told my mother to warn him to stay out of the house but she said she didn’t mind having him for company.
“Is he comin here tonight?” I asked her.
“Well, he jus might.”
“I hope he dies before he gets here. I hope I kill him if he comes in this here room.”
“I gon wash your mouth with soap if you say that word again.”
“I got nothin to be shame of.”
“He treats me real fine. Las week he buy me a pair of pretty shoes.”
I know he didn’t buy her no shoes.
I left the house but when I came back to eat some supper, he was there, smoking a Lucky Strike cigarette.
“Wheah at is Elsie?” he asked me in nigger talk and I said I didn’t know.
He looked at me in a way that was supposed to witch me and he sat on the bed with a shit smile on his mouth.
“I gon wait for her.”
He told me to come over to him on the bed, he wouldn’t hurt me.
I was scared so nauseous I thought if I moved one teensy bit I would crap in my pants. I wanted my mother to come back fast. If she came back I would not mind what they did to each other.
“Come heah, boy, and unzip mah pants.”
I told him I didn’t want to.
“Heah’s a nice tin cints piece you kin have.”
I didn’t move at all.
“Heah’s a quotah mo. Now unzip mah pants and the money is yo’s. Bof the dime and the quotah.”
“Don’t take it out, please,” I asked him.
“Not till you show me kin you open yo mouf wide an covah yo teef wif yo lips like this.”
He showed me how to cover my teeth.
“I will do it if you stop talking nigger talk to me.”
He said honey he would, and also I was a smart boy and he loved me very much.
He was talking like a whitey again.
Lesser said it was a strong chapter and praised the writing.
“How is the form of it?”
“It’s well formed and written.” He said no more than that, as they had agreed.
“Damn right, man. It’s strong black writing.”
“It’s well written and touches the heart. That’s as much as I’ll say now.”
Bill said that in the next chapter he wanted to get deep into the boy’s black consciousness, already a fire of desire and destruction.
He lived that day in a potless triumphant high.
That night both writers, over water glasses filled with red wine, talked about being writers and what a good and great thing it was.
Lesser read aloud a passage he had written in a notebook; “I am convinced more and more day by day that fine writing is next to fine doing the top thing in the world.”
“Who said that?”
“John Keats, the poet.”
“Fine dude.”
“And here’s something from Coleridge: ‘Nothing can permanently please which does not contain in itself the reason why it is so and not otherwise.’”
“Copy that down for me, man.”
Depressed, one useless morning, dispossessed of confidence in himself as writer, as he sometimes was, Lesser, shortly before noon at the Museum of Modern Art, stood before a painting of a woman done by a former friend of his, a painter who had died young.
Although he had sat at his desk for hours, that day for the first time in more than a year Lesser had been unable to write a single sentence. It was as though the book had asked him to say more than he knew; he could not meet its merciless demands. Each word weighed like a rock. If you’ve been writing a book for ten years time adds time to each word; they weigh like rocks—the weight of waiting for the end, to become the book. Though he struggled to go on, every thought, every decision, was impossible. Lesser felt depression settle on his head like a sick crow. When he couldn’t write he doubted the self; this expressed itself in reservations about the quality of his talent—was it really talent, not an illusion he had dreamed up to keep himself writing? And when he doubted the self he couldn’t
write. Sitting at his desk in the bright morning light, scanning yesterday’s pages, he had felt about to throw up: language, form, his plan and purpose.
“Is he comin here tonight?” I asked her.
“Well, he jus might.”
“I hope he dies before he gets here. I hope I kill him if he comes in this here room.”
“I gon wash your mouth with soap if you say that word again.”
“I got nothin to be shame of.”
“He treats me real fine. Las week he buy me a pair of pretty shoes.”
I know he didn’t buy her no shoes.
I left the house but when I came back to eat some supper, he was there, smoking a Lucky Strike cigarette.
“Wheah at is Elsie?” he asked me in nigger talk and I said I didn’t know.
He looked at me in a way that was supposed to witch me and he sat on the bed with a shit smile on his mouth.
“I gon wait for her.”
He told me to come over to him on the bed, he wouldn’t hurt me.
I was scared so nauseous I thought if I moved one teensy bit I would crap in my pants. I wanted my mother to come back fast. If she came back I would not mind what they did to each other.
“Come heah, boy, and unzip mah pants.”
I told him I didn’t want to.
“Heah’s a nice tin cints piece you kin have.”
I didn’t move at all.
“Heah’s a quotah mo. Now unzip mah pants and the money is yo’s. Bof the dime and the quotah.”
“Don’t take it out, please,” I asked him.
“Not till you show me kin you open yo mouf wide an covah yo teef wif yo lips like this.”
He showed me how to cover my teeth.
“I will do it if you stop talking nigger talk to me.”
He said honey he would, and also I was a smart boy and he loved me very much.
He was talking like a whitey again.
Lesser said it was a strong chapter and praised the writing.
“How is the form of it?”
“It’s well formed and written.” He said no more than that, as they had agreed.
“Damn right, man. It’s strong black writing.”
“It’s well written and touches the heart. That’s as much as I’ll say now.”
Bill said that in the next chapter he wanted to get deep into the boy’s black consciousness, already a fire of desire and destruction.
He lived that day in a potless triumphant high.
That night both writers, over water glasses filled with red wine, talked about being writers and what a good and great thing it was.
Lesser read aloud a passage he had written in a notebook; “I am convinced more and more day by day that fine writing is next to fine doing the top thing in the world.”
“Who said that?”
“John Keats, the poet.”
“Fine dude.”
“And here’s something from Coleridge: ‘Nothing can permanently please which does not contain in itself the reason why it is so and not otherwise.’”
“Copy that down for me, man.”
Depressed, one useless morning, dispossessed of confidence in himself as writer, as he sometimes was, Lesser, shortly before noon at the Museum of Modern Art, stood before a painting of a woman done by a former friend of his, a painter who had died young.
Although he had sat at his desk for hours, that day for the first time in more than a year Lesser had been unable to write a single sentence. It was as though the book had asked him to say more than he knew; he could not meet its merciless demands. Each word weighed like a rock. If you’ve been writing a book for ten years time adds time to each word; they weigh like rocks—the weight of waiting for the end, to become the book. Though he struggled to go on, every thought, every decision, was impossible. Lesser felt depression settle on his head like a sick crow. When he couldn’t write he doubted the self; this expressed itself in reservations about the quality of his talent—was it really talent, not an illusion he had dreamed up to keep himself writing? And when he doubted the self he couldn’t
write. Sitting at his desk in the bright morning light, scanning yesterday’s pages, he had felt about to throw up: language, form, his plan and purpose.
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