The Ink Truck Page 10

  “Pedal now,” she said. “Moooooo.”

  Bailey pedaled and the toro machine coupled like a freight car with the cow frame, the pizzle finding its mark and exciting a tremor in Miss Blue. Bailey felt unused. After a few minutes of pedaling, however, Miss Blue sat up halfway and gave him some attention. But his concern even then was less with himself than with what she did all by herself. When she fell back again she put her book on a reading stand that accordioned out from the cow’s interior wall and read out loud:

  “Hundreds of turkeys. Eggs! More eggs! Hundreds of eggs. We have hundreds of eggs. We want hundreds of turkeys. Hundreds of eggs. Hundreds of eggs in the incubator. We must wait and wait. We must wait four weeks. We must work and work. We must clean the sheds. We must work and work. We must fix the fences. We must get feed. We must get grit. One, two, three, four weeks! We worked four weeks. We cleaned the sheds. We fixed the fences …”

  Baffled, Bailey pedaled on, and slowly Miss Blue’s face changed. Her eyes widened, her eyes rolled back, her tongue hung out. The book fell away, but she recited from memory: “We must get grit …” The rhythm of the combination had begun to lull Bailey, but then Miss Blue shivered, a monstrous tremor that looked to Bailey not at all like a conventional climax but as if the effort would explode her brain. He stopped pedaling. She sat up as he unstrapped himself.

  “Don’t you want to finish?”

  “I’ve played my fill,” he said, climbing down.

  “A little longer. I almost made it that time. We can try the bed, and you hold the pizzle.”

  “Handcuffs,” Bailey said.

  “You’re like all the rest. You can’t trust a man.”

  She clambered down, pouting. But she unlocked the cuffs and brought Bailey his clothes. He looked at himself in the mirror, a mass of welts, cuts, bruises, and in his stomach a great pain where Skin had hit him. Yet he was whole. Nothing absurd, nothing ridiculous about that altogetherness. Altogether basic, it was. Ah, Stanley, the best-laid plans. And poor Blue. Another Stanley tool. Nice try, though.

  “Kiss me one time,” she said.

  Bailey slid into shoes, pants, shirt, coat, ran his fingers tenderly over her hair. She smiled, bovine eyes blinking, magnificent milk pods trembling like new Jell-o. She pushed herself toward him, naked and puckered, and with soft thumbs he closed her eyes.

  “Don’t move,” he told her. While she held the pose he fled into the morning.

  GUILD MEMBERS BESET BY WEIRDNESS

  A BIG MYSTERY IT SEEMS

  i once heard the survivors of a colony of ants that had been partially obliterated by a cow’s foot seriously debating the intention of the gods towards their civilization

  —DON MARQUIS

  as Archy, the cockroach

  The Guild room was crowded when Bailey entered, an ex-copy boy sitting in his chair, Jarvis at Rosenthal’s desk, and all the familiar faces of absentee members filling the room with the buzz of small talk. Bailey saw Irma across the room, talking with a man he recognized as Adam Popkin. He pushed toward them through the crowd which parted silently. Irma threw her arms around him, kissed him.

  “Bubie, you’re all bumps and cuts. And your wrists. Those bandages.”

  “I got it worse than I thought from those guards,” he said.

  “But where did you go? We thought they’d taken you off and boiled you down to make candles. And who bandaged you up?”

  “It’s a long story, love. You’ll have to read my memoirs. Do you know where my car is?”

  “In the lot where the tow truck left it.”

  She handed him his coat, hat and muffler that she’d taken from the hospital.

  “That’s Popkin, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Oh, right.” She grabbed Popkin’s arm. “Doesn’t he have a lovely moustache?”

  Popkin’s moustache, a huge bush with flat ends and tapering in the middle like a bow tie, overpowered the rest of him. Bailey knew him only from stories and photos in the Guild newspaper and from his early letter of support. But like other exalted leaders of the International Guild, he found it unnecessary to give much attention to this particular local: the all-time champion loser among locals. Yet here he was now, in person.

  “Things must be worse than I thought if you’re here,” Bailey said.

  “Unbelievably bad,” said Popkin.

