1、PROCEDURE IN PLAIN AIRBY JONATHAN LETHEMOCTOBER 26, 2009Later, after the men in jumpsuits had driven up and begun digging the hole, Stevick would remember that the guy on the bench beside him had been gazing puzzledly into the cone of his large coffee and had tried to interest him in the question of
2、 whether the cafs brew aftertasted of soap or not. This day was gray, with heavy portents of rain. Not the best for sitting on the coffee shops bench, but the interior of the caf had become insufferable in all ways to Stevick: the shops ambience and fancy name, its well-programmed iPod and fake-indu
3、strial chairs and tables and counters succeeding too completely, the room seething with overdressed-dishevelled types, nerve-rackedly Web surfing or doing the real-world equivalent with eye orbits through the room, every last one of whom made him feel mossy, corroded, replaced. Add to that the dange
4、r of running into his ex, Charlotte, and he never even glanced within in hope of a seathe didnt want one. Just black, to go. He was an outdoor-bencher, hed take his chances with the others here, backs to the shops window, and if rain drove them off hed have it to himself. Nor did he care to consider
5、 whether the coffee tasted of soap or not. He was getting his morning thrill on, his eye-opener, and this place, besides being on the right corner of the right block for him to stumble in, made a fine, joltingly strong concoction strictly from the addicts point of view. It could taste of lysergic ac
6、id or oysters, for all he cared. Maybe every cup of coffee hed ever drunk had tasted of soap, so he couldnt discern soap from coffeewho knew?Stevick, meant to be job hunting, wasnt. Too generous severance had blurred his motivation in the months when it would have mattered. Now, season slanting to M
7、emorial Day, the flag of Manhattans office life was at half-mast until September. So Stevick was propped like a morning crow on that bench when the truck arrived. His front-row seat recalled to him memories of childhood puppet shows, of gazing up at the slotted stage from which Punch and Judy and th
8、eir like protruded. The soapy-coffee theorist was curled over some device, brow knit, thumbs-deep in a text-message campaign, making Stevick the only witness to the disembarkment of the trucks occupants.They parked, apparently heedlessly, in the space in front of a hydrant, but without coming nearer
9、 than three feet to the curb. Cars slowed to pass. Stevick doubted that a garbage truck could have made it through. Surely a temporary placement, a compromise, then. The vehicle was an ungainly bolted-iron thing, resembling some reconfigured laundry or diaper truck, not massive like those used for t
10、ransport of money, but solid enough in its way. Two men in jumpsuits popped out of the cab, and within a minute had orange traffic cones up to claim the territory that extended a few feet behind the truck, as well as between it and the curb. One contemplated the hydrant and then wryly topped it with
11、 a cone, which perched there like a dunce cap. It made an effective premption of any indigenous neighborhood protest, an easy trump: the men in jumpsuits seemed to have some official function, even if their truck was unmarked.The tools with which the two men dug the hole were notably quiet and effic
12、ient. After first marking a square of asphalt with yellow spray paint, using a band saw of daunting size and intensity they carved the blacktop along the lines of drying paint. At this point, Stevicks might still have been the only eyes attending. Perhaps these activities had drawn distracted, unsus
13、tained glances from a passing postal worker or nanny. Certainly nobody emerged into the chill morning from the cafs interior, where those not obliviously earbudded were likely hunkered in routine annoyance against the saws zip, much as theyd be for a passing siren or the clunk of a trucks axle in a
14、potholenothing off the ordinary urban-decibel scale. The soap complainer had wandered away when Stevick wasnt looking.The jackhammers, though, drew complaint. Several exasperated caf denizens packed their laptops and muttered in the loose direction of the truck and its jumpsuited operatives as they
15、fled the scene, like birds flitting to another treetop, and no more courageous. One of the cafs counterpersons, a chubby guy in an apron, seeing business spooked, made a more forthright protest, even shaking his fist. But the small dimension of the task blunted his protest: by the time the jumpsuite
16、d pair had ignored the counterperson for a minute or two, minute smiles perhaps rippling their lipsor was this an effect of the devices vibration?they were shifting the jackhammer back into the truck, in favor of shovels and picks, with which they deftly cleared the hole of shattered black chunks. S
17、tevick nodded consolation to the counterperson, who had, after all, poured his soapy coffee forty-five minutes before. What remained of it was cold.The excavation was complete by the time Stevick wandered by half an hour later, having picked up his dry cleaning from the Korean and used his own bathr
