I had no intention of answering. But he didn’t wait for a reply.
“Ever read anything I wrote?”
I named a few titles.
“Did you have to write term papers on them?”
“A few.”
“What grades did you get?”
“I passed.”
“Then fuck you, you didn’t understand a thing.”
I brought him his drink. He drained it and held out his glass. I refilled it. He took longer with the second drink, staring at the whisky, sipping, lifting a leg, and passing gas with satisfaction. I thought of all he’d written about heroism and finally understood the word fiction.
He tossed the glass away. His throw was weak, and the tumbler landed near the wheel of his chair and rolled on the rug.
He said, “The girl tried to end it all because she’s empty. No passion, no pain, no reason to keep going. So anything you do with her will be worthless. You might as well be psychoanalyzing a tadpole in order to prevent its froggy fate. I, on the other hand, have a surplus of passion. Spilling over, as it were.” He made slurping sounds. “The only thing that can save her is getting to know me.”
I tried not to laugh or scream. “Getting to know you will be her therapy.”
“Not therapy, you limited gowk. Therapy is for moral anencephalics and hamstrung aerobi-geeks. I’m talking about salvation.”
Leaning forward. “Tell her.”
“I’ll let her know,” I said.
He laughed and raised the pitch of his voice. “Does she hate me?”
“I’m not free to talk about her feelings.”
“La da la da la da la da. You claim you read Dark Horses. What was the point there?”
“The racetrack as a mini-world. The charac—”
“The point was that we all eat horseshit. Some dress it up with bÉarnaise sauce, some nibble, some hold their noses, some stick their faces right in it and wolf, but no one plays hooky. Best novel of the millennium. Flew out of me; my cock tingled every day I sat down at the typewriter.”
He looked at the glass on the floor. “More.”
I obliged him.
“Pulitzer capons thinking they were giving me something.” He finished the whisky. “She hates me. I don’t give a shit about her feelings. Hatred’s a great motivator. I’ve always hated writing.”
I looked over his shoulder at the animal heads, the leering warthog.
He said, “No attention span, Veal-chop? They came with the place. I considered adding to the collection—critics with glass eyes. Know why I didn’t?”
I shook my head.
“No taxidermist would take on the job. Too hard to clean.”
He laughed and demanded another drink. The Chivas was gone, and I poured him cheap scotch. With his body weight, his blood had to be pickled, but he showed no effects of the alcohol.
“Have you ever looked into the toilet after you’ve shat?” he said. “The bits of crud that are left sticking to the porcelain? Next time, scrape some of that off and place it in a dish of agar-agar. Feed it more shit and anything foul you can find, and in no time at all you’ll have cultured yourself a critic.”
More laughter, but strained. “A criminal—the vilest child-fucking inchworm of a mother-raper—is entitled to a trial of his peers. Do you know what kind of justice artists merit? Trial by cretin. Dickless, decorticate, petty-ante pissbladders who’d give their glands to have the gift but don’t, so they take out their frustration on the blessed. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who lack the tongue motility to lick the arseholes of teachers, write reviews.”
He’d finally produced saliva. A strand trickled down the side of his mouth.
He stared at me. I readied myself for another outburst.
But he grew very quiet and his eyelids started to droop.
Then he fell asleep.
I listened to him snore. Nova came in, as if summoned by the noise. She’d changed into a filmy, collarless white blouse that barely reached her waist and black shorts that showed off beautiful legs. Her breasts were large and soft and unfettered, the nipples darkly evident through the thin fabric.
She said, “No sense in your staying, he’ll be that way for a while.”