Gibberish

Unless he spent the night with a woman and thus was obliged to make small talk in the morning, Ken Phipps's breakfast companion was the radio, tuned to an all-news station, but it was routine for him (unless some major catastrophe was being reported for the first time) to ignore the meaning of what was said while taking comfort from the sound of the human voice. He had usually caught the 11-o'clock TV news the night before. It was rare that anything happened overnight.

This phase of his existence had continued to be orderly even when others went awry. Recently, he had been having trouble with the super of his apartment; he had had a falling out with his only brother, had broken up with still another girlfriend. But the breakfast-time ritual of playing the radio while not listening to it had been reassuringly maintained ... until the morning at hand, when for what seemed no reason at all, Phipps suddenly took interest, or tried to, in a news report about an occurrence in—that was just the problem. He could make no sense of it.

"Tenig pobed decisionally volatilitude, dowd happnil, be sprang. Than Mertonwhy Funchin, Rupeeble Don Grodwin."

The last few sounds were given the tone and rhythm of a geographical name—perhaps. Beyond that suggestion Phipps could not go. He thumped his temple with the heel of his hand. Maybe water from the shower was still in his ear.

He twisted the dial to another station and there found an improvement that, according to the angle of interpretation, could be either significant or slight. He could at least assume that a sportscaster was reporting the results of the baseball games of the day before. A desultory fan except when his favorite team was in a pennant race, Phipps usually heard the scores in a distracted state that permitted him only occasionally to note a strenuous effort to avoid repeating the obvious verbs. Thus if the Yankees beat the Red Sox, and the Mets lost to the Cards, the Cubs must win over the Reds, while the Twins bested the A's. Beyond that point, the terms grew more rarefied. One team might, were the score sufficiently unbalanced, devastate or hand a shellacking to another. When one team had chalked up no runs whatever, never having even gotten on the board, it could be said to have been skunked, with a score of zip.

But what he was hearing at this moment were the results of games between teams the names of which were unprecedented as designations for major-league clubs. The "Spawn" had "emballoted" the "Hings." The "Jillies" were "oxwalled" by the "Bidwangers." Who had won in a contest between the "Dunktoms" and the "Kalikinlogs" he had no means of knowing, not being able to identify the verb, in pronouncing which the commentator had used guttural effects foreign to English.

Had the material world not been altogether in order, Phipps might have been in panic at this point. But the toast, made from a high-nutrient multigrained loaf, was nevertheless delicious for a change; the honey exquisite, though coming not from the thyme-sotted bees of Provence or another exotic meadow but being, rather, the familiar old supermarket brand; the mocha-Java a first-rate brew as always; and suddenly, even the sun did the cheery thing and broke through the overcast.

The obvious solution to the problem of the radio was to switch it off. Phipps had long since learned that there were only the tiniest handful of true emergencies about which something must promptly be done: fire, choking, gushing blood and a few others. Beyond those obvious and, if allowed to persist, irreversible situations were the partial or limited crises, those inflated by persons with axes to grind, or the downright pseudo problems so convenient for the use of TV newscasters: the probability of flooding if enough rain fell, the alarming rise in the price of prunes and, of course, the wind-chill factor.

On the bus ride to work, Phipps typically exchanged conversation with no one. A mutually maintained silence was nowadays the most civilized arrangement one could expect in public. In the same spirit, he usually managed even to avoid overhearing the conversations of other passengers, if such there were in his vicinity. But on the morning at hand, he was not so fortunate—or deft. The two persons in the seat just ahead of him were arguing.

He could hear them very clearly, yet what they said had no meaning for him. If they were speaking in a foreign language, he could not identify it even by family: Latin, Slavic, Oriental....

"Bet hunan vilmin hupergong bub-file," said the woman, whose hair was short and cut smartly above small but assertive earrings.