18、oom before circling back to the caf. Rain still threatened, hadnt arrived. Stevick couldnt say why he was enthralled by the activities that had commenced with the trucks arrival; some intimation, he supposed in retrospect, though it wasnt uncommon for him to buzz the caf two or three times in a proc
19、rastinating morning. The hole was steep and accurate, hewing to the spray-painted plan still visible in two corners where the lines of paint, meeting, had pooled and blurred: an inverted phone booth of emptied dirt and rubble. Three fat fitted planks lay stacked beside the hole, sized to make a roug
20、h cover, Stevick guessed. The holes former contents had been heaped precariously at the curbthe hydrant wasnt likely to be back in commission too soon, at this rate. The orange cone remained, like an ill-fitted condom stuck on its head. The truck, however, was gone.And then it was back, jerking to a
21、 halt at the curb before him, as if responsive to Stevicks own presence, to his attentions; however absurd this notion might be, Stevick had conceived it. With an unhurried persistence, the jumpsuited men emerged again and opened the vans rear, then stepped inside to wrangle out what at first might
22、have seemed another object but then revealed itself to be a man, a human captive. The man was dressed in the same uniform, as though recently demoted from their company. But his skin, Stevick noted wearily, as if this fact beckoned to outrage he ought to feel rising within him but didnt, was darker
23、than theirs. His head shaved, where their hair was intact; his two-or-three-day beard rough, where theirs were, in one case, trimmed into a goatee and, in the other, shaved clean. So the jumpsuits, rather than suggesting equivalence between the three, framed difference. A cruddy cloth gagged the cap
24、tives mouth; another bound his wrists in front of him. His eyes didnt trouble to plead as his captors led him to the fresh hole and lowered him within, taking care not to scuff his elbows on the crumbled lip. Theyd measured well: the captive nestled just underneath the three fat boards when these we
25、re fitted over his head. One of the jumpsuited operatives stood atop the boards, testing their firmness with apparent satisfaction, while the other quickly loaded the cones into the back of the truck. Now, at last, the rain began to fall.“How?” Stevick began, then faltered, unsure of his question. “
26、How long are you going to leave him in there?”The two could barely be bothered to hesitate, in their hurry for the shelter of the trucks cab. “Were on installation and delivery,” the clean-shaven one said as he assumed the drivers seat. “Pick-ups another department.”“Are we talking hours or days or
27、weeks?” Stevick said, locating, perhaps belatedly, some faint civic courage, a notion that hed absorbed certain duties as a local witness to the open-air procedure, perhaps by default, but no less legitimately for that. Besides, others inside the caf might be watching through the window. His questio
28、n was perhaps a feeble one, but, for anyone observing, the fact that hed stood up from the bench and begun some sort of stalling interrogation could be seen as crucial, either in a deeper intervention to be conducted by more effective or informed members of the community or in some later accounting
29、of Stevicks comportment and behavior.“I really didnt look at the schedule in this case,” the driver said. “But theyre rarely installed for more than three or four days in a single location.”“Anything longer wouldnt be seen as humane, I suppose?”“More like these measures simply arent effective beyond
30、 a certain point. Listen, weve got to go.”“Those boards are in no way tight enough to keep the rain from falling on him,” Stevick pointed out. By placing their hole so near the hydrant, theyd prevented a parked car from giving shelter to the hole. On the other hand, perhaps theyd spared the holes in
31、habitant something terrifying in being doubly pinned by the low ceiling of a vehicles undercarriage. Probably Stevick was guilty of overthinking: it was impossible to find a parking space in this neighborhood, so theyd settled on the obvious solution.“Thats generous of you to notice, citizen,” the d
32、river said. He gestured to the occupant of the passenger seat, the goateed man, whod been sitting with his arms crossed and rolling his eyes, miming impatience. Now this silent partner produced something from the floor of the trucks cab: a compact black umbrellathe inexpensive double-hinged kind you
33、 might purchase at a shoe-repair shop, having ducked in during a gale. He handed it to the driver, who passed it through the open window to Stevick. “This is why were grateful you came along when you did,” the driver said, nodding to indicate the hole. “Dont be afraid to stand on topitll easily supp
