Flying to America by Donald Barthelme

Author:Donald Barthelme [Barthelme, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: S
ISBN: 9781582439174
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Reference

Warp.”

“In the character?”

“He warp ever’ which way.”

“You don’t think we should consider him then.”

“My friend Shel McPartland whom I have known deeply and intimately and too well for more than twenty years, is, sir, a brilliant O.K. engineer-master builder-cum-city and state planner. He’ll plan your whole cotton-pickin’ state for you, if you don’t watch him. Right down to the flowers on the sideboard in the governor’s mansion. He’ll choose marginalia.”

“I sir am not familiar sir with that particular bloom sir.”

“Didn’t think you would be, you bein’ from Arkansas and therefore likely less than literate. You are from Arkansas State Planning Commission, are you not?”

“I am one of it. Mr. McPartland gave you as a reference.”

“Well sir let me tell you sir that my friend Shel McPartland who has incautiously put me down as a reference has a wide-ranging knowledge of all modern techniques, theories, dodges, orthodoxies, heresies, new and old innovations, and scams of all kinds. The only thing about him is, he warp.”

“Sir, it is not necessary to use dialect when being telephone-called from the state of Arkansas.”

“Different folk I talk to in different ways. I got to keep myself interested.”

“I understand that. Leaving aside the question of warp for a minute: let me ask you this: Is Mr. McPartland what you would call a hard worker?”

“Hard, but warp. He sort of goes off in his own direction.”

“Not a team player.”

“Very much a team player. You get your own team out there, and he’ll play it, and beat it, all by his own self.”

“Does he fiddle with women?”

“No. He has too much love and respect for women. He has so much love and respect for women that he has nothing to do with them. At all.”

“You said earlier that you wouldn’t trust him to salt a mine shaft with silver dollars.”

“Well sir that was before I fully understood the nature of your interest. I thought maybe you were thinking of going into business with him. Or some other damn-fool thing of that sort. Now that I understand that it’s a government gig . . . You folks don’t go around salting mine shafts with silver dollars, do you?”

“No sir, that work comes under the competence of the Arkansas Board of Earth Resources.”

“So, not to worry.”

“But it doesn’t sound very likely if I may say so Mr. Cockburn sir that Mr. McPartland would neatly infit with our outfit. Which must of necessity as I’m sure you’re hip to sir concern itself mostly with the mundanities.”

“McPartland is sublime with the mundanities.”

“Truly?”

“You should see him tying his shoes. Tying other people’s shoes. He’s good at inking-in. Excellent at erasing. One of the great erasers of our time. Plotting graphs. Figuring use-densities. Diddling flow charts. Inflating statistics. Issuing modestly deceptive reports. Chairing and charming. Dowsing for foundation funds. Only a fool and a simpleton sir would let Mr. McPartland slip through his fingers.”

“But before you twigged to the fact sir that your role was that of a referencer, you signaled grave and serious doubts.

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