Partial people can cause traffic delays, however: as Leslie R— drove toward a box in his/her lane on G— Ave in M— , he/she was surprised to find an arm sticking out of it. He/she was able to judge from
To make a long story short, Leslie was not distracted by frantic hand waving. Crushing the box.
Partial people may try to pass themselves off as entire people. Sometimes all, or almost all, the customary visual aspects may be present. It may be an internal organ or aspect that is missing, not apparent to the eye (or
Travel. Partial people must pay full fare but may not go the whole way. This limits their travel.
Police experience with partial people is inconclusive. They are sometimes worth a beating, but rarely an Arrest.
Money. Partial people usually have a little but are certain to ask for more. On the subway do not take their cards.
In crowds, they stand cunningly so that three or four together may look like an entire person, or even two embracing. This marks the limit of their ability to cooperate.
Neither
When they insist on having children, their children are also partial people (partial children). They hardly play.
They may claim to be veterans, especially those which are dis- or un-figured.
They may have trouble counting (being less than one to begin with). Their ideas may appear in contradiction to the ones you hold. Their speech is riddled with sentence fragments and futile attempts at dogma. Even a hello can lead to a loud harangue.
Frantic hand waving is not a friendly greeting with partial people. It is a blatant attempt to gain attention.
Do yourself and society a favor. Don’t be taken in. Just say no to partial people.
Thank you.
Let’s stop mourning for the good old days.
We are largely living in them still.
My last week on the job started (as usual) with a crisis. “Code Four, Gail,” Carl said, throwing me my cap. He never could pronounce my name. “It’s the Barbers, out in Whispering Woods subdivision, south of New Brunswick, just off Route One.” He backed the pickup to the shed end of the greenhouse and quizzed me while I threw equipment into the back. “Got the drip nozzles? Got the 4 plus 6? Got the Sylo-van, the Di50Si? The lawn injectors? The Thumper, just in case? Oh, and a Dutch Elm chip for the mall. We might make it by there today.”
It was a bright, mournful June day. The traffic was colorful and hard. The roadsides were brilliant green; newly painted for spring.
“Here we are, Gail. Whispering Woods.” We pulled past the wrought-iron gates between the two big laser maples with Dolby rustling leaves, and around the curved drive lined with big houses set on wide pseudolawns. It was all
“nerf and turf’ (that’s what Carl calls verdachip and astrolawn) until the Barbers’ house, at the turnaround.
Their lawn was not green but yellow-green. It was the only organic lawn in the sub. We put it in for them four years ago, and for two years it almost made it; then last summer we had to put it on twenty-four-hour IV, and now this looked like the end of the line.
Mrs. Barber was standing at the door looking worried. Her husband pulled in the drive just as we did. She must have called us both at the same time.
“Jesus,” Mr. Barber said as he got out of his Chrysler Iacocca and looked at his yellowing hundred thousand dollars ($104,066.29 to be precise; I sometimes watched Carl do the books). “It’s not too late, is it, Carl?”
“It’s never too late, Mr. Barber,” Carl said. The greenest part of the lawn made a crisscross pattern like an X ray showing the underground grid where the drip saturators were buried; the rest of the grass was jaundiced-yellow. A darker brown edge ran all around the yard, like paper just before it bursts into flame.
“Code Six, Gail,” Carl said, revising his original assessment. “Give me 4.5 liters of straight Biuloformicaine on a speed inject. And be quick about it. I’ll load up the ambulofogger.”
The nutritank was built onto the side of the ranch-style home, disguised as a shed. I spilled in a four-can of Bi, added some Phishphlakes for good measure, and set the under-pumps whining on super. Out front, Carl trotted up and down the lawn with a Diprothemytaline sprayer, while the Barbers looked on, worried, from the doorway. A few neighbors had gathered at the curb, a mixture of concern and poorly disguised pleasure on their faces. I could tell that the Barbers and their organic lawn were not popular.
