Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation (6 page)

I was starting to feel less frightened of Mr. Ulsh, despite an uptick in his menacing taunts. In class I’d sit still and quietly, a cobra in the body of a kid, focusing my gaze at his desk drawers.

Place the panther eye among the victim’s possessions for forty-eight hours.

Ah, what a perfect little hidey-hole for a perfect little gift—a special apple for the teacher, nesting in silence among his other . . .
possessions
. I’d clap a hand over my mouth to smother a stray giggle. One afternoon, as I was exiting class, he jabbed at the last day on the calendar and remarked in that tone of his, “We’re getting close, wonder boy. Is it coming?”
I nodded meekly, but inside my head, I replied, “Oh, it’s coming, Flipper, it’s coming . . .”

It was a clear, unseasonably warm Saturday in January, one of those days when everyone comments that it feels like spring and I stay locked in my room with the shades down. I was lying in bed, playing with a little plastic Radio Shack slot machine I’d gotten for Christmas. It ran on two double A batteries and was about the size of a deck of cards. You pushed a button to make the reels spin until they exhausted themselves and gave out. Sometimes three cherries lined up unevenly, which was considered a “win.” Pathetically simple and unsophisticated, it felt like a kindred spirit. It required no skill, paid out nothing, and provided no sense of accomplishment. I played it for hours. Suddenly I heard something skid under my door. I glanced over and saw a small padded Jiffy envelope with a tiny bulge in the middle. The slot machine stopped spinning: three panther eyes.

“More crap?” my mother called out from the other side of the door. “What now?”

“Nothing!” I yelled as I jumped up to retrieve the package. “Just something for school!”

“Whatever it is, don’t make a mess!”

I heard her walk off.

Don’t make a mess.
Oh, sweet, adorable Joyce. If only you knew.

The Jiffy envelope was a bit lacking in presentation, but I assumed it was meant to throw off nosy postal inspectors who confiscated the organs of wild animals transported for the express purpose of devil-related shit. My hands were tingling as I yanked the pull tab, opening an ugly gash in the package, which sent a cloud of gray fibrous dust into the air. The intensity of the moment ebbed slightly when I realized my acquisition was wrapped in the Sunday comics section of the
Sacramento Bee
(featuring a predictably lame
Beetle Bailey
strip). I tore it away, uncovering a plastic sandwich bag that contained a balled-up Scott paper towel with a tulip pattern. I had to give it to M.M.E.—they really knew how to throw off those fucking postal inspectors. Extracting the tulip ball, I watched in amazement as it came to life and bloomed in my hand, revealing the star of the show: an almond-shaped dried-out white thing that looked like a piece of chalk. With a monkey’s curiosity, I tapped it gently with my fingernail and it promptly broke in half. Even with a 63 average in science, I was fairly certain it wasn’t a panther’s eye. Inside the sandwich bag, I noticed a little strip of paper, the kind you find in a fortune cookie. It read:
For best results, anoint charm with Conquering Glory Oil, available separately.

The urgent communiqué I swiftly sent off to Hercules went something like this:

Dear M.M.E.:

I just got this panther eye I ordered from you and I am very PISSED. The eye came broken and does not look like a REAL “panther eye” and you might have sent me something else by mistake because I did not want a CHARM! Please send me a real panther eye by airmail RIGHT AWAY. I need it very quickly which is why I ordered it in the first place! This looks like a piece of chalk and I did not break it, it broke by itself!! Please send me the real panther eye as soon as you read my letter and I don’t know what Conquering Glory Oil is because you didn’t say I needed it anyway, so send the Conquering Glory Oil too which would be the right thing because I need that and it’s the mistake YOU made and I didn’t!!!

    Adam Resnick

P.S. Please send right away by AIRMAIL after you read this letter!!!

P.S.S. (and I could write a letter to Anton LaVey and tell him if I don’t get it!)

