Accounts Receivable: I Am Brian

Author(s): Richard Bailey

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Chicago Review, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Summer, 1984), pp. 26-36
Published by: Chicago Review
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25305266 .
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Richard Bailey
Accounts Receivable: I am Brian
Brian is sorting things out in the morning.
He is in the store, behind his desk.
And he is waiting.
When Fu comes in the morning, he already moving right and with
sweet conceit he knows damn well he's fine. A squat man wrapped tight
in his silk threads who turns his sly head real slow to one side before he
sets you straight that he ain't no fool and the sweet ass that moves all
fast and nasty on this street... .They know, say Fu, They know.
Thick Whang Fu, they call me, he say laughing loud.
One slick black chinaman this thick whang Fu, he say swinging on the
axis of his slick black hips, bringing his hands to his collar, lifting his
collar high, throwing his chin back. He is parading without even
moving his shined leather kicks. He is being fine just where he is with
one shoulder pulled low, one arm laid back, staring out at the street.
Look at this mean shit coming, Fu say. Come over here, Brian, come
on. It is morning and they are alone in the store watching this mean
stuff coming with the short-skirted strut of her long legged boots
snapping.
Snapping down that street.
Fat legs, say Fu, OOOh fat legs.
Snapping down don't turn her head cause she ain't watching nothing.
Yeah, say Fu. This here corner thick with ass.
A plywood partition covered with a thin film of wallpaper runs through
the length of the store separating the office furniture from the home
furniture.
They are different concerns.
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Brian is making his way slowly through the maze of display desks to his
own desk.The ugly gray desk in the corner. The desk which is not for
sale, behind which he sits and pretends to be. He is going there now as
Harold Blum huddles himself into his great white Chrysler and wheels
the long thing out on to the road.
Harold Blum is old.
He is cold even though wrapped in a heavy overcoat from which he
peers frail and bald. He is a delicate composition of bones and pale
flesh, but most of all he is cold. Cold with winter and cold with grief.
He is mourning the death of his wife. Even now he may be crying.
An old man cold in a great white Chrysler crying down the highway.
Sobs breaking from his throat as he passes a Buick.
Moans softly rendered while adjusting the heater.
Sorrow, how it weighs on Harold Blum. It has been five months since
she died. It has made Harold Blum old, it has made him frail with
anguish. Or is it sorrow? Sorrow and anguish. Or are they both the
same? How are they to be defined other than to say they are killing
him?
It's killing me, this pain, he has said on numerous occasions.
Meandering like a lost river among the desks, tears splashing down on
to his cheeks, It's murder, he whispers. He gives his grief freely, still it
does not diminish.
Such a woman... .he says.
This is part of the sorrow.
Now it should happen? Now when we could finally have time together,
time for each other and nothing to worry about. Now it should happen?
A puzzlement this is to Harold Blum that a terrible irony along with
death should be worked upon him.
This is part of the anguish.
With weary steps Harold Blum enters the store and manages after some
struggle to remove his overcoat and hat. He slumps into his swivel chair
with exhaustion but already his eyes have found Brian. It's bad today,
he says, five months she's been dead and today is as bad as the first.
Harold Blum is beginning to cry.
Shamelessly, he does not cover his face. He does not turn away.
Harold Blum has stopped selling office furniture.
Now he is selling grief.
Back behind the beds and dressers, Fu is laughing with Tall Jimmy the
delivery man. Laughing loud enough for Harold Blum to hear, but not
so loud that Harold Blum can be sure that they are laughing at him. Fu
is motioning on the sly for Brian to look, to say, The old jew is at it
again.
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Hey, say Fu to Tall Jimmy, go tell that old fool that nobody cares. Tell
him we ain't buying no more old white jew blues this morning thank
you. Tell him.
Animals, Harold Blum is saying to himself, they are filthy animals.
Brian is sorting things out.
He is in the store, behind his desk.
And he is waiting.
The local trucks arrive in the morning.
They roll up tall and impose themselves upon the sidewalk with their
cardboard crates of files and desks. Brian goes out to each truck, signs
the papers, moves the boxes to one side, and laughs in the direction of
the truck driver's jokes. These things must be done.
Fu is leaning by the door watching. Something, ain't it? say Fu. His
voice fills with disgust as he hooks his head to one side his eyes glance
towards where Harold Blum is sobbing.
