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That's unfair. I'm not lecturing, I'm merely explaining the way I write so you
won't get all bent out of shape if I alter the facts. This isn't supposed to
be one-for-one. It's supposed to be a story, and that means things will be
changed.
Now I'll start it again, and you just shut up and stop nuhdzing me. And okay,
okay, I won't call you Patti. (But I still think that's a super name for the
young woman in the story.) Now. For the third time. I begin.
The first thing Katie ever said to me was, "How much is the school paying you
to come here to speak today?"
I said, "Eight hundred dollars."
She looked shocked and awe-stricken for a moment and then said, "That's
indecent. Nobody should make eight hundred dollars just for amusing a bunch of
imbeciles for an hour and a half."
"I usually get fifteen hundred," I said.
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"You're kidding. Just for standing up here and reading a couple of stories you
wrote?"
"I've been told I read very well."
"So what? Dylan Thomas read better than you and he died broke."
"And an alcoholic to boot," I said. "Thank God I don't drink."
She started to turn away. The rest of the mob of students pressing in for
autographs jammed into the space she'd vacated. I watched her as she walked
away. "Hey!" I yelled. She stopped and turned around. She knew I meant her.
"Are you going with, engaged to, pregnant by, or hung up on?"
She thought about it for a moment. The mob ping-ponged their eyes between us,
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history in the making, before their very faces. "No," she said. "Why?"
"How'd you like to have a cup of coffee with me?"
The guy who had strolled up beside her looked as if he were about to get an
enema with a thermite bomb. He started to take her arm, but she smiled and
said, "Okay," and his hand never finished the grab.
She sat down in the first row of the empty auditorium and had a heated
conversation with the guy who hadn't finished the grab. I tried to catch what
they were saying, but the fans were babbling in my face and I've never been
able to listen to two things at once. I signed their books as fast as I
could--I was afraid she'd disappear--and as the last straggler moved away,
fangs finally removed from my throat, charisma leaking out of my body with a
soft hiss, I stepped off the stage and walked over to her.
Yes, I know I've made you sound cooler and hipper than you were that day. Yes,
I know you went fumfuh fumfuh a lot. But this makes it sound better. So what
if you've never read Dylan Thomas, what does that matter? Will you just sit
back and let me get into this bloody thing!
They both stood up. The grabless guy didn't like me a lot; negative vibes
hammered at me like the assault of noise made by one of those superpimp blacks
in mile-hi platform wedgies who carry Radio
Shack transistors with hundred and eighty decibel speakers, who boogie up and
down Hollywood
Boulevard blasting Kiwanis schmucks from Kankakee out of their white socks
with the gain up full.
"Mr. Kane," Katie said, indicating the source of the negative emanations,
"this is Joey. Joey, this is--"
He knew who I was. He'd sat through my lecture and my readings and had
applauded. Until I'd hustled his girl, he'd been a faithful reader of my
wonderful prose. I lose more fans that way. He didn't wait for the
introduction, just thrust his hand forward and said, "Howdyado."
We shook. Solemnly. On such dumbass grounds as this did Menelaus and Paris get
into one hell of a lousy relationship.
Nothing happened for a few seconds. Everyone waited for the Earth to stop
jiggling on its axis. As usual, I was the one to move the action. "Well,
listen, uh, Joey, it was nice meeting you." I
turned to Katie. "Are you ready to go?" She almost gave Joey a look: the
muscles in her neck moved slightly: but then she just nodded and said, "Okay."
I smiled at Joey, very friendly, very magnanimous, and we walked away from
him. I am very grateful blowguns and poisoned darts have never been marketed
in this country by Wham-O.
The nameless nuisance in the background tells me I'm lying, and making Joey
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zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkwiatpolny.htw.pl
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Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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