447: “What’s new . . .”
Reservations Recommended, Chapter 2 continues
“WHAT’S NEW in toys, Matthew?” asks Jack.
Matthew wonders why that question must always sound like a joke. He’s sure Jack isn’t trying to be funny, doesn’t mean to seem to be trivializing Matthew’s work. He couldn’t mean to do that. Matthew feels quite certain that Jack has as much respect for Matthew as he has for himself. He recognizes in Matthew someone who has made the same compromises he has, someone who has ideals, or at least had ideals, but who has, partly by decision, partly by accident, partly because of need, stepped to one side of them — hasn’t exactly walked away from them, just stepped to one side of them. For one reason and another, Jack’s making beer commercials. Matthew would never joke about that.
Matthew glances at Effie, and she grins. She expects him to give Jack the same string of gags he gave her. Matthew grins back. He has more up his sleeve than that.
“Well,” he says, “we’re coming out with a line of whore dolls. Hester Hooker and Her Pals.” As soon as he mentions the whore dolls, he realizes that he really is getting drunk. The whore dolls are one of his jokes on himself, part of one of the mental discussions he sometimes has with himself. He has imagined himself being interviewed by a ghostwriter for his as-told-to autobiography, after he has become president of the company. The writer is a young snot who thinks Matthew is an idiot. Gradually Matthew feeds him, deadpan, his line of parody toys, as if they had actually been produced, were part of the history of the company, the secret of Matthew’s success. At first these fake toys are just a little odd, but as Matthew goes on they grow odder and odder, become funnier and funnier, until the kid’s rolling on the floor with laughter. The book they write together is a hilarious parody of corporate life, and it redeems all the years Matthew spent in toys. The writer develops a boundless respect and admiration for Matthew, and they become pals. Everybody needs a pal.
Matthew is amused by this discovery that he’s as drunk as he is. He feels detached from his drunk self, a little superior to him, disapproving but indulgent, as if he were BW watching Matthew and saying to himself, “Oh, what does it matter? He hasn’t gotten good and drunk for ages. Let him go.” It’s true. Matthew hasn’t gotten good and drunk for a long time, not since Liz left. He got drunk that night, but it wasn’t good; it was a sullen, lonely, feeling-sorry-for-himself drunk, and he hated it. Since then he’s been drinking steadily and regularly, too much, he knows, but only in the evening, and never at a rate that gets him out of control. He’s over the line now, though, he can tell, and he’s glad. He feels like having a fling, feels like letting himself go with these old friends, these pals. He knows they’ll take care of him. He takes another sip of his drink to seal the pact with himself. Self, he says to himself, we’re going to get plastered.
“By the way,” he says aloud. “You may be interested in knowing where I got the inspiration for Hester and her pals.”
“We probably are,” says Jack.
“Well,” says Matthew, “I got the inspiration from a trip I made, when I was in high school. To Juarez. Mexico. I was the recipient of a grant. From the — Hmm. The what? Some agency. I forget. Some agency that was supposed to encourage science study among youth after Sputnik. The National Science Foundation, that’s it. So I went to the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology for the summer. I was fifteen. I’m not making this up. I was the smartest kid in my high school class.”
[to be continued on Friday, March 10, 2023]
In Topical Guide 447, Mark Dorset considers “Inspiration”; Events: Real: Sputnik; Institutions: Real: National Science Foundation, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology; and Institutions: Fictional: National Preparedness Foundation, New Mexico College of Agriculture, Technology, and Pharmacy from this episode.
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