ARR 1988 - Flipbook - Page 27
at him. He therefore pretended not to notice the mannerisms and instead decided to ask
more questions, just for the sake of showing he didn't mind talking to gay men.
"So, ah, what kind of business are you in, Jim?" Painstakingly casual, if there was
such a thing, he tried to hide his natural shyness yet wanted to appear suave. He wished
he were at home watching television.
''Well, business is business, right, but you know, I consider myself a business
consultant you know industrial planning ... it all comes down to PR and free thought."
He put his pipe down and dug into his pocket for what proved to be a wrinkled piece of
paper. He flattened it out on the tabletop. Written out in ink of several different colors
was what appeared to be a series of complex flow charts. Numbers, letters and symbols
that seemed to have been invented by Jim filled a network of boxes and lines.
He picked up his pipe and went on. "It's like these here you see. You can pick
it all apart into systems ..." He then lowered his voice to a whisper. "Like that guy sitting
over there, you see. Systems." As he spoke, he used the air in front of him as a blackboard
and the pipe as a piece of chalk.
Brendon nodded, then added, "You mean like math? Systems like algebra?" He
wanted to get some basis of understanding, as it seemed to him the man was unusually
intelligent.
"Well, of course that's really something to consider, but I mean systems like
remember when they had the story on the news where all those people died I mean they
didn 'tjust die. Get a plane up at that altitude and bring it down and you won 'tfind a body
in one piece." With this he stabbed his blackboard four times with the pipe to emphasize
his point.
Jim was looking at Vince now, who was much more attentive than Brendon was
able to be. Vince nodded and seemed to understand. Brendon felt he must have gotten
distracted for a moment and missed something. But then Vince spoke and Brendon was
relieved.
"I'm not sure I really get what you mean by that last thing about the airplane, Jim,"
Vince said in a conciliatory tone.
"Well it's not really a question of under... like what I said about my business
plan." He began flattening out the paper with the flow charts once again. "Now, systems,
you can understand that, right? I mean how we' re all primates who are mainly concerned
about survivial so it's basically a semi-Darwinian thing getting down to basics of DNA
so we're talking here about a genetical and systematic thing."
Brendon was tiring from the effort of following the conversation, of groping for
some light subject to distract the man. He could think of nothing to say, though, and the
man with the pipe was getting more and more excited about what he was saying.
J Street traffic was beginning to quiet down. Most of the people who had ventured
that day to their downtown jobs were now tranquilly preparing dinner or gathered around
13