Look it the tears blubbering, BLUBBERING down his dumb old face,
say Fu snorting the words out like he was shaking them loose from his
chest. Ain't he something? Fu say waiting for an answer.
Brian is looking at Harold Blum.
What does this mean?
Shit, say Fu turning his stare back to the street.
Yes, Brian is saying, it's something.
Fu is no longer listening.
Animals, Harold Blum is saying, another species. There's no way to talk
to them; they speak some other language. Shit and fuck and hands in
their pockets playing with themselves, this they can understand. My
Ida dead in the ground five months now. My Ida smiling, laughing, and
loving everything, even these filthy animals. Talk to them, Harold, she
would say. They're just people, she would say. She loved everything and
she's dead. But the animals are still here.
It's murder, Brian, It's killing me.
It is beginning again, Brian knows, but what is to be said?
Harold Blum is focusing his gaze somewhere out in the street. It is best
left there in order to remember how the parts go together, how sorrow
comes with death, and how this grief can go on forever.
And it can, Harold Blum knows if he is careful, it can.
If only you had known her, he is saying.
Brian is making certain that there is a semblance of compassion on his
face, making sure that he nods and turns away at the correct moments.
Then you would understand, Harold Blum is saying.
Brian is not so sure.
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There is no relief for Brian even in the streets. A multitude of Harold
Blums find him wherever he goes. They lay sprawled and snoring,
sleeping off cheap wine. They corner him in drugstores, clutching
bottles and vials and tablets which they are promising to take and which
they pay for quickly, gladly and rush away with to find water.. .to be
well. And Harold Blums disguised as middle-aged faggots in the drag of
plain cotton dresses, wrinkled and stained with the loss of their lovers,
station themselves at every coffee-shop and cry out over and over again
in their high-pitched voices for hamburgers and French fries.
To go.
And why must Brian wonder where they will go?
And why must Brian wonder about them at all?
Brian is pretending to check invoices at his desk. He is really making a
list.
Things that must be done today.
Radio a ship adrift at sea.
Feed a poor person in India.
Stop Jim Bowie from murdering Mexicans with his long knife.
On television. Over Texas. Jesus Christ,
We all need land.
Especially me.
It wasn't enough that she worked every day of her life, Harold Blum is
saying. But to die like that, right here in the store. It isn't fair.
I know, Brian says quietly.
YOU KNOW? Harold Blum is screaming, standing up from his chair.
How could you know? How could anyone know?
Fu is making loud noises by the door.
What are you saying over there? Harold Blum screams at the partition.
Brian is turning his attention to the top of his desk. He is checking
invoices and making notes on their margins.
Fu appears from around the corner of the partition strutting ever so
slowly.
You talking to me, man?
Yes, Goddamnit, I'm talking to you.
Then what you want, man?
I want to know, Harold Blum is pausing and trying to catch his breath, I
want to know what in the hell you are saying over there. That's what I
want to know. I ain't saying nothing, old man. You must be hearing
things. You better believe when I got something to say to you, you'll
hear it, man, you'll hear it, say Fu.
The notes on the margins of the invoices read:
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This room is a perfect square. Harold Blum is a perfect
shade of white sitting at a desk symmetrically poised to
the direct proportions of floor, walls, and door. Neutral
but perpendicular, rising up like a portable flower, there
is a chair. Above the desk at a calculated point of lines
and circles, tangential to light, indifferent to time, there
hangs a lamp.
Without a bulb.
It's not plugged in.
It's just for sale.
If only it weren't so cold all of the time. So terribly cold, says Harold
Blum very quietly now to Brian.
I know, Brian is saying.
It must not be thought that Brian has been ineffectual, that Brian has
been still and has done nothing. Such is not the case. For the past few
months now he has been writing purchase orders for new shipments,
specifying dates of delivery, sealing envelopes and his fate with a moist
tongue, and mailing them off. The waiting is almost over. But still he
continues to write new orders for new items, all with the same address:
they are coming here. Like a visionary, he can clearly see spreading
across the landscape of his thoughts highways, trucks, and crates
converging on this store. He is expecting the first shipments today.
Perhaps, thinks Brian, they can drive the evil from this store and from
the hearts of Harold Blum and Fu. Perhaps they can bring life to this
desert of metal desks and file cabinets.
The rings of his typewriter puncture the air.
