Dying Inside

Success. The ministrations of her soapy hand revive me.

We spring toward the bed. Still stiff, I top her and take her. Gasp gasp gasp, moan moan moan. I can get nothing on the mental band. Suddenly she goes into a fu

“I’d love to read some of your poetry, Dave,” she says.

Monday night, about seven-thirty. Lisa has left, finally. I go out for di

But it seems that my mourning must be postponed. What I thought was all over isn’t over yet. I walk into the pizzeria and the counterman gives me his flat cold New York smile of welcome, and I get this, unsolicited, from behind his greasy face: Hey, here’s the fag who always wants extra anchovies.

Reading him clearly. So it’s not dead yet! Not quite dead! Only resting a while. Only hiding.

Tuesday. Bitter cold; one of those terrible late-autumn days when every drop of moisture has been squeezed from the air and the sunlight is like knives. I finish two more term papers for delivery tomorrow. I read Updike. Judith calls after lunch. The usual di

“What did you think of Karl?” she asks.

“A very substantial man.”

“He wants me to marry him.”

“Well?”

“It’s too soon. I don’t really know him, Duv. I like him, I admire him tremendously, but I don’t know whether I love him.”

“Then don’t rush into anything with him,” I say. Her soap-opera hesitations bore me. I don’t understand why anybody old enough to know the score ever gets married, anyway. Why should love require a contract? Why put yourself into the clutches of the state and give it power over you? Why invite lawyers to fuck around with your assets? Marriage is for the immature and the insecure and the ignorant. We who see through such institutions should be content to live together without legal coercion, eh, Toni? Eh? I say, “Besides, if you marry him, he’d probably want you to give up Guermantes. I don’t think he could dig it.”

“You know about me and Claude?”

“Of course.”

“You always know everything.”

“This was pretty obvious, Jude.”

“I thought your power was waning.”

“It is, it is, it’s waning faster than ever. But this was still pretty obvious. To the naked eye.”

“All right. What did you think of him?”

“He’s death. He’s a killer.”

“You misjudged him, Duv.”

“I was in his head. I saw him, Jude. He isn’t human. People are toys to him.”

“If you could hear the sound of your own voice now, Duv. The hostility, the outright jealousy—”

“Jealousy? Am I that incestuous?”

“You always were,” she says. “But let that pass. I really thought you’d enjoy meeting Claude.”

“I did. He’s fascinating. I think cobras are fascinating too.”

“Oh, fuck you, Duv.”

“You want me to pretend I liked him?”

“Don’t do me any favors.” The old icy Judith.

“What’s Karl’s reaction to Guermantes?”

She pauses. Finally: “Pretty negative. Karl’s very conventional, you know. Just as you are.”

“Me?”

“Oh, you’re so fucking straight, Duv! You’re such a puritan! You’ve been lecturing me on morality all my goddamned life. The very first time I got laid there you were, wagging your finger at me—”

“Why doesn’t Karl like him?”

“I don’t know. He thinks Claude’s sinister. Exploitive.” Her voice is suddenly flat and dull. “Maybe he’s just jealous. He knows I’m still sleeping with Claude. Oh, Jesus, Duv, why are we fighting again? Why can’t we just talk?”

“I’m not the one who’s fighting. I’m not the one who raised his voice.”

“You’re challenging me. That’s what you always do. You spy on me and then you challenge me and try to put me down.”

“Old habits are hard to break, Jude. Really, though: I’m not angry with you.”

“You sound so smug!”

“I’m not angry. You are. You got angry when you saw that Karl and I agree about your friend Claude. People always get angry when they’re told something they don’t want to hear. Listen, Jude, do whatever you want. If Guermantes is your trip, go ahead.”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” An unexpected concession: “Maybe there is something sick about my relationship with him.” Her flinty self-assurance vanishes abruptly. That’s the wonderful thing about her: you get a different Judith every two minutes. Now, softening, thawing, she sounds uncertain of herself. In a moment she’ll turn her concern outward, away from her own troubles, toward me. “Will you come to di

“I’ll try.”

“I’m worried about you, Duv.” Yes, here it comes. “You looked so strung out on Saturday night.”

“It’s been a pretty rough time for me. But I’ll manage.” I don’t feel like talking about myself. I don’t want her pity, because after I get hers, I’ll start giving myself mine. “Listen, I’ll call you soon, okay?”

“Are you still in so much pain, Duv?”

“I’m adapting. I’m accepting the whole thing. I mean, I’ll be okay. Keep in touch, Jude. My best to Karl.” And Claude, I add, as I put down the receiver.

Wednesday morning. Downtown to deliver my latest batch of masterpieces. It’s colder even than yesterday, the air clearer, the sun brighter, more remote. How dry the world seems. The humidity is minus sixteen percent, I think. The sort of weather in which I used to function with overwhelming clarity of perception. But I was picking up hardly anything at all on the subway ride down to Columbia, just muzzy little blurts and squeaks, nothing coherent. I can no longer be certain of having the power on any given day, apparently, and this is one of the days off. Unpredictable. That’s what you are, you who live in my head: unpredictable. Thrashing about randomly in your death-throes. I go to the usual place and await my clients. They come, they get from me what they have come for, they cross my palm with greenbacks. David Selig, benefactor of undergraduate mankind. I see Yahya Lumumba like a black sequoia making his way across from Butler Library. Why am I trembling? It’s the chill in the air, isn’t it, the hint of winter, the death of the year. As the basketball star approaches he waves, nods, grins; everyone knows him, everyone calls out to him. I feel a sense of participation in his glory. When the season starts maybe I’ll go watch him play.

“You got the paper, man?”

“Right here.” I deal it off the stack. “Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides. Six pages. That’s $21, minus the five you already gave me is $16 you owe me.”

“Wait, man.” He sits down beside me on the steps. “I got to read this fucker first, right? How I know you did a righteous job if I don’t read it?”