was our custom.
But I was wearing a new coat. There was something about that, something not quantifiable.
So I said, “We always do this. Sit here and say nothing like this.”
“Why, Tandy!” Doc said. “You’re full of piss and vinegar tonight!” He found this hilarious. It wouldn’t be later but that night it was.
“And so right she is,” Huff said. “We are a sad and pitiful group.” Huff raised his glass, and shouted, “To us!”
Mary Ellen came by and we ordered. She was out of bean soup, and Doc and Huff groaned about having to eat potato soup instead.
“It doesn’t produce nearly the desired amount of flatulence!” Huff whined.
Doc said, “I want Tandy to put it on the order of business for next time.”
I wrote down in the notebook from my Order of the Pessimists file: Talk about the crime of the Powerhaus being out of bean soup.
“Why can’t we discuss it right now? You always put things off!” Huff said.
“You always have to question my authority!” Doc said.
“You don’t have any authority!” Huff said.
Gary looked over at me and said, “This is a good meeting.”
Doc said, “Do we have anything that needs to be carried over from our last meeting?”
I checked the notebook. Our last meeting had been the day before the new school year. According to my notes, someone had recommended that we discuss what it is we are thankful for at this current meeting, as it would be near Thanksgiving.
Doc frowned. “Who said that?”
I didn’t remember and it was not in my notes.
“Figures,” Huff snuffed.
“I think it was me,” Gary said.
Huff sighed at Gary and swallowed more of his drink. Doc lit a cigarette and said, “Gary, you are a goddamn idiot and always will be.” Then he turned to me. “Tandy, you are terrible at notating the accounts of these meetings and you always will be.”
“I thought I was the idiot,” I said, referring to his earlier comments regarding the extravagance of my coat.
“You are an idiot also, and you are terrible at notating the accounts of these meetings.”
“Should I write that down?” I asked.
“Yes,” Doc said. “Please note for the record that Gary Mussman will remain an idiot in perpetuity, and that Tandy Caide is an idiot as well, and that she is not the World’s Greatest Accountant, despite what the trophy in her office says.”
My fingers got tingly and then went numb. At the time I thought perhaps this was from dehydration due to my sweating so much in my coat. Later, I would hear that it is the stress of being on the edge of something dangerous that causes this.
“I’m not going to write that down,” I said.
They all looked at me.
“Why not?” Gary asked.
I didn’t have an answer.
Huff made his face all fake-soft, like he cared about my feelings. “Are you afraid, little girl, that you aren’t the World’s Greatest Accountant?”
“No,” I said, though the thought had run through my head more than once.
“Because you’re not,” he said. “That’s not your trophy.”
I wrote it down then. I wrote it down exactly the way they said it. I wrote: Tandy Caide is not the World’s Greatest Accountant.
And then I stared at it, because there it was, in plain language, in my own handwriting even, recorded for posterity in official Order of the Pessimists meeting minutes.
“Maybe we should talk about what we are thankful for,” Gary said.
I didn’t want to talk about what we were thankful for. Something was churning inside me—something new, or maybe not new but something old that suddenly happened to be a lot closer to my mouth. Perhaps I did want there to be something to be thankful for.
Doc said, “Okay then. I’ll go first.” He held up his lit cigarette. He said, “I am thankful for cigarettes. They mean I will suffer less time on this earth than the rest of you fuckers. Huff?”
Huff held up his glass and said, “I am thankful for whiskey. It helps me forget the good things. Gary?”
Gary took a drink of his beer, thought for a moment, and then said, “Friends?”
Doc held his head in his hands and Huff groaned.
Gary quickly found something more suitable. He said, “I’m thankful I never moved out of this piece-of-shit town when I had the chance ten years ago, because then I never had to make any friends with any goddamn optimists.”
“Bravo!” Doc and Huff shouted.
Then there was silence. We stared at one another’s face outlines.
“Tandy?” Doc asked.
The tingling again, from my elbows to my fingers.
“I’m thankful the women’s toilet works in this place,” I said, “though it won’t by the time I leave.” Doc and Huff laughed. I continued. “I’m also thankful for the clients of mine that are still alive, though they won’t be much longer.” Doc and Huff laughed again and Huff pounded the table with glee.
Our food came, which brought up the status of the checking account. “There is $272.14 in the account,” I said. “If our dinner checks remain at the same rate, and we don’t incur any more expenses, that’s enough for one more quarterly meeting, with $32.14 left over in April for a charitable contribution.”
“Where should it go, do you think?” Gary asked.
“How about vocational agriculture and the Future Farmers of America?” Doc asked, and all three of them stared me down yet again.
I was not prepared for that.
Oh, I should have been! This is how it is in our town. It’s not like in your towns closer to the river, where your artistic sensibilities allow you the ability to transcend your problems and your close intellectual friends support you and your efforts to make your life worth living!
“I definitely know that Vo-Ag and FFA could use it,” I said, though I knew no such thing.
“I imagine you have some special kind of information,” Doc said.
“I am privy to that kind of information, yes,” I said, though at the time I was not.
“Kids
