The Subject Steve: A Novel by Sam Lipsyte

sea. And it's at this moment in the experience I make utterance once more. Once more language is called upon to do my bidding. What do you think I said?"
    "There are so many possibilities."
    "No, there aren't. You're missing it. Think about it logically. What could I have said? Okay, I'll tell you what I said. No more boat. That's what I said. No more boat. Now, I'm a dude, I'm the kind of dude that can babble on and on. To anybody. About anything. How many times, for instance, do you think I've said a word like anybody, or anything, in my life? Millions, probably. How many times have I said the word probably? How many times have I used my gift of language to explicate myself out of this or that shit-fucked situation?"
    "Extricate."
    "How many times have I said shit-fucked, or situation? Brother, it's all language. Dope, cars, finger-banging, rock 'n' roll. It's all just language. You think it's not, buddy, but it is, trust me. You think the ultimate is out there somewhere, beyond language, but it's not. It's just totally not. For example, what's the ultimate, anyway? It's a fucking word. But here's my final point, Steve. For all those goddamn words, for all those combinatory combinations of words, for all their various shades and schadenfreudes of meaning or unmeaning, it just comes down to two basic things. I want boat and no more boat. That's all there is."
    "I know what you mean."
    "You have no idea what I mean. Do you really like my stain? Or do you mean to say you like to look at it?"
    "What's the difference?" I said.
    "That's a good question. I wish I had the answer. But I'm just a dumbfuck. I'm just trying to keep it together."
    "Did you know Wendell?"
    "I knew Wendell."
    "What happened to him?"
    "He couldn't find the language," said Dietz. "Hungry?"
    He pointed to his picture of food.
    Bobby Trubate was back in his cot, hooked to a drip, wrapped in loose gauze. His face was bruised and runny, his mustache singed down to a ridge of hairy blisters. He looked like some formerly majestic bird pulled from a crash site fuselage.
    "Jesus, Bobby," I said. "What'd he do to you?"
    "Saved me," said Trubate.
    Estelle lounged in the corner with a magazine from the Johnson administration. There were stacks of these around, good for pop scholarship, kindling. I don't know who collected them, but paeans to the sexual revolution and tawny sideburns abounded. I tended to pore over the ads myself, stereos like space bays, secret sodomy in the Rob Roy ice.
    "Funny to read this crap, now," she said. "It's like inscriptions in your yearbook. Remember me when you're a movie star. Send me a postcard from Paris."
    "We need to get him to a hospital."
    "He'll be fine. I've been looking after him."
    "They took his stuff."
    "There's a laundry run."
    Trubate began to moan. His body sputtered under the sheets.
    "Did you know," said Estelle, "that before this was the Center for Nondenominational Recovery and Redemption, it was a POW camp?"
    "A what?"
    "Simulated. For executive types. They'd come up here for a huge fee and Heinrich would keep them in cages, torture them."
    "Didn't read that part in the
Tenets
."
    "Editorial discretion."
    It looked like Bobby wanted to speak. His lips split their scab caulk and sound dribbled out.
    "Maa. . .Faa. . ."
    "Ma?"
    "What is it?" said Estelle.
    "Maah . . . Faah . . ."
    "Mother," I said. "Father."
    "No," said Estelle. "Mothered by Fire. He's acknowledging his passage."
    "Maah . . ."
    "What is it, Bobby?" I said.
    Trubate strained up from the bed.
    "My face," he said. "My fucking face."
    Estelle was tired. I told her I'd watch Trubate for a while. He slept like a stone, or a stoned man. Maybe there was some morphine in his drip. His wounds, I saw now, were mostly superficial, show-biz gashes. Character-building for the character actor. Maybe he could ride the crest of the next disfigurement fad to stardom.
    Me, I was going to ride the hell out of here. There was nothing for me here, nothing shit-free. Organized