The Poet Chapter 14

 

FOURTEEN

 

More than the half-decorated Christmas tree crammed into a corner of the store, the display for Godfrey Whitt’s In the Seconds before Impact smacked you in the face the second you entered Needful Things Bookstore. God-boy and his brooding, bearded, bespectacled face gloomed at you as if he were king of the world and you were some kind of excrement that ended up on the heel of his crisp, white New Balance sneakers. Some of the genius’ other books were resting on the display table in the center of the cramped store. Whitt was the author of two previous novels, RevolutionaryWarVille in Harvest and Some Gods Rest Easy. His collection of short stories, The Fourteenth of June won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. He taught creative writing at Hunter College, and in his spare time he laughed ironically at the subtle jokes embedded in French new wave cinema while drinking small batch bourbon and extolling the virtues of old school hip-hop.

“Oh, you’re here,” Gigi said, the moment she lifted her eyes from her cell phone. “Why are you here? Oh…the possibility of Carolina, how could I forget.”

“I wouldn’t have any clue as to whom you were referring to,” I said. “And need I remind you that I’m currently courting someone else.”

Gigi shrugged. “Wyndham, I’m still surprised you could pull a chick like Larissa,” Jackson said, as he strung lights on a robust Norway pine.

“Tis the season of wonder, Reginald,” I said, staring down ol’ Godfrey Whitt and the stacks upon stacks of In the Seconds before Impact.

“No offense, but you’re old and...”

“…you smell like a distillery most times,” Gigi said.

“Okay, okay kids,” Killian said, as he came up the stairs. He looked a bit more haggard than usual. Killian was in full flannel and cardigan mode, and the beard had that shaggy jam band look about it. “Let’s leave our friend, Rand, alone.”

“My only true defender,” I said.

“You playing hooky from work, pal?”

“Skipped a meeting.” I started flicking my finger at Godfrey Whitt’s cardboard visage. “Have any of you actually read that fucking book?” I asked. Even the cover of Whitt’s tome was pretentious: a rich, blue sky with a single plane in the air and just the tops of the World Trade Center in the bottom right.

“Genius,” Killian said.

“Genius with a touch of white, male privilege,” Gigi said.

“The man is a genius, Wyndham,” Jackson said,

“I’m surrounded by a hat trick of philistines.”

“Says the judgmental nitwit who didn’t even read the book,” Gigi said.

I turned to the big oak table. Aside from the Godfrey Whitt collection, Killian had a smattering of Dive Bar Press books. I tried visualizing a nook for The Asshole at the End of the Bar; just a little spot at the end of the big oak table. That’s all I wanted. Was it too much to ask? A sliver of a table for my daily suffering. Jesus Christ, it had been over a year. How long did it take for indie presses to put out books? People were self-publishing left and right and there I was playing the fool for Fidel Pinochet.

The doorbell tinkled and like a burst of vanilla-blonde lava clad in a black business suit Tricia Thread came barreling through the door. “Hel-looooooo,” she said. She was worse than a fucking dog whistle.

“Tricia!” Gigi shouted. That got her nose out of her phone.

“Gee!” Tricia shouted. The two embraced mid-store, like lovers meeting after a goddamned war. Even good old Jackson had to roll his eyes at that one. Tricia let Gigi go and, with her hands on her hips, looked around Needful Things; a tyrant claiming her territory. She pointed at the Christmas tree. “How quaint!” Then she beamed as she pointed at the Godfrey Whitt display. “Niiiiiiiiice,” she said to Killian. “And they usually don’t even bother with stores this small. But with Godfrey maybe deciding to read for you and all…”

“Where’s your display Trish?” I asked. Because why not?

“Oh, they don’t do displays for books like mine,” she said. “At least not yet.” Tricia looked inside the massive pleather bag she was carrying. Her bejeweled hand came out a thick manila envelope. “But I do have some promotional bookmarks and postcards that I’m going to leave at the store.”

“Kindling,” Jackson said, quietly.

 “And you,” Tricia said to Gigi. She tossed her promotional crap on the display table. “I want you to know that Branford is personally looking at your book right now. And…I heard rumblings that you’re one of the finalists for an intern spot.”

“Squeal!” Gigi said, in lieu of actually squealing.  She spun about and started thumb-humping her phone to alert the Twitterverse.

The doorbell tinkled again then in walked Godfrey Whitt like your standard garden variety hipster in Brooklyn. Yet he was every inch the literary rock star because he didn’t have to try the way the others did. Gigi looked up and gasped at the site of him. Tricia gave her a knowing wink. Someone was writing a gushing blog post that night. Pressed and tucked green flannel aside, Godfrey Whitt was smaller than I remembered him from the Cornelia Street reading; a diminutive, bearded impediment toward my reconciliatory progress with Carolina. And where was the old ball and chain?

