Touchy Subjects: Stories

  In his tiny apartment, he opened the file called GREAT NOVEL and tinkered with the punctuation of a single sentence, then stared at the wall until his computer went into sleep mode to save energy. He sniffed the air. Parsnips? he wondered. Or cumin? Damp under the carpet?

  He lay on the couch all evening watching the Home Shopping Network. They always seemed to be advertising some gadget that sealed things into plastic bags. Cubes of broth, apple pies, cashmere sweaters, silver spoons—just about everything, they said, would be cleaner and safer if stored in a vacuum pack.

  He fell asleep on the couch and woke in the middle of the night with a crooked neck. He had been dreaming that he lured the would-be's, with their griefs and their odours and their terrible ambitions, into a giant plastic bag and sealed them all away.

  The next morning he had a raging headache. He lay staring at the ceiling for some hours before he called Marsha to say, in an exaggeratedly gravelly voice, that he feared he was coming down with something, and could she reschedule all his appointments?

  He moped around all week, dozing on the couch in the afternoons, staying close to home in case anybody saw him and reported he wasn't sick.

  He went back into college on Monday, before Marsha could call and ask him for a doctor's note. But this time he was determined not to let the bastards grind him down.

  He indulged in cruelty; it passed the time. He started reading the manuscripts again and marking them in red pen—a big circle round every mistake—not because he thought the would-be in question would really benefit, but simply as punishment. He made his marginalia deliberately intimidating. Inexplicable P.O.V. slippages, he would scribble, or I suspect the irony of this double entendre is not intentional?, or See identical errors pp. 2, 3, 9, 15, passim. Whereas in the early weeks he had used kind euphemisms like A little overfamiliar? he now wrote CLICHÉ in large red capitals.

  He slouched in his office chair. "Sharon, would you agree that the prevailing mood of this piece is self-pity?"

  "Dr. Partridge, you describe the mother's smile as viscous. Were you referring to a metaphorical oiliness about it, or failing to spell vicious'?""

  Dear Mr. McCullen, he wrote on English department notepaper, Thank you for your letter. I have read your manuscript, which appears to be largely based on Gone with the Wind, though lacking that novel's strengths. For your future reference, plagiarism has a better chance of going undetected when the source text is not one of the bestselling novels of the twentieth century. Then his hand started to shake, so he tore the letter up.

  Insomniac at four a.m., the writer fantasized about going one step further and speaking the plain truth. No, Jonas, he might say to the spotty boy, this isn't a poem. These are pretentious words from an online thesaurus, typed out in no particular order.

  Maybelline, forget what your swim coach said. You have no talent. Zero. Zip!

  Herb, we are not Soul-Friends, as you put it in your last note. You are suffering from a midlife homoerotic infatuation, and I only talk to you because I'm being paid.

  People, give it up he could bawl at them all. Get over it! Try extreme sports, masturbation, anything. Stop violating the language I used to love.

  The worst thing the writer ever actually said was at the end of a long Friday. BJ came in with gold shades on, radiant. "I did what you told me, man."

  "Really," said the writer, trying to remember what he had told BJ.

  "I made all those changes you asked for. And I'm gonna go for it."

  "For what?"

  "The big time!" BJ delivered the line in rapper style, using his hands. "You know how I was telling you John Grisham sold his first book out of his truck? Well, Wal-Mart's gonna let me set up a table."

  The writer's mind was foggy this morning. "Is this about ... self-publishing?"

  "That's right, man." BJ was only a little sheepish. "I made a few calls, found a guy that'll do me five hundred copies for two grand. Charlene is gonna lend me most of it."

  The writer considered whether to tell BJ that to print five hundred copies of his so-called coming-of-age novel was a criminal waste of trees as well as his ex-girlfriend's money. That it would never get reviewed, stocked, or bought. Instead he dragged the dog-eared manuscript towards him and opened it at random. "This sentence doesn't have a verb."

  The gilt shades looked back at him blankly.

  "If you don't know what a verb is, BJ, why the fuck do you imagine you can write a novel?"

