The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil Read online

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either 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.

  The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

  A Riverhead Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2005 by George Saunders

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

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  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1734-4

  A RIVERHEAD BOOK®

  Riverhead Books first published by The Riverhead Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  RIVERHEAD and the “R” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: September, 2005

  To Joe and Sheri Lindbloom, brilliant teachers, beautiful friends.

  It’s one thing to be a small country, but the country of Inner Horner was so small only one Inner Hornerite at a time could fit inside, and the other six Inner Hornerites had to wait their turns to live in their own country while standing very timidly in the surrounding country of Outer Horner.

  Whenever the Outer Hornerites looked at the hangdog Inner Hornerites crammed into the Short-Term Residency Zone, they felt a little sick, and also very patriotic. Inner Hornerites were pathetic and whiny and grasping, unlike them, the Outer Hornerites, who for many years had been demonstrating their tremendous generosity by allowing the Inner Hornerites to overflow into the Short-Term Residency Zone. Not that the Inner Hornerites appreciated it. No, they never wept with gratitude anymore, only stood very close together, glaring resentfully at the Outer Hornerites, who, having so much room, had no need to stand close together, and in fact could often be seen drinking coffee at the spacious Outer Horner Cafe with their legs thrown out in the aisles, causing the Inner Hornerites to wonder: Jeez, couldn’t those jerks spare us a couple hundred extra square yards of that vast unlimited country?

  For their part, the Outer Hornerites felt that, yes, okay, their country was big, but it wasn’t infinitely big, which meant they might someday conceivably run out of room. Besides, what if they gave more of their beloved country to Inner Horner and some other crummy little countries came around demanding bits of Outer Horner? What would happen to the Outer Horner way of life, which was so comfortable and afforded them such super dignity and required so much space? Well, those Inner Hornerites could take a flying leap if they considered Outer Hornerites selfish, it was pretty nervy to call someone selfish while standing on land they were letting you use for free.

  So it went, year after year, with much mutual glowering and many murmured rude comments and the occasional angry word hissed across the border.

  Then one day Inner Horner got smaller. It happened without warning; there was a loud scraping rock-on-rock sound and suddenly three-quarters of Elmer, the Inner Hornerite then in residence, was not in Inner Horner at all. That is, every part of Elmer but the octagonal shovel-like receptacle with which he scooped dirt when nervous was suddenly now located in Outer Horner.

  Just then Leon, the Outer Horner Border Guard, came by on his rounds, noted the presence of three-quarters of Elmer in Outer Horner, and rang the loud buzzer that meant Invasion in Progress.

  The Outer Horner Militia (Freeda, Melvin, and Larry) came rushing over and stood glaring fiercely across the green piece of string that constituted the boundary of the Short-Term Residency Zone.

  SUDDENLY, INNER HORNER SHRUNK.

  “What are you people trying to pull?” said Larry. “What’s that part of a guy doing in our country?”

  “Our country shrunk,” said Elmer, digging nervously in the dirt with his octagonal shovel-like receptacle.

  “Oh please,” said Freeda. “You expect us to believe that? Our country never shrinks.”

  “Decent countries don’t shrink,” said Melvin. “They either stay the same or get bigger.”

  “Take a look,” said Elmer.

  And the Outer Horner Militia (Freeda, Melvin, and Larry) looked into the deep heart of Inner Horner, by leaning over the red string that constituted the Inner Horner border, and saw that Inner Horner had, in fact, shrunk.

  “Weird,” said Melvin.

  “Gross,” said Larry.

  “What do we do now?” said Freeda.

  “I say we expulse the invaders,” said Larry.

  “That sounds pretty good,” said Melvin. “How do we?”

  “We just, ah, you know, expulse them,” said Larry. “Watch. Something like this.”

  And Larry expulsed Elmer. That is, he pushed the portion of Elmer that was in Outer Horner back into Inner Horner. But since Inner Horner was now too small to accommodate all of Elmer, as the portion of Elmer in Outer Horner was expulsed into Inner Horner, a different portion of Elmer reemerged out of Inner Horner, sort of inadvertently reinvading Outer Horner.

  “They’re a scrappy, stubborn people,” said Melvin. “You’ve got to give them that.”

  “Sneaky,” said Larry. “That’s what they are.”

  “What you need to do,” said someone, with great authority, from over by the Cafe, “is tax them.”

  This was Phil, a middle-aged Outer Hornerite generally considered a slightly bitter nobody. Many years before, Phil had, from across the border, fallen in love with a largely vertical, left-trending Inner Hornerite named Carol. He was captivated by her glossy black filaments and transparent oscillating membranes, the delicate curve of her exposed spine, her habit of demurely scratching one bearing with a furry glovelike appendage, and spent many hours casually circling Inner Horner, hoping to catch her eye, inflating and deflating his central bladder in order to look more manly and attractive. But no. Carol was in love with Cal, an Inner Hornerite who resembled a gigantic belt buckle with a blue dot affixed to it, if a gigantic belt buckle with a blue dot affixed to it had been stapled to a tuna fish can.