“Welcome to Needful Things,” Killian said. He came over and shook Godfrey Whitt’s hand.

“Isn’t this store so quaint?” Tricia asked. She knew all about quaint. Christmas trees. Independent bookstores. Even her iPhone was two generations behind the latest model.

“Actually, it’s pretty cool,” Godfrey said. “We need more bookstores like this one.”

“Thanks, Mr. Whitt,” Killian said.

“Call me God.”

“Er…well…then this is Gigi Escritoire,” Killian continued. “Over there is Jackson Urban. And this is Rand Wyndham.”

“Him I know.” Godfrey Whitt pointed at me but didn’t offer a hand. Then he pointed at Gigi. “You have promise, young lady.”

“Huh?” The girl looked like she was going to pop.

“Branford showed God and his agent some of your manuscript,” Tricia said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I…,” was pretty much all Gigi was capable of in the moment.

“It shows a lot of promise,” Godfrey Whitt said. “The characters are all so…well, I guess there’s no other word than authentic. It’s like you’re actually walking down those halls with the kids. I’m thinking of getting into the genre myself, that’s why I reached out to Branford. Maybe something retro that takes place in the 1980s, see if I too have that flair for authentic teen angst.”

“YA is a serious thing,” Gigi finally said. “If you add your voice to the mix, it could be a real push for all of us.”

“Well, with the current book there are all these requests for appearances and for essays. and…”

“Don’t forget the podcast and your Snapchat page,” I said. “Plus, there’s that line of dild…”

“You must have so many ideas,” Gigi broke in.

“The key is to avoid the internet if you can,” Our world-slinging sage offered.

“And this display, God,” Tricia said. “What do we think of that?”

“Who is that old-yet-still-dashing man,” Godfrey Whitt said. He and Tricia laughed like assholes. “I’m joking, of course. You never get used to seeing things like this.”

“That and Black Republicans,” I said.

“Carolina said you had an interesting type of humor,” Godfrey Whitt said. “I didn’t know you and she spoke so often.” He took his eyes off his display to give me a devil stare.

“We communicate every ninth or tenth email,” I said. “But she’s at her most loquacious when I ply her with rye and get her yapping about bathroom sinks.”

“Maybe we should check out the basement,” Killian said. “The reading has gotten bigger in scope, so the space may not work. But we can check it out anyway.”

Whitt shrugged then nodded his consent. Then the pack of them all started marching down to Needful Things luxurious second floor, like the goddamned place wasn’t even open for business. The one customer threw up her hands at the cash register and left her book just sitting there. A copy of In the Seconds before Impact. One less sale. One less dollar to pay the rent. I wondered where Killian hid his whiskey because, yours truly, needed a fucking drink.

But then the Needful Things bell tink-tinkled again, and there was Carolina front and center in the store. She glared at me then went back to her phone. I couldn’t stop looking at her. People just had those people; the ones who stopped time when they stood before you. Carolina was that to me. Everything kind of slows down when people like that are in front of you. Except the old ticker; that painful organ rages like a hurricane.

“What?” Carolina said, after she finished texting. “I’m not apologizing for the rummy comment…or giving you the finger…or not answering your dumb emails.”

“The fact that you remembered fills me with such warmth.”

“Sure you didn’t piss yourself?” I took a brief glance below deck and all was fine save the old unzipped zipper. “Anyway, where’s God…Godfrey?”

“He’s in the basement mingling with his ardent fan base.”

Carolina frowned. “They couldn’t wait?’ She checked her cell phone again while I checked her out: auburn hair pulled back; big glasses; sleek leather coat; the rest of her clad in black. Carolina looked every bit the famous author’s much younger girlfriend. You never would’ve thought she’d once lied down with a dog like me.

She started to breeze past me. “God-boy said you were just an adjunct and you’d be lucky to find the door,” I said.

“No…he…” Carolina turned, put that hand on her hip. “I don’t want to do this this afternoon, Rand. But since you’re here let’s just be civil and get this part over with.”

“Ah, but it’s something he could’ve said, right? All those witty little slights. Epic battles waged over your versus you are and their versus they are. I’ll bet he excels at explaining the tenants of feminism and racism to women and people of color.”

“At least he didn’t try to piss in my sink,” she said.

“I’ve stopped doing that,” I said. “Mostly.”

“At your age I don’t know whether or not to be proud of you or just continue to be saddened by your existence.” Carolina glanced at her phone and sighed. She thumb-humped her machine in that brilliant way millennials had of making you think they pushed out of their mothers with one attached to their hands. “I think I’ll choose apathy.”

“It’s nice seeing you, by the way,” I said. Carolina rolled her eyes. ‘And thank you…for getting God-boy. He means a lot to Killian.”

