The Broom of the System Read Free Page B

together. Lang continues, “And he said how he was real sorry and could he pay to have your purse cleaned? And but you said no and were all ... mind-bogglingly nice about it, and when you were rescuing items from your purse you on purpose dropped that piece of paper that had your name and box number and phone and all on it, that phone bill? Doug picked that sucker up, and that’s how you met him,” smiling, nodding.
    “That was that guy?” Mindy says. “He said I gave him my name on purpose? That’s just a lie. That was utterly disgusting. I had to throw that purse away. He, I remember he came up to me” (to Clarice and Sue) “and put his hand on the hem of my sweater, and said how he had this hangnail that had got caught on my sweater, and how he couldn’t get away, it was stuck, ha ha, but he did it for like two hours, until finally he threw up on me.” To Wang-Dang Lang she says, “He was bombed out of his mind. He was so drunk he was actually drooling. I remember drool was coming out of his mouth.”
    “Well now Melinda surely you know how we can all tend to get that way at certain times.” Lang nudges Biff Diggerence, who almost falls on Sue Shaw, who squeals and backs toward the door with her arms crossed.
    “Look, I think you better leave,” Clarice says from now over by Lenore. “We’re all really tired and you’re really not supposed to be up here without—”
    “But, now, we just got here, really,” Wang-Dang Lang smiles. He looks around again. “I couldn’t impose on you ladies for a small can of beer, could I, by any chance, if you maht possibly ... ?” gesturing over at Sue’s little fridgelette by the bunks. And then he sits down in Sue’s wooden desk chair by the door, by a speaker. Biff still stands by Sue, facing Clarice and Lenore. Sue looks at Clarice, Mindy at Biff, who grins yellowly, Wang-Dang Lang over at Lenore in her chair at the back by Mindy’s door, sitting watching. Lenore feels like a clot in her pretty violet dress and bit of lipstick and bare feet, wondering what to do with her shoes, if she should throw a shoe at Lang, it’s got a sharp heel, are the police on their way?
    “Look, we don’t have any beer, and if we did it’s just rude for you guys to come in here uninvited and ask us for beer, and I don’t know Doug Dangler, and I think we’d really just appreciate it if you’d leave.”
    “I’m sure there’s all the beer you could possibly want downstairs,” Clarice says.
    Biff Diggerence now belches a huge belch, one of almost unbelievable duration, clearly a specialty, then he has another swallow out of his Comonawannaleiya cup. Lenore involuntarily mutters something about how disgusting this burp was; all eyes go to her. Lang smiles broadly:
    “Well hi there. What’s your name?”
    “Lenore Beadsman,” says Lenore.
    “Whey you from, Lenore?”
    “Lenore’s my sister,” Clarice says, moving toward the door and looking at Biff Diggerence. “She’s fifteen and she’s visiting and she’s invited, which I’m afraid you’re really not, so if you’ll just let me out for a quick second, here ...”
    Biff Diggerence steps over like a dancer, with a flourish, to block the door with his body.
    “Hmmm,” says Clarice. She looks at Mindy Metalman. Mindy goes over to Lenore, gets her damp robe off the back of the chair, puts it on over her armless sweatshirt. Lang smiles warmly. Biff watches Mindy for a second, then turns around abruptly at the door, starts banging his head on the door, over and over, really hard. Wang-Dang Lang laughs. The banging isn’t all that loud compared with the noise of the party and all, though, suddenly, because the music’s now a lot louder, they must have opened the dining room doors at eleven.
    “Thing about Biff,” Wang-Dang Lang shouts over the pounding to Clarice and Mindy Metalman, “beer does not entirely agree with him because he is, we’ve found, for some reason physically incapable of ... um ... emptying