Pastoralia Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  • PASTORALIA •

  • WINKY •

  • SEA OAK •

  • The End of FIRPO IN THE WORLD •

  • The BARBER’S UNHAPPINESS •

  • THE FALLS •

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A NOTE ABOUT THE TYPE

  ALSO BY GEORGE SAUNDERS

  ALSO BY GEORGE SAUNDERS

  The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip

  CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

  The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

  In Persuasion Nation

  The Braindead Megaphone

  RIVERHEAD BOOKS

  New York

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All of these stories originally appeared in The New Yorker, in some cases in a condensed form.

  Copyright © 2000 by George Saunders

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  RIVERHEAD is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The RIVERHEAD logo is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Saunders, George.

  Pastoralia : stories / by George Saunders.

  p. cm.

  Contents: Pastoralia—Winky—Sea Oak—The end of FIRPO in the world—

  The barber’s unhappiness—The falls.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-56925-2

  I. Title.

  PS3569.A7897 E53 2000

  99-087258

  813’.54—dc21

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  • For Paula •

  • PASTORALIA •

  1.

  I HAVE TO ADMIT I’m not feeling my best. Not that I’m doing so bad. Not that I really have anything to complain about. Not that I would actually verbally complain if I did have something to complain about. No. Because I’m Thinking Positive/Saying Positive. I’m sitting back on my haunches, waiting for people to poke in their heads. Although it’s been thirteen days since anyone poked in their head and Janet’s speaking English to me more and more, which is partly why I feel so, you know, crummy.

  “Jeez,” she says first thing this morning. “I’m so tired of roast goat I could scream.”

  What am I supposed to say to that? It puts me in a bad spot. She thinks I’m a goody-goody and that her speaking English makes me uncomfortable. And she’s right. It does. Because we’ve got it good. Every morning, a new goat, just killed, sits in our Big Slot. In our Little Slot, a book of matches. That’s better than some. Some are required to catch wild hares in snares. Some are required to wear pioneer garb while cutting the heads off chickens. But not us. I just have to haul the dead goat out of the Big Slot and skin it with a sharp flint. Janet just has to make the fire. So things are pretty good. Not as good as in the old days, but then again, not so bad.

  In the old days, when heads were constantly poking in, we liked what we did. Really hammed it up. Had little grunting fights. Whenever I was about to toss a handful of dirt in her face I’d pound a rock against a rock in rage. That way she knew to close her eyes. Sometimes she did this kind of crude weaving. It was like: Roots of Weaving. Sometimes we’d go down to Russian Peasant Farm for a barbecue, I remember there was Murray and Leon, Leon was dating Eileen, Eileen was the one with all the cats, but now, with the big decline in heads poking in, the Russian Peasants are all elsewhere, some to Administration but most not, Eileen’s cats have gone wild, and honest to God sometimes I worry I’ll go to the Big Slot and find it goatless.

  2.

  This morning I go to the Big Slot and find it goatless. Instead of a goat there’s a note:

  Hold on, hold on, it says. The goat’s coming, for crissake. Don’t get all snooty.

  The problem is, what am I supposed to do during the time when I’m supposed to be skinning the goat with the flint? I decide to pretend to be desperately ill. I rock in a corner and moan. This gets old. Skinning the goat with the flint takes the better part of an hour. No way am I rocking and moaning for an hour.

  Janet comes in from her Separate Area and her eyebrows go up.

  “No freaking goat?” she says.

  I make some guttural sounds and some motions meaning: Big rain come down, and boom, make goats run, goats now away, away in high hills, and as my fear was great, I did not follow.

  Janet scratches under her armpit and makes a sound like a monkey, then lights a cigarette.

  “What a bunch of shit,” she says. “Why you insist, I’ll never know. Who’s here? Do you see anyone here but us?”

  I gesture to her to put out the cigarette and make the fire. She gestures to me to kiss her butt.

  “Why am I making a fire?” she says. “A fire in advance of a goat. Is this like a wishful fire? Like a hopeful fire? No, sorry, I’ve had it. What would I do in the real world if there was thunder and so on and our goats actually ran away? Maybe I’d mourn, like cut myself with that flint, or maybe I’d kick your ass for being so stupid as to leave the goats out in the rain. What, they didn’t put it in the Big Slot?”

  I scowl at her and shake my head.

  “Well, did you at least check the Little Slot?” she says. “Maybe it was a small goat and they really crammed it in. Maybe for once they gave us a nice quail or something.”

  I give her a look, then walk off in a rolling gait to check the Little Slot.

  Nothing.

  “Well, freak this,” she says. “I’m going to walk right out of here and see what the hell is up.”

