Chapters (60)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Personae
- I: Early Days
- One. Control
- Two. Doubt
- Three. Fate
- Four. Same
- Five. Fine Arts
- Six. In Loco Parentis
- Seven. Settling
- Eight. Neighbors
- Nine. Prospects
- Ten. The Lucky
- Eleven. Instruction
- Twelve. Same
- Thirteen. This Is a Pipe
- Fourteen. This Is Not a Pipe
- Fifteen. The Reason
- Sixteen. That Person
- Seventeen. Predictably
- II: Writing Teacher
- Eighteen. Early Poems
- Nineteen. Motivation
- Twenty. Allegory
- Twenty-One. Grief
- Twenty-Two. A Portrait
- Twenty-Three. Veils
- Twenty-Four. Soft Power
- Twenty-Five. Lists
- Twenty-Six. A Break
- Twenty-Seven. Elsewhere
- Twenty-Eight. Custom
- Twenty-Nine. Parity
- Thirty. Fortune
- III: Volta
- Thirty-One. Images
- Thirty-Two. A Very Interesting Young Man
- Thirty-Three. Letters
- Thirty-Four. We Prefer to See Ourselves Living
- Thirty-Five. Love
- Thirty-Six. The Iceberg
- IV: Your Best Reader
- Thirty-Seven. A Novelist
- Thirty-Eight. In Advance of the Broken Arm
- Thirty-Nine. Their Penultimate Encounter
- Forty. Détente
- Forty-One. Worlds
- Forty-Two. Recognition
- Forty-Three. Persistence
- Forty-Four. And Then
- Forty-Five. Mingling
- Forty-Six. You
- Forty-Seven. Persona
- Forty-Eight. Est et Non
- Forty-Nine. The Author
- Epilogue
- Afterword: The Libertine
- Acknowledgments
- About the Authors
Lizzie isn’t sure what a “puling freak” is, but she’s willing to bet it’s not a very good thing to be, plus Anton Beans is currently pointing at Harry, so unfortunately it probably has something to do with him.
People in the crowd seem to want to know what the hell is going on. Like Anton Beans has done a pretty good job of lathering them up, but now it’s time to drive the point home, because even if Anton Beans temporarily has their attention, they used to be having this pretty excellent party.
“Loudermilk!” some incoherent person screams. It’s a girl, but Lizzie isn’t big on reinforcing gender-based behavioral stereotypes.
A few other unfortunates put up some wails.
Loudermilk is, after all, their king.
Loudermilk isn’t doing anything. His goose appears, for some reason, to be momentarily cooked? Lizzie is so incredibly weirded out.
“Lou-Der-Milk. Lou-Der-Milk. Lou-Der-Milk,” the crowd is chanting. The room begins to sway.
“OK, OK!” comes a piercing cry from rival poet Anton Beans. “You want Loudermilk? I’ll give you Loudermilk! I challenge Loudermilk and this other bizarre person over here”—indicating Harry—“to a poetry contest. That’s right! A poetry showdown. You all know what this means. Even though we live in a scriptural society in which silent, private, so-called lyric reading is thought to be the order of the day, these two lucky individuals are going to have to recite out loud, from memory or extemporaneously, the very best poem that they can. And even though none of our training here at ye olde Harvard of poetry prepares us to do this sort of thing, we’re going to judge them on the quality of whatever it is that they manage to do. And we’re going to judge them harshly and eternally and you’re going to see what I mean about what all of you have been missing.”
There is crazy energy coming out of Anton Beans’s face and it is visible even from across the sweat-clouded room.
Everyone, it seems, cannot stop staring.
“Well”—this is Anton Beans again—“what are you going to do?” Maybe at this moment he is only talking to Loudermilk. That seems possible.
And is there a pearlescent column of light that has descended to encase Loudermilk’s body? Maybe there is. And is it this column of light that is making it so obvious that Loudermilk is at this point in time completely and utterly incapable of speech? It might be. And is this incapacity manifesting itself as a series of gurgling noises that are emerging incoherently from Loudermilk’s mouth? Yes, perhaps this is so. Loudermilk gurgles. He opens his mouth and pants. Nothing happens. Loudermilk gasps. He touches his throat as if to reassure himself of its existence.