TO: Mid-East Imports
FROM: Blum's Office Furniture
SUBJECT: A Change of Style
We are currently in the process of a drastic change
in profile. From this point on, we will be handling a wide
new inventory of exotic and erotic items falling anywhere
within the bounds of interior or exterior decor.
For our initial display we will need the following:
15 sections-of the 10 ft. rectangles of Moorish
latticework,
your #10x chio s31 charred white,
12 ea.-of the six-tubed hookah pipes with swirled
silver lip hooks.
Date of Delivery:
as soon as is
humanly possible.
Cordially,
Harold Blum
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Brian is filing the duplicate copy of the purchase order with the others,
the hundreds of others wadded together like old dollar bills in the
bottom drawer of his desk.
Indeed, Brian has not remained motionless. In fact, he has also placed
orders for Uptown Home Furniture. He has done this for the well-being
of Fu and of Fu's boss, young Randolf Getz.
He had done this without thanks, but the thanks are coming just the
same. They are expected to arrive today.
For five minutes now, Harold Blum has been standing aimlessly near
the door wearing his heavy overcoat and black felt hat preparing to
leave for lunch.
I should eat something, he says. But I've no appetite.
You need your strength, says Brian.
Closing his eyes, he nods his head slowly. You're right, I'll force myself.
The out-of-state trucks will arrive after lunch, Brian knows this. If the
invasion is to succeed, then the first boxes and cartons must be received,
brought in, and opened without delay. The beachhead must be estab
lished at any cost.
When is that fool going to stop this shit, say Fu as he watches Harold
Blum cross the street. Moaning and groaning every goddamn day like
she was the first person ever dead. And him acting like he was so
fucking sorry, so fucking holy. You weren't here, Brian, you weren't
here to see him work her all to death and treat her just like he treat
us ... like shit. And now he wants me to care? Shit. Ain't you sick of
hearing it?
It won't last much longer, says Brian.
How you know? say Fu.
I know, says Brian, I know.
Brian is trying to decide for what exact reason he has done this, and he
is trying to figure out why he believes this is the only solution. He is
being resolute. He is burning his copies of the purchase orders. It
cannot be stopped now; the shipments will arrive for months to come.
But if this is the solution, then what exactly is the problem?
Something is wrong here, he whispers to himself.
He does not comment further.
Regardless: it is done.
The first truck is jockeying itself in front of the store. Brian is excited,
wondering what it will be. He is smiling at Fu as he walks to the door, he
is smiling with all his might. The truckman is hanging by one arm from
the tailgate, twisting great steel handles and throwing the right back
door open.
What have you got? asks Brian.
I don't know, says the truckman, but it seems to be hissing.
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Hissing, did you say?
Yes, hissing, says the truckman.
I see, says Brian.
The truckman is peering into a screened hole at the top of the crate, I
think, says he, the sonofabitch is alive.
Quickly, says Brian, lower it down. I've got a lot more deliveries coming
in.
Trucks are beginning to bunch and clump at major intersections across
the city, coming together on schedule as Harold Blum, having finished
his meager lunch of corned beef on rye and black coffee, walks hunched
and warmthless into the wind like a fragile sailboat, the mast cracked
and splintered, the sailors faceless, black-garbed rabbis; present course:
a northerly pogrom of grief; destination: same as the trucks.
Wheel it all the way to the back of the store, Brian is saying.
A second truck has pulled up alongside of the first. Fu is standing
up
and walking to the window for a better view. A third truck is stopping
for a red light several blocks away. Harold Blum is tacking in front of it
as he crosses on the green, but neither has noticed the other..
Organs, ballbusters, the second truckman is saying. Three 500-pound
organs, can you believe that?
Yes, Brian is saying. I've been waiting for them.
Like low, slow airplanes, trucks are circling the block, forming holding
patterns, making other deliveries first.
Brian is holding the door open as the last organ is rolled in. Harold
Blum is reaching the store in conjunction with the third truck.
What was delivered, Harold Blum is asking as he stands on the cold
concrete wave of the sidewalk with his overcoat in irons.
0-500's, Brian is saying as he waves the third truck in.
0-500's eh? Harold Blum is asking and shaking his head. Do you see
what this grief is doing to me? Now my mind is going. I can't even
remember what an 0-500 is.
Death is like that, says Brian.
Yes, Harold Blum is saying as he remembers and moves back within the
windless calm somewhere beneath his overcoat.
