The Rosy Crucifixion 3 - Nexus Read Online Free PDF Page A

His voice grew shrill and petulant. You told me once that you would like to write. Well, when do you expect to begin? He paused to take a heaping mouthful of food. Still gulping, he continued: Why do you think I talk to you the way I do? Because you’re a good listener? Not at all! I can blab my heart out to you because I know that you’re vitally uninterested. It’s not me, John Stymer, that interests you, it’s what I tell you, or the way I tell it to you. But I am interested in you, definitely. Quite a difference.
    He masticated in silence for a moment.
    You’re almost as complicated as I am, he went on. You know that, don’t you? I’m curious to know what makes people tick, especially a type like you. Don’t worry, I’ll never probe you because I know in advance you won’t give me the right answers. You’re a shadow-boxer. And me, I’m a lawyer. It’s my business to handle cases. But you, I can’t imagine what you deal in, unless it’s air.
    Here he closed up like a clam, content to swallow and chew for a while. Presently he said: I’ve a good mind to invite you to come along with me this afternoon. I’m not going back to the office. I’m going to see this gal I’ve been telling you about. Why don’t you come along? She’s easy to look at, easy to talk to. I’d like to observe your reactions. He paused a moment to see how I might take the proposal, then added: She lives out on Long Island. It’s a bit of a drive, but it may be worth it. We’ll bring some wine along and some Strega. She likes liqueurs. What say?
    I agreed. We walked to the garage where he kept his car. It took a while to defrost it. We had only gone a little ways when one thing after another gave out. With the stops we made at garages and repair shops it must have taken almost three hours to get out of the city limits. By that time we were thoroughly frozen. We had a run of sixty miles to make and it was already dark as pitch.
    Once on the highway we made several stops to warm up. He seemed to be known everywhere we stopped, and was always treated with deference. He explained, as we drove along, how he had befriended this one and that. I never take a case, he said, unless I’m sure I can win., I tried to draw him out about the girl, but his mind was on other things. Curiously, the subject uppermost in his mind at present was immortality. What was the sense in an hereafter, he wanted to know, if one lost his personality at death? He was convinced that a single lifetime was too short a period in which to solve one’s problems. I haven’t started living my own life, he said, and I’m already nearing fifty. One should live to be a hundred and fifty or two hundred, then one might get somewhere. The real problems don’t commence until you’ve done with sex and all material difficulties. At twenty-five I thought I knew all the answers. Now I feel that I know nothing about anything. Here we are, going to meet a young nymphomaniac. What sense does it make? He lit a cigarette, took a puff or two, then threw it away. The next moment he extracted a fat cigar from his breast pocket.
    You’d like to know something about her. I’ll tell you this first off—if only I had the necessary courage I’d snatch her up and head for Mexico. What to do there I don’t know. Begin all over again, I suppose. But that’s what gets me … I haven’t the guts for it. I’m a moral coward, that’s the truth. Besides, I know she’s pulling my leg. Every time I leave her I wonder who she’ll be in bed with soon as I’m out of sight. Not that I’m jealous—I hate to be made a fool of, that’s all. I am a chump, of course. In everything except the law I’m an utter fool.
    He traveled on in this vein for some time. He certainly loved to run himself down. I sat back and drank it in.
    Now it was a new tack. Do you know why I never became a writer?
    No, I replied, amazed that he had ever entertained the thought.
    Because I found out almost immediately