Read The Corrections: A Novel Online
Authors: Jonathan Franzen
Unfortunately, this program had attracted predators. In the early 1980s, as Alfred neared retirement, the Midpac was known as a regional carrier that despite outstanding management and lush profit margins on its long-haul lines had very ordinary earnings. The Midpac had already repulsed one unwelcome suitor when it came under the acquisitive gaze of Hillard and Chauncy Wroth, fraternal twin brothers from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who had expanded a family meat-packing business into an empire of the dollar. Their company, the Orfic Group, included a chain of hotels, a bank in Atlanta, an oil company, and the Arkansas Southern Railroad. The Wroths had lopsided faces and dirty hair and no discernible desires or interests apart from making money;
Oak Ridge Raiders
, the financial press called them. At an early exploratory meeting that Alfred attended, Chauncy Wroth persisted in addressing the Midpac’s CEO as “Dad”:
I’m well aware it don’t seem like “fair play” to you, DAD …
Well, DAD, why don’t you and your lawyers go
ahead and have
that little chat right now … Gosh, and here Hillard and myself was
under the impression, DAD, that you’re operating a business, not
a charity
… This kind of anti-paternalism played well with the railroad’s unionized workforce, which after months of arduous negotiations voted to offer the Wroths a package of wage and work-rule concessions worth almost $200 million; with these prospective savings in hand, plus twenty-seven percent of the railroad’s stock, plus limitless junk financing, the Wroths made an irresistible tender offer and bought the railroad outright. A former Tennessee highway commissioner, Fenton Creel, was hired to merge the railroad with the Arkansas Southern. Creel shut down the Midpac’s headquarters in St. Jude, fired or retired a third of its employees, and moved the rest to Little Rock.
Alfred retired two months before his sixty-fifth birthday. He was at home watching
Good Morning America
in his new blue chair when Mark Jamborets, the Midpac’s retired corporation counsel, called with the news that a sheriff in New Chartres (pronounced “Charters”), Kansas, had had himself arrested for shooting an employee of Orfic Midland. “The sheriff’s name is Bryce Halstrom,” Jamborets told Alfred. “He got a call that some roughnecks were trashing Midpac signal wires. He went over to the siding and saw three fellows ripping down the wire, smashing signal boxes, coiling up anything copper. One of them took a county bullet in his hip before the others made Halstrom understand they were working for the Midpac. Hired for copper salvage at sixty cents a pound.”
“But that’s a good new system,” Alfred said. “It’s not three years since we upgraded the whole New Chartres spur.”
“The Wroths are scrapping everything but the trunk lines,” Jamborets said. “They’re junking the Glendora cutoff! You think the Atchison, Topeka wouldn’t make a bid on that?”
“Well,” Alfred said.
“It’s a Baptist morality gone sour,” said Jamborets. “The Wroths can’t abide that we admitted any principle but the ruthless pursuit of profit. I’m telling you: they hate what they can’t comprehend. And now they’re sowing salt in the fields. Close down headquarters in St. Jude? When we’re twice the size of Arkansas Southern? They’re punishing St. Jude for being the home of the Midland Pacific. And Creel’s punishing the towns like New Chartres for being Midpac towns. He’s sowing salt in the fields of the financially unrighteous.”
“Well,” Alfred said again, his eyes drawn to his new blue chair and its delicious potential as a sleep site. “Not my concern anymore.”
But he’d worked for thirty years to make the Midland Pacific a strong system, and Jamborets continued to call him and send him news reports of fresh Kansan outrages, and it all made him very sleepy. Soon hardly a branch or spur in Midpac’s western district remained in service, but apparently Fenton Creel was satisfied with pulling down the signal wires and gutting the boxes. Five years after the takeover, the rails were still in place, the right-of-way was undisposed of. Only the copper nervous system, in an act of corporate self-vandalism, had been dismantled.
“And now I’m worried about our health insurance,” Enid told Denise. “Orfic Midland is switching all the old Midpac employees to managed care no later than April. I have to find an HMO that has some of Dad’s and my doctors on their list. I’m
deluged
with prospectuses, where the differences are all in the fine print, and honestly, Denise, I don’t think I can handle this.”
As if to forestall being asked for help, Denise quickly said: “What plans does Hedgpeth accept?”
“Well, except for his old fee-for-service patients, like Dad, he’s exclusive now with Dean Driblett’s HMO,” Enid said. “I told you about the big party at Dean’s
gorgeous, huge
new house. Dean and Trish really are about the nicest young couple I know, but golly, Denise, I called his company last year after Dad fell down on the lawn mower, and you know what they wanted for cutting our little lawn? Fifty-five dollars a week! I’m not opposed to profit, I think it’s
wonder
ful
that Dean’s successful, I told you about his trip to Paris with Honey, I’m not saying anything against him. But fifty-five dollars a week!”