By now Ulsh’s campaign of harassment was escalating to unprecedented heights. I could barely take three steps from my desk without hearing, “How’s the masterpiece coming along, Edison?” or “Counting the seconds, Goldilocks.” All
the mind-fucking was taking a toll. The end of the month was closing in and there was nothing from Hercules. Never once, though, did I consider even attempting the assignment. It was a fool’s errand, and by this point, I was on the verge of an emotional swan dive. I was losing sleep, and during the day I felt weak and disoriented. My jaw ached when I chewed food, and I developed a tic, constantly opening and closing my mouth to test it. Once, I noticed Pebbles watching me from across the cafeteria with a look of disgust. He’d obviously told her everything, making me out to be more horrible than I actually was. Yeah, they all knew by now; everyone was waiting to witness my spectacular downfall. I was convinced Ulsh was hatching a plot to have me flunk fifth grade, preventing me from going to middle school. I’d be remade into one of those droopy-lipped farm kids who were always held back—“special helpers” the teachers called them in a lazy attempt to fan away the retard fumes. Oh, God, what if I became a special helper? What could I expect from my brothers then?

•   •   •

It was a plain white envelope, not a Jiffy mailer, waiting for me on the kitchen counter when I got home from school. The postmark was from Oxnard, California. I ran it upstairs and closed my door. Half-crazed, I tore it open with my teeth
and watched a small piece of paper flutter to the bed—it was a credit slip for fifteen dollars. There was no explanations, no “Sorry for the inconvenience,”
no “Yeah, that last eye was bad, we’ll send you a fresh one when they’re back in stock”—nothing. But here’s where I give my nervous system big props for not losing its shit: the credit slip was redeemable at—figure this out—Oracle and Pendulum. Not only did I not purchase the eye from Oracle and Pendulum, but O&P was located in
Toluca Lake
, not Oxnard, and Oxnard was not Hercules—the home of M.M.E.! I noticed something else inside the envelope and shook it out: a little sticker of a cow in a straw hat with the words “Knott’s Berry Farm” on the brim. This marked the beginning of my lifelong hatred for California.

I never stood a chance against the age-old forces of nature set upon earth to crush the wills of ten-year-old boys. The world was ruled by the Mr. Ulshes, and his résumé had been preapproved: adult, teacher, draft dodger; a man who drove a flashy sports car while other people were starving, who bounced cute little girls on his lap while ignoring the plain ones; a vulgar human being who pissed all over the birthday of God’s only son by callously assigning a gratuitous book report. The devil and his angels had been in Ulsh’s corner all along, enabling him to enter my head like a flotilla of squirming microbes that were slowly turning my brain into vinegar.

And I was probably on LaVey’s shit list, too, because I didn’t read his book either.

•   •   •

But every now and then, as the walls close in and the ground beneath you slips away, the whirling reels of the neurosis slot machine line up just so, and—click!—
clarity
. There existed in this world a power more frightening than black magic and more volatile than a boxcar hauling nitroglycerin. If handled correctly, this force could be used to resolve seemingly unresolvable matters. But to conjure it, one must tread carefully.

If the name Merv Resnick brings to mind the image of a little Jewish man hunched over a sewing machine in a dress factory, you’ve got the wrong kike. Picture a multi-vortex tornado sucking on a Pall Mall and you’re getting warmer. Created within a swirl of hissing steam that rolled through the streets of a Bronx slum, he emerged tall and muscular and more handsome than any movie star. Like the rest of the refuse, he grew up pissed-off and hungry, gnawing on stolen potatoes charred over newspaper fires. He trusted no one. By the time he was twelve, he’d been in more fights than Joe Louis—using his sledgehammer left to shut the mouths of “those fucking Irish” who’d been genetically programmed to be the most petulant of all immigrants. (That is, if you don’t count the Germans.) By the age of fourteen, he’d been
stabbed, clubbed, and shot at. But they couldn’t kill him. Patient and methodical, he took care of them all, one by one, sometimes waiting for months to serve a brick to an enemy’s head. And the shirts—all those bloody shirts the mothers brought to his tenement doorstep: “Look what your boy did to my son! That animal!” they’d screech in excited brogues. That he never initiated trouble was overlooked, and his unyielding sense of justice brought no admiration. Two eyes, a concussion, and a handful of teeth for an eye. There would be no lenience for verbal misdemeanors. Ask Keiser the druggist, who was met with a length of pipe after Merv overheard him mimic his mother’s Russian accent. Or the street sweeper who made an ill-advised remark about his grandfather’s beard. “Those fucking people ruined me,” he once said in a reflective moment. “They took a nice guy and ruined him.”