  The day of the wedding was the worst of Phil’s life.

  He stood across the border, heartbroken, passing bits of machine oil from his lower strata as the Inner Hornerites performed their marriage ritual, which consisted of standing even more closely together than usual and singing sentimental songs about the enviable compactness of their country.

  Over the years Phil’s bitterness increased, as day after day he watched Carol polishing Cal’s belt buckle and playfully opening and closing Cal’s tuna fish can. When Carol and Cal’s son, Little Andy, was born, Phil’s bitterness was complete. He couldn’t help thinking that, if only Carol had used better judgment and shown better taste, Little Andy could’ve been his son. Although if Little Andy had been his son, Little Andy would no doubt have been better-looking and more intelligent and certainly wouldn’t have been given a dopey Inner Horner–sounding name like Little Andy.

  “You tax them,” Phil said again. “You charge them for every day they take up room in our beloved land.”

  “Wow, great idea,” said Larry. “How much do we charge?”

  “How much do they have?” said Phil. br />
  “How much do you have?” Larry asked the Inner Hornerites.

  Using his octagonal shovel-like receptacle, Elmer opened the cash box, which occupied the entire northwest region of Inner Horner.

  “Four smolokas,” he said.

  “Then tax them four,” said Phil.

  “But then we’ll have zero,” said Cal.

  “Tax them four,” said Phil. “They pay us four, they can stay in the Short-Term Residency Zone the rest of the day. That’s how you do it. That’s fair.”

  “Pretty smart guy,” said Larry.

  “Yeah, who knew?” said Melvin.

  Now, in addition to having been jilted by the love of his life, Phil had another problem, which was that the bolt holding his brain in position on his tremendous sliding rack occasionally fell out, causing his brain to slide rapidly down his rack and smash into the ground. This happened now. His brain slid down, smashed into the ground, popped off his rack, and rolled into a ditch.

  “I’ll tell you something else about which I’ve been lately thinking!” he bellowed in a suddenly stentorian voice. “I’ve been thinking about our beautiful country! Who gave it to us? I’ve been thinking about how God the Almighty gave us this beautiful sprawling land as a reward for how wonderful we are. We’re big, we’re energetic, we’re generous, which is reflected in all our myths, which are so very populated with large high-energy folks who give away all they have! If we have a National Virtue, it is that we are generous, if we have a National Defect, it is that we are too generous! Is it our fault that these little jerks have such a small crappy land? I think not! God Almighty gave them that small crappy land for reasons of His own. It is not my place to start cross-examining God Almighty, asking why He gave them such a small crappy land, my place is to simply enjoy and protect the big bountiful land God Almighty gave us!”

  Suddenly Phil didn’t seem like quite so much of a nobody to the other Outer Hornerites. What kind of nobody was so vehement, and used so many confusing phrases with so much certainty, and was so completely accurate about how wonderful and generous and under-appreciated they were?

  “Boy oh boy,” said Freeda.

  “He just comes right out and says it,” said Melvin.

  “Thank goodness someone finally has,” said Larry.

  “As for you Inner Hornerites!” bellowed Phil. “Please take heed: You are hereby testing the limits of our legendary generosity, because of how you are, which is so very the opposite of us. Friends, take a look at these losers! If they are as good as us, why do they look so much worse than us? Look how they look! Do they look valorous and noble and huge like us, or do they look sad and weak and puny?”

  The truth was, long years of timidly standing very close together in the Short-Term Residency Zone whispering complicated mathematical proofs to pass the time had made the Inner Hornerites frail and small, whereas the Outer Hornerites, with an entire huge country to roam around in, were stocky and hearty, and knew absolutely no mathematical proofs.

  “Pretty darn puny,” said Melvin.

  “I never really noticed that before,” said Leon the Border Guard.

  “Collect the taxes!” shouted Phil, and Freeda reached over the border and seized the Inner Horner cash box.

  Larry and Melvin rushed into the ditch, retrieved Phil’s brain, and remounted it on his big sliding rack.

  “Thank you, my friends,” said Phil, his voice suddenly less stentorian. “What wonderful examples of our famous Outer Horner generosity.”

  Larry gave Melvin a proud secret look, and Melvin gave Larry a proud secret look, and Freeda, counting the contents of the cash box to verify that there were in fact four smolokas inside, felt a little sad that Phil had not cited her as a wonderful example of that famous Outer Horner generosity, and resolved that, next time Phil’s brain slid off his rack, she would be the one to remount it.

  Next morning, Phil and the Outer Horner Militia (Freeda, Melvin, and Larry) arrived at the border before dawn and stood watching the Inner Hornerites sleep while standing up.

  “Snooze, snooze, snooze,” said Phil. “Sort of lazy, aren’t they?”

  “Whereas us,” said Larry, “we’re up before dawn, diligently working.”

  “That’s right Larry,” said Phil. “Good observation.”

  “Doing our diligent work of collecting taxes,” said Melvin.