  Tears skidded down BJ's face. The young man tried to speak; his Adam's apple jerked. He bent over as if he'd been stabbed. There were salt drops on the writer's desk, on the manuscript.

  "I'm sorry," the writer said, breathless, "I'm so sorry—"

  But BJ didn't seem to hear him. "I just, you know," he sobbed at last, "I guess it was different for you 'cuz you're like a genius. I just think, I've spent so long on this thing, I just want it to be over and out there." The breath rasped in his throat. "If I could only see my name—I'd know I'd done something. On a book. Any kind of book of my own. My name on it. You know?"

  The writer did know.

  He flew home for the weekend and slept on a friend's futon. He wandered round town the way he always used to, and he felt sick, as if something were punctured in his stomach. The seats in his favourite café were all taken. In his local bookstore, the massed tides faced him down.

  He sat on a park bench, bundled up against the December cold. It would be easy enough to tender his resignation on health grounds. Depression, he could call it, or a breakdown. He could send the rest of the money back, ask Marsha to box up his possessions and shred any papers in his office.

  Three slim hardcovers proved nothing about him. There were hundreds of thousands of new books published every day. He thought about other ways of earning a living. He'd been quite good at selling fitness equipment, he seemed to remember. WritOr Die, he repeated in his head, WritOr Die. Was there any truth in that? Did he have a real gift, a sacred vocation? Maybe he was just as much of a self-deceiver as any of the would-be's. Maybe he'd be happier being a salesman.

  The fact that he took the last flight back on Sunday night and was in his office at nine o'clock the next morning rather puzzled him afterwards. But he needed to get the job done.

  That Monday was quiet. He surprised himself by writing a four-page scene for chapter four of his novel. Nothing that would change the course of literary history, but still, not bad: well-constructed, workmanlike, entirely readable.

  A knock. It occurred to him not to answer. He wasn't visible through the smoky glass. How could anyone know he was there?

  "Are you, like, the writer?" the girl asked when he opened the door.

  "So they say," he answered.

  She stepped into the office. She held out a single sheet with flittered edges, ripped off from a refill pad.

  "All writings have to be given in a week in advance," he said automatically.

  "Yeah, the secretary said, but I just happened to be passing through this building, I never usually do. I only got this done last night; it's sort of a poem."

  He repressed a wince. He waved to indicate that she should sit down while he looked at it.

  After he'd read the short lyric for the first time he turned towards the window, in his swivel chair, so he could be unobserved. He didn't want to have to worry about his face. He read it again, more slowly, then once more. Yes, his first impression hadn't deceived him. It wasn't just wishful thinking after all these awful months.

  "So?" the girl asked, sounding a little bored.

  He turned round, and gave a little shrug. "It's ... entirely beautiful." He sounded hoarse.

  She stared back at him for a second, then let out a hiccup of laughter. She was an ordinary, not-very-good-looking girl. "Cool," she said, and reached out to take her page back.

  "No, but listen," the writer told her, holding on to it. "You have a rare talent."

  "Nice of you to say so." The girl was strapping her bag across her should
er blade.

  "If you leave this copy with me—"

  "Sorry, no can do," she said, holding out her hand for it again; "I send them to my boyfriend, he's in the Marines, though I don't know does he like them really, though he says he does."

  "But this poem must be published."

  "Get out," she said, sheepish.

  "I'm quite serious," the writer told her. "I know the editor of a marvelous little magazine..."

  She shook her head. "I wouldn't really be into that. I just like writing them."

  "You don't want to be published?" His voice was shrill.

  "Not really. My friends would think it was kinda dumb. I mean, no offense," she corrected herself.

  He could feel his face contort. "So why did you come here?"

  "Gee, I'm sorry if I've wasted your time. I just thought, you know, as I was passing, I'd see what you had to say."

  "Well, I'm telling you, this poem is superb. So simple and so powerful. I don't know how you did it. I—" He made the great effort. "I've never written anything that good in my life."

  She gave him an odd, pitying look. "Hey, keep it, then. See ya," she added, backing out the door.

