The Franchiser (35 page)

“Water under the bridge,” Sigmund-Rudolf said.

“Angry? Furious?”

“He doesn’t understand,” Patty said.

“Of course not. How could he?”

“No.”

“No,” Ben said. “I don’t think I do.”

“We were
identical
, Ben,” Noël said.

“Identical,” said Maxene. “Human MIRV’s blooming from a single shaft.”

“As like as grapes on a cluster.”

“Identical.”

“Who gave the lie to snowflakes.”

“To fingerprints.”

“To keys on pianos.”

“If one of us boys had died, only another of us could have made the identification.”

“We would ask, ‘Are you here, Gus-Ira?’ ‘Are
you
here, Cole?’ ”

“Calling the roll.”

“Subtracting from nine.”

“That’s how we’d work it.”

“I could have identified you,” Ben said.

“Identical.”

“Homogenized as milk.”

“Of course we were angry.”

“Certainly we were furious.”

“Because”

“when Lotte took”

“her life”

“it was like saying”

“we”

“all would.”

“We shoved her in the plot.”

“And left her grave unmarked.”

“We were so
mad
.”

“Then when Mama died and we returned for the funeral”

“we saw that we’d changed,”

“grown apart.”

“It was silly to stay angry. We were different now anyway. What Lotte did,”

“there was no guarantee”

“that we’d do”

“too.”

“And besides”

“we hadn’t,”

“had we?”

“So we counted Lotte’s death”

“starting from then”

“and waited a year”

“and counted Mama’s death starting from”

“the anniversary”

“of Lotte’s.”

“And waited a year.”

“A double stone ceremony.”

“Because that was only fitting.”

“Because Mama herself always did everything”

“by twos or threes.”

“I didn’t know any of this,” Ben said.

“Well, there you are,” Oscar said.

“Sure,” said Jerome.

“How could you?” one of the boys and one of the girls asked.

“I was your godcousin,” Ben said. “I was closer to you than I am to my own sister.”

“Good old Ben,” one of the girls and one of the boys said. They looked at him.

Of course, he thought, if they had grown apart from each other, then how much further must they have grown apart from him? It was like his eighteen hundred miles compared to their trip around the world. So that’s what it was, a question of family. That’s why the girls had let him sleep with them, why it made no difference finally to the boys. He recalled Julius’s last words to him. He
wasn’t
one of them.

“So, Ben,” Jerome said, “how’s business?”

“What?”

“Business. How’s business? What do you make of the economy?”

“The economy?”

“We’d like to hear your side of things, get your viewpoint.”

“We would, Ben,” Sigmund-Rudolf said. And, oddly, those who weren’t already sitting hurried to take seats. Only Ben was standing.

“Give us the lowdown.”

“The view from the field.”

“We want to hear just what you think. Would you mind?”

“Well, I—”

“Just how bad do you think it really is?”

“How much worse—”

“Hush. Let Ben tell it.”

“Go ahead, Ben.”

“Yes, Ben. Go ahead. Tell us. How’s business?”

And he told them.

What did he tell them? What could he tell them? That after all these years, after his years at Wharton and his time on the road, after all the deals he had done, the profits turned like revolving doors, and his negotiations with banks, writing and reading letters of intent, contracts, after paying due bills and collecting debts, after picking his people and selecting his locations, and learning his several dozen trades and making what had come to be, starting from scratch, from the G.I. Bill and the serendipitous fillip of his godfather’s fortunate deathbed shove, his money, that—well, that he knew nothing of business, that he was no businessman but only another consumer, like them, he supposed, like anyone. A franchiser. A fellow who had chewed such and such a hamburger—McDonald’s, Burger King, A & W, Big Boy—at such and such a lunchtime, who licked such and such an ice cream—Howard Johnson’s, Baskin-Robbins, Carvel, Mister Softee—during such and such a heat spell or when this or that drive for something sweet had struck him, gratuitous as pain or melancholy, who sought out this or that gasoline station—Shell, Texaco, Sunoco, Gulf—when the gas gauge on one or another of his Cadillacs had been more or less on Empty (as his stomach had been more or less on Empty, as his sweet tooth), who lay down in such and so a motel—Best Western, Holiday Inn, Ramada, Travelodge—when his body had been empty of energy and his spirit of all will save the will to rest, squinting through the dusk and darkness at the sign shining above the Interstates. Who came to sell, almost always, what he had already first used, tried, bought himself—not excepting the Jacuzzi Whirlpool, not excepting the stereo tape deck in his automobile, not excepting the One Hour Martinizing that cleaned his lonely laundry, not excepting the Robo-Wash that bruised the dirt from his car—and all of it testimonial to nothing finally but his needs, to need itself. So they were asking the wrong fellow. He was no businessman. They were asking the wrong fellow. He was not in trade. Or if he was, then it was only because he did business as some people painted pictures—by the numbers. It was already there, all of it, all of them. “The greeting card,” he said, “was invented for me. There’s no franchise,” he pointed out, “called Flesh’s.”

