PAUL BRESLOW
91
small ones for pearls and industrial models for rusty gears, secretly
discarding each in turn. He offended me; he wore a suede jacket and
never carried anything; he could have been one of the lifestyle mob.
My knowledge of him at that moment was perhaps no more than
supposition or a memory trace; but I knew that as a child he had col–
lected inexhaustible things (items of a given color, any items what–
ever, and things he made eligible for collection by placing them un–
der his bed); and I knew that when he had finished with the magic of
ultrasonic purification he had gone on to acquire a kayak; an antacid
franchise; a fruitfly arbor.
I'm Schroeder, he was saying when his words became audible,
and he said it many times. I want stuff, he said, lots of it , mounds of
stuff; I want sides ofbeeffrom prize cattle, I'll freeze them in lockers,
I want a leather pig from England, a sauna from Denmark, a big
hunk oflava from Vesuvius, a chow dog from Macao, a red Packard,
and all the benefits of civilization as we know it today. I already had
a fruitfly arbor, but I lost it and I want it back. I'm Schroeder. I want
a stuffed wombat. I want to corner the market inJames Dean mem–
orabilia. I want the impedimenta of the biggest samurai. I want per–
mission. I want a gold Christmas tree and I want, oh no no. He struck
his chest weakly, in what looked to me like the threat display of a
sedentary gorilla.
The buyers exploded with faith and belief; they procured votive
candles and held them aloft; they applauded and hissed. They en–
tered into unconcealment, caressed their friends, told strangers of
their debts . They sang without words, danced their attendance at
this wondrous assembly, ran out to buy pennants and streamers and
helium-filled stellated dodecahedrons, and returned to give those
things away. Legs were uncrossed , checkbooks waved, catalogues
shredded and strewn.
Standing in the auditorium, near the stage to my right, a tall
woman in a roundnecked, purple sweater with padded shoulders ,
her hair fixed in Mannerist curls, began to giggle, and then she
laughed, and her hair, black and wet, unwound itself and fell free.
This radically laughing Annette was a version of herself I hadn't seen
before.
She laughed often during lunch in my suite; and she ate a large
roasted chicken and a jar of Three Bean Salad presented to us by
Room Service with its label still attached. I have a few gold bars, I
said. She laughed. And I have, I continued , a Sheraton cheveret, a
small Burne-Jones of Zephyr and Psyche, a mammilary stalactite
