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Melville and modern times. The Big Dream tells of a private detective on the
trail of Raymond Chandler slowly evolving into a character in a typical
Chandler crime story. The Pure Product which appears here and Every Angel
Is Terrifying
(
)
both extend ideas in the southern Gothic fiction of Flannery O Connor. H. G.
Wells is himself a character in the Wellsian tale Buffalo.
These stories, and Kessel s alternate-history tales Some Like It Cold,
The Franchise, and Uncle John and the Saviour, have been
collected in his short fiction compilations
Meetings in Infinity and
The Pure Product.
The creative playfulness implicit in the what-if speculations of these
stories extends to Kessel s work as a novelist.
Good News from
Outer Space sketches a satirical portrait of a dysfunctional America on the
eve of the twenty-first century, obsessed with alien invasion and millennial
irrationality.
Corrupting Dr. Nice is a screwball time-travel story involving a
father-daughter team of flim-flam artists who traverse timelines and alternate
histories in search of victims. Kessel has also written the novel
Freedom Beach in collaboration with James Patrick
Kelly. In 2003 he was awarded the James Tiptree Award for his short story
Stories of Men.
If there were time travelers from the future, how would they see the America
of today? Would they look at it like the main character in
Kessel s story, as an entire world to toy with, to manipulate as they choose?
Would they be disinterested observers, alighting five hundred years ago, then
flitting through time as they choose, interacting with whomever they happen to
meet?
THE PURE PRODUCT
by John Kessel
I arrived in Kansas City at one o clock on the afternoon of the thirteenth of
August. A Tuesday. I was driving the beige 1983
Chevrolet Citation that I had stolen two days earlier in Pocatello,
Idaho. The Kansas plates on the car I d taken from a different car
in a parking lot in Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City was founded by the Mormons,
whose god tells them that in the future Jesus Christ will come again.
I drove through Kansas City with the windows open and the sun beating down
through the windshield. The car had no air conditioning, and my shirt was
stuck to my back from seven hours behind the wheel. Finally I found a hardware
store, Hector s on Wornall. I pulled into the lot. The Citation s engine
dieseled after I turned off the ignition; I pumped the accelerator once
and it coughed and died. The heat was like syrup. The sun drove
shadows deep into corners, left them flattened at the feet of the people
on the sidewalk. It made the plate glass of the store window into a dark
negative of the positive print that was Wornall Road. August.
The man behind the counter in the hardware store I took to be Hector himself.
He looked like Hector, slain in vengeance beneath the walls of
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paintbrushes the kind of semifriendly, publicly optimistic man who would tell
you about his crazy wife and his ten-penny nails. I bought a gallon
of kerosene and a plastic paint funnel, put them into the trunk of
the
Citation, then walked down the block to the Mark Twain Bank. Mark Twain died
at the age of seventy-five with a heart full of bitter accusations against the
Calvinist god and no hope for the future of humanity. Inside the bank I went
to one of the desks, at which sat a Nice Young Lady. I asked about starting a
business checking account. She gave me a form to fill out, then sent me to the
office of Mr. Graves.
Mr. Graves wielded a formidable handshake. What can I do for you, Mr....?
Tillotsen, Gerald Tillotsen, I said. Gerald Tillotsen, of Tacoma,
Washington, died of diphtheria at the age of four weeks on September
24, 1938. I have a copy of his birth certificate.
I m new to Kansas City. I d like to open a business account here, and perhaps
take out a loan. I trust this is a reputable bank? What s your exposure in
Brazil? I looked around the office as if Graves were hiding a woman behind
the hatstand, then flashed him my most ingratiating smile.
Mr. Graves did his best. He tried smiling back, then looked as if he had
decided to ignore my little joke. We re very sound, Mr. Tillotsen.
I continued smiling.
What kind of business do you own?
I m in insurance. Mutual Assurance of Hartford. Our regional office is in
Oklahoma City, and I m setting up an agency here, at 103rd and State Line.
Just off the interstate.
He examined the form. His absorption was too tempting.
Maybe I can fix you up with a policy? You look like dead meat.
Graves s head snapped up, his mouth half-open. He closed it and watched me
guardedly. The dullness of it all! How I
tire. He was like some cow, like most of the rest of you in this silly age,
unwilling to break the rules in order to take offense.
Did he really say that? he was thinking. Was that his idea of a joke? He
looks normal enough. I did look normal, exactly like an insurance agent. I
was the right kind of person, and I could do anything. If at times I grate, if
at times I fall a little short of or go a little beyond convention, there is
not one of you who can call me to account.
Graves was coming around. All business.
Ah yes, Mr. Tillotsen. If you ll wait a moment, I m sure we can take care of
this checking account. As for the loan
Forget it.
That should have stopped him. He should have asked after my credentials, he
should have done a dozen things. He looked at me, and I stared calmly
back at him. And I knew that, looking into my honest blue eyes, he could not
think of a thing.
I ll just start the checking account with this money order, I said,
reaching into my pocket. That will be acceptable, won t it?
It will be fine, he said. He took the form and the order over to one of the
secretaries while I sat at the desk. I lit a cigar and blew some smoke rings.
I d purchased the money order the day before in a post office in Denver.
Thirty dollars. I didn t intend to use the account very long. Graves returned
with my sample checks, shook hands earnestly, and wished me a good day. Have a
good day, he said. I
will, I said.
Outside, the heat was still stifling. I took off my sports coat. I was
sweating so much I had to check my hair in the sideview mirror of my
car. I walked down the street to a liquor store and bought a bottle of
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