My father was like a rottweiler who protected his family unconditionally, but if you touched that weird spot on his hind leg that bugged him for some reason, you might get your face torn off. You lived in constant fear of him yet never doubted the brutal love he had for you. He wasn’t someone you went to for advice, wisdom, or relevant quotes from philosophers. You went to him when you had a problem that could not be solved by any other means, and just prayed he ruled in your favor.

One never approached Merv before he’d eaten; you didn’t
walk past him, you didn’t say “hi,” you just made yourself scarce. My mother would put the food down and run. He ate alone. If he’d found some measure of peace after his meal, you knew it by the way the cigarette smoke hung in the air and how he absentmindedly fingered the snake ring coiled around his pinky. I entered the kitchen in silence, cautiously taking a seat at the table; if I accidently made the chair creak, his blood pressure would surge and I’d be harshly ejected from the room. I quietly stared out the window. It was already dark outside. The safest way to engage in a conversation with my father was to let him come to you. When Merv relaxed, and his intensity level reduced to the vicinity of neutral, something like a low gravelly hum would emanate from deep in his throat. It’s impossible to imitate and difficult to describe—as unknowable as the rebel yell of the Confederate soldiers, which exists only in the sketchy descriptions of historians. As I gazed out into the gloom, I finally heard that familiar esophageal vibration. I glanced over. He’d been watching me.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I’m having trouble in school,” I replied unsteadily.

“Another kid? Why don’t you rap him in the fucking mouth?”

“No,” I said. “A teacher.”

The humming stopped and he crushed out his cigarette.
Our chairs creaked in unison and I let go. I admitted to doing a bad job on a book report, but the teacher wasn’t being fair. “He doesn’t
like
me,” I said. “He makes fun of me; he told me my ass was grass.” The kitchen light flickered as if there’d been a power surge. “I just want him to stop being
mean
to me.” Merv broke off a piece of sugar cookie for the dog.

“What time does he get there in the morning?”

There was no talk as my father drove me to school the next day. Sinatra was singing “Street of Dreams” on the 8-track, but all I could hear was the hum. Low, steady, present. He was relaxed to the point of almost falling asleep. My dad took care of his own problems. He didn’t need Jilly and a crew of goombahs to do it for him.

It was full-strength Merv Resnick I trailed down the hallway of James Buchanan Elementary: the cigarette, the suit, the snake ring. Fuck, just the way he
moved
. It was the first time he’d ever set foot in the school, but by the way he walked, you would have thought he’d built the place with his bare hands. Kids, teachers, and custodians stopped in their tracks and gaped.
My God, who is that?
I’d seen the reaction countless times before, whenever my father entered the space of mortals.

“Where’s the room?” he asked with as much emotion as it takes to order a cup of coffee. We approached the door.
There were no kids inside; it was still early. I managed a brief glimpse of Ulsh straightening his desk. “Wait out here,” Merv said to me. Then he walked in and closed the door behind him.

All I could see were two shadows behind the frosted glass. There was no movement. I vaguely made out the muffled voice of my father. It was calm. Moments later, the door swung back open and he exited. His cigarette had barely burned down. He patted me on the head, and said, “Okay. Go to school.” I stood there and watched him walk off down the hallway, tail swaying, belly full.

I entered the classroom and found Mr. Ulsh standing by the window, gazing at the mountains. He appeared to be trying to comprehend something, something he’d be struggling to sort out for the rest of his life. Maybe his head was at last filled with the sound of ground fire and the suffering of all of those people he let die. He looked shrunken, this man who hated my guts. He slowly turned around and jumped back, as if he’d seen an apparition. Then a wide silly smile came to his face.

“Adam! My man!”

We were suddenly pals. It had all been a big misunderstanding. A lack of communication. And he felt awful about it. “Just clean up the ending a little bit!” he said merrily. “You worry too much!”

So that’s what I did: read a few relevant passages, changed a sentence or two, and at long last, Robinson Crusoe was saved. Remarkably, I received a B-minus for my efforts. That, and the enduring respect of my teacher.

The credit slip from Oxnard would remain unredeemed. We’d both been tortured enough.

