Reynolds & Sylvanshine live together — sort of like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern in Hamlet. They have an incredibly nice reproduction of Gerard ter Borch’s Parental Admonition (28 x 29 in., Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) that they hang wherever they live — or else an incredibly good forgery, done by one of the great painter-imitators of the modern US.
§ 38 DW, because of snafu, favors upgrading IRS computer systems — Stecyk wants to preserve human examiners?
§ 43 There is no bomb. It turned out that an actual load of nitrate fertilizer had been blown up. Again, something big threatens to happen but doesn’t actually happen.
This becomes disaster — the scanners are viewed as able to replace examiners — their jobs are threatened: contest between Drinion + scanner set up.
§ 46 Rand works in Problem Resolution, not Exams? Because her prettiness helps defuse appellants and keep them from making as much trouble as they would otherwise? Another Personnel coup from X, the talent-arrangement genius?
Drinion came home as child to find whole family gone — at least that’s the rumor. A lot of stuff about Drinion, his manner of paying attention, should be implicit, or should unfold over a much longer time.
IRS rap on Meredith Rand: She’s pretty but a yammerer of the most dire kind, on and on, excruciating to be around — they speculate that her husband must have some kind of hearing aid that he can turn off at will.
At Rand and Drinion’s last meeting, in book, Drinion asks: “Would you prefer it intense, or casual?” Rand breaks into tears.
Rand gets obsessed with Drinion (as type of “savior”?) in the same way she’d been obsessed with Ed Rand in hospital?
REC Center in outlying Peoria district called “Anthony, Illinois”? Who is Saint Anthony? The tornado continues…
End pt. 1. In pt. 2 (forthcoming?) Rand describes, quickly, how they got romantically involved (or Rath or someone else does, or it gets out through summary mediated by several different tellers): M.R. felt she needed Rand, or rather she felt sorry for him because he was sick and unattractive (additional repulsive symptoms in private) and going to die soon. Always expecting him to die in the near future. And she saw how lonely and sad his life was, his apartment was. So she married him, at just age 19… But he didn’t die, hasn’t died; and now M.R. is trapped, miserable, especially because Ed isn’t grateful to her, and would laugh spitefully at her if she ever tried to say to him that he should be grateful, that she’d taken pity — Rand would say that the real person she’d pitied was herself, and that marrying someone always on the edge of possible death was a great way to let herself feel both safe and heroic.
Every day at day’s end they have the same exchange:
“How was your day?”
“I work in a mental hospital. How do you think my day was?”
It’s not funny or intimate, no shared joke — they’ve been in the same basic relationship for 6 years, w/o growth or change, and Rand is looking for someone to save her, extract her from it.
* * *
Big issue is human examiners or machines. Sylvanshine is after the best human examiners he can find.
Embryonic outline:
2 Broad arcs:
1. Paying attention, boredom, ADD, Machines vs. people at performing mindless jobs.
2. Being individual vs. being part of larger things — paying taxes, being “lone gun” in IRS vs. team player.
David Wallace disappears 100 pp in.
Central Deaclass="underline" Realism, monotony. Plot a series of set-ups for stuff happening, but nothing actually happens.
David Wallace disappears — becomes creature of the system.
Overall movement: Old IRS guard are driven by self-righteousness, tax cheats as deadbeats, tax payment as virtue, or to work out their own psych stuff like anger, resentment, subservience to authority, etc. Or else they’re drab civil servants in it for security, standard government workers. New IRS guard are not only good accountants but good strategic and business planners: whole point is to maximize revenue — disregard civic virtue, disregard moral warrior aspect of being in tax collection. New Peoria REC Personnel guy is new guard: his whole deal is finding employees and organizing stuff so that examiners maximize the revenue that auditors/collections can yield. His willingness to experiment/think in fresh new ways leads, paradoxically, to deep mysticism: a certain set of numbers that lets examiners concentrate better, etc. The ultimate point is the question whether humans or machines can do exams better, can maximize efficiency in spotting which returns might need auditing and will produce revenue.
Drinion is happy. Ability to pay attention. It turns out that bliss — a second-by-second joy + gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious — lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (tax returns, televised golf), and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Constant bliss in every atom.
STECYK?
There is a counterpart to Sylvanshine. This is a high-end Personnel person for the REC (for the side that advocates human examiners over computers and the DIF). He searches for immersives. Ringers who can be brought in and examine complex returns without the sort of boredom that numbs you. (Or it’s Stecyk, an examiner totally devoted to his job — hated, an abstract application of probity and virtue — constantly on the lookout for ways to help. It’s he who goes to Meckstroth’s office with the idea of how to send receipts directly to bank, save money and time.) Stecyk now in Personnel and Personnel Training?
They’re rare, but they’re among us. People able to achieve and sustain a certain steady state of concentration, attention, despite what they’re doing. The first one Stecyk spotted was in the library of Peoria College of Business, in the reading room, an Asian kid in one of the reading chairs that looks a great deal more comfortable than it really is, slumped back and legs crossed ankle on knee, reading a statistics textbook. Stecyk goes by twenty minutes later, kid is still in exactly the same position, reading. Stecyk crosses the room just behind him to verify that the kid’s several pages along. His notes are precise and flush-left in a tiny neat script. An hour later, the kid is still in same position, reading same book, now 14 pages later.
