paper-cuts” as her most debilitating hobby.
“What a beautiful gun … more beautiful than the three pointed at your back, amigo.”
“Give it to me straight. I can take it. How long do I have?” “About two seconds.” “Put that gun down!” “After all the misery you’ve put me through …” “Misery? What misery?!”
I made a mental catalogue of the spread: a rosewood desk on embossed “lion’s paw” legs / photograph of a woman in filoplume hat and child on a mechanical hobby-horse / golfball paperweight / an overturned rosewood Windsor chair / a disarray of legal and steno pads and pencils / a half-torn letter reading “… ght. Can’t we begin again—without suspicions and recriminations—can’t we say to each other—I made a mistake—that each night I spent apart from you was filled with sadness and emptiness—because that’s how it was for me. If only you hadn’t …” / a bust of Nefertiti / a calendar-penholder / a set of windows with drawn shades / a coatrack / an oriental-style taboret / a Morris chair with dark green chamois leather cushions / an open bottle of gin on a mock-filigree fold-out bar / an ashtray filled with butts, some bearing lipstick traces.
She coughed—a dainty little cough like that of an antique miniature Basin-Pull steam engine.
“Shoot” I said.
She opened her pocketbook and took out a plaid cloth-covered cigarette box. In a slow, cautious, unassumingly economical motion, I reached into my vest pocket and withdrew a lighter which I displayed in the air before flicking. She leaned over and, smoothing a wisp of hair behind her ear, lit her cigarette. She took a quick nervous puff and fidgeted with a loose thread at the hem of her skirt and then with the chipped plastic viridine green button over one of the mock pockets of her blouse.
“Shoot” I said.
She gnawed at a hang-nail briefly and then tugged at the charm bracelet at her wrist. Crossing and uncrossing her legs, she scratched a discolored patch of flesh on her cheek. She kicked one of her pumps off, slid it under the chair with her foot, and loosened the nainsook Montpellier green bow at her collar.
“Shoot” I said.
I’ve got to get some rest now—tomorrow’s leather pounding time—flat-footing … gumshoeing … hawkshawing … what’s in a name anyway—tomorrow the sun rises—I shake the bones out of my hair—rinse the sea-weed out of my mouth—palliate these gripping cramps with some luke-warm juice and go out and make a dirty god damn shit-eating motherfucking buck. My name’s Leyner … Mark Leyner—I wasn’t born with that name—I earned it … believe me.
THE ROSEATE SPOONBILL
(Comments after the death of John D. Rockefeller 3d)
It’s difficult to empathize with anyone. But it’s like impossible to comprehend the fright with which one, after not having been home for literally years—the fright with which one reaches into his old bureau—into his tenebrous grotto of a drawer—the fright with which one reaches into a drawer, right, and into the unsympathetic length of his tattiest dowdiest widowed sock and have like pains shoot up his dorsal environs. You want to say “see you in the funny papers” and burrow straight under that Disneyesque counterpane immediately. Life is, au fond, not for the chicken-hearted. Stan Musial, when he was physical fitness consultant to the president in ’65 wrote, “… there is no equality of opportunity—ineducation, in employment, or in any other area—for persons who are weak and lethargic, timid and awkward, or lacking in energy and the basic physical skills.”
What considerations must be taken into account when looking for a man to marry? Can, for instance, one woman’s priorities accommodate both astrological affinity
and
the extent to which a gentleman has built up equity? And what form does that equity take? Has it been accumulated in a piecemeal, haphazard manner, consisting of, say, a television, stereo, toaster,
“What a beautiful gun … more beautiful than the three pointed at your back, amigo.”
“Give it to me straight. I can take it. How long do I have?” “About two seconds.” “Put that gun down!” “After all the misery you’ve put me through …” “Misery? What misery?!”
I made a mental catalogue of the spread: a rosewood desk on embossed “lion’s paw” legs / photograph of a woman in filoplume hat and child on a mechanical hobby-horse / golfball paperweight / an overturned rosewood Windsor chair / a disarray of legal and steno pads and pencils / a half-torn letter reading “… ght. Can’t we begin again—without suspicions and recriminations—can’t we say to each other—I made a mistake—that each night I spent apart from you was filled with sadness and emptiness—because that’s how it was for me. If only you hadn’t …” / a bust of Nefertiti / a calendar-penholder / a set of windows with drawn shades / a coatrack / an oriental-style taboret / a Morris chair with dark green chamois leather cushions / an open bottle of gin on a mock-filigree fold-out bar / an ashtray filled with butts, some bearing lipstick traces.
She coughed—a dainty little cough like that of an antique miniature Basin-Pull steam engine.
“Shoot” I said.
She opened her pocketbook and took out a plaid cloth-covered cigarette box. In a slow, cautious, unassumingly economical motion, I reached into my vest pocket and withdrew a lighter which I displayed in the air before flicking. She leaned over and, smoothing a wisp of hair behind her ear, lit her cigarette. She took a quick nervous puff and fidgeted with a loose thread at the hem of her skirt and then with the chipped plastic viridine green button over one of the mock pockets of her blouse.
“Shoot” I said.
She gnawed at a hang-nail briefly and then tugged at the charm bracelet at her wrist. Crossing and uncrossing her legs, she scratched a discolored patch of flesh on her cheek. She kicked one of her pumps off, slid it under the chair with her foot, and loosened the nainsook Montpellier green bow at her collar.
“Shoot” I said.
I’ve got to get some rest now—tomorrow’s leather pounding time—flat-footing … gumshoeing … hawkshawing … what’s in a name anyway—tomorrow the sun rises—I shake the bones out of my hair—rinse the sea-weed out of my mouth—palliate these gripping cramps with some luke-warm juice and go out and make a dirty god damn shit-eating motherfucking buck. My name’s Leyner … Mark Leyner—I wasn’t born with that name—I earned it … believe me.
THE ROSEATE SPOONBILL
(Comments after the death of John D. Rockefeller 3d)
It’s difficult to empathize with anyone. But it’s like impossible to comprehend the fright with which one, after not having been home for literally years—the fright with which one reaches into his old bureau—into his tenebrous grotto of a drawer—the fright with which one reaches into a drawer, right, and into the unsympathetic length of his tattiest dowdiest widowed sock and have like pains shoot up his dorsal environs. You want to say “see you in the funny papers” and burrow straight under that Disneyesque counterpane immediately. Life is, au fond, not for the chicken-hearted. Stan Musial, when he was physical fitness consultant to the president in ’65 wrote, “… there is no equality of opportunity—ineducation, in employment, or in any other area—for persons who are weak and lethargic, timid and awkward, or lacking in energy and the basic physical skills.”
What considerations must be taken into account when looking for a man to marry? Can, for instance, one woman’s priorities accommodate both astrological affinity
and
the extent to which a gentleman has built up equity? And what form does that equity take? Has it been accumulated in a piecemeal, haphazard manner, consisting of, say, a television, stereo, toaster,
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