What Is All This? (23 page)

David returned to their home the next morning and got right down to writing the letters. The Peartrees already had a long list of the names and addresses of the companies he was to write to, so what he had to do was think up something wrong with the company's product, begin the letter with a brief, courteous description of what the difficulty was, mention that she (Mrs. O'Connell) had never written a letter like this before, make no monetary demands or threats about possible law suits but just say that she wanted to “bring this oversight to the attention of your organization, as I'm quite sure you'd want me to do.” Then he was to sign her best wishes and name, and in a postscript, assure the company that “although my five daughters and I are slightly less confident of your product these days, we bear no grudges against you, realize that big institutions as well as small individuals can make mistakes, and that we've no plans to stop using your product in the future.”

Working an eight-to-five shift, it took David three days to complete these letters, all typed on personally engraved stationery, with Mrs. O'Connell's name and the Peartrees' address, that Georgie had a printer friend run off. The first letter, to a big soap company in Chicago, took him more than two hours to compose and type. The letter suggested that one of its employees—“perhaps an anarchist or somebody, though with jobs being as hard to get now as they are, I'm hardly the one to place a person's work in jeopardy—had substituted sand for soap powder in your jumbo-size box of Flashy which, if you must know, ruined my almost-new washing machine and an estimated value of $296 worth of clothes.”

After the first few letters, he became more adept at grinding out these lies and was able to knock off a new one every fifteen minutes. One went to the president of the country's largest canned-soup company: “Unbelievable as this may sound, sir—and because of its importance, I'm directing this letter to you—the bottom half of a white mouse was found in a can of your cream-of-chicken soup, which, when dumped into the pot, gave my aging mother such a fright that she's been under heavy sedation ever since.” Another letter went to a chocolate company in Georgia that, in its magazine ads, prided, itself on its cleanliness: “You can imagine our shock, gentlemen, when we discovered, after removing the wrapper of our family's favorite candy for more than thirty years, that your milk-chocolate bar had teeth marks in it and a tiny end square bitten off.” And about a hundred other letters, all quite civil and somewhat squeamish, all initially self-critical for even thinking of writing this giant reputable company in the first place, all very crafty and subtle, David thought, in getting his main message across: that in one ugly or harmful way or another, the product had caused considerable psychic or physical damage and Mrs. O'Connell wanted some kind of indemnification.

When the letters had been read, edited and approved by the Peartrees, and a number of them retyped by David, they thanked him for a job well done, gave him his wages and a ten dollar bonus for the quick efficient way he had handled his chores and, like his closest uncle and aunt always did, waved goodbye to him from their front steps as his car pulled away. He drove home, merrily humming a peppy tune along with the car radio and convinced that he'd done the only right thing for himself in going along with their scheme. Now, with a clear mind and seventy extra dollars, he could resume collecting his friend's unemployment checks without fear of being caught, with that money complete his master's thesis on Henry James, whose work he disliked but at least understood, and begin applying to English departments of the better universities for a teaching assistantship as he went on for his Ph.D. He had a good life ahead of him—the academic life, which was the only one he could contend with and still be financially secure.

A month later, Sylvia called, asking in the most gentle of motherly voices if he'd care to drop by one afternoon that week for homemade peanut-butter cookies and tea. When he refused, saying how much he appreciated the offer but was too tied down in completing his thesis to even go out for the more essential groceries, she said “Lookit, you jerk. You drag that fat butt of yours right over here, or my next call's going to be to the state unemployment commissioner himself.”

“Call him,” David said. “And the head of the F.B.I., while you're at it. But remember; Whatever you have on me goes double for you and Georgie-boy with your mail scheme.”