  Alone in his office, he read the poem twice more before realizing there was no name on the page. He called Marsha, but she didn't know who the girl was, either.

  He kept the poem pinned to his corkboard. He read it once, at the end of every day, till the end of the year. It kept him dangling somewhere between hope and despair.

  DESIRE

  Team Men

  That was the kindest thing Saul could say about anyone, that he was a real team man. "Jonathan," he used to tell his son over their bacon, eggs, sausage, and beans, "a striker's not put up front for personal glory. You'll only end up a star player if you keep your mind on playing for the good of the team. Them as tries to be first shall be last and vice versa."

  Jon just kept on eating his toast.

  Saul King believed in fuel, first thing in the morning, when there was plenty of time ahead to burn it up. "Breakfast like a legend, dine like a journeyman, and sup like a sub." That made him cackle with laughter.

  The boy was just sixteen and nearly six foot tall. Headers were his strong point. When the ball sailed down to him he could feel his neck tighten and every bit of force in his body surge towards the hard plate at the front of his skull. The crucial thing was to be ready for the ball; to meet all its force and slam it back into the sky. On good days Jon felt hard and shiny as a mirror. He knew that if the planet Mars came falling down, he could meet it head-on and rocket it into the next galaxy.

  But by now he had learned to pay no attention to his dad before a game. If Jon let the warnings get through to him, he couldn't swallow. If he didn't eat enough, he found himself knackered at halftime. If he flagged, he missed passes, and the goalmouth seemed ten miles away. If the team lost, his dad took it personally and harder than a coach should. Once when Jon fluffed a penalty kick, Saul hadn't spoken a word to him for a week.

  "Nerves of steel," the greying man said finally, as they sat at opposite ends of the table waiting for Mum to bring a fresh pot of tea.

  Jon's fork clinked against his plate. "What's that, Dad?"

  "If a striker hasn't got nerves of steel when they're needed, he's no right to take a penalty kick at all."

  His son listened and learned. As if he had a choice.

  The lads were already having a kickabout on the pitch when the Kings drove up. Saul got out; the car door steadied in his hand as he watched the lads over his shoulder. "Well, well," he said, "who have we here?"

  One unfamiliar coppery head, breaking away from the pack. "Oh yeah, Shaq said he might bring someone from school," Jon mentioned, hauling his kit bag out of the backseat.

  "Now there's a pair of legs," breathed Saul. He and his son stood a foot apart, watching the new boy run. He was runt-sized, but he moved as sleekly as cream.

  "A winger?" hazarded Jon.

  "We'll see," said Saul, mysterious.

  Davy turned out to be seventeen. Up close he didn't look so short; his limbs were narrow but pure muscle. The youngest of eight; one of those big rackety Irish families. His face went red as strawberries when he ran, but he never seemed to get out of breath; his laugh got a bit hoarser, that was all. He was a cunning bastard on the pitch. Beside him Jon felt lumbering and huge.

  In the dressing room after that first practice Davy played his guitar as if it were electric. He sang along, confidently raucous.

  Get knocked down

  But I get up again...

  "Best put a bit of meat on those bones," observed Saul, and loaded Davy down with five bags of high-protein glucose supplement. It turned out Davy lived just down the road from the Kings, so Saul insisted on giving him a lift home.

  After a fortnight Davy was pronounced a real team man. He was to be the new striker. Jon was switched to midfield. "It's not a demotion," his father repeated. "This is a team, not a bloody corporation."

  Jon looked out the car window and thought about playing on a team where the coach wouldn't be his dad, wouldn't shove him from one position to another just to prove a point about not giving his son any special treatment. Jon visualized himself becoming a legend in some sport Saul King had never tried, could hardly spell, even—badminton, maybe, or curling, or luge.

  The thing was, though, all he'd ever wanted to play was football.

  Jon was over the worst of his sulks by the next training session. He had every reason to hate this Davy, but it didn't happen. The boy was a born striker, Jon had to admit; it would have been nonsense to put him anywhere else on the pitch. He wasn't a great header of the ball, but he was magic with his feet.