  But she won’t. She knows it and I know it. She sits on her log and smokes and together we wait to hear a clunk in the Big Slot.

  About lunch we hit the Reserve Crackers. About dinner we again hit the Reserve Crackers.

  No heads poke in and there’s no clunk in either the Big or Little Slot.

  Then the quality of light changes and she stands at the door of her Separate Area.

  “No goat tomorrow, I’m out of here and down the hill,” she says. “I swear to God. You watch.”

  I go into my Separate Area and put on my footies. I have some cocoa and take out a Daily Partner Performance Evaluation Form.

  Do I note any attitudinal difficulties? I do not. How do I rate my Partner overa
ll? Very good. Are there any Situations which require Mediation?

  There are not.

  I fax it in.

  3.

  Next morning, no goat. Also no note. Janet sits on her log and smokes and together we wait to hear a clunk in the Big Slot.

  No heads poke in and there’s no clunk in either the Big or Little Slot.

  About lunch we hit the Reserve Crackers. About dinner we again hit the Reserve Crackers.

  Then the quality of light changes and she stands at the door of her Separate Area.

  “Crackers, crackers, crackers!” she says pitifully. “Jesus, I wish you’d talk to me. I don’t see why you won’t. I’m about to go bonkers. We could at least talk. At least have some fun. Maybe play some Scrabble.”

  Scrabble.

  I wave good night and give her a grunt.

  “Bastard,” she says, and hits me with the flint. She’s a good thrower and I almost say ow. Instead I make a horselike sound of fury and consider pinning her to the floor in an effort to make her submit to my superior power etc. etc. Then I go into my Separate Area. I put on my footies and tidy up. I have some cocoa. I take out a Daily Partner Performance Evaluation Form.

  Do I note any attitudinal difficulties? I do not. How do I rate my Partner overall? Very good. Are there any Situations which require Mediation?

  There are not.

  I fax it in.

  4.

  In the morning in the Big Slot there’s a nice fat goat. Also a note:

  Ha ha! it says. Sorry about the no goat and all. A little mix-up. In the future, when you look in here for a goat, what you will find on every occasion is a goat, and not a note. Or maybe both. Ha ha! Happy eating! Everything’s fine!

  I skin the goat briskly with the flint. Janet comes in, smiles when she sees the goat, and makes, very quickly, a nice little fire, and does not say one English word all morning and even traces a few of our pictographs with a wet-tened finger, as if awestruck at their splendid beauty and so on.

  Around noon she comes over and looks at the cut on my arm, from where she threw the flint.

  “You gonna live?” she says. “Sorry, man, really sorry, I just like lost it.”

  I give her a look. She cans the English, then starts wailing in grief and sort of hunkers down in apology.

  The goat tastes super after two days of crackers.

  I have a nap by the fire and for once she doesn’t walk around singing pop hits in English, only mumbles unintelligibly and pretends to be catching and eating small bugs.

  Her way of saying sorry.

  No one pokes their head in.

  5.

  Once, back in the days when people still poked their heads in, this guy poked his head in.

  “Whoa,” he said. “These are some very cramped living quarters. This really makes you appreciate the way we live now. Do you have call-waiting? Do you know how to make a nice mushroom cream sauce? Ha ha! I pity you guys. And also, and yet, I thank you guys, who were my precursors, right? Is that the spirit? Is that your point? You weren’t ignorant on purpose? You were doing the best you could? Just like I am? Probably someday some guy representing me will be in there, and some punk who I’m precursor of will be hooting at me, asking why my shoes were made out of dead cows and so forth? Because in that future time, wearing dead skin on your feet, no, they won’t do that. That will seem to them like barbarity, just like you dragging that broad around by her hair seems to us like barbarity, although to me, not that much, after living with my wife fifteen years. Ha ha! Have a good one!”

  I never drag Janet around by the hair.

  Too cliché.

  Just then his wife poked in her head.

  “Stinks in there,” she said, and yanked her head out.

  “That’s the roasting goat,” her husband said. “Everything wasn’t all prettied up. When you ate meat, it was like you were eating actual meat, the flesh of a dead animal, an animal that maybe had been licking your hand just a few hours before.”

  “I would never do that,” said the wife.

  “You do it now, bozo!” said the man. “You just pay someone to do the dirty work. The slaughtering? The skinning?”

  “I do not either,” said the wife.

  We couldn’t see them, only hear them through the place where the heads poke in.

  “Ever heard of a slaughterhouse?” the husband said. “Ha ha! Gotcha! What do you think goes on in there? Some guy you never met kills and flays a cow with what you might term big old cow eyes, so you can have your shoes and I can have my steak and my shoes!”