Denise sampled Chip’s green-bean salad and reached for the olive oil. “What would it cost to stay with fee-for-service?”
“Denise, hundreds of dollars a month extra. Not one of our good friends has managed care, everybody has fee-for-service, but I don’t see how we can afford it. Dad was so conservative with his investments, we’re lucky to have any cushion for emergencies. And this is something else I’m very, very, very, very worried about.” Enid lowered her voice. “One of Dad’s old patents is finally paying off, and I need your advice.”
She stepped out of the kitchen and made sure that Alfred couldn’t hear. “Al, how are you doing?” she shouted.
He was cradling his second hors d’oeuvre, the little green boxcar, below his chin. As if he’d captured a small animal that might escape again, he shook his head without looking up.
Enid returned to the kitchen with her purse. “He finally has a chance to make some money, and he’s not interested. Gary talked to him on the phone last month and tried to get him to be a little more aggressive, but Dad blew up.”
Denise stiffened. “What was Gary wanting you to do?”
“Just be a little more aggressive. Here, I’ll show you the letter.”
“Mother, those patents are Dad’s. You have to let him handle it however he wants.”
Enid hoped that the envelope at the bottom of her purse
might be the missing Registered letter from the Axon Corporation. In her purse, as in her house, lost objects did sometimes marvelously resurface. But the envelope she found was the original Certified letter, which had never been lost.
“Read this,” she said, “and see if you agree with Gary.” Denise set down the can of cayenne pepper with which she’d dusted Chip’s salad. Enid stood at her shoulder and reread the letter to make sure it still said what she remembered.
Dear Dr. Lambert:
On behalf of the Axon Corporation, 24 East Industrial Serpentine, Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, I’m writing to offer you a lump sum payment of five thousand dollars ($5000.00) for the full, exclusive, and irrevocable right to United States Patent #4,934,417 (
THERAPEUTIC FERROACETATE-GEL ELECTRO-POLYMERIZATION
), for which you are original and sole holder of license.
The management of Axon regrets that it cannot offer you a larger fee. The company’s own product is in the earliest stages of testing, and there is no guarantee that its investment will bear fruit.
If the terms outlined in the attached Licensing Agreement are acceptable, please sign and have notarized all three copies and return them to me no later than September 30.
Sincerely yours,
Joseph K. Prager
Senior Associate
Partner
Bragg Knuter & Speigh
When this letter had arrived in the mail in August and Enid had awakened Alfred in the basement, he’d shrugged and said, “Five thousand dollars won’t change the way we live.” Enid had suggested that they write to the Axon Corporation and ask for a larger fee, but Alfred shook his head. “We’ll have soon spent five thousand dollars on a lawyer,” he said, “and then where are we?” It didn’t hurt to ask, though, Enid said. “I will not ask,” Alfred said. But if he just wrote back, Enid said, and asked for ten thousand … She fell silent as Alfred fixed her with a look. She might as well have proposed that they make love.
Denise had taken a bottle of wine from the refrigerator, as if to underline her indifference to a matter of consequence to Enid. Sometimes Enid believed that Denise had disdain for every last thing she cared about. The sexual tightness of Denise’s blue jeans, as she bumped a drawer shut with her hip, sent this message. The assurance with which she drove a corkscrew into the cork sent this message. “Do you want some wine?”
Enid shuddered. “It’s so early in the day.”
Denise drank it like water. “Knowing Gary,” she said, “I’m guessing he said try to gouge them.”
“No, well, see—” Enid reached toward the bottle with both hands. “Just a tiny drop, pour me just a swallow, honestly, I never drink this early in the day, never—you see, but Gary wonders why the company is even bothering with the patent if they’re still so early in their development. I guess the usual thing is just to infringe on the other person’s patent. —That’s too much! Denise, I don’t like so much wine! Because, see, the patent expires in six years, so Gary thinks the company must stand to make a lot of money soon.”
“Did Dad sign the agreement?”
“Oh, yeah. He went over to the Schumperts’ and had Dave notarize it.”
“Then you have to respect his decision.”
“Denise, he’s being stubborn and unreasonable. I can’t—”
“Are you saying this is an issue of competency?”
“No. No. This is fully in character. I just can’t—”
“If he already
signed
the agreement,” Denise said, “what is Gary imagining you’re going to do?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“So what’s the point here?”
