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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 speeds up. “Don’t look back,” he says out of the side of his mouth. He pulls Harry around the corner. “Biblical, right? I’m saying, see, dude, aren’t you glad I didn’t leave you in there without supervision? I mean, home invasion much? Would you really put that past these shitcanned hyenas? Trust me that you’re way better off out here with me.”

Harry has to hold the eyeholes in place, otherwise they have a tendency to be tugged up to the top of his head when he walks. He lets Loudermilk steer him downtown.

Twenty-Four. Soft Power

Twenty-Four

Soft Power

Christy’s house, it turns out, is a pink affair. She has the whole bottom floor of a 1960s split-level, and wherever the walls are not covered with fake wood paneling, they’ve been painted a bright, labial blush. There are a couple of white-shag area rugs and, somehow, a crystal chandelier. A stuffed black squirrel with a head like a rotten chestnut clings quirkily to a stick atop one bookshelf.

The house is full of Seminars people. Loudermilk pats Harry on the head. “This is going to be fun for you, little Casper.”

Harry fusses with his eyeholes.

Christy makes them. “Oh my god, Big L? Is that you? Oh my god, Groucho? How funny! How adorable! You are so brilliant.”

“Thanks, babe.” Loudermilk takes it in stride. “Love that new haiku series, by the way. Been all over it this afternoon. Gotta email you later.”

Christy is posing. She is wearing sexy dead-person makeup, a vintage housedress with strategic scorching, and has the outer casing of what was once a toaster oven over her head. Harry doesn’t need to read the crazily inked extra-large title on the extra-large “book” in Christy’s left hand to know that it says Ariel. “C’mon, Loudermilk.” Christy pouts, admitting zero interest in the presence of Harry. “This should be easy for you!”

“Nice appliance!” Loudermilk fudges, rolling his eyes and wiggling the brows.

Christy giggles.

Loudermilk bangs Christy on the top of her oven several times with his cigar, saying, “I hope to see you again shortly.”

“Sure,” Christy replies, perhaps even wistfully, though it is difficult to be certain in the crush.

Loudermilk pilots Harry before him until they come to a table decorated with hard stuff of many shapes and shades. “Now, who the hell is she supposed to be, dude, because I know you fucking know.”

Harry shrugs.

“Oh, no, no, no! You need to let me in on this one. This is about our careers.” Loudermilk is reaching around among the bottles, checking labels.

“If I tell you who she is, then can I leave?”

Loudermilk is dumping quantities of tequila over an ice cube. “Stick that under your shroud.”

Harry receives the drink.

“Drink up and consider what you just said.” Loudermilk is fixing himself a double. “You’re stressing me out, you know that?”