“What mail scheme? That was
your
scheme, Davy, if you don't know it by now. We got two God-fearing respectable witnesses, me and Mr. Peartree, who'll swear under oath that you threatened us with force to use our home to accept your goodies from all those companies and then to even buy them from you, which is why they're in our house. Those were your signatures, your words that went into those letters, because we sure don't have the brains and education for that kind of prose. You couldn't pin a thing on us without going to prison for twenty years yourself, which doesn't even account for how much time you'd get for your unemployment insurance theft. So, how about it? You going to take down our new address and zip the hell out here, or do I make my next call to that state commissioner, police or F.B.I.?”

The Peartrees lived in a much better neighborhood now, David observed as he drove along their street. And entering their home, Sylvia bowing him in with a wily grin as if she never had any doubts about him rushing over, he was surprised by the number of boxes and cartons in the living room of so many of the products he'd written about in his letters for them. Flour, sugar, fruit juice, canned soup, cellophane tape that wouldn't stick, alkalizers that wouldn't fizz, ballpoint pens that leaked onto eighty-dollar blouses with the first stroke, linens that tore apart in the first wash—enough food staples and home supplies to keep them going for a good year, as Sylvia had said.

“But no money to speak of, those misers,” she said after conducting a tour of the four other rooms, each of them almost furnitureless but with enough boxes and cartons of linens and food and cleaning products to make them look like the storage room of a small neighborhood grocery store.

Though what we got we owe all to you,” Georgie said. “Some smart boy you are, Davy, And my Sylvia's some great judge of people, in choosing you.”

David told them to stop buttering him up with such ridiculous bull jive and level with him straight off why they summoned him here.

“So, feeling a bit ballsier than before, eh?” Sylvia said. “Okay. We've another deal you might be interested in.” When he flapped his hands at her to forget it, she said “Only one more; we're not gluttons. Now take a load off your feet and let me speak.” While Georgie prepared him a Scotch sour, Sylvia explained that with all this food around, they still hadn't a good stove to cook it on or even a decent bed to put their new linens on, so all they were asking of him was to steal the day's receipts of a movie theater they had in mind, which would be enough money to buy the big-ticket items they need and keep them going for a while.

“Oh, just a small theater,” she quickly said when he jumped up from the couch and headed for the door. “And not the box office itself, which would be too risky. All you do is approach this little squirt of a manager from behind, ask him into an alley, take his money satchel, which he's on his way to night-deposit, and bring it here. The way we planned it, he'll never even see your face; and then you get a hundred for your labor and we say our final goodbyes.”

“It'd be impossible,” he said. “I'd be petrified, too scared out of my wits to say a word,” and he turned away from them and, unable to control himself any longer, started to cry into his sleeve. But they saw right through his ruse, he thought, glancing up, even though he was weeping real tears. When he was finished, had wiped his eyes, having made sure to irritate them, and after Sylvia had restated what they had on him, he said he might go through with it if they didn't insist he use a gun. “I'd rather go to prison than terrify some innocent guy with a weapon. I'm sorry, but that's how I am.”

Around one that evening, Georgie drove him to a bar in a nearby suburban town, bought a couple of beers and, from the bar window, pointed across the street to a very short fat man leaving a darkened movie theater. The man was holding a black bag, which Georgie said contained about six thousand in ones, fives, tens and twenties—“None of it traceable. And no heavy change, either, which he leaves in the theater. We also understand this idiot refuses to call the local police station for an escort, since he doesn't like shelling out the customary twenty bucks tip they expect for the four-block ride. Now watch him, Davy. At the end of the street, he went left, though if he wasn't in such a hurry, he'd continue along the better-lit avenues to reach the bank. Halfway up that shortcut is an alley, which we'll want you to suddenly pop out of, say a few standard, words about his money or his life, take the bag, order him to lie on his belly and then impress upon him to stay put and silent for five minutes maximum or by the time he gets home he'll have found that an accomplice of yours had done some terrible things to his family. It's all very simple. And once you get back with the bag and we see you haven't opened it—we have ways—we promise, and you have my solemn oath for both Syl and myself, to leave you in peace for the rest of your life.”

