CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella by George Saunders Read Free Book Online Page B

I’m saying is, we go way back.
    I hope she’ll wait this thing out. If only Clive would resume living and start dating some nice-smelling cheerleaderwho has no idea who Benny Goodman is. Then I’d regain my strength and win her back. But no. Instead I wake at night and Simone’s either looking over at me with hatred or whisking her privates with her index finger while thinking of God-knows-who, although I doubt very much it’s me.
    At noon next day a muscleman shows up with four beehives on a dolly. This is Leon’s stroke of genius for the Kiper wedding. The Kipers are the natural type. They don’t want to eat anything that ever lived or buy any product that even vaguely supports notorious third-world regimes. They asked that we run a check on the ultimate source of the tomatoes in our ketchup and the union status of the group that makes our floaties. They’ve opted to recite their vows in the Waterfall Grove. They’ve hired a blind trumpeter to canoe by and a couple of illegal aliens to retrieve the rice so no birds will choke.
    At ten Leon arrives, proudly bearing a large shrimp-shaped serving vat full of bagels coated with fresh honey. Over the weekend he studied honey extraction techniques at the local library. He’s always calling himself a Renaissance man but the way he says it it rhymes with “rent-a-dance fan.” He puts down the vat and takes off the lid. Just then the bride’s grandmother falls out of her chair and rolls down the bank. She stops faceup at the water’s edge and her wig tips back. One of the rice-retrievers wanders up and addresses her as señora. I look around. I’m the nearest Host. According to the manual I’m supposed to initiate CPR or face a stiff payroll deduction. The week I took the class the dummy was on the fritz. Of course.
    I straddle her and timidly start chest-pumping. I can feel her bra clasp under the heel of my hand. Nothing happens. I keep waiting for her to throw up on me or come to life. Then Leon vaults over the shrimp-shaped vat. He shoos me away, checks her pulse, and begins the Heimlich Maneuver.
    “When your victim is elderly,” he says loudly and remonstratively, “it’s natural to assume heart attack. Natural, but, in this case, possibly deadly.”
    After a few more minutes of Heimlich he takes a pen from his pocket and drives it into her throat. Almost immediately she sits up and readjusts her wig, with the pen still sticking out. Leon kisses her forehead and makes her lie back down, then gives the thumbs-up.
    The crowd bursts into applause.
    I sneak off and sit for about an hour on the floor of the Control Hut. I keep hoping it’ll blow up or a nuclear war will start so I’ll die. But I don’t die. So I go over and pick up my wife.
    Leon wants to terminate me but Simone has a serious chat with him about our mortgage and he lets me stay on in Towel Distribution and Collection. Actually it’s a relief. Nobody can get hurt. The worst that could happen is maybe a yeast infection. It’s a relief until I go to his office one day with the Usage Statistics and hear moans from inside and hide behind a soda machine until Simone comes out looking flushed and happy. I want to jump out and confront her but I don’t. Then Leon comes out and I want to jump out and confront him but I don’t.
    What I do is wait behind the soda machine until theyleave, then climb out a window and hitchhike home. I get a ride from a guy who sells and services Zambonis. He tells me to confront her forcefully and watch her fall to pieces. If she doesn’t fall to pieces I should beat her.
    When I get home I confront her forcefully. She doesn’t fall to pieces. Not only does she not deny it, she says it’s going to continue no matter what. She says I’ve been absent too long. She says there’s more to Leon than meets the eye.
    I think of beating her, and my heart breaks, and I give up on everything.
    Clive shows up at ten. As he keeps me awake telling me what his senior prom would