They took me from my mama, an’ made a wrecked man out of me

Yeah, they took me from my mama, they made an awful mess of me

Clouds high above me cryin’, but these chains they laugh at me

—PRISON WORK SONG (UNDATED)

From the very first bell of first grade, I considered school nothing more than a hard dozen without the possibility of parole. For twelve long years, my only dream was to be a free man of legal age. And on the day of my release, I walked out of that pigeon mill with my head held high. The worst of life was behind me. I had no plans to attend college or find a job. I had no thoughts about my future. My work was done.

That same evening my father told me I’d be going into the insurance business.

The headline was delivered as I was lying on the floor,
eating a bowl of Sugar Smacks and watching cartoons. Apparently no one got the memo I was retired. Soon I found myself pounding my fist on the rug and making lofty declarations about being an adult now and how my parents no longer owned me. I was rebutted with trifles about being “a goddamn bum” and possessing a GPA so low I “couldn’t get hired as a fucking circus dog.” My father had a knack for simplifying things with confusing statements.

Merv had been an insurance man for most of his adult life, and a few of my brothers had followed him into the business. We Resnick boys were a dim lot, to put it politely, but if there’s one thing we knew like the back of our hands, it was our limitations. And for guys like us, a career in sales is the little mockingbird that calls your name on your eighteenth birthday.

I bought myself some time by enrolling at HACC (Harrisburg Area Community College, for all you purists), but kept my course load fairly light. Three classes seemed like plenty, and I was acutely aware of not wanting to burn myself out. This little detour into academia quickly ended, however, when my grades arrived and my parents saw that I was flunking Basic Stagecraft as well as the Automobile in American Literature. One week later, I found myself in a pair of Florsheim Imperials, pulling up to a squat celery-colored building in Lititz, Pennsylvania.

Located in Lancaster County, Lititz is generally considered a dull town even by its comatose neighbors in Ephrata. Nonetheless, it could proudly call itself home to Dirschberger & Associates, the mid-state agency of the Keystone Valley Life Insurance Company. As I stood there, taking in this venerable landmark, I contemplated severing my carotid artery by shoving my head through the window of the adjoining wig shop.

Bob Dirschberger was an old friend of my father’s, even though Merv often referred to him as “a first-class putz.” I don’t know how or why Bob was chosen to be my mentor in “the business,” but I suspect my dad figured he was the only guy dumb enough to take me on. Bob greeted me in his office with a laughing grin and a slap on the shoulder. “You ready to rob a few trains, Sundance?”

He was a gregarious and somewhat dashing man, with salt-and-pepper hair and a matching mustache that looked like they came with his suit. The toothy smile, which rarely faded, gave him a passing resemblance to the great character actor Warren Oates. Settling in behind his desk, he pulled out a bottle of Seagram’s Five Star and a couple of glasses. I declined because I didn’t drink, plus it was eight-thirty in the morning. Bob looked a little disheartened, but then perked up, asking hopefully, “But I bet you like pussy, right?” I assured him I did, and this made him laugh uproariously for a
little too long before downing his drink. Then he got very somber and told me his ex-wife was a confused woman and when it was all said and done he felt nothing but pity for her. “You know, they start in with those diet pills and suddenly they’re seeing broads in your glove compartment . . .” He took a moment for himself, and then had me by the arm, leading me into the morning meeting. “Let me introduce you to these clowns!”

We entered a small conference room, where Bob introduced me to the other agents as “the kid who’s gonna put a flame under all your asses.” This failed to cause much of a stir, but I shook a few hands, unsuccessfully avoiding one guy who had orange fingers from eating gas station cheese crackers, and getting a blast of Jovan Musk from another wearing Speedy Gonzales cufflinks. Any pangs of intimidation I may have had quickly faded.

The meeting that day was a short one. Bob kicked things off with a joke about a man who, for reasons that remain unclear, had a wooden penis. The narrative contained such touchstones as a disagreeable prostitute, withheld information, and the jaunty punch line “So long, splinter lips!” After the laughter died down, Bob switched on the overhead projector, the bulb blew out, and he proclaimed, “Fuck it, go to work, you schlubs.” As we exited the conference room, he
patted my shoulder and said, “Well, my friend, you’re off to the races.”

