I Look Out for Ed Wolfe by Stanley Elkin
"I Look Out for Ed Wolfe" by Stanley Elkin is a short story centered on Ed Wolfe, a loan officer whose extreme dedication to his job leads to his dismissal. Wolfe's aggressive tactics in debt collection earn him a reputation akin to that of a gangster, highlighting his self-absorption and emotional detachment. Following his termination, he embarks on a surreal journey of self-liquidation, selling off his possessions and severing ties to his past in a bid for freedom. This radical simplification of his life, however, leads him to a sense of anonymity rather than liberation.
As he becomes an urban nomad, Wolfe seeks human connection, demonstrating a conflicted desire for companionship amidst his loneliness. His interactions at a hotel bar reveal his inner turmoil and prejudices, culminating in a chaotic party scene where he awkwardly confronts his despair and engages with others in a troubling manner. The story examines themes of isolation, identity, and the consequences of extreme self-reliance, presenting Wolfe as a complex character navigating the absurdities of modern life. Through this lens, readers can explore the intricacies of human connection and the challenges of maintaining one’s identity in an increasingly disconnected world.
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I Look Out for Ed Wolfe by Stanley Elkin
First published: 1962
Type of plot: Realism
Time of work: The early 1960's
Locale: Urban America
Principal Characters:
Ed Wolfe , the protagonist, a ruthless bill collectorLa Meck , his boss at the loan companyOliver , a black stranger who agreed to take Wolfe to a partyMary Roberta , a young black woman who keeps Wolfe company at the party
The Story
Ed Wolfe is a loan officer whose aggressiveness in collecting bills for Cornucopia Finance Company ("Can you cope?" is Wolfe's sardonic rechristening) verges on the maniacal. On the day the story opens, he is fired for doing his job too well: His zeal has transformed into a practice of vicious harassment of delinquent clients, and he is accused by his boss, La Meck, of having degenerated into a gangster. As the story's title suggests, Ed Wolfe is exclusively self-absorbed, a champion of detachment and a heartlessly efficient operator.
Receiving his severance pay initiates a bizarre ritual of dispossession, as though Ed Wolfe, a man obsessed by his orphanhood, has chosen to quit the world rather than accept its dismissal of him. So begins a wildly comic personal liquidation sale: He sells his car and his furniture, he closes his savings account, cancels his insurance policy, pawns his clothes, and disconnects his telephone. He sells himself off with single-minded fervor, melting himself down into dollars, orphaning himself as completely as possible. When he has nothing left to sell—he imagines that his senses, his very skin, have been exchanged—he inventories his worth: $2,479.03. This is the sum total of his accumulated past and his ransomed future, as translated into cash flow.
It is also the measure of his distance from death. The exhilaration of freedom sours quickly as Ed Wolfe realizes that he cannot stave off the inexorable leakage of his assets into the few necessities he has managed to pare his life down to. Ironically, this Thoreau-run-amok, who carries the famous dictum to "simplify, simplify, simplify" to absurd extremes, has not reached his essential being so much as abraded himself into anonymity. Freedom is irresponsibility.
The lone Wolfe becomes an urban nomad, a contemporary Wandering Jew. He aimlessly makes his way into a hotel bar, where he gets drunk and accosts a black man. Apparently, even Ed Wolfe craves human contact after all; beyond inhibition, he awkwardly forces himself on the stranger, all the while stressing their camaraderie as social pariahs. Oliver, the black man, invites him to a party. Although Wolfe momentarily hesitates—the reflex anxiety of being at the mercy of murderous blacks—a few more drinks and an ever-deepening sense of fatality finally combine to rid him of all restraint. He is introduced to and dances with Mary Roberta, a young black woman (a prostitute?), to whom he confesses his despair. He then makes some vaguely racist remarks that culminate in a boozy effort to sell her to the increasingly angry onlookers. The story concludes with Ed Wolfe casting his remaining money to the crowd at the party, until the black woman he has witlessly abused silently squeezes his pallid hand.
Bibliography
Bailey, Peter J. Reading Stanley Elkin. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.
Bargen, Doris G. The Fiction of Stanley Elkin. Frankfurt, West Germany: Lang, 1979.
Dougherty, David C. Stanley Elkin. Boston: Twayne, 1990.
Gass, William. Afterword to The Franchiser, by Stanley Elkin. Boston: David Godine, 1980.
MacCaffery, Larry. "Stanley Elkin's Recovery of the Ordinary." Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 21, no. 2 (1978): 39-51.
Pughe, Thomas. Comic Sense: Reading Robert Coover, Stanley Elkin, Philip Roth. Boston: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1994.
Salzman, Arthur, ed. Review of Contemporary Fiction 15, no. 2 (1995). Special Stanley Elkin issue.