Vox by Nicholson Baker Read Free Book Online Page A

want me to do the repair, he wants you to do it.’ The guy in the suit looks embarrassed, he holds up his hands. You walk out into the shop. You take off your insulated soldering gloves and put them carelessly down on a display of rare campaign buttons. You’re wearing a shirt with small green and black stars on it, and black pants, and black sneakers. You hold out your hand for the fork, the guy gives it to you. You say, ‘An incident with the dishwasher?’ and he nods yes. And you say, ‘Harvey, it won’t take me a second.’ Harvey goes, ‘Fine! Go ahead!’ and sits down near the register, staring straight ahead. He’s pissed. You say to the guy, ‘I’ll have it for you by noon.’ And you go back into your area in the window. You take up the piece you’ve been working on. It’s some kind of brooch, and it isn’t turning out very well. You’ve lost your inspiration to some degree, since Harvey hasn’t sold your best effort. You look at the fork sitting there, and then you become conscious of a presence outside the window, and you look up, and it’s the same guy. You give him a questioning expression, and he moves his arms to say, ‘Don’t mind me.’ But he doesn’t walk away. You look down atthe brooch again, but you don’t like it, you don’t want Mr. Fork to see it and think of it as representative of your work. And so you set it aside and you clamp the injured fork in several delicate vises, and you put on your insulated gloves, and you start playing the flame of the torch over the nicked parts. Repair is Harvey’s area, so you don’t get much of a chance to do this, but you find now that in small doses it’s a very satisfying and soothing activity. Naturally you can’t restore the fork to mint condition—you melt the roughnesses until they subside, and what you’re left with is a lovely irregular mottled very shiny surface. You’re glad you have your dark welder’s goggles on: you look up covertly, with just your eyes, not lifting your head, and you see the fork man standing there sort of
slumped
, looking at you do those things to his fork. He’s melting, he’s smitten, he’s silversmitten. You plunge the fork into a tray of water. He smiles. He goes back into the shop. You come out of your enclosure. Harvey looks up. You hand the fork to Harvey and Harvey looks at it and says, ‘Twelve dollars.’ Mr. Fork pays the twelve dollars and takes the repair job and says thank-you to Harvey. Then he says, ‘I was just curious how it was done. I’m sorry to have taken up her time.’ And then he asks, ‘You say she’s an artist. Can you show me some things she’s done?’ Slowly, slowly Harvey walks over to the display case, unlocks it, sighs. The guy leans very close to the jewelry, his head is practically
in
the case. You’re watching all this. You notice for the firsttime that he’s got his hair in a kind of ponytail. And then he points to the necklace and he says, ‘May I take a look at that?’ Harvey looks at you, he’s got this almost pleading look, but you don’t say anything. So Harvey seems to decide something, and he says sadly, ‘That’s the best thing in the store.’ And he unhooks it from its little mounts and he hands it to Mr. Forkman, who again looks closely at it, holds it up in the air. Harvey says, ‘For a fiancée or something? What’s her complexion, dark or light?’ And Forkman vagues out, saying, ‘I don’t really know who it’s for.’ Again Harvey looks at you, and you don’t say anything, and so Harvey swallows and he says, he almost whispers, ‘Really you can’t get a good sense of it unless you see it worn.’ And the fork guy says, ‘Gee, yeah, too bad.’ And he asks what the stones are and Harvey tells him and the guy just nods. Finally Harvey, almost in exasperation, says, ‘Look,
she
made it, she knows all about it, she’ll tell you everything you want to know, I’m going to get a bite to eat.’ He turns to you and says, ‘Show him