"Bay," answered the man, "dinsel topjaw pinjatorial, humper, pinjam pinjallow, kipness." He had projecting ears. He seemed to have the calmer side of the dispute, but perhaps Phipps made that assumption only because this male voice was richer and much deeper than that of this woman—not always necessarily the case: His own had a nasal quality (startling to himself when he heard it on tape).

He decided that for his peace of mind, he would not listen to anything anyone said on the elevator ride to his office, and this proved more or less possible, except for the times he was asked to give way to permit the exit of certain fellow passengers deboarding on lower floors. Undoubtedly, the terms they used were those routine to civilized social intercourse—"please," "excuse me" and the like—but the words he actually heard were unfamiliar: "binkho," for example, "ranchly" and "veemhard."

Therefore, he felt fortunate that the young woman at the reception desk of the firm for which he worked was distracted by a phone call just as he appeared, and he gained entrance to the office with no more than an exchange of loose-wristed waves.

He was less lucky in the case of his colleague Burt Wyman, just back from a midseason vacation, sporting high facial color, a belt that had gained a notch and a pair of shoes made from a hide of unusual grain, perhaps reptilian, but if so, from a serpent unfamiliar to Phipps, and given the incomprehensible identification made by Wyman, he might never know the name, unless there were a lizard called "feemjohn."

But that was only one of the words employed by Wyman, who spoke in the rapid rhythm of high spirits, and Phipps, understanding none, found that it was, however, not unbearable to listen to an account he knew by precedent would have bored him terribly had he been able to understand the language in which it was spoken, Wyman being notorious for telling, with great energy, stories that had no point unless one was a member of his family: Kids lost expensive sunglasses, picnics on the edge of disaster were saved when a nearby group had mayo to lend, distant acquaintances were encountered by chance in souvenir shops far from home.

Having only just reached his cubicle and hung the jacket of his suit on the coat-tree, Phipps heard a sharp rap on the clear glass wall to his left. It was his immediate superior, Mel Fallon, in a suit that, as usual, fit much better than his sandy toupee. Fallon was giving him the thumb and wore an expression from which it could be inferred that an unpleasant interview was imminent, one that might well be nightmarish if Fallon's side of it was couched in more of the gibberish Phipps had heard since breakfast.

Although having summoned him not 20 seconds earlier, Fallon, now behind his desk, first pretended he had not noticed Phipps's arrival. Then, when eventually he lifted his head from the papers before him, he began what Phipps, not able to understand a word of it, could only assume was a furious complaint, punctuated occasionally by violent stabs with a rigid forefinger into the air between them.

Phipps could not imagine what he had done or failed to do that called for such an outburst. His own anger began to grow. He was not a criminal. And Fallon was not judge or jury, nor, for that matter, was he in a position of supreme power. In their division alone were several men and one woman who outranked him. Furthermore, he was not that good at his job, his successful ideas generally having been provided by Phipps (without credit), whereas those exclusively his own were wont to fail. Actually, the guy was a jerk, a fake, a clown, and though he might have the power to arrange for Phipps's discharge, it would provide great satisfaction to return his attack.

"All right, that's enough! Now it's my turn, you bastard." This was what Phipps intended to say. What emerged, however, was something else, a series of words quite as incomprehensible as those that had been addressed to him.

But Fallon suddenly stopped scowling, looked pensive for a moment, narrowing his eyes and holding his head at the angle of a curious dog, then cleared his throat and said something a good deal more gentle than his previous rant.

For his own part, having got the feeling toward Fallon off his chest and survived, Phipps became more diplomatic. He was trying to craft a statement that would combine a kind of apology with a sort of sense of pride when Fallon rose, came around the desk and indicated that Phipps should follow him.

Down the hall they went and turned (continued on page 154)Gibberish(continued from page 142) the corner into the west wing, lair of the big boss, John C. Nebling, an executive whose ascetic appearance was at odds with his reputation for debauchery, though it was always possible that the latter was a fiction, for nobody Phipps knew had ever seen Nebling in a moment of hanky-panky; and Barbara Clark-Johansen, his assistant, held him in the highest regard and was humorlessly indignant as to the rumors of his sexual depravity, which, to be sure, some thought had been cut from the whole cloth by Nebling himself to give color to his image.

