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'My nurse will call you when we've set a time at the hospital, but it will be at least ten days or two weeks, and if you're at all uncomfortable ...'

'I won't be.'

'You're sure?' Vigneron said; he tried to smile.

'Still ten out of ten?' I asked him, and he looked at Tulpen and blushed. Vigneron blushed!

Matter-of-factly I gave Vigneron's nurse the phone number for Ralph Packer Films, Inc., and the number at Tulpen's. Recovering, Vigneron handed me a packet of some capsules, but I shook my head.

'Please, no nonsense,' he said. 'It's better to operate when you're free from any infection. Take one of these a day and I'll have to see you the day before we operate, just to check.' Now he was being strictly businesslike. I took the capsules from him, nodding, smiling, waving over my shoulder, and walked Tulpen out of there. I think I must have swaggered.

And I didn't think, until I was out on the street, about whatever happened to old Mr Kroddy. Was he having a hose replaced? I shivered, drew Tulpen up against my hip and jostled her along the sidewalk, warm and bouncy, her breath close enough to smell, sweet with candy mints, and her hair whipping my face.

'Don't worry,' I said. 'I'm going to have a fine new prick, just for you.'

She slipped her hand in my pocket, rummaging through change and my Swiss Army knife. 'Don't you worry, Trumper,' she said. 'I like the old prick you are.'

So we abandoned work for the day and went back to her apartment, though we knew that Ralph expected us at the studio. It was always a touchy time for Ralph when he was dropping one project and picking up another; we noticed late salary checks and signs above the phone: PLEASE ENTER IN THE FUCKING BOOK (|) YOUR LONG-DISTANCE CALLS!

Tulpen might have guessed that there was more involved in skipping work than my want of her. I didn't care for the subject of Ralph's new film, the subject being me. A tedious outline of interviews with Tulpen and me, and a little gem later in which Ralph planned to include Biggie.

'I must tell you, Ralph, that my enthusiasm for this project is not what it might be.'

'Thump-Thump, do I have integrity or do I not?'

'It is your point of view which remains to be seen, Ralph.'

For weeks we'd been handling some dull distribution for other film makers, and giving special showings of Ralph Packer: Retrospective! for film societies, student groups, museums and the Village matinees. It was better to be on a project again, even this project, and the only really nasty argument Ralph and I'd had so far was the title.

'It's just a working title, Thump-Thump. I often change the title when we're finished.'

Somehow I doubted his flexibility about this one. He was calling the film Fucking Up. It was a common utterance of his, which made me suspect that he liked it far too well.

'Don't worry, Trumper,' Tulpen told me, and in that long afternoon at her apartment I didn't. I changed the record stack; I made Austrian Tee mit Rum, swizzled with a cinnamon stick and heated on a hot plate by the bed; I ignored the phone, which woke us once at dark. Vacuum-sealed from the city, we didn't know whether it was supper, a midnight snack or an early breakfast we were hungry for; in that kind of timeless dark which only city apartments can give you, the phone clamored on and on.

'Let it ring,' Tulpen said, scissoring me fast around my waist. It occurred to me that this line should be a part of Fucking Up, but I let it ring.

18

One Long Mother of a Day

IT BEGINS, ACTUALLY, the night before, with an argument, wherein Biggie accuses Merrill Overturf of childish, escapist pranksterism and further claims that I have been able to heroize Merrill only because he has been missing from my life for so long - implying, harshly, that the real Merrill, in the flesh, would even put me off, at least at this moment in my life.

I find these accusations painful and counterattack by accusing Overturf of courage.

'Courage!' Biggie hoots.

She goes on to imply that I am no reliable authority on courage, having no courage myself - having cowardice to spare, in fact. The example given for my cowardice is that I am afraid to call my father and have it out with him about my disinheritance.

Which witlessly prompts me to bluster that I will phone the old prick, anytime - even now, though by the dark Iowa night around us, I vaguely suspect that it's a poor hour for a phone call.

'You will?' says Biggie. Her sudden respect is frightening. She gives me no time to change my mind; she's thumbing through papers, looking for the one on which we once wrote down the Great Boar's Head number.

'What will I say, though?' I ask.

She is starting to dial.

'How about, "I called to ask you if your mail was being delivered."'

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