  “Super, Melvin,” said Phil. “We really are a diligent people.”

  “Diligently collecting taxes to protect the security of our nation,” said Freeda.

  “You know what?” said Phil. “After spending some time with you folks, I am tempted, in terms of our most important National Virtue, to replace ‘Generosity’ with ‘Remarkable Intelligence.’ ”

  Larry, Melvin, and Freeda beamed.

  “Now what do you say we collect some taxes?” Phil said, and nudged Leon, who, with his Border Guard pole, gave Wanda, the nearest Inner Hornerite, a hard poke in her thermal venting apparatus.

  The Inner Hornerites woke and, as on every other morning, briefly considered stretching, then remembered that, if they all stretched at once, someone would get knocked out of the Short-Term Residency Zone and would technically be invading Outer Horner.

  So they began stretching, one at a time, by age, oldest first.

  “Tax time, slackers,” said Phil. “Stop that stupid stretching and listen up. You’re late with your dang taxes.”

  “But we don’t have any money,” said Elmer. “You know we don’t. You took it all yesterday.”

  “Oh, you people,” said Phil. “What did you have in mind? Living in our beloved country for free forever? Do you know what we do? In our country? We work. We believe that time is money. Therefore, as time passes, in our land, we diligently work, which produces, guess what? Wealth. Money. Smolokas! You people! Knowing you owed us money, what did you do? You slept all night like babies! Dreaming, probably, of further taking us to the cleaners! So here you are, smolokaless, again owing your daily taxes. What else do you have? Larry, inventory their resources.”

  Larry looked at Phil blankly.

  “Count their stuff,” said Phil.

  “Oh,” said Larry, and inventoried the resources of the nation of Inner Horner, by examining the length and breadth of Inner Horner and carefully recording the results of his inventory on a piece of paper, which he then handed to Phil.

  “Okay, let’s see,” said Phil. “Apple tree, very small: one. Stream, nearly dry: one. Dry cracked dirt: approximately three cubic feet. Excellent, Larry, an excellent inventory. Now, let’s assess the total value of their national resources. Freeda, what do you say? Do you say four? Do you say all that junk is worth exactly four smolokas?”

  Overnight, Freeda, a lonely bushlike widow, had developed a bit of a crush on authoritative, gleaming, shouting Phil, and nodded her head yes with a rapt look on her face, without even looking at the tree, the stream, or the dirt.

  “Excellent job, Freeda,” said Phil. “A really nice assessment. Leon: Uproot that tree and drain that stream and dig up that dirt and let’s bring it all back home, to Outer Horner.”

  Leon stepped over the border and uprooted the apple tree and drained the stream into his see-through stomach. Then, using his spadelike tail, he dug up the dirt and added it to the stream in his stomach, making a pale red mud.

  “But what will we eat?” said Carol. “What will we drink? What do you expect us to do when it’s our turn to live in our country, stand in that hole?”

  LEON DRAINED THE STREAM INTO HIS SEE-THROUGH STOMACH.

  “That’s not really my problem,” said Phil. “My problem is, where am I going to store this junky tree and this boring little stream and this laughable dirt? Any suggestions?”

  “How about West Distant Outer Horner?” said Larry. “It’s pretty empty out there.”

  “Super input, Larry,” said Phil. “Leon, would you do the honors?”

  Carrying the tree over his shoulder and the streamwater-dirt mix in his stomac
h, Leon walked out to West Distant Outer Horner, a bleak area of recurring icy crevasses, and dropped the former national resources of Inner Horner into the deepest, iciest crevasse he could find.

  That night in the Short-Term Residency Zone the Inner Hornerites held a whispered frantic national referendum. Years of standing with their limbs intermingled had made the Inner Hornerites extremely considerate of one another’s feelings, so much so that even the simplest decision, such as whether to declare it National Bedtime, sometimes took hours.

  “So how should we start?” said Elmer. “How should we proceed? What’s our primary issue here?”

  “Wait a minute, Elmer,” said Wanda. “Aren’t you getting a little ahead of things? Don’t you think we should first determine if determining our primary issue is indeed our highest priority?”

  “Which I suppose raises the question of whether determining our highest priority really is in fact our initial goal,” said Old Gus, the oldest Inner Hornerite, who was so old and tired he was shaped something like the letter C, if the letter C was bald and had two gray withered antlers.

  “I think the primary issue is, we don’t have any food,” said Carol.

  “I agree with Carol,” said Cal, who, after ten years of marriage, was still nuts about Carol.

  “Although the lack of water isn’t so great either,” said Curtis.

  “Of course we also have no dirt,” said Elmer.

  “Well, the lack of dirt I think is not so primary,” said Curtis.

  “I beg to differ,” said Elmer. “I think the lack of dirt is very primary. I mean, look at our country.”

  And everyone looked at Inner Horner, which now looked something like an open grave.

  “To be frank, I’m feeling a little left out of this discussion,” said Old Gus. “My concern about whether determining our highest priority was indeed our initial goal appears to have been dismissed out of hand.”