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Back Loudermilk
Chapters (60)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Personae
  4. I: Early Days
  5. One. Control
  6. Two. Doubt
  7. Three. Fate
  8. Four. Same
  9. Five. Fine Arts
  10. Six. In Loco Parentis
  11. Seven. Settling
  12. Eight. Neighbors
  13. Nine. Prospects
  14. Ten. The Lucky
  15. Eleven. Instruction
  16. Twelve. Same
  17. Thirteen. This Is a Pipe
  18. Fourteen. This Is Not a Pipe
  19. Fifteen. The Reason
  20. Sixteen. That Person
  21. Seventeen. Predictably
  22. II: Writing Teacher
  23. Eighteen. Early Poems
  24. Nineteen. Motivation
  25. Twenty. Allegory
  26. Twenty-One. Grief
  27. Twenty-Two. A Portrait
  28. Twenty-Three. Veils
  29. Twenty-Four. Soft Power
  30. Twenty-Five. Lists
  31. Twenty-Six. A Break
  32. Twenty-Seven. Elsewhere
  33. Twenty-Eight. Custom
  34. Twenty-Nine. Parity
  35. Thirty. Fortune
  36. III: Volta
  37. Thirty-One. Images
  38. Thirty-Two. A Very Interesting Young Man
  39. Thirty-Three. Letters
  40. Thirty-Four. We Prefer to See Ourselves Living
  41. Thirty-Five. Love
  42. Thirty-Six. The Iceberg
  43. IV: Your Best Reader
  44. Thirty-Seven. A Novelist
  45. Thirty-Eight. In Advance of the Broken Arm
  46. Thirty-Nine. Their Penultimate Encounter
  47. Forty. Détente
  48. Forty-One. Worlds
  49. Forty-Two. Recognition
  50. Forty-Three. Persistence
  51. Forty-Four. And Then
  52. Forty-Five. Mingling
  53. Forty-Six. You
  54. Forty-Seven. Persona
  55. Forty-Eight. Est et Non
  56. Forty-Nine. The Author
  57. Epilogue
  58. Afterword: The Libertine
  59. Acknowledgments
  60. About the Authors

“No, no, you didn’t, Loudie-Lou. Harry’s the one who writes those poems. I know that. Listen, anyways, it really doesn’t matter to me who does what. It’s like my mom always says: ‘It doesn’t matter who’s writing the poems. It’s that they get written.’ And, I think, I mean, you’re an artist.”

“I’m a poet, Lizzie. I’m a very good poet. I’m about to change the entire game.”

“Stop it! This is so dumb, Loudermilk. I mean, maybe you’ll change the game, but don’t forget the fact that I get you. I totally get all of this. We’re like peas in a pod, you’ll see.”

“That’s nice, but no one’s going to see anything, because you’re leaving right now. Actually, both of us are leaving. A rotten egg just shat itself.”

“Actually, I’m not.”

“Yes, yes, you are.”

“No, no, I’m not. Loudermilk, don’t you get it? You made me do this. You’re the artist, like, the artist and the muse! You make me do things. That’s what artists do. I can’t stop now. I’ve never been this inspired. I’m so totally, I don’t even know, I mean, everything you do is amazing. Who even cares about poetry? Loudermilk, I’m in love with you.”

“YOU’RE NOT IN LOVE WITH ME!” Loudermilk screams.

The front door bangs.

Then it bangs again, softly.

Which leaves Anton Beans alone.

Thirty-Eight. In Advance of the Broken Arm

Thirty-Eight

In Advance of the Broken Arm

Never let it be said that Anton Beans is not persistent. What Beans realizes next is not that he needs to get out of the house, because this is something that he already knows. He needs to get out, and also he grasps, with the same monomaniacal swiftness native to the well-tuned Beansian brain, that Loudermilk has not departed with the aim of leading his lady friend in an elaborate high-impact LARP. No, though indeed Loudermilk may live his life as if each new day dawns upon an ever more outlandish and arbitrary improv scenario, Loudermilk is not under any illusion that his life is either a game or a show—or, for that matter, a realist novel. Loudermilk does what he does because he has to, and not because he believes, at base, that any of this is fun.