Sex and Death in the American Novel (29 page)

“That's the most radical story I've ever heard.” The look of awe he gave me was almost comic.

We sat for a minute watching each other until Jasper came padding down the stairs.

On the way to the ferry we showed Alejandro around the island. I drove, watching the hills roll away from the road, cursing the drizzle while still finding comfort in the mist.

Alejandro spent at least an hour going over the angst with which he made the decision to move across the country, to a new school. He wanted a change; he'd visited enough places to know the west was where he wanted to spend his time. Seattle, with its lively literary and cultural community, seemed like a perfect fit.

After a while, talk moved to books; I listened until they spent way too long talking about some long Russian thing I had never even heard of. The
War and Peace
discussion I could tune out. “Okay, so if I am going to drive,
you two are going to have to keep me awake. Please explain to me the allure of these long-winded tomes. Are you guys really just trying to impress each other or what?”

While Jasper watched the scenery dash past, Alejandro continued to lean forward, listening, his head tilting to look out the window every so often.

“My brother loved these guys who took ten times longer than necessary to say one thing. I know what was most important was
how
they said it, I get that, but I would rather just cut to the chase. In my world it's flat-out rude to waste someone's time like that.”

“She sounds like one of my students,” Alejandro said to Jasper, who surveyed me while running one finger over his top lip like he wasn't sure how to begin.

“Think about this. The experience of reading is a very intimate one. When you read a book you're giving the author your time, your thoughts, giving him access to your most intimate place. It's like sex. If someone isn't prepared to put their best forward in a situation like that, why should I give them my time?”

“So I assume you've read
Vox?
” Alejandro asked.

“Oh, wow,” I said. I turned back to gauge Jasper's expression. His eyes danced and I knew that he knew I really, really wanted to keep talking about this. He shook his head with a low laugh and ran his hand over my hair, my shoulder.

I turned back to Alejandro. “You just don't know. Nobody talks to me about books like this.”

Alejandro only smiled and kept the look of expectation on. “I thought it was very well done though the ending seemed a little weak. What did you think of it?”

“The best thing about
Vox
was how he celebrated the female point of view in sex. The female orgasm meant something to him. So many times in movies, and books, even the ones written by women, the focus is still on the man. Nothing the woman does matters unless it furthers the man's enjoyment.”

Alejandro's eyes lit up, it seemed there were several different things he could have said and held them back. “I bet you didn't know I read his litty stuff,” I said to Jasper. “So the other thing he did in this other book—
U and I
—was he talked about this really special relationship you have with a writer, how you feel you know them because of the experience of both reading them and of thinking about them. I hadn't expected that. I loved that surprise. In a lot of what I read you more or less know what is coming.”

Jasper burst out with a laugh and I gave him a light slap on the leg.

“I love it,” Alejandro said.

Jasper studied the landscape, his eyes flitting once overhead when two black spots of color burst through a bunch of leaves.

I caught Alejandro's eyes in the rearview mirror. He spoke to both of us though Jasper continued to stare out the window. “Since you've read
Dune
, have you watched
Battlestar Galactica?
”

I launched into a ten minute diatribe about why it was the best written show on TV next to
Dexter
. Alejandro argued that the last show was a total copout. We discussed Cylons, religion and ideas about human history before Alejandro rested his hand on Jasper's arm and said, “Hey man, what's going on in there?”

Jasper turned. “Sorry. I still can't reconcile the beauty of this landscape.” His voice still sounded far away when he said this, like he was really talking about something else.

It got weird for a second so I moved us back where we had been comfortable. “What was the best book ever?”

“
A Clockwork Orange
,” Alejandro said without missing a second.

“I love that book!” I jumped in, happy to have the banter back.

“Was it the most radical book ever written or what?” Alejandro said.

In the mirror I studied his mouth as he talked; thin lips, but his mouth was full, the effect like something carved from clay, so perfectly shaped and purposefully worked.

