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
“Oh, right,” Loudermilk says. There is something light and odd in his tone. “I almost forgot! These are my poems.”
“To a certain extent.”
Loudermilk isn’t listening. “For I am the genius and master of all ass! Sometimes I forget! Like, going about my day-to-day, I have cause to ask myself, ‘Who is Troy, I mean, Loudermilk, anyway?’” Loudermilk purses his lips. “Can it be that I am really he? Do I not sometimes sense that he is someone else? And, thus, who am I? What if I were to lose my identity altogether? What would I do with myself, then?” Loudermilk, as if lit from within by a glutinous nineteenth-century feeling, drifts toward a window.
Harry suggests, “Maybe you would just be whoever you were?”
“But I do not really think so, Harrison! I like who I am.”
Harry asks what that is supposed to mean.
Loudermilk shifts back into his normal register. “Whatever, dude. I’m sure a systems nerdalingus like yourself can figure that out. Now, would you mind getting out of my way because I need to shower?”
Harry, before he can stop himself, blurts out his surprise that Loudermilk is going out again so soon. Because he can tell that’s what Loudermilk’s planning.
“Yes, Harry, I am indeed going out and boldly so. I have a life. I have things to see, people to do. You know the drill. Anyway, if I’m going to hand this poem in this week, we’re going to need a few more of them coming up. So you’d probably better head back to the old drawing board.”
Harry is trembling.
“I’m going out,” Loudermilk repeats.
“Where?”
“I’m making friends,” says the real poet.
Twenty-Seven. Elsewhere
Twenty-Seven
Elsewhere
Harry is dreaming.
He stands in a white space. Rectangles seem important here. There are screens, about the size of chalkboards. They are made of translucent white gauze. Harry walks among them. The problem, he can intuit, is less that he has no authority here than that he has neglected to find protectors. It’s all his fault.
Harry peers around corners. Also, inexorably, behind him there is a wind. The wind has a sound; it’s not just a feeling. One of Harry’s ears gets hot.
Harry is in a small room.
Someone is kneeling in a corner, a man.
At first Harry thinks this thin man is naked, but when the man stands up, Harry can see that he is wearing a tight beige suit the same shade as his face and hands. The man is wearing a tall hat. The hat is conical and pointed, like a witch’s hat. The hat is made of clear glass and its tip glints ominously, like a piece of medical equipment.
“Hello,” says the man.
Harry doesn’t know what to say.
“I am the Glass Hat Man,” the man says. “Otherwise known as Neutral Man.”