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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 grins. He indicates his own face and torso. “I mean this. This! This fucking hard body, dude. This face. This physical being! You have to write the poems that, like, emerge, no, explode from the pen of this beautiful man. The artists don’t make art, man—the art makes itself through us. I’m not the doer, you know? I’m just along for the ride. It’s like you always said about the power of literature, like you can just fall into a book. We’ve got to get into that, like, harness it for real. We really have to hone our act. You and I, we’re gonna take over poetry! My face, your brains. My ideas, your, um, spirit or whatever. If it’s just you hermitting out in here, sniffing your stale jizz rags and contemplating your fart crumbs, that’s not really gonna happen, if you catch my drift. Those are not the true immortal themes, bro! Plus, you, for once in your existence, need to have a social life. Let’s win the war on mediocre mashing at least one geek lust object at a time.”

There’s a weird logic.

“Have another beer and stop with the I’m-pining-away-for-my-dorm-at-clown-college look,” Loudermilk advises. “I’m actually trying to help you. By the way, I just remembered something.”

Harry would like to know what this something is.

“OK, so, maybe you can tell me. What’s the difference between a vitamin and a hormone?”

Harry says nothing.

“Dude, as in, you can’t hear a vitamin?”

Thirteen. This Is a Pipe

Thirteen

This Is a Pipe

Loudermilk and Harry wander over to a place called the Common Lot, one block off the main boulevard dedicated to the inculcation of a new generation with the time-honored practice of alcoholism. Happy hour in the college town is in full effect. Girls stagger around in nothing but underwear: satin strings and miniature triangles. Males are wearing shirts that read CO-ED NAKED PANTIES ’03. They are falling down and dragging females with them.

Loudermilk is appreciative, but mainly he just steps stiffly around bodies. He seems preoccupied, keeping his eyes fixed in front of him. A team of three young women in tasseled pasties surround Loudermilk, but he brushes them off. Harry is wasted from the five beers he shot-gunned before they left.