I twisted around for only a moment. “Anyone who can make up words like that is a fucking genius.”

“I had no idea that's what I had to do to get your attention,” Jasper said.

“You have my attention,” I said and tickled him under his knee.

Jasper smiled and went back to staring out the window.

My eyes flashed to Alejandro in the mirror again.

“You know, I heard that was one of Burgess's least favorite books,” Alejandro said.

“I can see why,” Jasper turned in his seat, the warm smile back on his face. “It's hard to be known for one thing and have moved past it.”

“I saw the first book you wrote was
Stormy Days
, right?” Alejandro said.

Jasper turned around and cocked an eyebrow at his friend. My face warmed and I squirmed around in my seat.

“What? I got curious. When I got up this morning I got on my laptop and read her blog. There is a page on her website that lists the titles of the books.”

I added, “I'm about to publish this dark twisted novella called
Boy in a Box
.”

“Impressive,” Alejandro said, stretching out in the back seat. “I am always in awe of people who can write.”

“Didn't you have to write a book to become a professor?”

“That hardly counts. Not a more dry and dull piece of mental jerking off will you find anywhere.”

Jasper turned, reached back and grasped Alejandro's hand, only briefly, but it was enough to make me take notice. “Don't say that. I remember your stories in class.” He turned to me. “They were quite good. You had a unique voice.”

Alejandro shook his head and his words came out in a mumble, I could hardly hear what he said as he rearranged himself in the back seat. “You were the only one. Every single professor I had, not to mention the other kids, hated my shit. They said I was too crass, too honest, too everything. Too ethnic…”

“I don't remember that.” Jasper's voice rose.

Alejandro shrugged. “Plus, watching you made me really think I was never going to be that good.” Alejandro laughed this off. “We can't all be Flannery O'Connor's on the dry and dusty typewriters of life.”

Jasper sat with his face bent into a frown and long lines formed on his forehead. He finally said, “What kind of goofy metaphor is that?”

Alejandro mouthed the words ‘fuck you’ and Jasper waved it off. They sat watching each other for a long moment.

“Anyway. If I'd tried to be a writer I would never have gotten to see the countries, meet the people, learn the languages that I have.” I locked eyes with him in the mirror and tried to gauge how much he meant this. The light was back in his eyes so I let it go.

During the month that Jasper was in Seattle, we met Alejandro several times; a few nights out on the town, once for coffee and a trip downtown to check out the museum, and once to shop and wander around University Village. One night we went on a double date with him and another girl who spent the whole night trying to impress Jasper by quoting Proust. One cloudy afternoon the three of us were wandering through the Barnes & Noble at the U Village when Jasper and I got into it over our choices of reading material. To my amusement he actually said, “Well, you're just not as well read.”

I planted one foot in front of me. “Have you read Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, Alexander Trocchi, John Cleland, Marco Vassi, or the Marquis de Sade? What about Frank Herbert, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Algernon Blackwood, or anything from Pulphouse?
Weird Tales?
How can you criticize things you haven't even read, and just because I've read different books than you…does that really mean I am not well read?”

Jasper opened his mouth and started to speak, but I interrupted him. “How can you pretend to talk about the human condition, to examine,
explore and shine a light on it without handling sex? My authors do, what about yours?”

Alejandro stifled a laugh and took charge, taking one of my arms, leaving Jasper to follow us out. Jasper took my outstretched arm, and while I listened to Alejandro lecture on the merits of reading all sorts of books, I ran my hand over Jasper's forearm, leaned my head against his shoulder as we walked. Jasper silently listened while Alejandro discussed with me the ones he had read and gave me tons more suggestions. All through dinner that night Alejandro tried to find our common ground, leaving Jasper to his silence and barely disguised disapproval.

That was the first night Jasper began with the tired expressions. Alejandro would fix him with these stern looks every so often, though—and instead of upsetting him, Jasper would lean in, attempting to listen, almost the way a father might bring one of his children back to polite dinner conversation. I had never seen such an interesting interaction between two guys. There was a competition, but beneath that, something much more important.

