The Electrical Experience by Frank Moorhouse Read Free Book Online

him, T. George McDowell, a man his junior.
    T. George found this sad. That it was a compliment to his own acumen, he appreciated only in passing.
    T. George looked at Jim Tutman—at the sinews, warts, hairs, skin, bristles, freckles, pores, a face that had looked at and solved many problems—and as if by X-ray saw the white-bone skull with eyeless sockets.
    His hand perspired on the paperweight.
    Thought of the death-white skull made him queasy.
    â€˜I shouldn’t have to tell you this, Jim, but I will,’ he said conclusively. ‘It’s time to modernise the mind. To modernise the mind.’
    There was silence.
    Then Tutman offensively, T. George felt, disregardedthis advice and said, ‘You’re letting me go to bankruptcy?’
    T. George said nothing.
    â€˜God in heaven, George, I helped you get your start in this town.’ Tutman stopped, having problems with words. Tutman was no speechmaker. Speechmaking, thought George, was the total person talking. Hands, face, mouth, body. Not like the letter or the telephone. Learn the first and last sentence—then you’ll begin well and end well.
    Tutman seemed to give up. The total person was talking all right. In Tutman’s every movement. Tutman said with bitterness, ‘You and your damned Rotary guff about the Brotherhood of Business.’
    â€˜I repaid, Jim.’
    Tutman rose. The tension of his clutch had curled and creased the brim of his hat which he’d held in his hand throughout the talk. Tutman’s face was set with frustration. The photograph on the wall caught his eye and he pushed his chair away, going across to it, now jerking with anger, nodding with anger at it.
    It was a photograph of them both, smiling together, glasses held in toast, back in the twenties, at the installation of the Bratby syruping, filling and crowning machine. Tutman had helped. The rosy days of friendship and the allegiance of equals.
    Tutman tore the picture from its hook and, throwing it to the floor, stomped on it with his boot, shattering the glass, and probably, T. George couldn’t see, probably tearing the photograph.
    All motion causes friction.
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    It all existed there in the broken glass and silence after Tutman left. T. George felt his thighs and backside moist on the chair. He stood up, pulling his sweaty trousers from his legs. A book, Increase Your Powers of Concentration, manifested itself from the other objects in the office and then dissolved back into the total whole. The detail and the whole. T. George became aware of them then. He had not philosophised about the detail and the whole. We know, he thought, that the whole contains infinite detail, detail beyond observation. We at times had to see the whole and not be led to the infinite detail where a man could lose himself for life. If detail manifested itself, it was to tell you something—something which would illuminate the whole.
    Yes.
    Now the broken photograph was gone and he saw only the still, total room—a blur of detail. Pull the switch—now only the broken photograph existed in his vision and the room was gone. Some men were detail workers who never saw a vision. Some men were visionaries who never got the job done.
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    A Secret of Life: to conceive the vision; to pursue the vision, yet have the patience to supervise the detail.
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    The Life Purpose of a business man is to get theproduce of genius to the market-place for ordinary people.
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    Move with the Times or be moved over by the Times.
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    The job of the salesman is to convince people to improve their lives.
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    The policeman’s widow. The policeman’s widow at the show dance had danced the tango with him and he had found his body excited by her to the point of embarrassment. She had known this and had purposely leaned against him, time and time again. Had rolled her stomach and thigh against his groin. Tantalising him. After one unfaithful occasion, shortly