From THE PENTAGON

A person has to live with the facts.Say something critical-tell everyone, for instancethat you find your boss eerieor a hypocriteand it's you who'll be associatedin your listener's mind (more or less forever)with eeriness, and withhypocrisy.You live. You complete sixteen of the seventeen tasks assigned to you.For the seventeenth, you call your supervisor.No need to sign in today, he says. No work.You find a stall and close the door, [laughter]*I start by asking everyone what they think, he said.I work it in there with their nameand a few things about hometowns.This one, eyes closed, accounting for it all, drawing deep invisiblelines past which one does not walk, retiring to a small apartment,reading a trade magazine before bed, a little scenario of vegetablescooling on an upturned lid...The best way to open a movie, he said, is with an auction housescene. Get your audienceto root fora buyer!*Bland detail: You told the hotel clerk about the problem with thevending machine. She moved parts of her face into second position,told you to fill out a waiver and sign it.If you're shy you're at the mercy of people considerate of peoplewho are shyOne afternoon as you left the building you saw the supervisorchaining his bicycle to a parking meter. You stood there, outside thehealth food restaurant. You saidHelloand he saidAs if.Again, if you're shy your main friends will be people interested inpeople who are shy.*This isn'tsafe infact anyonecan easilyget at youthey'll searchyour bodyfor two rowseach carryinghundreds ofidentical teethforced togetherby a sliderhiding in itsthroat aY-shapedchanneland holdsomethinghot to ittill youbreak openalongperforatedlines.Or try sweetener packetsstuffed inlittle yellowgratuity envelopes.That's grace, the filled envelope.That full meal on thatsturdy plate.*We have to get this project launched before the announcement, theysaid. So you can see our problem here.I can see your problem there. You're just going to eat a roll orwhatever that brown block is.An air of costliness: crumpled wrappers, torn cardboard, pried-apartplastic clams.Treat all conversation as ad hominem argument, he said. Always thinkabout what you might be able to find out about them.Them. What we all called: filler.Filler die. First the men of the family, usually, and then the women notlong after.Or it's the women who die, and the men live another ten or twentyyears, being better able than women to do the business of living, andthen the men die.And then the children die, one by one, and their funerals are held onSaturdays and Sundays in buildings that look like houses but liesuspiciously close to the town center, on a corner, or main road,immaculate residences zoned as businesses. …