“You’re thanking me?” she said, looking up. A piece of that auburn hair untangled from the tight bun and unfurled over her big eyeglasses. “This was all Tricia Thread’s doing.”

“Liar.”

“Okay…maybe I whispered something in his ear too.”

“All the same how have you been?”

“Why do you care?” she said, softly. Carolina looked at me. Then she quickly shook herself back into existence. “I’ve been busy.” She waved her phone. “Busy reading papers, busy trying to do my own stuff, busy with Godfrey and this obnoxious holiday that’s coming. Busy.”

“Yeah I’m busy too,” I said. “I got this lady friend…in case you wanted to know.”

“I’m only curious where you’ll run away to this time.”

“Her name is Larissa Haven-St. Claire. She’s a big poet in these parts.”

She shrugged. “Is she at least legal?” Carolina glanced from me to her phone, as if she were dealing with dual enemies.

“One-hundred percent street legal in all fifty states,” I said.

“Good for you, I guess. The book coming out any time soon?”

“There’s a rumbling in the underground of an updated PDF.”

The Needful Things bell tink-tinkled again. I took a break from staring at Carolina but she kept to her phone. It was Larissa. Fresh from yoga class Larissa, which meant tight, maroon yoga pants tucked into shin-high ankle boots with fuck-me heels, a gym-class gray tank top underneath her own sleek, black leather jacket; black hair with superhero blue streaks (we’d gone from magenta to blue shortly after Thanksgiving). Larissa had her own pair of big, black glasses on. The good Lord could kill me now in that moment if she and Carolina didn’t look kind of like twins. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice. Man, I hated having a type.

“Well, speak of the devil and the devil appears,” I said. “Your ears must be ringing.”

“Why aren’t you at work?” Larissa asked.

“Snow day?”

“It’s sixty degrees out.” She came over and kissed me. “And I’m meeting Gigi for a late lunch.”

“Rand was probably just confused by snow because of all of his dandruff,” Carolina said. She offered her hand “Carolina DeWitt.” They shook and Larissa introduced herself. “Rand just spoke highly of you, which usually makes me suspect.” Carolina held up her phone. Larissa’s blog was suddenly on it. “But you’re a good poet.”

“Fucking phones,” I said.

“I really have to start working on some new stuff,” Larissa said.

“I’m so unmotivated to do anything at the end of the year,” Carolina said. “And reading the work of undergrads doesn’t help.”

“I know, right? It’s like you wonder if you’re writing is as juvenile and undisciplined as theirs.”

“You teach writing?”

“At a community center.”

“I thought it was a community college,” I said

Larissa turned to Carolina. “I try to get in all the bullet points of conversation before Rand’s third drink.” They both laughed. I laughed. Why the fuck not? This wasn’t killing me internally, at least not yet, and somewhere in the hopeful bowels of my booze-soaked soul there lay a sliver of a chance at a threesome.

“But, seriously,” Carolina said. “I just love the voice you have.”

“In the three seconds you spent reading her work?” I said.

“She teaches, Rand,” Larissa said. “She knows.”

“I feel like you wouldn’t have poet voice on stage,” Carolina said.

“What in the fuck is that?” I asked.

“You know,” Larissa said. “I…am…writing...a poem…and…I’m…reading…it.”

“Exactly!” Carolina laughed. “

“Do I do that?” I asked.

“You slur, Rand,” Larissa said. “And you screw up lines every time you stop for a drink.”

“Or when you think you’re being funny,” Carolina added. “And you read too fast.”

“People listen too slowly,” I said. “And they’re humorless.”

Larissa turned to Carolina. “I confess I read one of your short stories online. It was killer. That ending where the dude’s boss pulls out the panties in a plastic bag…”

“I used that story in part of my novel,” Carolina said.

“You know that really happened,” I added. “To me. To the guy actually standing here being insulted by the two of you.”

Larissa’s eyes bulged. “You wrote a novel?” She knew damned well that Carolina had. I’d spent this honeymoon period of our relationship bitching about that novel. The N.S.A. could cull up hundreds of lines of Google Chat text with me complaining about that novel when I wasn’t threatening to bury Willy Abelman out in the Meadowlands. “I’ll bet it’s so good…especially with an asinine character like that.”

“Asinine?” I said. “I’ll remember that the next time you pull out the dildo and...”

“It’s not done yet,” Carolina said, quickly. And why in the fuck was she playing along? She had to know Larissa knew. It was a well-known fact that Randall E. Wyndham did not suffer silently. If I had a true art it was complaining. “It’s close. I thought it was done. But I just showed some of it to Godfrey’s agent and he’s a little bit underwhelmed.”