Even the great Secretariat began his journey to the Triple Crown with those first wobbly steps as a foal, and I was no different. In order to become a licensed agent, I would have to pass the state insurance exam. Naturally this concerned me, as the absorption of knowledge was never my strength. And the conditions I was forced to study under were less than ideal. Because of water damage in the only spare office, I was given a desk in the common area next to the receptionist, Helen. Helen was a balding sixty-year-old part-time bartender at the VFW who also taught piano on weekends. Most of her days at the agency were spent doodling rabbits on
WHILE YOU WERE OUT
pads while humming such middle C chestnuts as “Hot Cross Buns” and “Au Clair de la Lune.” What I lost in concentration I gained in fantasies of drowning her in the toilet.

Not that I could even begin to crack what I was supposed to be learning. This was a bleak piece of work, this insurance manual. Talk about an Aspergian jizz-fest of dry terminology and monotonous concepts. Sometimes I’d have to glance at the state seal on the cover just for entertainment. In what cockeyed reality could anyone think I was qualified to be an insurance salesman? I was a cranky teenage layabout who
bought fireworks from the mop guy at Arby’s. Was I really the best choice to sit a man down, discuss his mortality, and monkey with his finances?

By late afternoon on most days, the agents would stumble back to the office looking good and beat-up. It was always the same routine: Shane Simons would declare that this was not the business he started out in, Buddy Fowler would crow about some negligible victory (“I got a very good nibble from a fellow who works nights at the quarry”), and Pete Arbaghast would storm Bob’s office to bitch about some fiasco that may or may not have been Bob’s fault (but usually was).

For me, it was goof-off time when the agents returned. I’d put down the insurance book, stretch, and wander around the office. I quickly discovered that striking up a bullshit conversation with an insurance agent is one of life’s easier tasks. For the most part, I gravitated toward Shane because we shared an interest in photography. Shane was a sullen man, but he could get quite animated when talking about filters and f-stops. One day, he brought in his portfolio, and I was genuinely impressed by the sheer number of angles in which he was able to photograph a gutted deer.

•   •   •

After failing the insurance exam three times in a row, I began to detect a pattern, but Bob cheered me on: “Dull knives
still cut, Adam. Keep hacking away.” Sure enough, the fourth time was the charm. I’ll never forget the sight of my mother running from the mailbox to the house, screaming, “He passed it! He passed it!” before tripping and banging her knee on the porch step. She was limping and out of breath by the time she handed me the letter, repeating, “He passed it,” still using the third person. I won’t deny feeling a sense of accomplishment when I realized I was now licensed to sell life insurance in the state of Pennsylvania. Then it hit me: I was now licensed to sell life insurance in the state of Pennsylvania. The day I swore would never come had arrived: I was a fucking insurance salesman. A thought briefly entered my mind that was so horrible and disturbing it made me feel dizzy:
Should I have tried a little harder in school?

The one good thing about passing the exam was telling Bob, who was so thrilled that he threw me a little celebration party that evening at the Holiday Inn in Harrisburg. It was just the two of us at the bar, Bob belting down Crown Royals while I feasted on birch beer and Spanish peanuts. He asked me if I was sure I didn’t want a drink, and I told him no, I was pregnant. He let that one digest for several seconds before convulsing with laughter. “You know something, Adam? I like you! You’re a wise guy!”

Bob put his arm around me and gave me the good news: I was now officially set for life. “In this business,
we
choose
what we make,” he said loudly. “The sky’s the limit. Not like these other slobs who snake drains for a living and beg their wives for a piece of snatch every night.” Coincidentally, Bob had failed to sell a policy to a plumber earlier that week. “What do you want to make this year, Adam? Fifty grand? A hundred grand?” Those were outrageously high numbers. Not wanting to sound arrogant, I split the difference and went with seventy-five. “Bullshit!” he thundered. “You’re gonna make a hundred grand this year or I’ll take a piss all over this bar!” There were people around us, and I gently tried to shush him, but he waved me off, saying, “Hey, Adam, I love you, but I’m not gonna put on a top hat for these animals.”

