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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

Evelyn has driven them back to her split-level. There is a plate of saltines on the table. They have Diet Coke and rum with crushed ice.

“The radical bath,” Loudermilk repeats. “The lack of a room.”

“You just tell everybody to leave!” Evelyn takes a tug on her straw and sucks her molars. She sits there like she is waiting for them to say something.

“What would you offer?” Loudermilk puts it this way.

“For rent? Oh, that’s fixed. That’s been fixed for a long time.” Evelyn wrinkles her nose.

“What would you be asking?” Loudermilk causes his face to fall open into a tender mask.

“Five hundred is only fair.”

Loudermilk is masticating a saltine, and he uses the presence of this snack in the vicinity of his epiglottis to initiate a spirited choking routine. He struggles to his feet and hacks the item up onto Evelyn’s kitchen floor.

Evelyn takes this in stride, telling Loudermilk where he can find a wet rag.

Tears stream from the corners of Loudermilk’s eyes. “We’ll give you two-fifty,” he croaks. He squats and scoops up the regurgitated cracker.

“Honey, I’m afraid that’s an insult.” Evelyn jiggles her ice.

“Fine. Three. But throw in a shower curtain.”

Evelyn chews ice. “Ha!” she says. “Done. Wash your hands. I’ll get the lease.”

When she is gone, Harry tells Loudermilk that he needs to ask about the onion smell.

“You ask about the onion smell.”

“I’m not the one who wants to live there.”

“How about, dude, I don’t know what smell you’re referring to?”

“It’s wild garlic,” Evelyn calls from the other room. She comes back. “Try digging it up sometime!” She drops the lease on the table and brings her chair closer to Harry’s. “You always do that to your face?”

Eight. Neighbors

Eight

Neighbors

Another night has expired. Crete is born muggily anew. It’s a dim day, a morning for murders. Harry is on the lawn outside their newly acquired crumbling Cretan abode. He was brought out of bed and shack by sounds of life across the street—expletives, howls—and now he is pretending to putter around the lawn. He and Loudermilk are receiving someone’s nationalist tabloid, The Sentinel. Harry scoops it up. Across the way are shirtless people. They throw beanbags into a hole in a box, their upper arms sleek with baby fat that has lately offered itself up for fraternity brands. It’s 10:00 a.m.