Book of Numbers: A Novel Read Online Free PDF
Author: Joshua Cohen
cafés or caffès and the reading room
of the 42nd Street library famous—writerly anti-nonfamous. I’ve never
liked Cal’s writing, but I’ve always liked him—the both of them
like family. He’s been living in Iowa, teaching on fellowship. All of Iowa must
be campuses and crops.
“And I’ve been working on the next book,” according
to his email. This time it’s fiction, a novel. Aar hasn’t read a word yet.
Cal won’t let it go until it’s finished. “And I’ve been
thinking a lot about you and your situation and how you can’t be pessimistic
about it because life can change in a snap, especially given your talent,”
according to his email. Don’t I know it, my hero, my flatterer.
\
Caleb was off warring and I was stuck, ground zero.
Which for me was never lower smoldering Manhattan, but Ridgewood. Metropolitan Avenue.
Out past the trendoid and into the cheap, always in the midst of transition, enridged.
Blocksized barbedwired disbanded factories. Plants where the bubbles were blown into
seltzer and lunchmeats were sliced. My building was an industrial slabiform, not
redeveloped but converted, in gross violation of the informal zoning code of prudence.
Used to be a printing facility, the only relic of which was a letterpress, a hulking
handpress decaying screwy out in the central courtyard, exposed to the weather, too
heavy to move. From time to time I’d stumble on a letter, wedged between the
cobbles.
The unit itself was a storage facility 20 × 20, not certified for
even a moment of frenetic pacing let alone habitation, and with a rabid radiator the
resident antisemite, but without a window, I had to take from the rear dumpsters a bolt
of billiard baize for a doorstop, for ventilation. Sawhorses supporting a desk of
doublepaned wired glass. International Office Supply wood swiveler, the least
comfortable chair of the Depression. Banker’s lamp. Bent shelves of galleys, from
when I reviewed, of my own galleys from when I’d be the reviewee. My
mother’s potted cups, one for caffeine, the other an ashtray. In a corner my
airbed and bicycle, in another the pump for both. Brooklyn by my left leg, Queens by my
right, hands between them, an intimate borough. At least there was a door. At least
there was a lock.
My apartment, my office—I had nothing to do but practice my
autograph. I didn’t. I sat, I lay, pumped, adjusted the angle of recline.
I was the only NYer not allowed to be sad, once it came out what I was sad
about, the bathroom was common and down the hall, all my sustenance was from the
deli.
I bought a turkey sandwich, cheese curls, frosted donuts, lotto
scratchers, Cossack vodka I’d drink without ice, from the spare change trough
emptied and unwashed, Camel Lights I’d smoke out in the hall through the bars of
the airshaft, smoking so hard as to crack a rib.
That’s what I bought—representatively, each day—but
also exactly, precisely, the day I spent the last of my advance. Summer 2002.
No further monies would be earned from my
book—from all that labor. My advance was now behind me.
I tried to write something else—tried some stories (Hasidic tales
recast), translations (from the Hebrew). But nothing—I was wasted, blocked,
cramped blank by my “mogigraphia,” “graphospasms.”
Translation: spending all my time online, blotted in a cell glutted with paper. I became
a cursor, a caret, a button pressed and pressing—refreshing reactions to
Cal’s work.
Then, with the anniversary approaching, the
Times
got in touch.
An editor emailed to ask if I’d write an “article,” a
“piece,” about my luck. For the Sunday Styles section. I opened and closed
her email for weeks, for months after the close of that summer, until rent was due,
utilities too, and then I answered. I didn’t just write back in the affirmative,
I wrote the thing itself, which was shocking. After being
of the 42nd Street library famous—writerly anti-nonfamous. I’ve never
liked Cal’s writing, but I’ve always liked him—the both of them
like family. He’s been living in Iowa, teaching on fellowship. All of Iowa must
be campuses and crops.
“And I’ve been working on the next book,” according
to his email. This time it’s fiction, a novel. Aar hasn’t read a word yet.
Cal won’t let it go until it’s finished. “And I’ve been
thinking a lot about you and your situation and how you can’t be pessimistic
about it because life can change in a snap, especially given your talent,”
according to his email. Don’t I know it, my hero, my flatterer.
\
Caleb was off warring and I was stuck, ground zero.
Which for me was never lower smoldering Manhattan, but Ridgewood. Metropolitan Avenue.
Out past the trendoid and into the cheap, always in the midst of transition, enridged.
Blocksized barbedwired disbanded factories. Plants where the bubbles were blown into
seltzer and lunchmeats were sliced. My building was an industrial slabiform, not
redeveloped but converted, in gross violation of the informal zoning code of prudence.
Used to be a printing facility, the only relic of which was a letterpress, a hulking
handpress decaying screwy out in the central courtyard, exposed to the weather, too
heavy to move. From time to time I’d stumble on a letter, wedged between the
cobbles.
The unit itself was a storage facility 20 × 20, not certified for
even a moment of frenetic pacing let alone habitation, and with a rabid radiator the
resident antisemite, but without a window, I had to take from the rear dumpsters a bolt
of billiard baize for a doorstop, for ventilation. Sawhorses supporting a desk of
doublepaned wired glass. International Office Supply wood swiveler, the least
comfortable chair of the Depression. Banker’s lamp. Bent shelves of galleys, from
when I reviewed, of my own galleys from when I’d be the reviewee. My
mother’s potted cups, one for caffeine, the other an ashtray. In a corner my
airbed and bicycle, in another the pump for both. Brooklyn by my left leg, Queens by my
right, hands between them, an intimate borough. At least there was a door. At least
there was a lock.
My apartment, my office—I had nothing to do but practice my
autograph. I didn’t. I sat, I lay, pumped, adjusted the angle of recline.
I was the only NYer not allowed to be sad, once it came out what I was sad
about, the bathroom was common and down the hall, all my sustenance was from the
deli.
I bought a turkey sandwich, cheese curls, frosted donuts, lotto
scratchers, Cossack vodka I’d drink without ice, from the spare change trough
emptied and unwashed, Camel Lights I’d smoke out in the hall through the bars of
the airshaft, smoking so hard as to crack a rib.
That’s what I bought—representatively, each day—but
also exactly, precisely, the day I spent the last of my advance. Summer 2002.
No further monies would be earned from my
book—from all that labor. My advance was now behind me.
I tried to write something else—tried some stories (Hasidic tales
recast), translations (from the Hebrew). But nothing—I was wasted, blocked,
cramped blank by my “mogigraphia,” “graphospasms.”
Translation: spending all my time online, blotted in a cell glutted with paper. I became
a cursor, a caret, a button pressed and pressing—refreshing reactions to
Cal’s work.
Then, with the anniversary approaching, the
Times
got in touch.
An editor emailed to ask if I’d write an “article,” a
“piece,” about my luck. For the Sunday Styles section. I opened and closed
her email for weeks, for months after the close of that summer, until rent was due,
utilities too, and then I answered. I didn’t just write back in the affirmative,
I wrote the thing itself, which was shocking. After being
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