‘… She’s beautiful.’
True,’ I said. ‘How’s Ossie?’ ‘
She didn’t say anything.
‘He’s beautiful,’ I said.
But she still didn’t say anything. Instead, she asked me why I thought I drank so much, and I told her why I thought I did.
‘I’m an alcoholic,’ I said.
‘No you’re not, you’re just a greedy kid with nothing better to do. Aren’t you tired of it?’
‘Yes, I’m tired. I’ve been tired of it for years … Yes, I’m tired.’
Twenty minutes later we stood outside on the spongy pavement. Before us, across the road, the line of shop windows glistened like a strip of film — Manhattan and its little concerns: a Thai laundry, a handbag hospital, a delicatessen (‘ “Lonnie’s” — For A Better Sandwich’ — ‘No Nukes’ — ‘Sorry. Closed’), a florist’s forest, a Zen nicknackery which welcomed all major credit cards, a diesel bookstore. Martina and I performed the uncertain dance of people parting, with its limited steps. She still faced me, but her shoulders had already begun to turn away… If you’re small and the thing you evade is big (have you ever had this dream?), then the only place to hide is a place where the big thing can’t fit. But then you have to stay there, in the small place, or must even shrink to cower deeper. I’m tired of the small place. Me, I’ve fucking had it with the small place. I’m tired of being watched and not knowing it. I’m tired of all these absences.
‘Okay, look,’ I said desperately. ‘Help! Give me books to read. Point me out a book to read.’ I gestured across the road at the blind shopfront. ‘Something educational.’
She folded her arms and thought about this. I could tell she was pleased.
‘All right?’ I said.
Together we crossed the lumpy street. I was told to wait outside. The bookstore window features fanned stacks of the most recent scrotum-tightener from the feminist front: it was called Not On Our Lives and it was by Karen Krankwinkl. I scanned the xeroxed blurbs and reviews. A married woman with three children, Karen believed that all lovemaking was rape, even when it didn’t seem that way to either of the participants. Her brave and beaming face was duplicated on the reversed covers. Well, Karen, I wouldn’t rape you with a ten-foot pole. But then, perhaps all chicks get to look like that, when they’ve been raped a few thousand times.
Martina returned. She had bought me a hardback. Possibly it was secondhand, but it still looked like five bucks’ worth of book, I reckoned.
‘What’s the damage?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. It’s on me.’
‘When can I call you?’
‘When you’ve read it,’ she said, and turned away.
——————
Mr Jones, of the Manor Farm, bad locked the hen-houses for the night, I read, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes. I stretched, and rubbed my eyes. Was the whole book going to be like this ? I mean, did I detect some satirical intent here? Well, that was all right. I can take a joke. I clasped my hands behind my neck, and considered. What the fuck are pop-holes?.,, You see? The bookish, the contemplative life. Martina, she’s even cured my tinnitus. Not a squeak for over three hours. The big thing about reading and all that is—you have to be in a fit state for it. Calm. Not picked on. You have to be able to hear your own thoughts, without interference. On the way back from lunch (I walked it) already the streets felt a little lighter. I could make a little more sense of the watchers and the watched. This book from Martina — we split lunch, so it’s a present, a proper present, God damn it. How long has it been since I got a present from a girl? I’ll call her now and thank her for the book. What could be simpler.
Delicately I reached for the telephone. I paused with my fingers on the plunger. Fatal. And then the whole bomb went off in my face.
‘Fat chance, man. No chance. Just you forget it right now. You and her? You? Her? What kind of book she give you, pal? Self-help?’