Free Mrs Hollingsworth's Men - Padgett Powell by Padgett Powell Page B

hell, try it right now: “These
ideers might appear in congress with my haircut, sir, as far as
blow-dry. I have oft pondered, moreso, more-over, why the brother
does not have his own entire industries a national bank, for example.
Prioritizing the brother. For all the fay-the-fair made about his
soul food, one does too see a dearth of restaurants in the brother’s
name, and certainly there is no national chain. And you would know
best the opportunities in mass communications, which it has already
brought us wrassling on TV and colored black-and-white movies. I
mean, why should not the brother have not merely his own phone but
his own net-work? His own satellites, even?”
    Mr. Mogul looked at him in astonishment. "We
have discussed these things in bunkers,” he said. “As part of the
planning for the New South. You might be more of the team than I
knew. Do you want to be more of the team than I knew?" At this,
Roopit Mogul began weeping. It was a quiet, not very disturbed
weeping, which suggested as many positive emotions as negative, Ray
thought, rather as women may cry when they are happy fully as often,
and often as fully, as when they are sad. Mrs. Mogul seemed also not
much bothered by it, and made ready with a napkin as if to hand it to
Mr. Mogul momentarily when he came up for air. Bay fingered the raw
spots of his haircut and thought, Really.
    He discovered that the hostess had left the room and
was now returning with dessert on a tray. It looked very good,
especially since he could not recall their having had anything else.
It was not that he was particularly hungry, it was merely that this
was the first food they had seen, and it looked particularly fetching
for that reason alone. He jumped up to help the woman with the tray,
saying to her, “Honey child!" This came out of his mouth as
oddly as a small toad. The woman took no exception to the toad, in
fact winked at him. She glanced at Mr. Mogul. “We are coming along
nicely,” she said. Then to him, “You’re a good boy."
    This compliment went into Ray as true as a pang on
the pan of his heart. It had not been said to him in a long, long
time. It made him want the woman again, in the bed room, and soon.
    “ I’m a voodoo chile,” he said.
    “ That you are,” the woman said. “Now watch
this.”
    The curtain behind Mr. Mogul opened. An image began
to obtain, not unreminiscent of the way the Star
Trek boys beamed into place, or the way
closed-circuit TV sometimes grainily gathered itself in the early
days of closed circuitry. “The artist Degas could talk any woman he
wanted into taking her clothes off and bathing in front of him,
apparently,” Ray said.
    The woman said, "Shh."
    On the screen Forrest appeared, hair shining, blowing
in a wind. Violins blowing a violin wind. Moss blowing in a wind. Sir
Walter Scott shook hands with Forrest. A guillotine tumbled by on the
wind. "The French were of no help to us," Forrest said.
Forrest appeared to be distracted. Ray had not seen him so before. He
was fidgeting with his person, patting about himself as if checking
for personal property in his pockets. The marvelous canvas coat was
there, in its perfect disorder: dirty and yet spectral, rucked up and
shot and torn and yet whole and sturdy and rugged as armor. Ray
wanted a coat like that.
    Some kind of commercial intervened in the filmstrip,
or whatever it was. Ray had not heard the term “filmstrip” in a
long time. He had not actually heard it now. It had been heard, he
guessed, by his brain. The commercial was for Ronson lighter fluid.
Ray had never seen a commercial, or any other kind of advertisement,
for Ronson lighter fluid. “Ronson lighter fluid exists
independently of the exigencies of commerce,” Ray said aloud, and
they all told him by quiet gesture to be quiet. “And those yellow
cards with the little red flints,” he pressed on, “they don’t
have to advertise that.” They shushed him.
    Forrest returned, his hair on fire. He was