The Cry of the Sloth Read Online Free PDF Page B

see clearly what a solitary time I have had of it, almost never going out to a restaurant, to the movies, anywhere in fact except for walks by myself in the park. I just opened cans at home. And the terrible thing is, after a month or two, I started eating directly out of them, out of the cans, standing in the kitchen and spooning it up and then leaving the cans on the counter. Now the ants have come, millions of them. That sort of behavior feeds on itself. And of course I was not good company, I was terrible company, I can see that now. So after a couple of feeble tries people naturally didn’t want to invite me over again, just to watch me sitting around under my cloud of gloom. The idea was, I guess, if I couldn’t entertain them, then to hell with me. I started having thoughts that I see now were practically paranoid delusions. I decided our so-called best friends, the Willinghams and the Pretzkys, had never liked me, that it was always only Jolie they wanted to invite and I was only there as some kind of unfortunate appendage, an exceedingly unattractive older relative she was forced to drag around with her. I wonder what they would say now if they could see the ants. On the other hand, how did I behave the few times the Pretzksys did invite me? I sat there moving the food around on my plate. I think I droned, I could hear myself droning, sitting at the end of the table going on and on, but I couldn’t stop it, stop myself, the words just pouring out, almost without inflection, in a dull stream. I remember on one occasion glancing up from my plate and seeing Karen dart a meaningful glance at John, who was staring at his own plate. Meaningful, and yet
I could not understand what it meant.
God, how I hated them both when I got home! Hated them for making me look like a bumbling fool, and worse, like a bore. Now I feel a new power to write, the sentences just pouring out. I feel the books in a stack inside me. I have only to open them up, open myself up, and read off the words.
    ¶
    Dear Jolie,
    One week despair spreads like mold, and the next week happiness glitters like a bright polish on all the little buttons (I mean the days). Do you remember, after Papa finally died and we got the buildings, how we thought we were set up for life? We were going to be like Leonard and Virginia Woolf, except in reverse—you were going to work the presses, while I was upstairs turning out the novels. Laughable, isn’t it? Or maybe it was Sartre and Simone. I look back at that now, at us then, at me and my fantasies and the stack of my aborted efforts, and I grimace.
    I was, naturally, overjoyed to hear that “dear Marcus Quiller” was standing on your doorstep when you came home from class last Friday. After all these many years! And that he looked so youthful! I should have known when I let slip you had moved to Brooklyn that he’d hunt you up, or hunt you down, depending on how one looks at it, at him. He doesn’t miss a lick, young Marcus. I obviously do not look youthful. I look in the mirror, and I look ravaged, I look hateful. I spend
most
of my time at the most dreary, mind-deadening, soul-killing, gut-twisting activities you can imagine. But of course you
can’t
imagine, because it’s
far worse
than when you were here. But I’m not writing to complain. I am, in fact, doing quite well, despite everything. My projects are roaring apace. But I’m in a dry patch financially, and you are going to have to make out on your own until I can get things turned around. I have begun negotiations with the bank. I am feeling strong and confident.
    Andy
    ¶
    Dear Anita,
    Yesterday I picked up from the sidewalk a small brown bird that had tumbled from its nest—wide clown mouth and stubby wings like tiny flippers. As I cupped it in my hand, I thought of the heedless cruelty of nature and the plight of all those driven untimely from the nest, who must strive against the pangs of loneliness even as they search for food. Like the little