34、ort your weight.”With that they were gone, and for the last time. Stevick never saw them again; the driver hadnt been misleading him when he alluded to the narrow specialization of their tasks. Now there was only the hole, its occupant, and Stevick, with his own duties. For, when freed by the trucks
35、 departure he turned to face the caf, no one in fact was regarding him from the window, now streaked with rain and curtained by a dripping overhang. Stevick opened the umbrella. The hole was silent. Stevick could easily have gone home, but instead he stepped over, tested the soundness of the footing
36、 on topthere was little doubt, hed watched them workand sheltered both himself and the sturdy boards from the rain as well as he could beneath the feeble rigging of black cloth and wire.In a lull the aproned counterman stepped outside the cafs doors for a cigarette break. He nodded curtly at Stevick
37、, exhaled smoke rising into the rain. “So youre in charge now, huh?” he said.“I didnt want to leave him completely alone.” There had been no sound, barely a detectable motion from the hole beneath his feet, where the captive now sat braced, knees wedged in dirt. “I wouldnt say Im in charge in any wi
38、der sense,” Stevick continued. “Im something of a stopgap or placeholder, really.”“I more than understand,” the caf employee said. “Were in a similar situation. Just a gig between real jobs, thats what I keep telling myself.” He tossed his fuming butt into the gutter, quite near. “Theres a million s
39、tories like yours and mine.”“Thats not what I was getting at,” Stevick began, but, uninterested, the counterman had returned inside. The cafs population had never completely recovered from the jackhammer exodus; that, combined with the rain, kept Stevicks vigil a lonely one. He preferred it, actuall
40、y. The usual early-afternoon dog-walkers passed by, hunched in tented plastic ponchos, their smaller dogs, the terriers and dachshunds, sheathed in sleeveless plaid coats, but Stevick had always regarded the walkers as ships on a distant sea, some passing flotilla. Even on days of bright sunshine, t
41、hey were too occupied with canine herding and the management of plastic-bagged turds to engage in the human life of the street. Though few other humans acknowledged him, Stevick liked to believe that he was still a participant in this mainstream. Whether his relation to the man beneath the boards qu
42、alified as a human transaction was another question.Toward evening, the rain tailed, though not enough so that Stevick lowered the umbrella. The cafs clientele turned over; the tables were set for dinner, decorated with lit candles, menus in place; the staff even switched off the WiFi, in order to c
43、hase out the most tenacious of the afternoon Googlers. Others of Stevicks neighbors, the professionally dressed, beleaguered rush-hour subwayers, slavers in financial offices, trudged past the corner with their own umbrellas. Though Stevick always thought of them as upright sheep, some were surprisi
44、ngly bold in their muttering.“What did you say?” Stevick shouted back.“You heard me, friend. Youre lowering property values for the rest of us.”“Not in my back yard, eh?” Stevick said. “Boy, when something like this arrives in your midst you learn pretty fast whos who in this neighborhood, you yuppi
45、e.” Stevick spoiled for a fight, feeling now all the insurgent defiance he ought to have summoned for the diggers of the hole. But what was done was done. Defense of what should never have been in the first place had become Stevicks province.“You artists need to grow up and learn the difference betw
46、een an installation piece and a hole in the ground,” the man sneered. Surely Stevicks age or younger, yet dressed like Stevicks grandfather, he added, “Slack-ass.”Stevick was incensed. “Theres a man in this hole!”“Dont bore me with your disgusting personal situation!”“Its not a personal situation, y
47、ou fucker!”“Roll up and die, grubbie!”“Yaaaaarrrr!” They charged with umbrellas outheld, Stevick feeling hed abandoned his station but unable to stem the urge to gore the man on the sidewalk and see him plead for mercy in the rain. Yet the two men essentially missed, failed to engage, the broad open
48、ed umbrellas merely grazing in a rubbery wet shudder as they passed. The single thrust having apparently exhausted his neighbor as much as it did Stevick, the man regathered his briefcase tightly beneath his elbow. “I need to go pay the nanny,” he murmured as he slunk off. Stevick retreated to his t
49、ask.It was night, and inside the caf the menus at several of the tables had been taken up, wine poured, little plates delivered by the time another specialist made contact with Stevick. He wasnt, as Stevick might have hoped, a sentry arriving to relieve Stevick of a duty that, now that he contemplated it, he had to admit was self-assigned. Rather, the jumpsuited man, a sturdy, almost fat one this time, with heavy, black-rimmed eyeglasses and a Yankees cap shielding him from the rain, ap