The pounding up the steps was music to my ears. Another minute of Larissa and Carolina gamely talking shop and I swear I’d never pick up a pen again. I certainly wasn’t giving Larissa the sex that night. That most likely would be because I planned on getting intoxicated that afternoon. I should’ve stayed at work or gone to that meeting for all of the pain seeing Carolina caused me.

“You’re here,” was all Godfrey Whitt said to Carolina. It was real monotone too. The guy looked Larissa up and down. She actually smiled at him. He was a pussy hound. Typical stud writer. I still had that idea for a threesome in my head, but suddenly I wasn’t the star. I wasn’t even in the goddamned room. “Everything work out all right?”

Carolina nodded but didn’t speak. “This is Carolina DeWitt everyone,” Tricia said, pushing past the pack. “Carolina is an up-and-coming writer, as they say.” She clasped ahold of the poor girl like she was trying to tear her apart. A little too overzealous. “Although Rand you and Carolina already know each other.”

“Enough to smell each other’s shit,” I said.

“Ew,” Larissa said.

“We’re old frie…we’re just old,” Carolina said.

“Old enough to put a bottle of Cotes du Rhone on the bar tab,” Godfrey added.

“They were out of the 2005 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild that I requested,” I said.

Godfrey furrowed his brow. “Rand used to work in wines,” Gigi said.

“Long time ago in a galaxy, far, far away,” I said.

“Buffalo, right?” Carolina added.

“I’ll expect the other twenty…by money order?” Godfrey said. Everyone laughed. God-boy was a natural born comedian beyond the literary genius. Maybe In the Seconds before Impact was filled with the kind of Master’s Degree level wit that was common amongst those benighted amongst us. I wouldn’t know. I had a Master’s Degree but it was in Library Science. I was lucky I could read a fucking phone book and find my way to work without having to blow someone for directions.

“Godfrey,” Carolina said. She took his arm. Tons of electric blue light shot out between them.

“I’m just joking, dear,” the literary superstar said. What was he? Almost fifty to her twenty-seven? And I beat myself up about younger women? “It’s always good to buy an old acquaintance a drink or three.”

“And she’s seen me naked,” I said. “Like three times at least.”

“Apparently so has my roommate,” Larissa said.

“Anyway,” Killian broke in. “The space, Godfr…God. Did you really like it?”

“Well, like you alluded to, it’s a little small,” he said.

“Space is very important,” Tricia said. “It sets the mood, a tone.”

“I’ll remember that the next time I’m taking a shit in my bathroom,” I said. “And I can touch the wall on the other side with my feet.”

“I can talk to Jerry about renting out Modern Era,” Killian said.

“You win the lottery?” I asked. Killian didn’t say anything. He just turned red.

“Sounds good,” Godfrey Whitt said. “If I do this, I thought I might read a couple stories from The Fourteenth of June.”

“It’s one of my favorite collections,” Killian said. He wouldn’t look at me. What was the point of holding a reading to try and save Needful Things when the money would go to paying for the space? “I think people would respond well to that.”

“They usually do.” Godfrey checked out his display again. “And you have a tentative reading roster?”

“An ever-increasing one,” Killian said. He turned to Carolina. “I’d like you on the bill too.  I’ve been reading your stuff online here at the shop, and I just think a lot of it is fantastic.”

“We don’t like to read together,” Godfrey said, quickly. “We try to keep the writing out of the relationship.”

“Except for agents looking at novels about my shitty life,” I said.

“OMG,” Tricia said, holding up her phone. “We’ve got to go, God. We have that meeting with the film people.”

“What meeting?” Carolina said.

“It’s just some indie people who think the KGB bar is still cool,” Godfrey said.

“People from BCDF are interested in doing something with our books,” Tricia said. She checked her watch. “We have to go. You know what it’s like getting from Brooklyn back to what’s left of Manhattan.”

“Well, thanks again,” Killian said. He shook Godfrey’s hand, a hand that wasn’t offered to any of the rest of us. Killian then grabbed some Dive Bar Press books from the Oak Table. “For you?”

Whitt looked through the books like he was looking at his junk mail. I doubt a one of them would be read. “Where’s yours?” He said to me.

“Manana,” I said.

Carolina grabbed one of Larissa’s books out of his hand. “Something to read on the train tomorrow,” she said.

“Cool,” Larissa said.

“Your email address is on your blog, right?”

“Yours on yours?”

What the fuck, I thought.

“Are we done playing best friends here?” Godfrey said.

Carolina playfully hit him on the shoulder. The guy was becoming more human by the minute. “You’re just mad because all you do is stay in and read.”

“KGB bar, people,” Tricia said. She started hustling Godfrey and Carolina toward the door. The last bit I caught of her was that frayed bob of her ponytail, as Godfrey stroked it with his hand. When they were out the door, Tricia turned back. “I’d invite you all, but…”

Then they were all gone.