CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella by George Saunders

psychiatric practice. In their late-night TV ads they wear cowls and capes and stand on either side of a sobbing neurotic woman in sweater and slacks. By the end of the bit she’s romping through a field of daisies. I get Jean Fleen. I tell her I’ve done a bad thing I can’t live with. She says I’ve called the right place. She says there’s nothing so shameful it can’t be addressed by GuiltMasters. I take a deep breath and spill my guts. There’s a silence from Jean’s end. Then she asks can I hold. Upbeat Muzak comes on. Several minutes laterBob comes on and asks can they call me back. I wait by the phone. One hour, two hours, all night. Nothing. The sun comes up. Brad from Complex Grounds turns on the bubbler and the whitewater begins to flow. I don’t shower. I don’t shave. I put on the same pants I had on before. It’s too much. Three years since her death and still I’m a wreck. I think of fleeing the city. I think of working on a shrimper, or setting myself on fire downtown.
    Instead I go to work.
    In spite of my problems, personal interactive holography marches on.
    All morning I hopefully dust. Nobody comes in. At noon I work out a little tension by running amok in one of my modules. I choose Bowling with the Pros. A holographic smoothie in a blazer greets me and affably asks if I’m as tired as he is of perennially overhooking the ball when what I really need is to consistently throw strikes. I tell him fuck off. In a more sophisticated module he’d ask why the hostility, but my equipment is outdated and instead he looks confused and tries to shake my hand. What crappy verisimilitude. No wonder I’m in the red. No wonder my rent’s overdue. He asks isn’t bowling a lovely recreation? I tell him I’m in mourning. He says the hours spent in a bowling alley with friends certainly make for some fantastic memories years down the line. I tell him my life’s in the crapper. He grins and says let’s bowl, let’s go in and bowl, let’s go in and bowl a few frames—with the Pros! I take him by the throat. Of course he Dysfunctions. Of course I’m automatically unbooted. I doff my headset and dismount the treadmill. Once again it’s just me and my failing shop. Once again the air reeks of microwaved popcorn. Once again I am only who I am.
    Wonderful, I think, you’ve fouled your own four-hundred-dollar module. And I have. So I trash it. I write it off to grief management. I go to lunch. I opt for an autodispensed FreightFurter. Of course I overmicrowave and the paper cowcatcher melds with the bun and the little engineer’s face runs down his overalls. It’s even more inedible than usual. I chuck it. I can’t afford another. I chuck it and go wait for my regulars.
    At two Mr. Bomphil comes in looking guilty and as always requests Violated Prom Queen, then puts on high heels and selects Treadmill Three. Treadmill Three is behind a beam, so he’s free to get as worked up as he likes, which is very. I try not to hear him moan. I try not to hear him call each football-team member by name. He’s followed by Theo Kiley, an appliance salesman who lays down a ream of Frigidaire specs and asks for Legendary American Killers Stalk You. I strap on his headset. I insert his module. For twenty minutes he hems and haws with Clyde Barrow. Finally he slips up and succumbs to a burst of machine-gun fire, then treats himself to a Sprite. “Whew,” he says. “Next time I’ll know to avoid the topic of his mom.” I remind him he’s got an outstanding bill. He says thanks. He says his bill and his ability to match wits with great criminals are the only outstanding things he’s got. We laugh. We laugh some more. He shakes his head and leaves. I curse him under my breath, then close up early and return to my lonely home.
    Next day Mrs. Gaither from Corporate comes to town. Midway through my Significant Accomplishments Assessment, armless Mr. Feltriggi comes to the door and as usual rings the bell with his face.