A guard working security outside a credit union. Standing at parade rest all day. Can’t read or chat. Simply watching people come in and out, nodding when nodded at. In Midstate Security faux-police uniform. There in case of any trouble. Stecyk walks in and out several times, as occasion to watch guard. What’s impressive is that the guard pays closer attention to him each time, meaning the guard registers the fact that Stecyk is coming in and out more than is normal. He’s able to pay attention even in what has to be a staggeringly dull job.
Midwest meditation semifinals. Contestants hooked up to EEG — it’s who can achieve and maintain theta waves for the longest period of time.
Woman on assembly line counting number of visible loops of twine on outside of bale of twine. Counting, over and over. When the whistle blows, every other worker practically runs for the door. She stays briefly, immersed in her work. It’s the ability to be immersed.
Endpapers from Hardcover Edition
IRS Form 1040 US Individual Income Tax Return. Form 1040 Schedule A Itemized Deductions. Form 1040 Schedule B Interest and Dividend Income. Form 1040 Schedule C Profit and Loss From a Business. Form 1040 Schedule D Capital Gains and Losses. Form 1040 Schedule E Supplemental Income and Loss. Form 1040 Schedule EIC Earned Income Credit. Form 1040 Schedule F Individual Soil and Water Conservation Expenses. Form 1040 Schedule G Income Averaging. Form 1040 Schedules R & RP Credit for the Elderly. Form 1040 Schedule SE Self-Employment Tax. Form 1040-ES Estimated Tax for Individuals. Form 1040A US Individual Income Tax Return (Short Form). Form 1040A Schedule 1 Interest and Dividend Income. Form W-2 Wages, Salaries, Tips, and Withholding. Form W-2G Prizes and Winnings. Form 1099-MISC Non-Employee Compensation. Form 1099-DIV Dividends and Distributed Investment Income. Form 1099-INT Interest From Financial Institutions. Form 2106 Employee Business Expenses. Form 2106-EZ Unreimbursed Employee Business Expenses. Form 2119 Sale or Your Home. Form 2120 Multiple Support Declaration. Form 2210 Underpayment of Estimated Tax by Individuals, Estates, and Trusts. Form 2441 Child and Dependent Care Expenses. Form 3468 Computation of Investment Tax Credit. Form 3800 General Business Credit. Form 3903 Moving Expenses. Form 4255 Recapture of Investment Credit. Form 4562 Depreciation and Amortization. Form 4625 Minimum Tax on Preferences. Form 4684 Casualties and Thefts. Form 4726 Computation of Maximum Tax on Personal Service Income. Form 4797 Sales of Business Property. Form 4868 Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File US Individual Income Tax Return. Form 4952 Investment Interest Expense Deduction. Form 4972 Tax on Lump-Sum Distributions. Form 6251 Alternative Minimum Tax — Individuals. Form 6252 Installment Sale Income. Form 8283 Noncash Charitable Contributions. Form 8332 Release of Claim to Exemption for Child of Divorced or Separated Parents. Form 8582 Passive Activity Loss Limitations. Form 8606 Nondeductible IRAs (Contributions, Distributions, Basis). Form 8615 Tax for Children Under 14 Who Have Investment Income of More than $850. Form 8824 Like-Kind Exchanges. Form 8829 Expenses for Business Use of Your Home. Form 656 Offer in Compromise. Form 709 United States Gift and Dependent Transfer Tax Return. Form 851 Affiliations Schedule. Form 870 Assessment of Deficiency in US Income Tax. Form 870-AD Adjustment in Assessed Deficiency. Form 990 Return of Organization Exempt from US Income Tax. Form 990-T Exempt Organization Business Income Tax Return. Form 1041 US Fiduciary Income Tax Return. Form 1041 Schedule I Alternative Minimum Tax. Form 1041 Schedule J Accumulation Distribution for a Complex Trust. Form 1041 Schedule K-1 Beneficiary’s Share of Income, Deductions, Credits, Etc. Form 1065 US Partnership Income Tax Return. Form 1065 Schedule K Partner’s Share Of Income, Credits, Deductions, Etc. Form 1120 US Corporation Income Tax Return. Form 1120A US Corporation Income Tax Return (Short Form). Form 1120 Schedule PH US Personal Holding Company Tax. Form 1120F Income Tax Return of a Foreign Corporation. Form 1120-ES Estimated Tax for Corporations. Form 1120S Schedule K-1 Shareholder’s Share of Income, Credits, Deductions, Etc. Form 1122 Authorization and Consent of Subsidiary Corporation to be Included in a Consolidated Income Tax Return. Form 2220 Underpayment of Estimated Tax by Corporations. Form 4626 Alternative Minimum Tax for Corporations (Including Environmental Tax). Form 7004 Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File US Corporation Income Tax Return. Form 8275 Disclosure Statement. Form 8832 Entity Classification Election. Form 9465 Installment Agreement Request.