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Back Loudermilk Save as PDF
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

Loudermilk wriggles. He rolls his head back and forth on Lizzie’s thigh. He is mashing his face against her. He gets his hands under him, opens one eye.

“Hi there,” Lizzie tells him. “Rough night?”

“Shit,” Loudermilk says. He rolls over onto his back. “The fuck?”

“Um, well, I think you were sleeping on my lawn for, like, a while. And you smell really bad? So that’s what. It’s kind of rude, Loudermilk.”

Loudermilk closes his eyes. “Yes,” he says, frowning.

“But anyway I’m not really mad.” Lizzie touches Loudermilk’s face. “See?” she says, leaning over to kiss him on the mouth. “See how not really mad I am, the poet Troy Loudermilk?”

“Uhngg,” Loudermilk says.

Lizzie kisses Loudermilk again. Lizzie removes her thigh from underneath Loudermilk’s shoulder where it has become trapped and gets on top of Loudermilk’s abdomen from which vantage she continues to kiss him. This is something she’s seen in movies.

“Uhngghmm,” says Loudermilk. His legs stir and his arms encircle Lizzie’s back. “You taste like toothpaste.”

“You taste like dead butthole.”

“Thank you.”

Lizzie sits up. “Is it always going to be like this, Loudermilk?”

“Like what?” Loudermilk wants to know.

Lizzie is looking across her parents’ lawn. She is staring at the fence there. She feels like she could just keep looking at this fence forever. She doesn’t know how to progress from this moment, how to make something else happen, what she should say next to make it be how she really wants it to be in her life, and this is how she knows that she is young. Lizzie says, “I’m not really so stupid, you know.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. You think I think you’re going to change my life, but I don’t and you’re not.”

“You’re young, Lizzie-Liz.”

“Right, I’m like seven years younger than you, which is basically five. And pretty soon this won’t be illegal, but who’s counting.”

Loudermilk doesn’t say anything.

Lizzie puts her hands on Loudermilk’s chest. “Loudermilk,” she says, “get up.”

Loudermilk is staring at Lizzie but doesn’t move.

Lizzie makes a fist and pounds on Loudermilk’s chest. “Loudermilk!” she hollers, “I want you up on your feet right now!”

Loudermilk is motionless, staring, a human stick.

“Loudermilk! Loudermilk! Loudermilk!” Lizzie is yelling, “Get up! Get up! Get up! Get up right now, piece of shit! Get up off my lawn! Get up! Get up on your own two feet!” Lizzie slaps Loudermilk in the face. “I hate you! Why won’t you ever do anything?!” Lizzie is crying. Lizzie gets tears on Loudermilk. Lizzie is sobbing, she bends over Loudermilk, she puts her arms around Loudermilk’s head, puts her face on his wet face. “Loudermilk, oh my Loudermilk,” she whispers, “leave me alone.”

Epilogue

Epilogue

Sat, 1 May 2004 23:10:02

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: The Jerkshop