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
Loudermilk extracts a roll of twenties. “God, did I mention I fucking love this fellowship? Jesus Christ!” Here Loudermilk cannot resist a brief imitation of Jim Carrey in 1994’s The Mask. “‘Somebody stop me!’ Anyway, don’t spend it all in one place, yo.” He peels a random portion off the roll and drops it in Harry’s lap.
Harry drags himself out of his chair and goes into his room and, without counting, hides all but two of the bills in a sock. “By the way,” he asks, returning, “do you know what vivisepulture means?”
“That’s an actual word?”
“Yup.”
“Amazing! He is a genius.”
Harry’s adolescence included an after-school program at a Catholic school. He knows some Latin. “Live burial,” he says.
Loudermilk employs an approximation of a British accent. “Burying alive, you say?”
Harry nods.
“He’s a nice young chap, the Beans!”
Harry doesn’t think this is particularly funny.
Loudermilk lets the accent drop. “So, tonight, right, I was thinking, if you’re not too busy, which, let me check, yeah, you’re probably not, we should head over to le bar.”
Harry doesn’t say anything.
“With the Seminars people. Show some face.”
Harry informs Loudermilk that from now on maybe he should be satisfied with his own face.
Loudermilk is like, “But, dude. I pretty much am?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I just happen to think, dearest Harrison, that we should maybe consider trying to, like, you know, mix a little, go with the flow? Like make you one of the gang? I think it will be good, at the very least, for yours truly’s poésie.”
This annoys Harry, who says that he hopes that he didn’t spend half the morning today listening to the reverberating labors of Loudermilk’s sphincter for nothing. He tells Loudermilk that in truth he’s pretty flowed.
“Dude,” Loudermilk intones with mock solemnity, “I’m so impressed you remembered. Did I not totally finesse that?”
Harry is helping himself to another beer. “I’m still traumatized.”
Loudermilk continues, “Anyway! You need to see what I’m—what we’re—up against. I don’t think it’s exactly gonna work, like, otherwise.”
Harry isn’t sure what Loudermilk is referring to.
“This! Everything! I need you to really feel it, live it, be it, eat it, drink it! OK?”
Harry gulps beer. Sometimes Loudermilk is insufferable.