He is sitting with you and the women at the table, but you didn’t even notice him until now. He could be anywhere from forty to sixty, you think, and is, like, completely at ease with the conversation. He is helping himself to a lemon poppy-seed muffin big as a small cake, the biggest one in Pinkwater’s bin. As his hand reaches for it, you can see a blue network of raised veins stretching toward his knuckles, it’s the slow blood chugging in and out of his heart, and watching him reach for the muffin ignites something within you: it’s like, you don’t even want the muffin.
But it suddenly matters to you that you get it.
You are fast, faster than he is by a long shot, and because you want the muffin and you are fast, you can easily get the muffin first in a quick grab (which, to the tremulous shock of the man, you do), and it’s even heavier than you expected, all almond oil, and you do not even bother to peel off the wrapper as you hold the muffin in front of your face and gaze at your new enemy. You do want this muffin, you are hungry, you think, and make a mental note to go on Amazon tonight to order your penny loafers. A week’s worth of Van Heusen. A cheap braided belt. Khakis.
It’s not the first time, you think, it won’t be the last, and delightedly watch his wrinkled face fall as you take a large bite, bearing yourself into the infinite boredom.
Acknowledgments
This novel would be invisible were it not for the honesty and talents of Jim Rutman. I am also deeply grateful for the overwhelming generosity and incisive queries of my brilliant editor, Jean Garnett, and for the extraordinary support of Reagan Arthur and everyone at Little, Brown, notably Betsy Uhrig and Dianna Stirpe. And with deepest gratitude to the artist Louis Jones for his illustration, and his vision. Across the pond, I thank Kirsty Dunseath, my editor at Penguin Random House UK, for her assistance with all things British. With further gratitude to Ethan Nosowsky, Deb Olin Unferth and the Creative Capital Foundation, the Maine Arts Commission, the Bogliasco Foundation, the Anderson Center for the Arts, Bates College, and the Visitor Information Centre in Royal Leamington Spa, England. I must also thank Karol Frühauf and György Himmler for hiring me during the summer of 2017 to escape US politics and guard the Mária Valéria Bridge between Štúrovo, Slovakia, and Esztergom, Hungary, and finish this book. Next, I thank Brian Brodeur, Benjamin Chadwick, Tracy Zeman, Courtney Campbell, Zachary Tyler Vickers, Paul X. Rutz, Thomas Israel Hopkins. Acknowledgments are further due to Practical Taxidermy, by Montagu Browne (1878); “The Aard-Vark or Earth-Hog,” by Émile Oustalet (1879); “Biology of the Aardvark,” by Joachim Knöthig (2005); “Thoughts out of Season on the History of Animal Ethics,” by Dr. Rod Preece (2007); “Bayle’s ‘Rorarius,’ Liebniz and Animal Souls,” by Richard Fry (2015); “Anthropomorphic Taxidermy and the Death of Nature,” by Michelle Henning (2007); Reincarnation in World Thought, by Joseph Head and S. L. Cranston (1967); and Images of Greatness: An Intimate Look at the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, by Pete Souza (2004). As we hurtle to the end, I thank Julie, my laugh machine and “Insider,” and, of course, my greatest thanks go to the love of my life (and the next), JW.