In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders Read Free Book Online

why had I let her go? It was like
I was all of the sudden waking up! She was mine and I was hers, she
was so thin and cute, and now she was at the Lerner Center all alone?
Shaking and scared with a bloody hole in her neck and our baby in her
belly, hanging out with all those other scared shaking people with
bloody holes in their necks, only none of them knew her and loved her
like I did? I had done such a dumb-shit thing to her, all the time
thinking it was sound reasoning, because isn't that how it is with
our heads, when we are in them it always makes sense, but then later,
when you look back, we sometimes are like, I am acting like a total
dumb- ass!
    Then
Brad came up and was like, Dude, time to hook in.
    And I
was like, Please, Brad, do not bother me with that shit at this time.
    And I
went to get Slippen, only he was at lunch, so I went to get Dove and
said, Sir, I hereby Request my appropriate Exit Paperwork.
    And he
said, Randy, please, you're scaring me, don't act rash, have a look
out the window.
    I had
a look, and tell the truth it did not look that good, such as the
Rustic Village Apartments, out of which every morning these
bummed-out-looking guys in the plainest non-designer clothes ever
would trudge out and get in their junky cars. And was someone
joyfully kissing them goodbye, like saying when you come home tonight
you will get a big treat, which is me? No, the person who should have
been kissing them with joy was yelling, or smoking, or yelling while
smoking, and when the dudes came home they would sit on their stoops
with heads in hand, as if all day long at work someone had been
pounding them with clubs on their heads, saying they were jerks.
    Then
Dove said, Randy, Randy, why would a talented young person like
yourself wish to surrender his influence in the world and become just
another lowing cattle in the crowd, don't you know how much people
out there look up to you and depend on you?
    And
that was true. Because sometimes kids from Rustic Village would come
over and stand in our lava rocks with our Tastemakers &
Trendsetters gum cards upheld, pressing them to our window, and when
we would wave to them or strike the pose we were posing on our gum
cards, they would race back all happy to their crappy apartments,
probably to tell their moms that they had seen the real actual us,
which was probably like the high point of their weeks.
    But
still, when I thought of those birdlike markings of Carolyn's letter,
I don't know, something just popped, I felt I was at a distinct tilt,
and I blurted out, No, no, just please bring me the freaking
Paperwork, I am Requesting, and I thought when I Requested you had to
do it!
    And
Dove said sadly, We do, Randy, when you Request, we have to do it.

    Dove
called the other Coordinators over and said, Larry, your little pal
has just Requested his Paperwork.
    And
Slippen said, I'll be damned.
    What a
waste, Delacourt said. This is one super kid.
    One of
our best, Andrews said.
    Which
was true, with me five times winning the Cooperative Spirit Award and
once even the Denny O'Malley Prize, Denny O'Malley being this
Assessor in Chicago, IL, struck down at age ten, who died with a
smile on his face of leukemia.
    Say
what you will, it takes courage, Slippen said. Going after one's wife
and all.
    Yes
and no, Delacourt said. If you, Larry, fall off a roof, does it help
me to go tumbling after you?
    But I
am not your wife, Slippen said. Your pregnant wife.
    Wife
or no, pregnant or no, Delacourt said. What we then have are two
folks not feeling so good in terms of that pavement rushing up. No
one is helped. Two are crushed. In effect three are crushed.
    Baby
makes three, Andrews said.
    Although
anything is possible, Slippen said. You know, the two of them
together, the three of them, maybe they could make a go of it—
    Larry,
whose side are you on? Dove said.
    I am
on all sides, Slippen said.
    You
see this thing from various perspectives, Andrews said.
    Anyway,
this is academic,