“Skip it, Godcousin,” Cole said. “How’s business? When’s the economy going to turn around? What about the prime rate? What’s with the energy crisis?”

“Oh,” Ben Flesh said, “the economy, the prime rate, the energy crisis.”

“Are you businessman enough to tell us something about that stuff at least?”

“That stuff, yes. But not because I’m businessman enough. The economy is spooked. There’s a curse on free enterprise. The prime rate grows big as shoe sizes in large men’s closets. Ten, ten and a half. Eleven.”

“You don’t see it coming down?”

“Like a belt buckled by someone troubled by his weight. On a diet. Off it. This hole one month”—he touched his belt—“this one”—he moved his finger toward the buckle—“the next. It makes no difference. I don’t understand the prime rate. But it makes no difference.
I
don’t think so.”

“You were left the prime rate.”

And that, he saw, was what frightened them. “Yes.”

“That was your inheritance.”

“Yes. I know. Yes. I don’t understand about it. It’s only a decision. Thinking makes it so. It doesn’t mean much. Hard money, soft. I don’t know. It’s only an attitude. Don’t you think so?” He was very tired. If they were going to the unveiling he wished they’d go. He too. That would be something to see. Lotte’s stone. Estelle’s. He had to ask them something.

“When I die,” he said.

“What?”

Hadn’t they heard him? He had probably spoken too softly. “I say,” he said, “when I
die
—I know we haven’t talked about this—To tell you the truth, I haven’t even thought about it—When I die, could I be buried with the Finsbergs? In your plot? I have no place to go. I mean,” he said, “it’d be a hell of a thing if I had to be stowed in my accountant’s office.—You know? I’d like it, I’d like it stipulated that I could lie with you people.”

“Gee, Ben,” Lorenz said, “that’s a hell of a thing to say. I mean, why do you want to talk like that? Die, lie with us? I mean, what kind of crap is that supposed to be? You’ll dance on our graves.”

“Like Fred Astaire,” Ben said.

“Come on, what’s this horseshit?” Oscar said.

“I have no place to
go
,” Ben wailed. “I understood your questions about business. I know my name isn’t Finsberg. I know you’re troubled by the prime rates, what your dad did. His putting you under an obligation to me. You don’t have to worry about that.—I’d buy the plot.—I’d pay whatever…You guys are in my will. My sister is. I’m closer to you. My parents are under the ground in Chicago. I’ve known you longer. I could make it a condition of my will. I wouldn’t do that. Why do I say a thing like that? You’ll get the money anyway. I swear to you. I just thought—”

“Don’t be so damned morbid,” Gus-Ira said irritably. “What’s this talk about dying? What’s this horseshit about burials?”

“I want you to promise,” Ben said. “What about it?”

“Once you’re dead what difference does it make?” Noël said. “I don’t see what difference it makes. I mean,
I
don’t care. They can burn me for all I care. Maybe I’ll give my body to science. What are you worried about? Once you’re—”

“
What about it?
” Ben demanded.

“Well, it’s just that this isn’t the time,” Moss said quietly.

“For Christ’s sake,” Patty said, “the Finsberg plot’s big as a fucking football field. Lie with me.”

“Patty,” LaVerne said.

“He lies with me,” Patty said. “That’s a good idea. I want that,” Patty said. “Lie with me. Ben lies with me. You got that?
You got that, you sons of bitches?
” she screamed at her brothers. She took Ben’s hand. He said something she couldn’t make out. “What? What’s that?”

“I said,” he said, “I want to talk business. I’m no businessman, but I know all there is to know. I want you to know, too. I’m talking to
you
, Noël. I’m talking to Cole and Gus-Ira and Oscar and Sigmund-Rudolf and Moss and Lorenz. You, Jerome, I’m talking to
you
. Because I see what it is here. Lotte’s dead—Estelle. I see what it is here. The men have the votes.”

“The votes,” Sigmund-Rudolf said, “oh,
please
.”

“The men have the
votes
,” Ben said. “I’m answerable to the corporation. All right. You want to know about business? You want to be filled in, I’ll fill you in. The economy. All right. The energy crisis…There isn’t enough.”

“Come on, Ben,” Lorenz said.