Phipps was always embarrassed nowadays when crossing paths with Barbara, which, fortunately, he was not often obliged to do, for they used different banks of elevators and he had no regular business in the west wing. He and Barbara had had a little thing together, not really long enough to be called an affair, not sufficiently passionate to have been a romance: On the other hand, it was more than a series of one-night stands. Neither really knew what it had been, but both agreed, about the same time, that it was over. For no discernible reason, it had not been replaced, as it should properly have been, by friendship. This was especially true on Barbara's side. Although their parting had been amicable, she had on chance encounters since been barely civil to him. He could not decide whether this coldness was typical of her attitude to any man for whom she no longer had personal use or was reserved for himself after second thoughts had brought bygone injustices to mind. The fact was, despite having spent a half-dozen nights in her close company, he knew very little about Barbara's approach to much other than sex, medium-priced wine and Thai food—and her retention of the "Johansen," though the husband who went with it was no longer in residence.

On seeing her now in the office that was an anteroom to Nebling's, Phipps let Fallon, whose idea this was, do the talking. Although he had got away with the earlier nonsense, he did not wish to try it on Barbara, whose opinion of him was low enough as it was.

But after speaking a few incomprehensible words to her, Fallon treacherously abandoned him.

As expected, Barbara was very chilly in her introductory and, of course, meaningless remarks. But because they had once been intimate, and since he had begun to worry that his failure to make any sense of spoken language, including his own, might have brought him to the threshold of insanity, Phipps threw himself on her mercy.

His intention was to say, "Look, Barbara, I wish we could be friends at least and talk to each other as friends do. I've got a problem at the moment: Everything I hear people say sounds nonsensical to me, and the same thing is true even when I say something myself. Frankly, I'm on the edge of panic." He paused a moment, then asked, "Do you understand anything I'm saying?"

Barbara's reactions were not really appropriate to what he had tried to say, but they were very pleasant to experience, nonetheless. Her brown eyes suddenly became again as they were when he and she had been on intimate terms. She rose from her desk and, right there in the middle of the office, with the door open, kissed him warmly. He was much moved by this and oddly reassured, though it had nothing to do with his basic predicament except, perhaps, in the sense that it is generally better to attract kisses than kicks.

Before he had an opportunity to show a visible reaction, however, Barbara ushered him into the presence of John C. Nebling, who for a few moments was invisible behind the back of his chair, which was turned so that its occupant could contemplate a view of the glassy facades of other buildings similar to the one in which he found himself.

But eventually, the executive revolved slowly to face Phipps. Today, Nebling looked even more desiccated than usual. Every time he saw the man, Phipps decided anew that the rumors of satyriasis must be the fictions of malicious wits. It was hard to believe that Nebling had ever felt a sexual urge and impossible to think any woman would have been willing to gratify it.

Nebling now extended the sharp points of his nose and chin toward Phipps, as if to impale him. Evidently he, like Fallon, had a complaint to bring, but Nebling did not raise his voice or show anger. His style was subdued in volume but penetrating in effect. Even though Phipps could not understand what the man was saying, he could detect, with his nerves, as it were, the corrosive sarcasm that characterized every element of the statement, and he could only assume that what Fallon had started Nebling would accomplish: namely, his firing.

And once again, he could not suppress his anger. "You should talk! Everybody thinks you're a joke. No wonder our competitors are walking all over us. You are as stupid as you are ugly. Keep the job, you ridiculous old man!"

But before Phipps could turn and make an indignant exit, Nebling put out a hand and said something in a speculative tone. This could hardly be a response to what Phipps had just said.

Nebling next picked up a fat file of documents and presumably began to speak about them. Eventually, he lowered the file, turned it to face Phipps and pushed it across the desk.

