The Mean, The Maximum, and
The Minimum
Paul Goodman
-"The maximum, the mean, and the minimum
are all good wisdom and destroy us
without
sin!"
P.Y·DAY,
three young householders find that last month cost them
only $42.50 each, for rent, food, etc., etc. We say "only" because
this was an amount they were more than used to, but there is a
mean in your life too.
The doorbell rings. Enter Normal and Robber and sit down
without taking off their hats. Now there are five and Lew says:
"Five of us could live like kings on $10 a week." Normal cries:
"If
I could get out of business, it would be Utopia!"-he is a little
salesman in the commercial world that tends always to the great
Extreme. Liv says: "We could play ball every clear day from
April to October."
They are fascinated by the question of the Utopian life: to
heighten by art, by juster proportions, a possible existence, an
almost possible existence. What their life would be if they could
pool just a few dividends!
Normal takes off his hat and opens the top button of his
trousers; but Robber keeps his on because he has a date.
Liv's little brother is standing in the doorway secretly grinning.
They start with clothes: It isn't necessary to wear a tie; there
are no buttons to lose on a pullover sweater; mocassins have no
heels; and corduroy pants last forever. Robber looks distastefully
at Liv's filthy yellow corduroy pants, gaping at the fly and ripped
symmetrically at the knees. Liv wears these for a certain purpose
and to be amusing.
"It might be better to live in sunny Italy," says Henry Faust.
"No, there's no big-league ball." "Cincinnati's warm, but the Reds
stink on ice."