“Nothing. You’re right,” Enid said. “There’s nothing we can do,” although in fact there was. If Denise had been a little less partisan in her support of Alfred, Enid might have confessed that after Alfred had given her the notarized agreement to mail at the post office on her way to the bank, she’d hidden the agreement in the glove compartment of their car, and had let the envelope sit and radiate guilt for several days; and that later, while Alfred was napping, she’d hidden the envelope more securely at the back of a laundry-room cabinet containing jars of undesirable jams and spreads going gray with age (kumquat-raisin, brandy-pumpkin, Korean barfleberry) and vases and baskets and cubes of florist’s clay too good to throw away but not good enough to use; and that, as a result of this dishonest act, she and Alfred could still extract a big licensing fee from Axon, and that it was therefore crucial that she locate the second, Registered letter from Axon and hide it before Alfred found out that she’d deceived and disobeyed him. “Oh, but that reminds me,” she said, emptying her glass, “there’s something else I really need your help with.”
Denise hesitated before replying with a polite and cordial “Yes?” This hesitation confirmed Enid’s long-held belief that she and Alfred had taken a wrong turn somewhere in Denise’s upbringing. Had failed to instill in their youngest child the proper spirit of generosity and cheerful service.
“Well, as you know,” Enid said, “we’ve gone to Philadelphia for the last eight Christmases in a row, and Gary’s
boys are old enough now that they might like to have a memory of Christmas at their grandparents’ house, and so I thought—”
“
Damn!
” came a cry from the living room.
Enid set down her glass and hurried from the kitchen. Alfred was sitting on the edge of the chaise in a somehow penal posture, his knees high and his back a little hunched, and was surveying the crash site of his third hors d’oeuvre. The gondola of bread had slipped from his fingers on its approach to his mouth and plunged to his knee, scattering wreckage and tumbling to the floor and finally coming to rest beneath the chaise. A wet pelt of roasted red pepper had adhered to the chaise’s flank. Shadows of oil-soak were forming around each clump of olive morsels on the upholstery. The emptied gondola lay on its side with its yellow-soaked, brown-stained white interior showing.
Denise squeezed past Enid with a damp sponge and went and knelt by Alfred. “Oh, Dad,” she said, “these are hard to handle, I should have realized.”
“Just get me a rag and I’ll clean it up.”
“No, here,” Denise said. Cupping one hand for a receptacle, she brushed the bits of olive from his knees and thighs. His hands shook in the air near her head as if he might have to push her away, but she did her work quickly, and soon she’d sponged the bits of olive up from the floor and was carrying the dirtied food back to the kitchen, where Enid had wanted a tiny extra splash of wine and in her hurry not to be conspicuous had poured a rather substantial tiny splash and downed it quickly.
“Anyway,” she said, “I thought that if you and Chip were interested, we could all have one last Christmas in St. Jude. What do you think of that idea?”
“I’ll be wherever you and Dad want to be,” Denise said.
“No, I’m asking
you
, though. I want to know if it’s something you’re especially interested in doing. If you’d
especially like to have one last Christmas in the house you grew up in. Does it sound like it might be fun for you?”
“I can tell you right now,” Denise said, “there’s no way Caroline’s leaving Philly. It’s a fantasy to think otherwise. So if you want to see your grandkids, you’ll have to come east.”
“Denise, I’m asking what
you
want. Gary says he and Caroline haven’t ruled it out. I need to know if a Christmas in St. Jude is something that you really, really want for
your
self
. Because if all the rest of us are agreed that it’s important to be together as a family in St. Jude one last time—”
“Mother, it’s fine with me, if you think you can handle it.”
“I’ll need a little help in the kitchen is all.”
“I can help you in the kitchen. But I can only come for a few days.”
“You can’t take a week?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Mother.”
“
Damn!
” Alfred cried again from the living room as something vitreous, maybe a vase containing sunflowers, hit the floor with a cracking-open sound, a gulp of breakage. “
Damn! Damn!
”
Enid’s own nerves were so splintery she almost dropped her wineglass, and yet a part of her was grateful for this second mishap, whatever it was, because it gave Denise a small taste of what she had to put up with every day, around the clock, at home in St. Jude.
The night of Alfred’s seventy-fifth birthday had found Chip alone at Tilton Ledge pursuing sexual congress with his red chaise longue.
It was early January and the woods around Carparts Creek were soggy with melting snow. Only the shopping-center sky above central Connecticut and the digital readouts of his
home electronics cast light on his carnal labors. He was kneeling at the feet of his chaise and sniffing its plush minutely, inch by inch, in hopes that some vaginal tang might still be lingering eight weeks after Melissa Paquette had lain here. Ordinarily distinct and identifiable smells—dust, sweat, urine, the dayroom reek of cigarette smoke, the fugitive afterscent of quim—became abstract and indistinguishable from oversmelling, and so he had to pause again and again to refresh his nostrils. He worked his lips down into the chaise’s buttoned navels and kissed the lint and grit and crumbs and hairs that had collected in them. None of the three spots where he thought he smelled Melissa was unambiguously tangy, but after exhaustive comparison he was able to settle on the least questionable of the three spots, near a button just south of the backrest, and give it his full nasal attention. He fingered other buttons with both hands, the cool plush chafing his nether parts in a poor approximation of Melissa’s skin, until finally he achieved sufficient belief in the smell’s reality—sufficient faith that he still possessed some relic of Melissa—to consummate the act. Then he rolled off his compliant antique and slumped on the floor with his pants undone and his head on the cushion, an hour closer to having failed to call his father on his birthday.