Phipps put on his glasses and began quickly to examine the papers. Until this moment, he had assumed that he retained the power to understand written language. But apparently, such was not the case: He could not make out more than a word here and there—a "so" or an "as" or a "than"—but suspected some of what he thought to be vaguely familiar were perhaps only cases of coincidental resemblance: e.g., "beyonding," "distribukor" and "cripple flypass."

He could easily have surrendered to panic at this point but by now was something of a veteran at gibberish, having survived the earlier experiences. So he nodded and plunged in.

"What we have here is a bold and inventive plan that if instituted is guaranteed to smoke our competition in the Southwest, and not only that. As you have better reason than most to know, in recent years, we have more or less slunk out of New England with our tail between our legs. I frankly believe this state of affairs could be altered to our advantage as soon as the first quarter of next year. But don't take my word for it. Look at the graphs!" He turned the file toward Nebling and pushed it back.

Even had his speech been comprehensible—which it had certainly not been to his own ear—the content of it was spur-of-the-moment invention. The company was already in the process of closing the Northeastern division: No "new plan," even if potentially wonder-working, could be put into effect quickly enough to change that situation. Not to mention that he knew nothing of such a plan. He had no idea of what was really in these papers.

But Nebling received the bogus information soberly. He studied the first (continued on page 218)Gibberish(continued from page 154) few pages in the sheaf, nodding deliberately, and then picked up the pace with his sharp chin. Finally, he shut the folder, raised it and. walking around the desk, presented it to Phipps with a crisp and positive gesture, like a drill sergeant returning a rifle to a recruit after finding it suitably clean. He clapped Phipps on the shoulder and uttered what, by its tone, could only be an affirmative sentiment.

Folder under his arm, Phipps left. He now felt so confident that he was able to pass Barbara with a smile and a wink. As to Fallon, however, he could not be so easygoing. Now was the time if there ever was one when, backed up by his new support from Nebling, he could try to even the score with his superior.

Fallon was on the telephone when he entered but soon hung up and, babbling amiably, indicated that Phipps should take one of the chairs that faced him.

Phipps, however, thrust the folder across the desk. "You fool," he tried to say. "John Nebling and I agree that this plan of yours is disastrous. John was so furious about it that he even began to consider whether you might be an agent provocateur planted on us by one of our competitors. But I saved your job. I assured him you were too dumb to play such a role!" With a cruel grin, he dropped the folder on the royal-blue blotter in its rosewood frame.

All of what Phipps had wanted to say came out in the now-usual nonsense sounds, and he could not imagine what interpretation Fallon could possibly make of it, but the man was smiling as he opened the folder and began to examine its contents.

Alter a moment, Phipps sat down. He experienced some failure of nerve. It was all very well to pretend to be having fun, making the best of a bad job, but if looked at clearly, his predicament was disastrous. Thus far today, he had proved absolutely incapable of communicating with his fellow human beings. How could any good come of that?.

Fallon looked up from the papers, smiling more broadly than ever, tapped them with his forefinger and said something obviously approving. Then he put his hands behind his head and leaned back. He gave every appearance of being expansive, gestured benevolently and spoke at length, with genial simpers here and there and even, in conclusion, a wink. Finally, he stood up and put his outstretched hand across the desk.

Phipps really had no option but to accept it and return the warmth of the grasp. He was willing to consider that he had misjudged Fallon in the past: After all, the man was always under unbearable pressure from his own superiors. Although Nebling had been a nice guy today, it was unrealistic to assume he had got where he was by kindness. Surely, he had been at least as rough on Fallon as the latter had been on Phipps. Maybe Fallon was a better fellow than could be expected. Phipps found that his own apparent success, in a situation that could have been calamitous, made him more generous to his fellow man.

