The paperclip, son. Yes, sell it to me.
Well. It’s shiny, sir.
I’ll put the order in right now, Ms. Robinson, he said. And then hung up.
He picked up the telephone for it was Dr. Wein calling. When he told him that there was mild calcified plaque at the carotid bifurcation he steadied himself in his office chair and breathed shallow throughout the rest of the attendant analysis.
So this makes it easy, the doctor said. You need treatment.
What kind of treatment? Woowoo.
He went over the litany of all the types and then he said: A statin. 20 mg of Crestor. It’ll make you right as rain.
Right as rain.
It’s an expression.
He sat there with his mouth open and put the cheeseburger that he had been eating at his desk in the wastecan along with its wrapper and poured the coke from the solo-cup into the plant and set the empty in the can too.
But I’m only 27, he said.
Well. You’re an anomaly. But it isn’t a death sentence, son.
It isn’t to you, doc.
Well.
Well. Woowoo.
Look, I really have to go.
He returned to breathing shallow and sat there for a long time after Dr. Wein hung up. Damn, he said.
It was almost two decades before that they came down from Richmond County NY. Him and a sister and a babybrother no more than a year-old. Mr. Morris drove the Caprice Classic and Mrs. Morris too upfront. The long benchseat between them faced in vinyl. Which was never a problem. The car’s vinyl that is. Until that long Texas summer when the automobile’s air-conditioning gave out and the three children always at odds in the rearseat had the backs of their perspiring legs coming stuck and unstuck from the deliquescing polymer. After finally being able to afford fixing the airconditioning in mid-August due a promotion Mr. Morris had given Mrs. Morris the Caprice and got himself a used Pontiac for work.
Turning down. Inside the wastecan. What it was he was heaving there for a while still nothing came to pass and then he stood up from his chair and walked over to his office door and held back before it for a moment so to regain his composure and opened it and went out into the pit.
Stick, put Ms. Robinson down for a thousand shares of GlobalVillage.
Now, that’s what I’m talkin about Morris. There’s a full point in there, buddy. Anyone else? GV’s gonna go through the roof.
A thousand for McClusky, Stick.
There you go, Bags. I knew you had it in you.
He left the pit and went out the frontdoor and onto the parking lot and then turned and looked about the stripcenter. The Hobby Lobby. HEB grocery. A flock of grackle clamoring from a far tree. Not much else. He opened his car door and got in and closed the door and reached from over in the glovecompartment a small bag of cocaine and staying leaned over the center console with his keys still out dipped one into the bag and took a bump.