Chapter 10: Billions Served
The elevator jumped before she could press a button. It didn’t even have a control console. All she could do was stand there in the fake light and listen to the electronic music. The song was a jingle from TV. Though there weren’t any lyrics, Naomi knew the words:
Paste! Paste! That incredible
Taste, taste, taste!
In the morning,
In the evening,
At your work desk
Or in the halls
Of school.
Paste! Paste!
That paste sure is
Good, good, good!
Just the idea of paste made her feel sick. She thought about all the people that ate it, every day, for every meal: breakpaste, plunch, and dinner. Those poor horses!
The elevator shuddered to a halt. Ding, and the doors opened. Naomi stepped from the elevator onto a dark carpet that sprang under her feet. Paintings in fancy frames hung on all the walls of the room. She walked until she came to a reception desk. Behind it sat a television on a tall chair.
The TV blinked. It showed a dark-skinned man standing behind a reception desk. He wore a sharp suit and his tie shone like a cat’s eye. The man’s head was totally hairless. The desk he stood behind looked exactly like the desk in front of Naomi. She took a step back from the desk to get a better look and the TV turned off. She stepped forward and the TV turned back on.
The man on the screen said, “Do you have an appointment?” His voice was calm but glazed with a tang of urgency. He sounded polite and bothered.
Naomi looked behind her. There was no one else in the room, so she figured the man must be talking to her.
“Do you have an appointment?” the man repeated.
“Umm, no, I don’t,” said Naomi.
“Please have a seat,” the man said. He extended his arm to indicate the area somewhere behind her.
She turned and saw a chair against the wall, just beneath one of the portraits. She sat. Across from her was a picture of a very fat man whose head was as red as a playground ball. Spidery veins laced his nose and cheeks, giving him his tomato-like appearance. His expression was one of unmistakable distain. The picture made Naomi feel very small and helpless inside, so she looked at the carpet instead.
She waited awhile. She didn’t know what she was waiting for, but expected something to happen. Nothing did. She looked over to the desk and the blank TV. She got up. She went to the desk and the screen flickered back on.
“Do you have an appointment?” the man said.
“An appointment for what exactly?” asked Naomi. “I’ve been waiting but I don’t know why. Can you help me?”
“Please have a seat,” said the man, and he pointed to the chair.
“I already had a seat,” Naomi said.
“Do you have an appointment?” said the man once again.
“Yes!” she shouted. “Yes, I have an appointment!”
The man extended his arm toward the chair. “Please have a seat.”
Naomi stood there dumbfounded.
“Do you have an appointment?”
She went around behind the desk. The television’s cord was plugged into a socket. Naomi yanked the cord out of the socket and the television went blank. She turned to the doors. She tried the knob and the doors opened. Naomi went in.
Her stomach leapt. She fell, going all to jelly. Her knees crashed down and her head smashed onto the floor. She was face down on a plush rug decorated in ornate symbols that looked like $, £, ¢, €, and ¥. She touched her knee; it hurt.
She looked back at the five steps she had just fallen down. Then, from somewhere deeper in the room came the sound of a disembodied laugh.
“Hack, hack, hack, hack, hack, hack,” went the laugh. It sounded sort of like a cough and sort of like a laugh, but also like neither.
“Hack, hack, hack, hack, hack, hack.” A table towered over the spot where she lay on the floor. Rolling chairs lined the table all the way down both sides.
“Hack, hack, hack, hack, hack, hack.” The laugh came from right above Naomi’s head. She put her weight on her hurt knee like a skater testing the frozen surface of a pond. Her knee held and she looked up. High-backed leather chairs flanked the table like soldiers standing at attention. Big television sets sat in front of the chairs casting a blue light on the table’s gold surface.
“Hack, hack, hack, hack, hack, hack.” Naomi looked to her right. The strange laugh was coming out of the TV closest to her. The screen showed the same table that the TV sat on and the same leather chair. On the TV a fat cat sat in the chair wearing a three-piece suit. It puffed a long cigar. It blinked its wet eyes, looking fake and real at the same time. Naomi realized it was someone wearing a costume.
“Hack, hack, hack, hack, hack, hack.” The cat shook and smoke came out of its mouth with every laugh.
“Hack, hack, hack, hack, hack, hack.” Smoke came out of its nose and ears.
“Hack, hack, hack, hack, hack, hack.” Smoke came out of the cat’s neck.
“Hack, hack, hack, hack, hack, hack. Hack, hack, hack, hack, hack, hack.” The cat rocked back and forth in the leather chair like it was choking to death.
“Hack, hack, hack, hack, hack, hack.” Finally it threw up.
“Eww,” Naomi said, realizing the cat spit up a wad of money.
The cat leaned back and took a long pull on the cigar. A jet of smoke shot from its mouth and rolled like a fog over the wet money on the table in front of it. It seemed to smile as she pressed the TV’s power button.
“Tobacco doesn’t cause cancer!” said the next TV. She moved to look at the strange thing on it. A wooden boy was dressed in a khaki pants and a pink shirt with the collar standing up like a rooster’s comb. Black strings attached to the boy’s hands, feet, and head, and the boy had a very long nose. Naomi smiled at how ridiculous the puppet looked.
“Got paste?” said the puppet. It danced on its chair when it talked, slowly pumping its knees and elbows. Naomi giggled. The puppet nodded its head from side to side. Its nose bobbed.
“Be all that you can eat.” The puppet jumped into the air, forked its legs, and landed in a split. Naomi laughed. The puppet nodded and its nose whipped the air.
“Breakpaste of champions.” The puppet fell to its knees and flapped its arms like a bird. Naomi clapped. The puppet’s nose swiped through the air.
“Just dude it!” The puppet jumped and twirled, twisting the strings together. Naomi clapped again. The puppet’s nose seemed to be slashing at the strings.
“You’ve a long way, baby,” the puppet yelled. It jumped in the air and twirled. The strings wrapped around it in a knot. The puppet hit the chair with a thud. Naomi didn’t laugh. The puppet flopped back and forth like a goldfish. His nose slashed at the strings above his head like he was trying to cut them but he couldn’t reach them.
“I’m lovedin’ it!” he screamed. He flopped and tossed his head. He writhed and jumped. He whipped his nose in wild arcs.
“Paston, take me away,” he shouted, swiping at the strings with one desperate slash. The strings jerked him up into the air and the nose missed its cut. Though there were no tears, his head rose and fell as if he were crying.
He let out a huge sob—”Billions served!”—and Naomi pushed the TV from the table. It landed with a thud on the floor. Its blue eye twitched and winked out.
Naomi looked over.
“With us, you have bright future.” The TV on the other side of her was talking now. On it was a red sock that looked like a snake with horns sticking out of its head.
“What’s your name?” it asked. “I can help you. Do you want to be in show biz?” Naomi pushed the TV to the floor.
Various things danced on the other TVs. There was a thin doll in a bikini. “Are you unsatisfied with your body?” it asked. Naomi shoved it off the table. The next had a bear on it wearing big shoes. “Looking for a new career?” it said. She pushed it o
ff the table. Another TV said, “We buy broken gold.” It showed an ugly man with a patch of hair like a rug. She shoved it off the table.
She shoved a TV with wrestlers on it. She shoved a TV with people shouting answers, “What is the battle of Pastings?” She shoved a TV showing a pencil with beady eyes that said, “When you have money, you've got money to spend.” She shoved all the TVs off one side of the table. She could hear the TVs on the other side chattering away, but she didn’t have the strength to silence them all.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” The chair at the head of the table spun. In it sat a real woman.