  “That’s different,” she said. “Those animals were raised for slaughter. That’s what they were made for. Plus I cook them in an oven, I don’t squat there in my underwear with smelly smoke blowing all over me.”

  “Thank heaven for small favors,” he said. “Joking! I’m joking. You squatting in your underwear is not such a bad mental picture, believe me.”

  “Plus where do they poop,” she said.

  “Ask them,” said the husband. “Ask them where they poop, if you so choose. You paid your dime. That is certainly your prerogative.”

  “I don’t believe I will,” said the wife.

  “Well, I’m not shy,” he said.

  Then there was no sound from the head-hole for quite some time. Possibly they were quietly discussing it.

  “Okay, so where do you poop?” asked the husband, poking his head in.

  “We have disposable bags that mount on a sort of rack,” said Janet. “The septic doesn’t come up this far.”

  “Ah,” he said. “They poop in bags that mount on racks.”

  “Wonderful,” said his wife. “I’m the richer for that information.”

  “But hold on,” the husband said. “In the old times, like when the cave was real and all, where then did they go? I take it there were no disposal bags in those times, if I’m right.”

  “In those times they just went out in the woods,” said Janet.

  “Ah,” he said. “That makes sense.”

  You see what I mean about Janet? When addressed directly we’re supposed to cower shrieking in the corner but instead she answers twice in English?

  I gave her a look.

  “Oh, he’s okay,” she whispered. “He’s no narc. I can tell.”

  In a minute in came a paper airplane: our Client Vignette Evaluation.

  Under Overall Impression he’d written: A-okay! Very nice.

  Under Learning Value he’d written: We learned where they pooped. Both old days and now.

  I added it to our pile, then went into my Separate Area and put on my footies. I filled out my Daily Partner Performance Evaluation Form. Did I note any attitudinal difficulties? I did not. How did I rate my Partner overall? Very good. Were there any Situations which required Mediation?

  There were not.

  I faxed it in.

  6.

  This morning is the morning I empty our Human Refuse bags and the trash bags and the bag from the bottom of the sleek metal hole where Janet puts her used feminine items.

  For this I get an extra sixty a month. Plus it’s always nice to get out of the cave.

  I knock on the door of her Separate Area.

  “Who is it?” she asks, playing dumb.

  She knows very well who it is. I stick in my arm and wave around a trash bag.

  “Go for it,” she says.

  She’s in there washing her armpits with a washcloth. The room smells like her, only more so. I add the trash from her wicker basket to my big white bag. I add her bag of used feminine items to my big white bag. I take three bags labeled Caution Human Refuse from the corner and add them to my big pink bag labeled Caution Human Refuse.

  I mime to her that I dreamed of a herd that covered the plain like the grass of the earth, they were as numerous as grasshoppers and yet the meat of their humps resembled each a tiny mountain etc. etc., and sharpen my spear and try to look like I’m going into a sort of prehunt trance.

  �
�Are you going?” she shouts. “Are you going now? Is that what you’re saying?”

  I nod.

  “Christ, so go already,” she says. “Have fun. Bring back some mints.”

  She has worked very hard these many months to hollow out a rock in which to hide her mints and her smokes. Mints mints mints. Smokes smokes smokes. No matter how long we’re in here together I will never get the hots for her. She’s fifty and has large feet and sloping shoulders and a pinched little face and chews with her mouth open. Sometimes she puts on big ugly glasses in the cave and does a crossword: very verboten.

  Out I go, with the white regular trash bag in one hand and our mutual big pink Human Refuse bag in the other.

  7.

  Down in the blue-green valley is a herd of robotic something-or-others, bent over the blue-green grass, feeding I guess? Midway between our mountain and the opposing mountains is a wide green river with periodic interrupting boulders. I walk along a white cliff, then down a path marked by a yellow dot on a pine. Few know this way. It is a non-Guest path. No Attractions are down it, only Disposal Area 8 and a little Employees Only shop in a doublewide, a real blessing for us, we’re so close and all.

  Inside the doublewide are Marty and a lady we think is maybe Marty’s wife but then again maybe not.

  Marty’s shrieking at the lady, who’s writing down whatever he shrieks.

  “Just do as they ask!” he shrieks, and she writes it down. “And not only that, do more than that, son, more than they ask! Excel! Why not excel? Be excellent! Is it bad to be good? Now son, I know you don’t think that, because that is not what you were taught, you were taught that it is good to be good, I very clearly remember teaching you that. When we went fishing, and you caught a fish, I always said good, good fishing, son, and when you caught no fish, I frowned, I said bad, bad catching of fish, although I don’t believe I was ever cruel about it. Are you getting this?”