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Larsen 99 Ernest Larsen Symptoms of a Current Disorder Call it blowing off steam. Call it self-imposed exile or even passive resistance if you want. But when she flounces off to her room for so long it's one strain too many. Like it or not for three weekends running we'd been stuck with swap meet rain checks. That meant a living room stuffed with papier mache totems, mountains of stained and stretched and shrunken chUdren's castoffs, and who knows how many handmade novelty lamps of crushed beer cans. And during the week a posse of officials had shown up on the porch demanding on-site inspection of our permanent garage sale; some busybody had whined that our harmless bootstraps enterprise was really an all-Asian sweatshop illegally manufacturing fake chinchilla muffs, wraps, and stoles. They're always trying to weasel us out of the neighborhood. In other words we were all in the dumps. I tried to entertain everybody by demonstrating the various clicks Bushmen used. I got a lot of applause but I suspect that some of it was because they thought I might get the big grant I'd applied for. I don't think anybody understood even half the clicks. Moments after I did my last one she opened the door to her room. Everyone's attention shifted. It was a good entrance. "There's a smell of crude oil all through the house," she said. "How can I concentrate?" With a disagreeable smile she turned on her blowtorch. The blue flame popped. Too much oxygen. I'd told her about the oxygen before. She and I were the only sculptors left in the house, and she often made a point of brandishing her blowtorch at inappropriate moments. There were scorchmarks all over her room. Sometimes I think it was really a mistake inviting all those refugees in to stay with us, despite the enormous cultural growth we've experienced . The nine-year-old boy, Due Tho, seizing his opportunity, lit a thai stick at her blowtorch as she stood there wondering what to do next. So many hurdles toward decriminalization have been cleared that the unathletic Due Tho insisted on smoking whatever he wanted to. Besides what could we do to control him since his smuggling efforts brought so much money into the house and—more importantly—since we were all partial believers in meritocracy? Still irritable, she pulled the torch away, just missing Due Tho's sleeve with the flame. She strode down the hall passing the wall of awards and achievements. The flooring in the hall was not what it should be so that her angry stride caused the awards and achievements to jangle unpleasantly. Due Tho's father nudged me: "She complains about the smell of crude oil, but does it ever occur to her what the constant reek of superlatives does to my 100 the minnesota review children?" This was unanswerable so I followed her out to the porch where she stood with her torch. It was still raining. She was looking at the swiftlyflowing water in the flood control ditch. "I know you're angry with me," she said. I said nothing. I'd just heard a cry from the ditch. "I need to get away," she said. The voice sounded human. People are always drowning in the ditch since funds for fencing it were never appropriated. I was reminded that unless I got my 222 million dollar grant for my Bullet Line mock-railway sculpture next month we'd have to move to a smaller house. She said, "I'm tired of feeding these undernourished brats. I need a break." I could relate to what she was saying but I'd taken her on vacation only last month. Tickets to the beach resorts were all gone so we'd flown to the district capital. The unkempt girl at the registration desk slid a key across the counter saying, "You're in room 3541, sir." I stared at the key. A very small sign on it read DO NOT DUPLICATE. "You mean I'm 35 stories up," I said. "For the view," she said, pushing the key...

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