sleepy at all. Betty had been yawning since the end of the trip. I didn’t want to notice.
We went upstairs and she fell on the bed. I tried to shake her.
“Hey, you can’t do that!” I yelled. “Don’t you want another drink? Let me get you something.”
She struggled for a little while, smiling, but her eyes kept closing. I wanted to stay up all night talking-I wanted to TALK, goddammit! I helped her get undressed, explaining that to me things were totally clear. She hid her mouth with her hand, so as not to offend me. I gave her a slap on the butt as she slid under the sheets. Her nipples were soft as rags. It wasn’t even worth it to try feeling her up-she was sound asleep.
I took the radio and a beer and went to sit in the kitchen. The news came on, but there was nothing important to report-everyone was more or less dead. I turned off the sound when they came to the sports. The moon was nearly full, and veritably perched on the table. I didn’t have to turn the lights on. It was quite restful. I got the idea to take a bath. My head was as clear as a sunny winter’s day-I could touch things with my eyes, I could have heard a piece of straw snap a hundred yards away. I chugged the rest of the beer down like a waterfall. It was good shit I’d bought, I had to admit, though the price of a gram still made me shiver.
An hour later I was still sitting there, bent slightly forward, staring between my legs to verify-yes or no-if I still had balls. I was holding a knife to my throat. I stood up with a bemused smile, short of breath. I went and got what I needed, then came back and sat down.
A little while later I had scrawled three pages. I stopped. All I had wanted to see was whether I was still capable of writing. Just one page. I didn’t ask for an epic. I hadn’t done too badly-far from it. No one could have been more surprised than me. I reread the pages slowly. It was one surprise after another. I couldn’t remember ever having written like that before, even at my peak. It was reassuring, like getting back on a bicycle after twenty years and not crashing after two turns of the pedal. It gave me a boost. I held my hands out in front of me to see if they were trembling. You would have thought I was waiting for them to put the cuffs on.
Not looking for trouble, I conscientiously burned the pages. I had no regrets, though. Once I write something, I never forget it. It’s the sign of a writer who has the touch.
Around two in the morning, a cat started meowing outside the window. I let him in. I opened up a can of sardines in tomato sauce. We were certainly the only two creatures still awake on the whole block. It was a young cat. I petted it and it purred. It climbed onto my lap. I decided to let it stay there for a while and digest its meal before getting up. The night didn’t seem to be moving. Taking every precaution possible, I leaned backward to grab a bag of potato chips. It was nearly full. I spread a few out on the table. It made the time pass.
I finished the bag, wondering if the cat was planning to spend the rest of the night sitting on me. I shoved him off. He rubbed up against my legs. I got him a bowl of milk. The least you could say was that the day had passed under the sign of Milk-at once gentle and scalding, mysterious, unpredictable, unfathomably white-and with bears, elephants, and cats, what more could you ask? For a guy who hates milk I’d had quite a bit that day, and I hadn’t left a single drop. You have to acknowledge that force that makes you drink to the dregs. I poured the milk slowly for the cat. I didn’t spill any. I sensed it was the last such test of the day-I kind of have premonitions about these things.
I put the cat back out on the windowsill. I closed the window behind him, while he stretched in the geraniums. I put on some music. I had another beer before going to bed. I felt like doing something, but I didn’t know what. To get my body moving again, I got Betty’s things together and folded them.
I emptied the ashtrays.
I chased a mosquito.
I checked out all the channels on the television, but there was nothing that wasn’t so boring you’d die twenty times watching it.
I washed my face.
Sitting at the foot of the bed, I read an article reminding us of the fundamental precautions to take in case of nuclear attack, such as staying away from windows.
I filed a fingernail that was coming unhinged, then got into it and did all the others.
According to my calculations, there were still one hundred eighty-seven cubes of sugar left in the box on the kitchen table. I didn’t feel like going to bed. The cat meowed outside the window.
I got up to go look at the thermometer. Seventy-three degrees-not bad.
I got out the
I spotted where the paint had run on the wall.
Time passed. I plunged to the depths and came back up with my brain on fire-burning a cigarette. The most charming thing about this generation is its experience of solitude, and the deep uselessness of all things. Good thing life is swell. I stretched out on the bed, the silence taking on the form of leaden shell. I tried to relax, to calm this stupid energy that ran through me like an electric current. I turned to face the calm and beauty of a wholly redone ceiling. Betty jabbed me in the hip with her knee.
It wouldn’t be reasonable to start making chili for the next day. It had now been thirteen thousand days I’d been alive. I saw neither the beginning nor the end. I hoped the tar paper would hold for a while. The small lamp was only twenty-five watts. I put my shirt over it anyway.
I got a new pack of chewing gum out of Betty’s purse. I pulled out a stick and folded it in my fingers like an egg roll. No matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn’t figure out why they put ELEVEN sticks in a pack. It was like they just had to throw a monkey wrench into the works. I grabbed a pillow and lay down on my stomach. I tossed and turned. I was determined to fall asleep. I took the eleventh stick-the one that had caused me so much suffering-and poked it with my tongue. I swallowed it.
20
The cops had been nervous for a few days now. They’d been patrolling the area from morning till night, their cars crisscrossing the roads in the sun. Break-ins of small-town banks always cause an uproar. The only way to avoid crossing a checkpoint within a five-mile radius would have been by digging a tunnel. I had to go see this woman about moving a baby grand through her window. I was driving peacefully along a deserted road, when a cop car passed me and signaled me to stop. It was the young cop from the night behind the warehouse-the one with the steel thighs. I was running late, but I parked diligently on the shoulder. A few dandelions were growing along the side of the road. He was out of his car before I was. I couldn’t tell if he recognized me or not.
“Hi. Still girded for battle?” I joked.
“Show me your registration,” he said.
“Don’t you recognize me?”
He just stood there with his hand out, looking around, tired. I got out the registration.
“If you ask me, the guys who did the bank job aren’t from around here,” I added. “Myself… as you can tell by looking at me… I’m on my way to work.”
I had the feeling that I was getting on his nerves. He tapped a bebop rhythm on the hood of the car. His holster gleamed in the sun like a black panther.
“Let me look in the trunk,” he said.
I knew that he knew that I had nothing to do with his goddamn bank. He knew that I knew. He just didn’t like me-it was written all over his face-but I hadn’t the vaguest idea why. I pulled my keys out of the ignition and dangled them in front of my nose. He practically ripped them out of my hand. It was clear I was going to be late.
He screwed around with the lock for a few seconds, trying to turn the knob in all directions at once. I got out and slammed the door.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me do it. It may seem ridiculous to you, but I’d rather not have my car ruined. I use it for my work.”
I opened the trunk and moved away so he could look inside. All there was was an old book of matches, all the
