Breakfast of Champions Page 0,11

combat. He had been in actual combat in a war. Dwayne hadn’t been in combat. He was a civilian employee of the United States Army Air Corps during the Second World War, though. One time he got to paint a message on a five-hundred-pound bomb which was going to be dropped on Hamburg, Germany. This was it:

• • •

“Harry,” said Francine, “everybody is entitled to a few bad days. Dwayne has fewer than anybody I know, so when he does have one like today, some people are hurt and surprised. They shouldn’t be. He’s human like anybody else.”

“But why should he single out me?” Harry wanted to know. He was right: Dwayne had singled him out for astonishing insults and abuse that day. Everybody else still found Dwayne nothing but charming.

Later on, of course, Dwayne would assault all sorts of people, even three strangers from Erie, Pennsylvania, who had never been to Midland City before. But Harry was an isolated victim now.

• • •

“Why me?” said Harry. This was a common question in Midland City. People were always asking that as they were loaded into ambulances after accidents of various kinds, or arrested for disorderly conduct, or burglarized, or socked in the nose and so on: “Why me?”

“Probably because he felt that you were man enough and friend enough to put up with him on one of his few bad days,” said Francine.

“How would you like it if he insulted your clothes?” said Harry. This is what Dwayne had done to him: insulted his clothes.

“I would remember that he was the best employer in town,” said Francine. This was true. Dwayne paid high wages. He had profit-sharing and Christmas bonuses at the end of every year. He was the first automobile dealer in his part of the State to offer his employees Blue Cross-Blue Shield, which was health insurance. He had a retirement plan which was superior to every retirement plan in the city with the exception of the one at Barrytron. His office door was always open to any employee who had troubles to discuss, whether they had to do with the automobile business or not.

For instance, on the day he insulted Harry’s clothing, he also spent two hours with Vernon Garr, discussing the hallucinations Vernon’s wife was having. “She sees things that aren’t there,” said Vernon.

“She needs rest, Vern,” said Dwayne.

“Maybe I’m going crazy, too,” said Vernon. “Christ, I go home and I talk for hours to my fucking dog.”

“That makes two of us,” said Dwayne.

• • •

Here is the scene between Harry and Dwayne which upset Harry so much:

Harry went into Dwayne’s office right after Vernon left. He expected no trouble, because he had never had any serious trouble with Dwayne.

“How’s my old combat buddy today?” he said to Dwayne.

“As good as can be expected,” said Dwayne. “Anything special bothering you?”

“No,” said Harry.

“Vern’s wife thinks Vern is trying to turn her brains into plutonium,” said Dwayne.

“What’s plutonium?” said Harry, and so on. They rambled along, and Harry made up a problem for himself just to keep the conversation lively. He said he was sad sometimes that he had no children. “But I’m glad in a way, too,” he went on. “I mean, why should I contribute to overpopulation?”

Dwayne didn’t say anything.

“Maybe we should have adopted one,” said Harry, “but it’s too late now. And the old lady and me—we have a good time just horsing around with ourselves. What do we need a kid for?”

It was after the mention of adoption that Dwayne blew up. He himself had been adopted—by a couple who had moved to Midland City from West Virginia in order to make big money as factory workers in the First World War. Dwayne’s real mother was a spinster school teacher who wrote sentimental poetry and claimed to be descended from Richard the Lion-Hearted, who was a king. His real father was an itinerant typesetter, who seduced his mother by setting her poems in type. He didn’t sneak them into a newspaper or anything. It was enough for her that they were set in type.

She was a defective child-bearing machine. She destroyed herself automatically while giving birth to Dwayne. The printer disappeared. He was a disappearing machine.

• • •

It may be that the subject of adoption caused an unfortunate chemical reaction in Dwayne’s head. At any rate, Dwayne suddenly snarled this at Harry: “Harry, why don’t you get a bunch of cotton waste from Vern Garr, soak it in Blue Sunoco, and burn up your