Brian starts towards the truck and then suddenly stops and turns back
to Harold Blum saying, the driver claims they are organs, he did not
specify. Perhaps they're transplants for the heart.
This is cruel, Harold Blum thinks. He is going into the store to be away
from this cold and to see what he cannot remember ordering ....
It's not for you, says the truckman, shoving boxes towards the door. It's
for Uptown Home Furniture.
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What did they get, asks Brian.
Hard to say. All the slip says is 60 cartons from I.R.C., says the
truckman.
Ah, says Brian remembering, yes.
TO: Imperial Roller Skate Company
We will require the following:
30 pairs of your Men's Championship Dancers in black.
30 pairs of your Women's Championship Dancers in
white.
All with the hard rubber, beveled stop-plate.
All with the yarn-puffed toe-tufts in matching colors.
It's for you, Fu, Brian shouts as he enters the store. There is an image in
his mind of Fu, Harold Blum, and young Randolf Getz, each of them
arrayed in pleated pants and baggy flannel shirts, cruising arm-in-arm
around a roller rink as a spotlight plays upon their faces. In the
background there is the swinging sound of a big band to which their
toe-tufts are syncopated. They are taking their victory lap. They are
smiling and happy.
Harold Blum is moored to an open crate. He is standing in a sea of cut
cardboard and straw packing and rocking ever so slightly as he says to
anyone who will listen, It's a goddamn PIPE ORGAN! I ordered a
goddamn PIPE ORGAN! he is saying as he staggers back to his desk.
Three of them, Brian says. You ordered three pipe organs.
Not one, shouts Harold Blum. Not two but three goddamn pipe organs.
How could I do such a thing?
There is no telling, says Brian.
I must have for a moment taken leave of my senses. I swear to you I
can't remember doing it at all, says Harold Blum.
There is something else, says Brian. A crate that came during lunch
and which I haven't opened yet. It's in the back by the files.
What do you think it is? asks Harold Blum, refusing to look toward it.
Fu is walling up the outside face of the show window with boxes of
roller skates and cursing angrily over the fact that Tall Jimmy is out on
deliveries. The store is growly slowly darker.
What is it? whispers Harold Blum. TALK TO ME! SPEAK!
That's impossible to say, but the driver seemed to think it was alive, says
Brian.
Another truck is pulling up in front of the store.
GROS. BROS. PRODUCE
Purveyors of Select Fruits and Vegetables
Since 1902
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Harold Blum is perfectly still. Becalmed.
Brian is leaning intimately nearer to the old man. There is a faint odor
of Russian dressing on the moist breath of Harold Blum. Brian's voice
is secretly whispering, The driver said he could hear it hissing at him.
My God! says Harold Blum.
But, says Brian, he could be lying.
Look it this shit, say Fu, holding one white Championship Dancer
suspended by its toe-tuft. Fucking Getz gone crazy and I got to lift all
these bastards and stackem. I ain't getting paid, man, for no roller skates.
Shit, say Fu, dropping it back into the box.
Where do you want me to put all these goddamn bananas? says the man
from Gros Bros. to Fu.
Stick 'em up your dumb ass for all I care, say Fu. I don't want nothing to
do with you or your bananas. Do this look like a fucking grocery store
I'm running here?
Talk to them fools next store.
Another truck has crept up behind the produce truck.
Listen, says the man from Gros. Bros., I didn't drive all the way down
here from Philly to listen to any of your shit, and I sure as hell ain't
taking any of these damn bananas back with me. I'll leave them on the
damn street, I don't care.
BRIAN! Fu shouts from the door. Come talk to this man.
Yes, Brian says, what is it?
Bananas, says the man from Gros. Bros., to be delivered to a Mrs. Ida
Blum, 1100 Burnside. And this is 1100 Burnside, isn't it?
Yes, but....
Where is she?
There must be some mistake, Brian says. Mrs. Blum has been dead for
some months now.
Listen, says the truckman, I'm mighty sorry to hear that but the
bananas were ordered and now the bananas are here. If there has been
some mistake, it's come from your end not mine. How were we to
know?
Yes, Brian is saying, you're quite right. Let me get Mr. Blum to talk to
you. He'll have to okay it.
The truckman parked behind the produce truck is climbing out of his
cab. Half for Blum, half for Getz, says he with the clang of his hand
truck striking the street.