David told him that if he was able to draw up the necessary courage to carry out such an act, he'd do it tomorrow. He knew the Peartrees were sure he'd go through with it. And in a month—if all went well, and the theft seemed simple and quick enough if everything was like they said—his thesis would be done, he already had offers from two good Eastern schools for assistantships while he earned his doctorate, and again that idyllic image of his future appeared; David as teaching assistant for three years, then instructor, assistant professor and ultimately as a full professor pulling down a nice sum at a job at which he only had to put in about twelve hours a week, besides all the long vacations and breaks and paid sabbaticals and research and travel grants. Considering all this, he didn't feel one night's scary episode was too great a sacrifice to make to help him realize these goals. And he was twenty-five, too advanced an age to have to start at a new profession from the beginning.

The next night, David, sweating profusely and shivering, could barely stand straight by the time the manager, holding the black bag and with a sunny after-work smile, came waddling up the sidestreet. When he was adjacent to the alley, David stepped out behind him and said—louder than he'd planned, though no one else was on the street—“All right, fella, if you're wise you'll hand over that…I mean…what I'm saying, fella, is…just give me that damn bag already, you big fool—you know what the hell I mean. Keep your eyes shut and in front and your face on the ground.”

The manager swiveled around, just when Sylvia's Venus mask slipped below David's chin, and called him a disgrace to everything good in life and then tugged at the bag David was trying to wrestle out of his hands. David, not knowing what else to do but realizing that, small and slight as he was, he was still a half foot taller and much stronger than the man, slammed him in the mouth, which sent him sprawling. The manager threw the bag at him, curled himself up and said “I want to die, I want to die this very instant,” and began sobbing. David patted his head. “Look, I'm sorry, but this money's not even for me. I had to do it. They're after me. My whole life depends on it. I've kids and everything else to take care of. Just keep quiet and stay here a few minutes and don't say you saw my face, and I swear everything will be okay,” and he ran out of the alley, got into his car at the end of the street, and drove to the Peartrees'.

The total take of the robbery came to a little more than two thousand. Georgie said “I told Sylvia to tell you we should wait till Wednesday, when the show changes and every lonely dud in the area goes to the movies. But no. She's always got to have her way.”

“Maybe the manager's been cheating on the owners,” Sylvia said.

“You also get his wallet, Davy?”

David was still shaking from the robbery, and flashlike images of that tiny man curled up on the ground and bawling made him so depressed that he had to stretch out on the couch, “What you say—wallet? Never a wallet. Wasn't asked and wouldn't do. Would've been too much like a real crime.”

She stuck a hundred dollar bill in his shirt pocket and told him to forget it. “It's over, done with. Your first is always your worst. Fortunately, this one's your last. Now, drink up this nice brandy Alexander Georgie made for you, and let's call it a night.”

Before leaving, David asked them to promise they'd never contact him again. “If you do, I'm calling the cops myself. I don't care anymore. Prison would be infinitely preferable to going through another night like this. That poor man, lying there like that.”

That fat disgusting thief,” Sylvia said. “I'm sure a few hundred dollars of the receipts are in his wallet right now. Anyway, we earned enough, so you'll never hear from us again. And to prove how sincere we are, I'll get the Bible for Georgie and I to swear on,” but he told her not to bother.

David changed his residence that week. Without telling the landlady where he was going, he rented a one-room cabin on someone's dilapidated ranch in the hills overlooking the campus. Working without letup, he finished his thesis in a few weeks and so now stayed in the area only till the English Department gave the work its approval. His friend had returned from Paris much earlier than expected and resumed collecting his own unemployment insurance. For money, David now worked as a bartender in one of the beer joints that serviced the college community. Two months after he'd last seen the Peartrees, they turned up at the Oasis, took two counter seats and asked David, whom they greeted as if he were just another well-thought-of bartender, for a large pitcher of beer and two cheeseburgers, medium rare.