He returned to his own desk, where a stuffed In basket awaited him. One by one, he found the documents therein to be as undecipherable as the oral language that he had been hearing all day and saw that he had no choice but to dispose of them in the same cavalier fashion as he had dealt with the spoken word. Some papers he initialed forthwith and tossed into the Out basket. Others that bore densely printed texts he simply slipped into the waste can, but anything showing a graph was first defaced with a felt-tipped pen.

Occasionally, such work was interrupted by the buzzing of the telephone. As he had no idea of what the caller said, Phipps showed ever less patience with each, until finally, his response was simply to lift the receiver, say, "You're talking absolute crap," and hang up.

The strain of so performing, however, had begun to tell on him by lunchtime, and although John C. Nebling had sent for him to eat in the corporate dining room—an invitation he understood only after Barbara had led him there—he had no anticipatory appetite.

His mood changed when he recognized some other guests who had arrived before him: among them, the governor of the state, the mayor of the city and a number of the best-known local businessmen, including several who had attained celebrity across the nation, if not the world. Phipps was no longer depressed. He was now terrified.

But the governor, a large silver-maned man with an outsized set of sparkling teeth, seized Phipps's hand with his own and pumped it, then acted as his ambassador to the others, each of whom naturally addressed him in gibberish, but it was obviously benign.

The dining room, which he had never seen before except in photographs, was quite a splendid, chandeliered place and large enough to seat several hundred people. He found himself at the long head table, on a dais at a right angle to the tables of the other guests. He was flanked by the governor and the mayor. Across the wall behind him was stretched a huge white banner displaying a legend in blue letters. He could make no sense of the words thereby formed, but in a moment, he had remembered seeing a recent report on TV news to the effect that as one phase of the strenuous effort currently being made to dissuade businesses from leaving city and state, an Outstanding Executive of the Month would be chosen from among the local firms for public commendation. The reporter did not fail wryly to note that the meal served at such ceremonies would be paid for by the company receiving the reflected honor, and not the taxpayer.

Phipps's inclusion in the event was an unexpected benefit of the new esteem in which he was held by John C. Nebling, who until a few hours before would barely have recognized his name. It was very satisfying to be in the company of those to whom success and power were routine, even if nothing said by any of them was comprehensible to him. His terror began to ebb. He chuckled at what were surely supposed to be the witticisms of the mayor, who was noted for his puckish humor, and murmured in response to the paternal-sounding remarks made to him by the governor. He even swallowed a few bites of his chicken, which turned out to be better than he expected, having heard such fodder routinely disparaged by those who ate it regularly. By the end of the meal, he felt so at ease, in fact, that he was about to try a little joke of his own on the mayor when John C. Nebling stood up behind the lectern at the middle of the table.

Phipps, of course, understood nothing of what the big boss was saying, but he nodded here and there as if he did and joined heartily in the applause that came when Nebling finished. But then, in horror, he saw Nebling beckoning to him. By the time he had at last struggled to his feet, hindered rather than aided by the governor's powerful pats on the back, Phipps was so desperate he might have bolted from the room had Nebling, blocking the route of escape, not thrust a varnished plaque into his hands.

He could not read the words that were incised into the bronze tablet affixed to its face but eventually realized that he had been chosen as the Outstanding Executive of the Month—and obviously was obliged to say a few audible words of thanks....

Then it occurred to him that he could say anything he wished to this roomful of influential citizens, for there had now been sufficient precedent to suppose that his words would be received by the audience as at least meaningful enough.

But when a simple "I had not expected this, but I'm pleased to receive it" was followed by deafening applause, and a reference to Nebling's leadership as having been "an inspiration to himself and all his colleagues" evoked an explosion of laughter, he grew bold. "And, hey, you understand I'm speaking not of business but of sex!" He looked at the boss and said, "You randy old bastard, you." To his ears, this was gibberish, and it could hardly have been understood by those to whom it was addressed, for Nebling himself was still smiling benevolently.