He smoked two cigarettes, lighting the second off the first. He turned on his television to a cable channel that was running a marathon of old Warner Bros, cartoons. At the edge of the pool of tubal glow he could see the mail that for nearly a week he’d been dropping, unopened, on the floor. Three letters from the college’s new acting provost were in the pile, also something ominous from the teachers’ retirement fund, also a letter from the college housing office with the words
NOTICE OF EVICTION
on the front of the envelope.
Earlier in the day, while killing some hours by circling in
blue ballpoint ink every uppercase
M
in the front section of a month-old
New York Times
, Chip had concluded that he was behaving like a depressed person. Now, as his telephone began to ring, it occurred to him that a depressed person ought to continue staring at the TV and ignore the ringing—ought to light another cigarette and, with no trace of emotional affect, watch another cartoon while his machine took whoever’s message.
That his impulse, instead, was to jump to his feet and answer the phone—that he could so casually betray the arduous wasting of a day—cast doubt on the authenticity of his suffering. He felt as if he lacked the ability to lose all volition and connection with reality the way depressed people did in books and movies. It seemed to him, as he silenced the TV and hurried into his kitchen, that he was failing even at the miserable task of falling properly apart.
He zipped up his pants, turned on a light, and lifted the receiver. “Hello?”
“What’s going on there, Chip?” Denise said without preliminaries. “I just talked to Dad and he said he hadn’t heard from you.”
“Denise. Denise. Why are you shouting?”
“I’m shouting,” she said, “because I’m upset because it’s Dad’s seventy-fifth birthday and you haven’t called him and you didn’t send him a card. I’m upset because I’ve been working for twelve hours and I just called Dad and he’s worried about you. What’s going on there?”
Chip surprised himself by laughing. “What’s going on is that I’ve lost my job.”
“You didn’t get tenure?”
“No, I was fired,” he said. “They didn’t even let me teach the last two weeks of classes. Somebody else had to give my exams. And I can’t appeal the decision without calling a witness. And if I try to talk to my witness it’s just further evidence of my crime.”
“Who’s the witness? Witness to what?”
Chip took a bottle from the recycling bin, double-checked its emptiness, and returned it to the bin. “A former student of mine says I’m obsessed with her. She says I had a relationship with her and wrote her a term paper in a motel room. And unless I get a lawyer, which I can’t afford to do because they’ve cut my pay off, I’m not allowed to speak to this student. If I try to see her, it’s considered stalking.”
“Is she lying?” Denise said.
“Not that this is anything Mom and Dad need to know about.”
“Chip, is she lying?”
Spread open on Chip’s kitchen counter was the section of the
Times
in which he’d circled all the uppercase
M’s
. Rediscovering this artifact now, hours later, would have been like remembering a dream except that a remembered dream didn’t have the power to pull a waking person back into it, whereas the sight of a heavily marked story about severe new curtailments in
M
edicare and
M
edicaid benefits induced in Chip the same feeling of unease and unrealized lust, the same longing for unconsciousness, that had sent him to the chaise to sniff and grope. He had to struggle now to remind himself that he’d already
gone
to the chaise, he’d already
taken
that route to comfort and forgetfulness.
He folded the
Times
and dropped it on top of his heaping trash can.
“‘I never had sexual relations with that woman,’” he said.
“You know I’m judgmental about a lot of things,” Denise said, “but not about things like this.”
“I said I didn’t sleep with her.”
“I’m stressing, though,” Denise said, “that this is one area where absolutely anything you say to me will fall on sympathetic ears.” And she cleared her throat pointedly.
If Chip had wanted to come clean to someone in his family, his little sister would have been the obvious choice.
Having dropped out of college and having married badly, Denise at least had some acquaintance with darkness and disappointment. Nobody but Enid, however, had ever mistaken Denise for a failure. The college she’d dropped out of was better than the one that Chip had graduated from, and her early marriage and more recent divorce had given her an emotional maturity that Chip was all too aware of lacking himself, and he suspected that even though Denise was working eighty hours a week she still managed to read more books than he did. In the last month, since he’d embarked on projects like digitally scanning Melissa Paquette’s face from a freshman facebook and suturing her head to obscene downloaded images and tinkering with these images pixel by pixel (and the hours did fly by when you were tinkering with pixels), he’d read no books at all.