“I’m talking energy,” Ben said. “There isn’t enough. There isn’t enough in the world to run the world. There
never
was. How could there be? The world is a miracle, history’s and the universe’s long shot. It runs uphill. It’s a miracle. Drive up and down in it as I do. Look close at it. See its moving parts, its cranes and car parks and theater districts. It can’t be. It could never have happened. It’s a miracle. I see it but I don’t believe it. The housing projects, for God’s sake, the trolley tracks and side streets, all the equipment on runways, all the crap on docks. Refineries, containers for oil, water tanks on their high tees like immense golf balls. The complicated ports with their forklift trucks and winches. All the hawsers, tackle, sheets, and guys. All the braided, complex cable. All the gantry, all the plinth. The jacks and struts all the. The planet’s rigging like knots in shoes. The joists and girders, trivets, chocks. Oh, oh, the unleavened world. Groan and groan against the gravity in stuff.
How’s business?
How’s dead weight? Archimedes, thou shouldst be living at this hour! How do we handle the barbell earth? With levers and pulleys and derricks and hoists. With bucket brigades of Egyptian Jews tossing up pyramids stone by stone. How’s
business?
They’re not hiring in Stonehenge, they’re laying them off in the Easter Isles. How’s industry? Very heavy.

“Where shall we get the churches, how shall we have the money for the schools and the symphonies and stadia, for the sweet water and railroads, all the civilized up-front vigorish that attracts industry and pulls the big money?

“It ain’t in me. I couldn’t have made the world. I couldn’t have imagined it. My God, I can barely live in it.

“Though it may be a franchiser, I think, who’ll save us. Kiss off the neighborhood grocers and corner druggists and little shoemakers. A franchiser. Yes. Speaking some Esperanto of simple need, answering appetite with convenience foods. Some Howard Johnson yet to be.

“But I don’t know. There isn’t enough energy to drive my body. How can there be enough to run Akron?”

“Oh, Ben.”

“But I may lie with you? You heard her, Cole; you’re a witness, Lorenz. I may tuck in with Patty. I have her word.”

“You have her word,” one of them said.

“What’s all this shit about dying?” Ben said. “For God’s sake, cheer up, we’re going to an unveiling.”

They did not withdraw their pledge, their father’s pledge, to guarantee the prime rate. Though he had to pledge not to test them—in truth, he had rarely done so, except at the beginning—and when he left Riverdale nothing had really changed. Though he knew he had been given warning, was on notice, posted ground, thin ice. The boys had the votes.

2

He resumed his tour, his businessman’s Grand Rounds. From Oklahoma City he went to Amarillo, Texas, from Amarillo to Gallup, New Mexico, and then to Albuquerque. He did Salt Lake City and Elko, Nevada (where he made a two-hundred-mile dogleg to Boise to trade in his car for a ’75), and pushed on, Cadillac West, to Sacramento, California. Up through Oregon he traveled—Eugene, Portland—and climbing Washington—Seattle, Bellingham. Resting there, breathless, slouching along the broken coastline’s broken jaw like the underedge of a key. It was now high summer.

Never, having told the Finsbergs that he was no businessman, was he one more consummately. At a time when the country was dragging the river for its economy, when inflation and stagflation and depression were general, he calmly carried on his shuttle finance.

Nor am I talking merely about money now. For if I told the Finsbergs that I was no businessman, at least one of the things I meant was that it was money I had never properly understood. By which I mean coveted in sums large enough to make a difference. By which I mean rich. By which I mean so many things: seeking the tax shelters like lost caves, Northwest Passage, the hidden, swift currents, all those fiscal Gulf Streams that warm the cold places and make fools of the latitudes, topsy-turvying climate with the palm trees of Dublin and Vancouver’s moderated winters. Swiss banking my currency, anonymating it behind the peculiar laws of foreign government. Hedging against inflation with diamonds, gold, pictures, land. Seeking hobby farms or going where the subsidies were, the depletion allowances, all loophole’s vested, venerable kickbacks. Though I am not disparaging, have never disparaged, the value of money and understand full well, understand with the best of them—the richest and poorest—that peculiar sensation of loss and even insult concomitant with—not picking up checks; that’s never bothered me; no, nor getting stuck with the bad end of an unequal division, paying for wine I didn’t drink, splitting down the middle the cost of appetizers or desserts I never ordered, the lion’s share of the food going to the couple I am with (I am alone) but paying anyway, dollar for dollar, as if what is being paid for is a wedding gift one goes in on with a pal or a present for a secretary in the office, say, who’s going to Europe for the first time; and not even
purchase
, springing for an admired but overpriced jacket or shirt, yet feeling anyway because I
do
admire it, that I have gotten the best of it somehow, have only given money and gotten goods, fabric—the
leakage
of money: the terrible disruption of sensibility if, in a taxi, in the dark I have mistaken a ten for a five or a five for a single. Or breaking a fifty or even a twenty, disturbing the high, powerful round numbers of currency, and feeling actually wounded, or at least unpleasantly moved, irritated, insulted, as I say, suffering inordinately, as if from a paper cut or a chip of live cigarette dropped on my skin. Mourning like God my lost black-sheep bucks. Getting nothing for something’s what’s terrible. Misplacing change or not being able to account for twelve dollars which I knew I had. Oh awful, awful. Ruined, wiped out. A hole in my substance.