From who? shouts Brian.
Excita Products, Redondo Beach, California, says the truckman.
... therefore we will require a broad sam
pling chosen at your discretion of books,
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magazines, 16mm. color films, as well as
any apparatus or paraphernalia that you
think will appeal to the liberated tastes of
our clientele.
What he say, man? say Fu.
Ask him yourself, says Brian. He is growing more confident; he is
feeling less a stranger. He has them outnumbered. Boxes of porno
graphic books crouch in the bed of that truck awaiting the assualt with
their comrades in arms, the many splendid dildos, cunts fashioned in
latex, celluloid whispers and celluloid sighs. It is he who commands
those organs and the music of their voices. And there are even more
reinforcements on the way.
Harold Blum is screaming something as he comes running out of the
store. Wrapped around his wrist is a white handerchief dotted with
blood.
Fu is taking several steps backwards and thinking Harold Blum is acting
far too strange.
IT'S LOOSE, Harold Blum shouts, IT'S LOOSE IN THERE
SOMEWHERE!
Get hold of yourself, say Fu, talk sense.
Oh shit, mutters the produce man to himself.
The bastard bit me before I could even get a look at it, Harold Blum is
saying.
Fucking snapped, say Fu stepping back and looking sideways at Brian.
Look at my hand, says Harold. I could die. We've got to find it. I could
die.
Calm down, Harold, you'll be all right. Believe me, Brian is saying.
Yes, Harold Blum is saying, pausing, and trying to control the racing
thump of his heart.
Truck horns are beeping to one another up and down the street as the
air turns gray with afternoon.
Harold Blum's voice is controlled now, I'm trying to tell you there was
something alive in that box in there and when I reached down into it,
something bit me. It's loose in there right now, ready to strike again.
Who knows what kind of creature it might be. I might be dying this very
moment and not know it. Brian, say Fu. This old jew has fucking
snapped. You hear me, man, snapped! Better get his crazy ass to some
doctor 'fore he do somebody some harm.
Old jew? screams Harold Blum, I'll show you an old jew and what he
can do! Harold is slowly coiling like a rusty spring, his spindly legs
spreading wide. He is on the verge of a lunge just as Brian slips between
them. Maybe, says the man from Gros Bros. I'll just stop back tomor
row with the bananas.
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Crazy old fucker scratches himself on a nail and then we gots to listen to
some Broadway fucking play about wild animals loose in a furniture
store. Neither me nor my ass willing to hear some two-hour opera of
you moaning and groaning. Die or shut up, don't make no difference to
me, say Fu.
Harold Blum is grinning a madman's grin with all of his yellow teeth
and licorice pink gums showing. AFRAID? Harold cackles.
SHIT, say Fu.
AFRAID! AFRAID! AFRAID! screams Harold, spitting and hissing
the words out from between his clenched teeth. That's it, isn't it? Big
Bad Fu and his big black dick are both afraid.
Get out of my way, say Fu pushing them to the side, and moving fast
toward the door, the store, and the box that was hissing, and not waiting
to see if anyone else is going with him.
Harold has broken into a dog trot after him and is shouting over his
shoulder, Come on!
Harold Blum and Fu are together at last.
Steaming like a convoy of warships towards the open crate.
Rumbling like Russian tanks in Budapest.
Like bully boys, like bouncers, like sidekicks, like hard-ons smelling hot
pussy, they are blasting their way past swivel chairs and typewriter
stands, straight-arming four drawer files till they tumble ass over end.
Clawing at desks.
Tearing at empty boxes.
They are being careless ... reckless ... they are being insane. How
lovely it would be now, Brian is thinking, if someone were playing one
of the organs. But what song should be playing, he wonders. What
celebration is taking place before his eyes? What sky will finally appear
behind this long passage of dark clouds? What colors will dance within
the old man's eyes and spray the gray air of this tomb with bright
pastels? French horns. Harpsichords. Let there be the drum, the roll,
the thunderous beat of summer.
Motherfucker! I seen something moving, a thick bass bellows.
Yes, moving, dancing, dissolving into shadows, swaying like branches
in a morning wind moving, surging on the sea's soft waves smooth as a
woman's thigh. There! See it. The leap, The sudden spin, the frozen
pose.
I see it, Harold Blum is crowing.
Where? Fu is shouting. Where?
Brian is pleased.
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