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “We’ll get the rascals.”

  “Great,” Bailey said. “Glad to hear that kind of talk from on high.”

  “Who are you?”

  “This is Bailey,” Irma said.

  “Oh,” said Popkin, and slithered into the crowd.

  “Well, is that a creep or is that a creep?” said Irma.

  “Where’s Rosenthal? And why all these people?”

  “I don’t know where Rosenthal is, but Jarvis called these people, or so he says.”

  “Jarvis?”

  Bailey weaved through the crowd to the desk where Jarvis was busy making notes. Bailey looked over his shoulder and read:

  dogfood

  Bailey

  Rosenthal

  “Some crowd,” Bailey said. “This your work?”

  “I called the meeting, if that’s what you mean. Is that what you mean?”

  “You convinced everybody to come here? You?”

  “I’ve got things to do.”

  Bailey watched as Jarvis added lice powder to his list. He looked back and saw Bailey watching and scratched out the lice powder, protecting, Bailey presumed, the dog’s reputation.

  “What ails you Jarvis?”

  “I didn’t ask for this job.”

  Bailey rejoined Irma, and Jarvis tapped to get the crowd’s attention. He stood up, intensely nervous. His mouth opened but he only gaped, searching for the first word.

  “Goofy things are goin’ on,” he finally said.

  The crowd nodded its agreement. “Hmmm-hmmm. I’ll say. You said a mouthful.”

  “You know all about the fire from the morning paper,” Jarvis went on. “They blame the Guild.”

  “Yeah. Right,” said the crowd. “How come?”

  “Or maybe you saw it on TV.”

  “Uh-huh. Right. Yep.”

  “Or heard it on the radio.”

  “Yeah, man. Yowsah. Yup-yup.”

  “The company is mad at us.”

  “No. Is that so? No kiddin’?”

  “They think we set the fire.”

  “Us? Set the fire? Did we?”

  “There’s no proof,” Jarvis said. “But you all know we’ve got some pretty wild members.”

  “You said it,” said the crowd, and faces turned toward Bailey. “Wild men. Crazy guys. Nutballs.”

  “Just a minute,” Irma said. “Are you accusing any of us of setting that fire?”

  Jarvis ignored the question.

  “My welcome doormat was stolen this morning,” he said. “And our walkie-talkies were taken during the night. So was our bulletin board. Maybe more stuff. We don’t know yet.”

  “Wow!” said the crowd. “How about that! That’s the limit!”

  “And I have here,” said Jarvis, raising Smith’s knife into the air, “a weapon that a gypsy is supposed to have used to try to kill one of our members.”

  “Zot!” said the crowd. “Murder? Kill? Ring-a-ding!”

  “But this is no gypsy knife,” Jarvis said.

  “No? Hey! Are you sure?”

  “It’s an ordinary, regulation Boy Scout knife. I’ve had it investigated.”

  “Say. How about that! What d’ ya know!”

  “That doesn’t mean we blame the Boy Scouts for the fire.”

  “No. Natch. Of course not.”

  “But it makes you kind of wonder.”

  “Yeah. Right. Wonder what?”

  Jarvis began to speak with authority for the first time since he’d stood up.

  “Why do you suppose those gypsies lived in that store anyway? Why didn’t they move someplac
e else? And where’d they get all that money? And why were the guards around, not to mention the police? And how about that paper boy on the street selling papers like a goddamn maniac during it all, eh? Think about it. Why didn’t the doctors make the gypsies stay in the hospital till the cops got there? And where is Putzina’s corpse? And you think I don’t know what stealing my welcome mat means? It means I’m next. Get it? Welcome. See the connection? Gypsies, knife, money, fire, guards, cops, paper boy, hospital, ink truck, snow and the welcome mat. Everything fits. Very, very neatly.”

  Jarvis sat down to silence. He was smiling. Adam Popkin immediately took the floor.

  “The crux of the situation,” Popkin began, “the only way to stop reprisals, is an apology to the company for what some of our members did last night.”

  The comment stunned Bailey. Apologize to the company? Irma frowned.

  “With the help of Brother Jarvis, I’ve drafted such an apology. We have mimeographed copies for your approval.”

