The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland [28]
Change of subject:
Wayne’s one of those dogs that smile. And I see he likes to fetch things. I divide dogs into two categories—those for whom you drop a stick and they look at it like it was a rock, and those who pick even rocks up and who like to chase and fetch things. I think Wayne would jump off a cliff for you.
Now that I think about it, dammit, I want a dog.
Five minutes later:
Kyle gave me a sandwich-sized Ziploc bag full of trail mix, heavy on the almonds. We’re having these really great discussions about mortality because of him losing his grandmother. I’m kind of scaring myself at what a pro I am on the subject, but he really needs me. I get the feeling he’s never actually had a real conversation with anybody before.
The hospital freaked him out the most. He went to visit his grandmother in the extended-care ward in a private room, and because of the tangled mess that is his father and his collection of trophy wives, Kyle ended up alone in the room with his grandmother most of the time. She was on a respirator and morphine and totally out of it, and he tried to relax and look at the snow that was just beginning to dust the mountains, and—here’s the funny part—he’d try to use psychic powers to make planes crash, just like Steve!
Another change of subject:
Blair got fired for stealing gum. They got it on tape.
I hate the future.
PS:
QUESTION: What did DeeDee have for breakfast this morning?
ANSWER: Several cigarettes.
Glove Pond
An hour melted away as Steve lectured his guests about his five novels. He smiled at Brittany. “Do you know what The Boston Globe said about my fifth novel? They called it ‘A Five-Year Plan of Miniaturization.’”
“Oh my.”
Steve then realized it might be a good idea if one of his guests had a chance to speak . . . Perhaps that young Falconcrest chap would like to say something. But then Steve remembered that Kyle was a writer and would most likely want to discuss his own writing: borrrrrrring. Steve groaned inwardly, looked at Kyle and realized that, as a host, he had no choice but to ask his guests about their opinions and ideas. He jumped off the cliff: “Tell me, Kyle, you must enjoy reading as well as writing. What books have been important to you and your life?”
Kyle looked at his host, and Steve thought he looked almost stunned.
“Really? You’re asking someone a question? I’m shocked.”
“Nonsense. You’re a guest in my home, and you’re also a fellow writer. Writers as a group are always giving, unjealous and supportive of all other writers. Nothing makes a writer happier than hearing of another writer’s success—or hearing another writer discuss his or her books. So please, Kyle, do tell us what books have shaped you and your life.”
“Well . . .”
Kyle began to speak, and as he did, Steve tried hard to give the illusion of listening. His mind drifted off to other moments in his life when he’d asked writers the same question. They invariably chose something by that upstart monster Salinger—a one-trick-pony almost pitifully dependent on telephones for his plot lines.
What other books did writers like? Oh yes—pornographic stewed cabbage by that pederast . . . what was his name—Nebulov? Nunavut? Nabokov? Yes, Nabokov— and his book Lolita—the masturbatory rantings of a deviant perpetuating his unclean, lustful ideas.
As Kyle continued to speak about whatever it was he was speaking about, Steve’s mind drifted back to an incident involving the novel Lolita—an afternoon a decade before, at the university, when a crazed den of love-starved lesbians from the Women’s Studies Department had organized a seminar dedicated to removing Lolita from the school’s reading lists. Steve had entered the room by accident, to avoid another professor approaching from down the hall. The Women’s Studies ringleader, upon seeing Steve at the back of the room, asked for his view on the book, and