LITMIR.BIZ

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been occupying several evenings lately, since I’ve read a lot of classic literature but haven’t seen enough classic films. The movies come from a top-100 movie list recently released by the Association of American Film Reviewers. They actually released a whole bevy of lists, including 100 best movies, 100 best movie scores, 100 best leading men, 100 best leading women, and 100 best movie characters. If I had to do my own film characters list, number 1 would be C. F. Kane, 2 would be Nurse Ratched, 3 would be Dr. Strangelove, and 4 through 21 would be Sybil. There are some great characters in movies—greater than in real life.

      When I leave Petrov’s office, I figure I’ll walk home instead of taking the scumway, so that I can pick up a DVD on the way. It’s not that long a walk. Maybe this is good practice for staying out on New Year’s Eve.

      A few blocks out of Petrov’s office, I see someone familiar. It’s Hat Guy again. He disappears around a corner. Is he following me? It’s awfully odd to see someone twice in one day whom you’ve never seen before.

      I wonder if my father is having him tail me to check up on me. I decide I’ll follow him a bit. I run up the block and around the corner. He disappears again. I try to catch up, but I lose him.

      Maybe I’m imagining it.

      When I get back to my apartment building, Bobby is outside, bending over a cellar window that’s caked with mud and damp leaves. He notices me from between his own legs. “Hey, beautiful,” he says. I quickly turn and don’t say anything. I push the front door open and jog up the stairs, which have been trampled for so many years that the black rubber matting beneath the carpeting has bled through on the edge of each step, and the color of the rug has turned from yellow to sallow.

      When I reach the top, I stop. I stand there and feel a hole in my stomach. All Bobby did was say, “Hey, beautiful.” And he’s old; maybe saying it brought him joy. Why was I so mean? What if he really does think I’m beautiful? What if, as far as he was concerned, he was just being nice?

      No one else consistently tells me I’m beautiful.

      I stand there and feel sickness wash over myself.

      Then, the feeling goes away, like it usually does.

      That night, I get called for legal proofreading. It turns out to be even more monotonous than the last assignment. I sit with three other proofers in a room that’s almost completely barren. The desks look like they were swiped from an elementary school: manila tops, metal green insides. The floor is white and dusty. It’s freezing in there. It must be the room they don’t let their clients see.

      The other proofers are much older than me. I look at them, but unfortunately, none of them look like they’d make a good date. I will have to keep looking, and I’ll have to place that ad soon.

      The four of us sit like bored students in study hall, waiting for work. The other proofers discuss a variety of topics: whether Walt Disney is really frozen, trying to name all of the ingredients in a V8, leaving a dog out and forgetting you left it out, kids drinking chocolate milk with their school lunch every day, Japanese cartoon characters that look American, bad television shows. A man and woman talk about their belief that today’s television is much worse than when they were kids. People always say that, but I guess they don’t realize that TV is always going to seem worse now than it did when you were twelve. Anyway, I happen to like TV. I’ve met people who will self-righteously declare that they don’t own a TV set, as if it makes them morally superior to everyone else, as if they are declaring they have never told a lie or broken the law. There is absolutely nothing immoral about television. It’s not even unhealthy. Vapid and stultifying, maybe. But we all need it sometimes. I know I do. My mind worked so hard for the first eighteen years of my life that it needs—and deserves—a virtual brain pillow to rest in.

      Around 3:00 a.m., the room is silent. Everyone is reading newspapers. I’m starving. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Probably, I’m more bored than hungry. I get up, go to the kitchen, drop some coins into the snack machine and grab a bag of pretzels. I return to my seat and start eating. A few people turn around. I can’t help it. Pretzels crunch.

      I start to feel like everyone is looking at me. I put the bag aside and sit quietly. But I see the pretzels there, their tiny knobs calling out to me. My mouth waters. I know it will water until every last pretzel is gone. The psychology behind that is interesting. When I can take it no more, I grab the bag, head into the kitchen and scarf down the pretzels. I hate peer pressure.

      When I return to my seat, I decide I’ll write a draft of my personal ad for the Beacon.

      I take out a pen and print:

      PRODIGY SEEKS GENIUS—I’m 19, very smart, seeking nonsmoking nondrugdoing very very smart SM 18-25 to talk about philosophy and life. No hypocrites, religious freaks, macho men or psychos.

      I can’t wait to see the responses I get. I pull out my pocket calendar and write on it, on a date next week, “E-mail personal ad to Beacon.” I’m giving myself a week to find a less-desperate way of meeting people. But if nothing else works out, I can place this ad and answer other people’s.

      The next night, I’m scheduled to return to the firm where Douglas P. Winters works. I’m excited. I tell myself that I must dig in my heels and ignore his salacious comments, as he may be my only prospect for a date by New Year’s. But I hope that he doesn’t drop me before it happens because he realizes, as David did in college, that I still have morals.

      David left me wondering for a long time if all men would be like him, making me do things that felt wrong, then immediately shutting me down coldly if I didn’t. And I hated the women who routinely gave in and made it easy for them to be that way. Nowadays, I don’t think every man is evil, but the good ones can also get a good-looking woman, so a woman who isn’t good-looking just has to lower and lower her standards until they’re down around her ankles. It’s not fair; it’s just life. I sometimes think that women are the most hypocritical beings around. They complain from nine to five about how men are pigs, and then they give them what they want from five to nine. But I can’t say they’re doing it out of any malice; it just comes from neediness. I’ve heard feminists say that women shouldn’t “need a man,” but it’s not that women need a man. It’s that most people need someone, and if they’re women and they happen to be heterosexual, their choice is limited to men. And if they’re not beautiful women who can pick and choose, their choice can be limited to self-centered men. All right, maybe it’s not so bleak, but it’d be less bleak if people actually had standards and tried to hold out, like I did by refusing David’s requests.

      At night, when I push open the glass doors of Pankow, Hewitt and So & So, Douglas P. Winters looks happy. “I’ve got pistachios!” he announces, then breaks into an evil laugh. I tell him I can’t wait for him to give me one. Then I wend my way through clusters of desks to the supervisor and pick up a small document. All I have to do is make sure that the typist correctly inputted the proofreader’s corrections. Oldie is in a different cubicle, so I don’t have to deal with him.

      As I read through the document, I gradually realize that it’s somewhat intriguing. It’s stamped Confidential. It’s about two major banks that are going to merge. I wonder if I can sell this information.

      I finish it and turn it in. The supervisor says there’s no more work right now. So I head out to Doug.

      Doug’s bangs are wet with sweat. He motions to a seat.

      “Hot in here?” I ask.

      “I have a cold,” Doug says.

      “Didn’t you have a cold last time I saw you?”

      “I’m allergic to work.”

      “Go home.”

      “I’m allergic to starving.”

      “I just read a document about a bank mega-merger,” I tell him.

      “Sounds like a page-turner.”

      “I was wondering if the information’s

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