The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(43)

Elsewhere.

I feel old, Squire. Every conversation is about the past. You told me once that you wished you’d never wakened after your accident.

I wish it yet.

When you’re ninety you’ll be weeping for love of a child. That could be unseemly. I’m hardly a stranger to grief and pain myself. It’s just that the provenance of these discomforts is not always clear. I’ve long had the thought that to cook everything down to a single plight might make it more palatable. I sometimes wish that I had a dead sister to weep over. But I dont.

I never know how seriously to take you.

Couldnt be more in earnest.

Probably true. One more oddity to deal with.

Oddity is it? Mary’s celestial knickers, Squire. Today I met a man named Robert Western whose father attempted to destroy the universe and whose supposed sister proved to be an extraterrestrial who died by her own hand and as I pondered his story I realized that all which I took to be true regarding the soul of man might well stand at naught. Yours, Sigmund.

You dont know anything about my sister.

True enough. Or any sister. I never had one. Or been in love. I dont think. Well. Maybe.

Where is Miss Tulsa?

Gone to Florida to visit relatives. You see me enjoying a brief stint of freedom. Not wholly unwelcome, as you may imagine. Here, Squire. Have some more wine. We’ll change the subject.

Western put his hand over his glass. The long one smiled. You dont take me seriously. But I’ll prattle on a while yet. Maybe you’re just a hoarder of misery. Waiting for the market to rise.

I’m not miserable, John.

Well you’re something. What? A study in regret? Classical, that. The ground of tragedy. The soul thereof. Whereas grief itself is only the subject matter.

I’m not sure I follow you.

I’ll go slower. Grief is the stuff of life. A life without grief is no life at all. But regret is a prison. Some part of you which you deeply value lies forever impaled at a crossroads you can no longer find and never forget.

Do you have a license for this?

Let’s have some coffee. You’re beginning to look maudlin.

Well, I wont joust with you on your own ground. You’re a man of words and I one of number. But I think we both know which will prevail.

Well said, Squire. We do indeed, more’s the pity.

The waiter came. He returned with cups and carafe. Sheddan peeled the wrapper from a cigar and clipped the end with a device which he’d taken to carrying on his keychain. He lit the cigar and puffed at it and held it at arm’s length to study it and then clamped it in his teeth. The other bonus of course is that it doesnt crowd one’s nap time. The early lunch. I saw Pharaoh the other day. She was asking after you.

You saw who?

Bianca. She’s an interesting girl. You should take her out. I think she’s fairly spoiling for a fuck.

I dont think so.

Really.

Really.

You’d get fucked to a faretheewell. I can warrant it.

I’m sure.

I asked her once what it was she would like to do that she had not.

And?

She gave it some thought. I dont know, she said. Fuck in the mud? And I said no. Aside from that. Maybe something of a nonsexual nature. Well. She said that was a tough one. She didnt see how it would be interesting. She said, and I quote: People’s fantasies are usually not all that interesting. Unless it’s something truly sick and twisted and depraved. Then of course you get interested. You care.

You care?

Her words. She liked the cut of your jib. I warned her that you were a difficult case. To put it mildly. Well. I’m not without sympathy for your plight, Squire. And of course the world of amorous adventure these days is hardly for the fainthearted. The very names of the diseases evoke dread. What the hell is chlamydia? And who named it that? Your love is not so likely to resemble a red red rose as a red red rash. You find yourself yearning for a nice oldfashioned girl with the clap. Shouldnt these lovelies be required to fly their pestilential knickers from a flagpole? Like the ensign of a plagueship? I cant of course but be curious what an analytic sort such as yourself makes of the fair sex in the first place. The slurred murmurings. The silken paw in your shorts. Beguiling eyes. Creatures soft of touch and sanguinivorous of habit. What runs so contrary to received wisdom is that it really is the male who is the aesthete while the woman is drawn to abstractions. Wealth. Power. What a man seeks is beauty, plain and simple. No other way to put it. The rustle of her clothes, her scent. The sweep of her hair across his naked stomach. Categories all but meaningless to a woman. Lost in her calculations. That the man knows not how to even name that which enslaves him hardly lightens his burden. I know what you’re thinking.

What am I thinking?

Something along the lines of the old chestnut about the lothario who in his heart despises women.

I’m not thinking that.

No?

I’m thinking in a rather vague and unstructured way about the bizarre concatenation of events that must have conspired to bring about you.

Really.

Really.

Well. I suppose we’re somewhat of a piece. Again, I’ve encountered no greater mystery in life than myself. In a just society I’d be warehoused somewhere. But of course what really threatens the scofflaw is not the just society but the decaying one. It is here that he finds himself becoming slowly indistinguishable from the citizenry. He finds himself co-opted. Difficult these days to be a rake or a bounder. A roué. A deviant? A pervert? Surely you’re joking. The new dispensations have all but erased these categories from the language. You can no longer be a loose woman. For instance. A trollop. The whole concept is meaningless. You cant even be a drug addict. At best you’re just a user. A user? What the fuck is that? We’ve gone from dope fiends to drug users in just a few short years. It doesnt take Nostradamus to see where this is headed. The most heinous of criminals clamoring for standing. Serialkillers and cannibals claiming a right to their lifestyle. Like anyone else I try to sort out where I fit into this menagerie. Without malefactors the world of the righteous is robbed of all meaning. As for myself again if I cant be decorum’s sworn enemy while savoring its fruits I simply see no place for me at all. What would you recommend, Squire? Go home and draw a warm bath and climb in and open a vein? Never mind. I see you weighing the merits of it. I enjoy my life, Squire. Against all odds. Anyway, Hoffer has it right. Real trouble doesnt begin in a society until boredom has become its most general feature. Boredom will drive even quietminded people down paths they’d never imagined.