  And midfield had its own satisfactions, Jon found. "You lot are the big cog in the team's engine," Saul told them solemnly. "You slack off for a second, the game will fall apart."

  Pounding along with the ball at his feet, Jon saw Davy out of the corner of his eye. "With ya!" Jon passed the ball sideways, and Davy took it without even looking. Only after he'd scored did he spin round to give Jon his grin.

  "Your dad's a laugh. I mean," Davy corrected himself in the shower, "he's all right. He knows a lot."

  "Not half as much as he pretends," said Jon, soaping his armpits.

  "Is it true what Shaq says about him, that he got to the semifinal of the 1979 FA Cup?"

  Jon nodded, sheepish.

  Davy, under the stream of water, sprayed like a whale. "Fuck. What did he play?"

  "Keeper." On impulse, Jon stepped closer to Davy's ear. "Dad'd flay me if he knew I told you this. He's never forgiven himself."

  "What? What?" The boy's eyes were green as scales.

  "He flapped at it. The winning goal."

  Davy sucked his breath in. It made a clean, musical note.

  In October the days shortened. One foul wet afternoon Saul made them run fifteen laps of the field before they even started, and by the time he finally blew the whistle, they had mud to their waists and it was too dark to see the ball. Naz tripped over Jon's foot and landed on his elbow. "You big ape," moaned Naz; "you lanky fucking ape-man."

  The other lads thought this was very funny.

  "You can't let them get to you," Davy said casually, afterwards, while they were warming down.

  "Who?" said Jon, as if from a million miles away.

  Davy shrugged. "Any of them. Anyone who calls you names."

  Jon chewed his lip.

  "I've got five big brothers," Davy added, when he and Jon were sitting in the back of the car, counting their bruises. "And my sisters are even worse. They've always taken the piss out of me. One of them called me the Little Stain till she got married."

  A grin loosened Jon's jaw. He stared out the window at his father, who was collecting the training cones.

  "Just ignore the lads and remember what a good player you are."

  "Maybe I'm not," said Jon, looking down into Davy's red hair.

  "Maybe you're what?" Davy let
out a yelp of laughter. "Jon-boy, you're the best. You've got a perfect footballing brain, and you're a sweet crosser of the ball."

  Jon was glad of the twilight, then. Blood sang in his cheeks.

  Davy came round every couple of days now. Mrs. King often asked him to stop for dinner. "That boy's not getting enough at home," she observed darkly. But Jon thought Davy looked all right as he was.

  Jon's little sister Michaela sat beside Davy at the table whenever she got the chance, even if she did call him Short-arse. She was only fifteen, but she looked old enough. As she was always reminding Jon, girls matured two years faster.

  Davy ended up bringing Michaela to the local Hallowe'en Club Night and Jon brought her friend Tasmin. While the girls were queuing up for chips afterwards, Davy followed Jon into the loos. Afterwards, Jon could never be sure who'd started messing round; it just happened. It was sort of a joke and sort of a dare. In a white stall with a long crack in the wall they unzipped their jeans. They kept looking down; they didn't meet each other's eyes.

  It was over in two minutes. It took longer to stop laughing.

  When they got back to the girls, the chips were gone cold and Michaela wanted to know what was so funny. Jon couldn't think of anything, but Davy said it was just an old Diana joke. Tasmin said in that case they could keep it to themselves because she didn't think it was very nice to muck around with the dead.

  After Hallowe'en, some people said Davy was going out with Michaela. Jon didn't know what that meant exactly. He didn't think Davy and Michaela did stuff together, anyway. He didn't know what to think.

  Saul King expressed no opinion on the matter. But he'd started laying into Davy at practice. "Mind your back! Mind your house!" he bawled, hoarse. "Keep them under pressure!"

  Davy said nothing, just bounced around, grinning as usual.

  "Where's your bleeding eyes?"

  "Somebody's not the golden boy anymore," commented Peter to Naz under his breath.

  Saul said he had errands to do in town, so Jon and Davy could walk home for once.

  "Your dad's being a bit of a prick these days," commented Davy as they turned the first corner.