Alejandro apparently liked to diffuse some of this on certain nights by bringing a date. One girl, Melissa, another from the English Department, was used to the discussion of canonical works and liberally used all sorts of dull words like
semiotics
and fucking
post-modern
everything that absolutely should never be involved in discussions of something as important a subject as books. It was obvious by the way he held court that Jasper missed, just a little, being worshipped.

As Alejandro and I talked about his erotic book collection, I heard her pick up the subject of Henry Miller, maybe to get in a dig at me, maybe to suck up to Jasper, maybe just to be herself. Henry Miller—for all his rough talk, character contradictions, awe-inspiring description, and twisted but somehow amazing philosophy toward life and art—was suddenly reduced to nothing more than misogynist whose mother ruined him.

“He set up other writers and artists for the depiction of women as objects.” She said this with some authority, even though she hadn't actually read more than
Tropic of Cancer
for a women's studies class. Of course they would be fair.

I said low so only Alejandro could hear, “There is a certain type of woman who needs a man to bash, and dear old Hank fits the bill every time.”

Alejandro gave me a soft smile. This was the world Alejandro had chosen to work in; I was glad for the hundredth time I hadn't pursued higher education for writing.

Alejandro tried to distract me with talk of
The Watchmen
. I placed my hand over his in apology. I turned toward the table. “Can I just say something?”

Melissa leaned back in her chair and took a drink of her wine.

“I
adore
Henry Miller.” I held up my finger when Melissa opened her mouth to speak. “When I read
Tropic of Cancer
, I spent half the time marking passages and rereading entire pages for a way to make the words stick in my head. If I denied myself the pleasure of his company because of a few c-words and well-delivered,
unwarranted
jabs at my
sex
, I would have missed that. He even gave me an idea. So I tried to do the same thing.”

Melissa looked around the table, picked up her glass of white wine and drank.

Alejandro scratched his chin, while the fireplace in the lobby set off his eyes. “You mean you think you can be as crude and vulgar as a man?”

“That's what I did in a couple of the stories in
Dandelions
.”

Alejandro made that listening-humming sound. “But those weren't all that offensive either. I doubt you would solicit the reaction from any man that Henry Miller gets out of most women.”

“That was what I did with
Boy in a Box
,” I said, hoping that was true. Intention and execution are two different things. “My manifesto.” I looked at both of them; Jasper had that distant expression he got, the only time he did this, when I talked about the meat of my work. He would stroke me on the back, be supportive if I sold something, but other than that, when it came to specific ideas, he would glaze. “This was the first time I tried to say something more than tell a story. I had another agenda.”

“Art?” Alejandro said.

“Yes. I wanted to say something, surprise people. And writing that book took more from me than all the others put together.”

Jasper scooted his chair in and placed his hand on my forearm. “So you see how it can be draining; even if you don't act like your work matters, you do get it.”

I stared at him. “Since when did my work not matter?”

“I just thought—” Jasper was excited for once, like I had come over to his side and didn't even know it, only I did.

“Dear Jasper, I just don't dwell on the hard work of my ‘process’ and turn it into a reason to avoid the world. It is possible to make meaning, art, something wonderful, and still have fun.”

Smiling, I sat sipping my beer. He threw up his hands and gave Melissa a small shake of the head.

Melissa was happy to oblige with a smile meant only for him. “So you wanted to write like a man? Like a man who hates women?”

I turned to her, placed my hand over hers, like Laura had done so long ago, flipped her hand over and traced the lines of her veins on the underside of her wrist. Her eyes got wide and I held them. “You just have to pretend
you have a small mind. Use the same words over and over… tail, ass,” I pinched one of her knuckles, “cock,” and she jerked back.

Alejandro set his empty glass on the table, staring after the waitress. “Yeah man, I want to see this book,” he said turning to me. Melissa gave him a questioning look.