  As Popkin passed out copies to the crowd, Bailey marveled at his efficiency. The mimeograph machine hadn’t worked in months. And the crowd in the room testified to a perseverance and persuasiveness that Jarvis did not possess. No one in the local really had that kind of talent. The tigers of wrath had their place, but it wasn’t fixing mimeograph machines. A copy of the apology reached Bailey:

  During the evening of the ink truck, we the undersigned acted in ways that encouraged violence and hatred, and we now recognize this was not in the best interests of brotherhood and we deeply regret it. We will henceforth work toward solutions through tranquil, legal and nonviolent ways, for we know that the company officials, just as much as we, want to end this strike and thus enable everyone to work and live in peace and blessedness.

  “I must add,” Popkin said, “that the company has requested this apology, and unless it is given, they say they’ll press arson charges against several Guildsmen, myself included, and further, will undertake a nationwide campaign to blacken the Guild’s good name and also to disinter all the malicious myths that circulated about our esteemed founders, about heroes of our earlier campaigns and about our wives, our children and our dogs. Nothing will be sacred to the company, should we not accede to its wishes.”

  “This is dumb,” Irma said to Popkin. “I wouldn’t sign this for anything. Nuts to the company.”

  “You will not have to sign it, my good woman. The signers are to be Rosenthal and Bailey, who instigated the trouble. The International Guild board of directors agrees with me and Brother Jarvis that unless they sign the apology, their memberships should be revoked. It remains for the membership of this local to sanction such a move.”

  “And what is the Guild supposed to get out of this?” Irma asked.

  “A return to sanity,” Popkin said. “An establishment of standards for future conduct.”

  “And we find out who’s boss around here,” Jarvis said, hitting the table with his fist, lightly. “I call for a vote on this right now. Those in favor?”

  “Yea,” said some of the chorus.

  “No, no, no,” said Irma.

  Bailey said nothing.

  “Carried,” Jarvis called out.

  “Is there any comment from Brother Bailey?” Popkin asked.

  Bailey shook his head.

  “Brother Rosenthal will be expected to sign when we locate him,” Popkin added, and at that the meeting broke up. The crowd moved toward the door, sliding around Bailey and Irma with wide clearance. Jarvis thrust the original typescript of the apology at Bailey.

  “Stanley’s waiting for this in his office,” Jarvis said. “He wants it hand-carried over by you.”

  Bailey nodded and signed the apology. Jarvis smiled triumphantly and moved off.

  “I don’t understand why you’re standing still for all this nonsense,” Irma said.

  “It was a democratic vote,” Bailey said. “That’s how they want it.”

  “You sound like that poopy old Socrates. I thought you had more sense.”

  “Let me remind you,” Bailey said, “that when lightning strikes the ding-dong, the golly birds panic and wise men fly no kites.”

  “Oh, hell,” Irma said.

  The room was all but empty, the picket signs leaning against the wall, announcing their dog-eared message: ON STRIKE.

  “What gets me,” Irma said, “is that I told that slimy Popkin I liked his moustache.”

  “Don’t let the slime get you,” Bailey said. “Let me remind you, a baseball game often has nine innings.”

  “Okay, you jerk. Maybe you know what you’re doing. But you look like a sad apple.”

  He leaned over and peered down the front of her flimsy blouse.

  “That’s the old Bailey,” she said.

  No one stopped Bailey as he walked past the three hired pickets and into the company building. The guard by the elevator watched as he pressed the button, and two female faces peered at him from the accounting-department picture window. He pressed the sixth-floor button, but the car stopped unaccountably at the fourth-floor advertising department and the door opened on a noisy, busy room. The department manager and workers near the door stopped work and stared with vacant faces until the door closed. He stepped out at the executive suite, met by the gaze of old Miss Bohen, the crone receptionist who had spent a lifetime with the company growing lip whiskers and chin curls, seeing her pores become craters. She was eighty, at least, but she fought her age with black hair dye. As her flesh fell away, her black dresses lengthened. Instant mummy, Bailey thought.

  “I’m here to see Stanley,” he told her, feeling no need to be more than civil.