Essentially, though, Bob was what you’d call a “happy drunk.” One minute he’d be yapping it up with a man who distributed flange bolts, and the next, shaking his ass on the dance floor with a plump, giggly state worker. The only crimp in the evening was a heated exchange between Bob and the bartender over the tab: “I’d have to be a goddamn sperm whale to drink all this!” It ended agreeably, though, with Bob making nice and hugging him, repeating over and over, “You’re a good lad.” After we left the hotel, he proudly held up his trophies for the evening: a business card from the flange bolt guy and a scrap of napkin with his dance partner’s phone number. “So there you have it, my friend. I’ll sell one and bang the other. Can a plumber do that?”

I bid my boss goodnight and watched his Monte Carlo flatten several traffic cones as it fishtailed down Second Street. It was at that moment I formulated my strategy: If the numbers Bob was throwing out were truly possible, all I had to do was work hard for three years and then parachute out with roughly a quarter of a million dollars. That kind of dough buys freedom, which was all I was after. And a Jeep.

•   •   •

Buddy Fowler invited me into his office the next day. A genteel man with the fat, hairless face of a baby, Buddy played French horn in the Leacock Drum and Bugle Corps. Everyone in the agency conspicuously avoided him for fear of hearing the dreaded words “Come on out this Sunday.” But it wasn’t drill formations Buddy had on his mind this particular morning.

“Adam and Eve!” He chuckled pleasantly as I entered. I chuckled back as if I’d never heard that one before. “Adam,” he said, “now that you’re a fully licensed agent—and may I offer you a hundred-and-one salutes—I have a very unique business opportunity for you. Normally I would partner with a more seasoned man for a job like this, but I’ve always had a soft spot for the novice.” I observed a small blob of Pepto-Bismol on the carpet next to his desk.

Buddy continued, lowering his voice a bit: “I’d like you to
pick up a check from a gentleman out by Shippensburg named Russ Ziegler. Owns a little auto parts store. He will not be happy to see you, which I apologize for in advance. I need you to tell him the following: Mr. Fowler is no longer with the company. Do you understand, Adam? Advise him that I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and as far as you know, I’m convalescing with an uncle in Birmingham. It’s really that simple. If you get the check, and I’m certain you will, there’s a fifty-dollar bill on the clothesline for you.”

Wow
, I thought,
this insurance thing is a breeze
.

The ride to Ziegler’s Auto Supply was long and dreamy. The AC in my car had been dead since the day I bought it from Chet Dunlap’s brother, but recently antifreeze had been misting through the air vents, which I wisely sealed with duct tape. While my face no longer became glazed with ethylene, the interior still got a little fumy, even with the windows open.
Man
,
fifty bucks,
I kept thinking as I shook off sleep.
At this rate, I might hit my goal of two hundred and fifty grand earlier than I projected.

I don’t remember how many words I got out before Russ Ziegler started yelling and spraying spit all over me. “You tell Bud Fowler to go fuck himself!” I backed up a bit, knocking over a cardboard cutout of Cale Yarborough holding a spark plug. “I made some calls and I know what he’s up to.
My brother-in-law told me I lost three grand on that last policy!”

I had no idea what he was talking about. Buddy had been short on details.

“Well, uh,” I stammered, “I’m sure Mr. Fowler, who doesn’t work for the company anymore because he lives with his uncle and has cancer, had reasons for telling you stuff that was trying to help you and—”

He cut me off. “He thinks he can sell and resell me a policy every five years? You tell that lying son of a bitch I’ll shove that fucking horn down his throat!” Mr. Ziegler’s Battle of Inchon crew cut was now turning pink at the scalp, and he instructed me to get the hell out of his store before he broke me over his leg like a Popsicle. I remember thinking:
Wouldn’t that be a little awkward, if not messy?

As I patched out of the parking lot, I made a mental note to come back in a few years when I was more muscular and kick his old-man ass all the way from the fan belts to the wiper blades.

Back at the agency, Buddy sighed and thanked me for my efforts. “Why don’t people want to help themselves, Adam?” he asked sadly. “It’s life’s ultimate mystery.” He gave me five dollars for gas and slunk back to his office. Later, Bob somehow got wind of the incident and I heard
him lecturing Buddy in the hallway: “That kid’s not your goddamn janitor. Next time clean up your own shit.” On his way out that night, Buddy handed me another five bucks and a flyer for an upcoming parade in Mount Gretna.