drink. I am waiting for the ideas about structure. He orders
for me. He smothers me with talk. I drink more. I ask in the
restaurant about his ideas about structure. He ignores me and
keeps talking. I drink. He talks about sex. He talks about his
life. He talks about his lovers. I say: well we must get absolutely
sober now so I can hear your ideas about structure. We go to a
coffeehouse. He talks. He talks about how he has to love an
author. He talks about the authors he has loved. He talks about
someone he is involved with who is writing a novel: he talks
about visiting this author and that author and what they drink
and how they love him and how they want him. I say I want
to hear his ideas about structure. He tells me he is going to
buy a beach house, a house by the ocean, where I can come to
live and write. He says he has found it. He says it is right on
the ocean. He says he can picture me there, working, undistracted, not having to worry about fumes and rats and poverty. He tells me that as long as he has a home I have a
home and that this home, on the ocean, is very special and for
me. He knows it is what I have always wanted, more than
anything: it is my idea of peace and solace. I say thank you but
I had a rather strange childhood always being moved from
home to home because my mother was sick sort of like an
orphan and I am not too good about staying in other people’s
houses. I ask him about his ideas about the structure of the
novel. He says that his involvement with the work of an author
and his involvement with the author are indistinguishable, he
has to love them as one. He tells me about the house he is
buying right on the ocean where I will go and work and finish
the novel. He tells me he sees me in it working. I ask him
about his ideas about structure. He tells me that he wants me
to understand that now I have a home, with him, by the ocean,
he has bought a home there where I will live and write, his
home and my home. We leave the coffeehouse. We get to the
corner where we go in different directions. I ask him if he
wants to tell me about his ideas about structure so I can think
about them. He tells me that the publishing company is my
home too, as long as he is there, and he wants me to see the
house on the ocean which is my home: and the publishing
house is my home, because wherever he is is my home. He tells
me to call him, day or night. He tells me to call him at home. I
M3
look blank, because I am blank; I am blank. He kisses me. I
walk away, alone. He calls after me: remember you have a
home now. I met him at six for dinner, it is now three in the
morning, I don’t know his ideas on structure. I walk home,
alone. The rats are in the walls. The walls are closing in.
Someone, a stranger, blond, six feet, muscled, curled in fetal
position, is sleeping. I do not call the publisher, no, I don’t, I