Feeling his oats, Phipps next turned to the mayor. "Your Honor—I use the title loosely, for you've proved in the past three years that whatever you have, it's certainly not honor!" The mayor participated energetically in the general roar of laughter. Phipps went on, "But you're not quite the number-one crook in this state. That designation has to go to this big smiling fraud on my right, our sainted governor, who spends more on hair spray than on our schools."

Phipps gestured at the official so named and got a standing ovation. Then he proceeded to deride those who were celebrating him. "As for you idiots, you haven't the dimmest understanding of what I am saying, have you? And I admit that the same thing is true of me: Not only can't I comprehend anything said by you, but I can't make sense of a word I myself utter aloud, though my thoughts are as rational as ever. I can't explain this bizarre state of affairs, but since it's come about, I have been much more successful at work than I ever was before, and I suspect the same will be true of my love life, which hitherto has been lackluster at best; at worst, humiliating. I don't mind boasting that since I have accepted a world in which words make no sense, I have prospered, and I'm sure that if I go beyond that and embrace it, I shall be invincible!"

Again the audience rose to its feet, and now it remained so, the applause reverberating from floor to chandelier. The mayor put Phipps in a bear hug, and the governor placed a hand on each of his shoulders and, looking down, irradiated him with the grandest smile of all. After each of the officials had said a few (incomprehensible) words from the lectern, gesturing lavishly at Phipps, they took their leave, followed by TV cameramen, and Nebling linked arms with Phipps and led him back to the west wing, trailed at a respectful distance by a group of obsequious subordinates, among whom were Fallon and the others who had once lorded it over him. Nebling spoke in a tone of lively affection, and Phipps was sure he was being promoted, with a substantial raise in pay. By now, he could feel such messages and with a certainty he had never been able to associate with words, which by their nature were so ambiguous—think, for example, of all the possible connotations of "success," or "prestige," or, for that matter, "love."

With his new-found sense of power, Phipps decided, after leaving Nebling in the latter's office—and speaking some rubbish to Barbara that obviously left her eating her heart out for him—to go home. Anything further would have been by way of anticlimax. He would come back on the following morning, prepared to begin a campaign, the aim of which could not be other than eventually to unseat John C. Nebling himself. There was no reason to set any limit whatever on the reach of nonsense. He could say anything at all to other people, and they would inevitably interpret it to his advantage. He might well go on to become mayor or governor, and more.

At his current elevation, he did not belong on a bus. He therefore walked around the corner to the one-way cross street that went in the direction of his apartment and looked for a taxi. A young man in business attire, including a gray felt hat, approached him, smiling.

When he was near Phipps, he opened his soft-sided briefcase and displayed the revolver within. "Look at this," he said, "and give me your money."

"I can understand you!" Phipps shouted. "You're the first person I can understand since I got up this morning!" The man scowled and reached into the briefcase. "God!" Phipps cried. "What a relief! I thought I was crazy."

"Stop that noise," said the man.

"Only," Phipps said, the implication having struck him now, "what's that going to mean to my career, my life? How can I return to being what I was?"

"You're one of those jerks who read that if you act crazy and babble away, you'll scare a robber off," the man said scornfully. "I'm telling you for the last time to knock off that gibberish and give me your money, or I'll kill you."

"You don't understand," Phipps shouted. Desperate to get his meaning across, he clutched at the man's lapels. "Suddenly, I had it all because of this weird thing that came over me—oddly enough, not the magical power to do something but rather the lack of——"

The holdup man twisted away, took the gun from the briefcase and shot him and, as Phipps was falling, said with contempt, "Either you don't speak English or you want to be a hero. So where did it get you?"

Lying on his side on the pavement, Phipps watched the man walk rapidly away and be replaced by a crowd of other people, some of whom knelt near him and asked questions that he was in no condition to answer, for now he could not speak at all. But there would have been little point in trying to inform them he was dying: That was surely self-evident and, like all the essential matters, beyond words.

"She rose from her desk and, right there in the middle of the office, kissed him warmly."