I think the most depressing thing about this past weekend was that Rennel slept. It would have been all right if he had dozed off with my pages fallen in his lap and happened to sleep till morning. But he stacked the papers in a neat pile on the desk. He went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth and put on his pajamas and then deposited himself tidily in the bed I had made for him on the sofa. His glasses folded neatly on the coffee table. His blue velvet robe on a chair above his slippers. I found him that way the next morning. He had even brushed and hung his suit. He lay flat on his back pouting softly at the ceiling. His eyelids swollen over their contents. It made me angry. I went straight through to the kitchen and made a lot of noise to wake him up.

His stomach seems to have settled with age. He’s become a big breakfast feeder. I was thrown off by his ankles and feet. I had quite forgotten other people’s unclad ankles and indiscreetly presented feet beneath breakfast tables. His manner was clinically cheerful. Nobody could ever complain that Rennel was unwilling to discuss.

“Tell me now,” with his cheek full of half-mauled toast, “have you always felt such resentment for me? Do you still?”

“I’m too gray and fat now to resent anything.”

“You’re the same size now that you’ve always been.”

“I’ve been pretty fond of you for years now, off and on.”

“Yet you have insulted me, and Sam, and yourself. You’ve insulted us all.”

“Do you think so? I thought it was the truth.”

“Babies die.”

“Yes.”

“We all die.”

“It’s not the death, it’s the pain.”

“Pork fat.”

“Have some toast.”

“I’m going to send you down Greek honey.”

“If you’re finished with the bacon pass it over here.”

“Why don’t you do something about these poor damned fish?”

I’ve just been out to the kitchen for my day’s supplies. I fed the fish. I have the cookie jar and a quart of milk. Two detective novels. The bed is still warm from my night’s sleep. I shall have a rich sluttish day and tomorrow I’ll clean house and ask at the pound about cats. Or there’s that white brute at the butcher’s. They always drown her litters anyway. If I took one of her next batch it wouldn’t do any harm. We could play out a cartoon tableau, the cat and the fish and I. Still, I don’t know if I’m ready for a warm-blooded creature yet. Would a cat eat a toad?

EDITOR’S NOTE

Naomi Huffman

For years I’ve kept multiple copies of Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love around; right now three editions sit on my bookshelf, and one in the seat pocket of my car. Each time I read it, I am stunned by Dunn’s singularly depraved imagination and her don’t-give-a-fuck swagger, how her sentences strut across the page.