The Dilettantes Read Online Free PDF Page B

said from the back.
    “Yeah,” another agreed. “It’s actually sort of mean, if you think about it. Why would they come here just to wreck everything for us on purpose? We’re just trying to have fun.”
    Rachel muttered,
“Some of us
are here for something bigger.”
    “As if anyone’s going to read their stupid paper.”
    “Eff right off, that’s what I say.”
    “Yesterday their front-page story was Boy Loses Tricycle.”
    “Ha. Totally.”
    “Ridiculous, I know.”
    “Does anyone know if he found it? That story was such a cliff-hanger.”
    Rachel snapped her pencil in half. It was mechanical.
    “That’s because they’re just awful writers,” Alex said. “Pure and simple. They wouldn’t know an inverted pyramid if they went on vacation to inverted Egypt.”
    Keith sat up, sensing a riff in the making. “They wouldn’t know a lede if … they were … winning a
race!”
As the words left his mouth,his face screwed up like he’d licked a battery. “Shit. That was awful. I’ll get it. It’ll come back.”
    “Plus they only have one writer in the whole place doing news,” said Tracy. “Have you looked at their bylines? One guy does all of the city stuff
and
compiles the world section. What a tragedy. Mack Holloway, the loneliest man in newspapers.”
    “Egypt …” mumbled someone from the back. “Oh! An inverted sphinx!”
    “Shot in the face by an inverted Napoleon!”
    “Yeah,” sighed Keith. “That’s the same joke a few more times. Fuck, you guys. Step it up already. Anyone else?”
    “King Tut.”
    “He
was
super young.”
    “Like six or seven, I heard. Baby pharaoh and shit.”
    “You guys remember when Geraldo Rivera did that TV show where he opened his tomb? I was just watching it on YouTube a few days ago. It was crazy, this super big ratings thing, but then it just turned out to have some broken bottles in it.”
    “In elementary school I had to do a project on Egypt. I drew the raddest sphinx head for the title page.”
    “Isis.”
    “Actually, that’s a lie. I totally traced that shit.”
    “Didn’t they have a goddess called Isis? Goddess of … grain. Or sleep. Sheep?”
    “Isis!
That’s another banned crossword clue.”
    “Or those snakes that live in baskets.”
    “Asp!
Another!”
    “Isis is the goddess of desire.”
    “Really?”
    “Yep. ‘Isis’ is the goddess of
Desire
. No question about it.”
    “What are you … oh. Goddammit. Not this again.”
    “Hold on: did they find it or not?”
    “I think they did.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah, yeah. There was a thing about it on the news.”
    “So where …?”
    “On a bus someplace. They put out an amber alert, and no problem. Totally found—what was he, Mexican.”
    “Mexican? What does that even mean?”
    “Amber alerts are for missing children.”
    “Yeah. What are you guys talking about?”
    “A tricycle.”
    “Why would he bring his tricycle on the bus? Someone should abduct that retard again.”
    “So what do we do?” Alex asked in a near yell. “I mean, literally what do we do next?”
    The strategy seemed to work. Several sets of eyes did a slow pan toward his corner of the ratty wool couch.
    “We draft it,” someone offered. “The manifesto.”
    “Might I suggest something either dolphin– or Connect 4–related?” Keith asked, tipping an imaginary hat to the group. “I have a picture we could use.”
    “Okay, first of all, I really don’t think we should use the word
manifesto,”
Alex said. “Makes us sound like douchebags, don’t you think?” He looked around and saw he did not speak for the room. “Fine. Never mind. Does anyone here know how to do this? Has anyone actually done it before? What are we basing it on?”
    “Nah, fuck all that,” someone said from the back. “It’ll come from the heart. You don’t need to look up the truth in a
book
. Don’t sweat it.”
    “Right.” Alex rubbed his eyes in vigorous circles, pulling toward the inside corners every