  “I know all about it,” she said. Her breath smelled like hay. She dialed three numbers and said: “He’s here,” then hung up and stared at Bailey. A door opened and Miss Blue in a miniskirt came at Bailey, bobbing her charms.

  “Mr. Bailey?”

  “That’s right.”

  She whirled around, and he followed her to an inner sanctum where he’d never been. They walked on a thick, beige carpet down a sunless corridor past knobless push doors. At Stanley’s door she turned and winked at him.

  “We’re strangers, get it?” she whispered.

  She held the door for Bailey. He brushed her outer edges as he stepped into the lair alone. Stanley, suntanned and fiftyish, tight-collared and gray-toupeed, a flea-sized mogul behind his great mahogany desk, smiled at Bailey and exuded the scent of a five-foot lilac. The anger Bailey once felt for Stanley personally during contract negotiations had long faded, but now it seeped back.

  “Where is your cohort Rosenthal, Bailey? The fellow who makes all the threats.”

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  “Do you have the apology?”

  “Here,” Bailey said, tapping his pocket.

  “You’re such a bright fellow. You negotiated with such verve, and you wrote such a dandy column. It’s a shame you waste your talent on the Guild.”

  “To each his own heaven. Or hell,” Bailey said, sitting down beside Stanley’s desk.

  Stanley smirked, tapped his fingertips together. He worked amid plushness, surrounded himself not with newspaper memorabilia as did his peers on the company’s high altar, for Stanley’s concern was never with news, only with subterranean policy. Dominating the room was what Bailey therefore took to be either Stanley’s own taste or a set of company totems: an antique stringed instrument on the wall behind his desk, an old china closet full of cut glassware, and two wall hangings that gave the office its tone. One was a framed propaganda poster from World War One that showed Madame Death with her breasts and much of her blue body exposed, holding a vulture on a chain and raising an overflowing cup of blood with one bony hand. “We fought in the open,” the poster said, “Bubonic Plague, Yellow Fever, Tuberculosis. Now: Venereal Disease.” The vulture was V.D.

  “My father was a medic in the great war,” Stanley said when he saw Bailey looking at the poster. “A martyr. He infected himself
with gonorrhea for the sake of research.” Stanley turned his face away, saddened, Bailey assumed, by the memory. Then Stanley turned back with a sly smile. “At least that’s what he told Mommy.”

  The second hanging was an enormous, old-fashioned sampler that proclaimed: “To him who has no sense of pleasure and no part in bodily pleasure, life is not worth having.” It credited Plato with the remark.

  “That quote is cockeyed,” Bailey said.

  “Nonsense,” said Stanley. “It’s exact.”

  “It’s not what he meant.”

  Stanley grinned.

  “I get a kick out of making old man Plato a flesh pusher. My father spoon-fed me his stuff before I learned how to wee-wee straight. Doesn’t it grab you here to give it to philosophers up the old gazoo?” He grabbed himself by the crotch.

  “Let’s get on with it,” Bailey said, and tossed the apology on Stanley’s desk. “Is that what you expected?”

  “Fine,” Stanely said, reading it and pushing it back to Bailey. “Read it out loud.”

  “It’s written down and signed. It doesn’t have to be read.”

  “I want to hear you read it.”

  “Jarvis and Popkin said nothing about reading it.”

  “I’d like to hear it read.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Read it.”

  “No.”

  “You depress me, Bailey.” Stanley walked across the room and back. Not until he was inches away did Bailey remember how Stanley’s veneer faded in a close-up. His clothes didn’t quite fit, his fingernails were always a little bit dirty, his collar a little bit soiled. He had once been fat, but now his jowls wobbled like spaniel ears. He limped when he walked, a defect from birth, some said. Others said his father crippled him with a kick.

  “This whole scene depresses me,” Bailey said.

  “The arrogance of you Guild people. You’ll go to your graves sneering at your betters, all puffed up with your stinking self-glory.”

  Stanley abruptly calmed himself. He forced a smile.

  “Let’s not fight,” he said. “Why not have a drink? Relax.” He buzzed, and Miss Blue came in.

  “Drinks, please, Miss Blue, and have one yourself.”