The 25th Hour Read Online Free PDF Page B

Jakob leans over the bar and picks a red plastic sword from the tray of cocktail garnishes. ‘So, D’Annunzio,’ he says, stabbing his thumb thoughtfully. ‘What do you think of her?’
    LoBianco smiles. ‘What do you think of her, Jakob?’
    ‘You know what? I really believe someday – I mean, maybe years from now – we’ll be sitting around saying, “I had the Mary D’Annunzio in my English class.”’
    LoBianco is silent for a moment, tumbling ice cubes with his tongue. He demolishes them with his molars and wipes his lips. ‘Do you know what a man must never ask in a Victoria’s Secret shop?’
    ‘No, what?’
    ‘“Does this come in children’s sizes?”’
    Jakob feels a sudden clenching deep in his belly. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    ‘It doesn’t mean anything. It’s a joke.’
    ‘What kind of joke is that?’
    LoBianco reaches for his own cocktail sword and brandishes it in Jakob’s face. ‘Have I offended your honor? You demand satisfaction? Eh? Shall we duel?’
    ‘There’s nothing going on between me and Mary D’Annunzio.’
    LoBianco is not paying attention. He stabs Jakob in the leg, and the sword snaps in half.
    ‘Ow! Ow, you bastard!’
    ‘Shut up. Another vodka, please,’ LoBianco calls to the bartender, ‘and another light beer for our friend with the girlish figure.’
    ‘I’m bleeding,’ says Jakob, examining the tiny hole in his pant leg.
    ‘Yes, well, drink your beer and shut up.’ LoBianco stares at his broken sword and sighs. ‘We all have our problems, you know. All of us,’ he adds portentously.
    ‘I guess so,’ mumbles Jakob. He’s feeling guilty now, worrying about himself. In the morning Monty goes to prison; Jakob tries to imagine it. A judge in black robes passes sentence, and seven years are severed from a life.
    ‘For example, wasn’t today my big meeting with Deering?’
    Jakob looks up. ‘Wasn’t today your big meeting with Deering?’
    LoBianco smiles. ‘Today was my big meeting with Deering. Do you know what he told me?’ LoBianco waits, glancing at Jakob, whose attention has already wandered. ‘Do you?’
    Jakob lowers his face to the bar, then raises it, a paper napkin stuck to his lips. He exhales and the napkin flutters to the floor.
    ‘What?’
    ‘He told me if I had played my cards right, I could have been head of the department. Little me. Imagine that. Missed my true calling. All the power, the sheer responsibility. I could be head of the English Department – were it not that I have bad dreams.’
    Jakob raises his hand. ‘Macbeth?’
    ‘Wrong,’ says LoBianco. ‘Delivers his philosophy lecture, the same speech I’ve been hearing for nineteen years now, from Socrates to William James. He has the ability to speak authoritatively on subjects of which he is entirely ignorant.’ LoBianco pauses, sipping his vodka. ‘I admire that. But his other qualities are less becoming.’
    ‘There’s not going to be a punch line to this story, is there?’
    ‘This is not a story’ – LoBianco sniffs – ‘this is a rant. And I’ll ask you to remain silent as you listen to it. Where was I?’
    ‘Socrates. William James. Philosophy lecture.’
    ‘Launching from his analysis of why I failed to become department head into an unabridged history of Western Philosophy. And I just sat there with a look of polite concentration, nodding periodically and murmuring “I see,” and “Yes, that makes sense.” Deering placed my career stagnation in pleasant perspective. The consolations of philosophy, I suppose.’ LoBianco frowns, curling his fingers backward to inspect the nails, then cleaning them with the broken hilt of his cocktail sword. ‘I never wanted to become a man who posted New Yorker cartoons on his office door. But that’s what I’ve become. If that whore Ferlinghetti hadn’t—;’
    ‘Oh, no, no, no, don’t—;’
    ‘That thieving bastard!’ roars LoBianco. ‘Sitting in his landmarked bookstore, the sage of San