Does it help?” she called.

“Yes!” Fuzz yelled back, without hesitation or restraint.

“How’s the water?” said Francine.

“Wonderful!” yelled Fuzz. “Once you get in.”

Fuzz went upstairs to the first floor of the gym again, fully dressed, tingling, virile. Again there was music to lead him on.

Francine was dancing in her stocking feet on the basketball court, gravely, respecting the grace God had given her.

Factory whistles blew outside—some near, some far, all mournful.

“Lunchtime,” said Fuzz, turning off the phonograph. “Already?” said Francine. “It came so fast.”

“Something very peculiar has happened to time,” said Fuzz.

“You know,” said Francine, “you could become bowling champion of the company, if you wanted to.”

“I never bowled in my life,” said Fuzz.

“Well, you can now,” said Francine. “You can bowl to your heart’s content. In fact, you could become an all-round athlete, Mr. Littler. You’re still young.”

“Maybe,” said Fuzz.

“I found a whole bunch of dumbbells in the corner,” said Francine. “Every day you could work with them a little till you were just as strong as a bull.”

Fuzz’s toned-up muscles tightened and twisted pleasurably, asking to be as strong as the muscles of a bull. “Maybe,” said Fuzz.

“Oh, Mr. Littler,” said Francine beseechingly, “do I really have to go back to the Girl Pool? Can’t I stay here? Whenever there’s any work to do, I’ll be the best secretary any man ever had.”

“All right,” said Fuzz, “stay.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” said Francine. “I think this must be the best place in the whole company to work.”

“That may well be,” said Fuzz wonderingly. “I—I don’t suppose you’d have lunch with me?”

“Oh, I can’t today, Mr. Littler,” she said. “I’m awfully sorry.”

“I suppose you have a boyfriend waiting for you somewhere,” said Fuzz, suddenly glum again.

“No,” said Francine. “I have to go shopping. I want to get a bathing suit.”

“I guess I’d better get one, too,” said Fuzz.