He goes into the den to check the messages on his answering machine. The first is a nonmessage, or an antimessage: the machine’s go-ahead-and-talk whine, a silent hesitation at the other end of the line, the clunking of a handset hanging up, the dial tone, the whine again. Matthew surmises that this was the burglars calling to see if he was at home. He can imagine them coming to his door, hearing the radio, tiptoeing away, and burglarizing his neighbor, the one who cries out in the night, in ecstasy or fear. He can’t help smiling at this thought; he knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help it. The second message is from the superintendent.
“Mr. Barber? It’s Benny. The super. The guys were in your place again looking for that smell, and they brought someone with them from the contractors again, too. They still aren’t sure where it’s coming from, but they think if they can open the wall up a little more, they might be able to find it. Also they want me to tell you they would like you to give them permission to cut away some of the carpet, because they think it might be mildew or something in the pad. They say they’ll be able to put it back so you won’t even notice, but I wouldn’t let them do it without you being there, so they didn’t do anything except pull out some of the insulation. They want to know if you could meet with them tomorrow to talk about opening the hole up some more and cutting the carpet back. So let me know, okay?”
The third message is from an old friend.
“Hey, Matthew. It’s Jack. I’m going to be in town day after tomorrow — Thursday — and I’m hoping we can get together. I want to have dinner at Flynn’s. You know. ‘Flynn’s — the taste of old Boston.’ Or ‘the scourge of old Boston.’ Whatever. Will you set it up, make the reservations and everything? See if you can get hold of Effie. I’d really love to see her. But get her to leave dickhead at home, okay? I’ll be in sometime in the afternoon, but I’ve got meetings, so I can’t get to Flynn’s until about eight. Make a reservation for nine, and I’ll meet you in the bar between eight and nine. I hope this is all okay. You’re not in Vermont or something, are you? If you don’t get this message, and you’re not there at Flynn’s, I’ll never speak to you again.” Clunk of hanging up, silent stretch, dial tone, whine, snap of the machine shutting off. No more messages.
Matthew goes to the living room and sits looking out over the roofscape, sipping his drink, wondering why Jack would choose Flynn’s. It isn’t the kind of place he would ordinarily enjoy. It’s big and noisy, popular with out-of-towners looking for what the Flynn’s ads call “The Flavor of Olde Boston,” and the flavor of olde Boston is not one of Jack’s favorites.
Twenty years ago Matthew and Jack were in graduate school together, working toward degrees in teaching. They were great friends. They thought of themselves as bohemian, beat, hip, and they were seriously committed to improving the quality of public education. They may even have been passionately committed. All of that seems like a joke to Matthew now. The memory of it makes him feel naïve and foolish. He was recruited by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Now he sometimes feels that he was conned, but at the time he and Jack — and their pal Effie — really considered the public schools the best long-term hope for the downtrodden and desperate. Each of them taught for a couple of years, and each of them left teaching disappointed and angry. Jack and Matthew have kept some interest in the development of young people, though. Matthew supplies them with toys that expand their imagination and hone their motor skills (though such toys don’t appeal to them half as much as jingo killer dolls and long-legged plastic housewives that look like hookers). Jack makes television commercials that teach them how to act when they drink, drive, deodorize, and go into debt. Jack’s work seems glamorous to Matthew, but Jack claims that it isn’t glamorous at all, that the stars treat him like shit, and that he wants to make videos instead. Matthew thinks this is false modesty, intended to make him feel better about his own work and compromises.
In Topical Guide 433, Mark Dorset considers Gadgets, Electronic from this episode.
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🎧 433: He goes into . . .