Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon [113]
“We go to the Presbyterian church, actually,” said James. “They do. At Christmas. Shoot, I remember one time we went to this restaurant, in Mt. Lebanon, and I ordered a cream soda? And they yelled at me. They said it was too Jewish, Cream soda, that’s about as Jewish as I ever got.”
“Dangerously close,” said Crabtree, solemnly. “Next thing you know you would have been strapping that little box onto your forehead.”
I said, “So what did you think of Passover, then? Of the Seder? Of the Warshaws?”
“It was interesting,” said James. “They were nice.”
“Did it make you feel Jewish?” I said, thinking that perhaps this was the reason he’d stolen the burnt-out candle from the Warshaws’ kitchen. “Being with them?”
“Not really.” He sat back and tipped his head backward, looking up at the cold stars through the bare canopy of tree limbs overhead. “It made me feel like I wasn’t anything.” He said something more after that, but with his head tilted back his voice emerged pinched from his larynx, and the wind passing over the car carried his words away.
“I didn’t catch that last part,” I told him.
“I said, ‘Like I’m nothing,’” he said.
WHEN WE GOT BACK to my house the front door was wide open and all the lights were on. The stereo was playing softly in the living room.
“Hello?” I called. I went into the living room. It was deserted. There were crushed tortilla chips on the rug, cassettes and album jackets scattered everywhere; a giant Texas-shaped ashtray, which someone had left balanced on the arm of a wing-backed chair, had since tipped over onto the seat cushion, spilling butts and ashes all over the pale striped fabric. I went through the dining room, into the kitchen, and then checked out the laundry room, looking for survivors, collecting empty beer cans and turning off the lights as I went.
“There’s nobody here,” I said, circling back out into the hallway, where I’d left Crabtree and James; they too had vanished. I started down the hall after them, to see if I could interest anyone in blowing a joint with me and then searching the late-night dial for a good infomercial or a Hercules movie, but I didn’t get far before I heard the tongue of Crabtree’s door latch click discreetly against the jamb.
“Crabtree,” I called, in a panicked whisper.
There was a pause, and then his head emerged into the hall.
“Ye-es?” he said. He looked a little exasperated. I’d caught him just as he was tucking his napkin into the collar of his shirt, licking his lupine chops. “What, Tripp?”
I stuck my hands into the pockets of my jacket. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to ask him to pull an all-nighter with me, the way we’d used to do, sitting on opposite sides of a nine-pack of Old Milwaukee, inveighing against our enemies, smoking black cigars, speculating for hours on the meaning of a certain enigmatic question in the lyrics of “Any Major Dude.” I wanted to tell him that I didn’t think I could face another night in the emptiness of my bed. I wanted to ask him if there was anything in my life that was real and coherent and likely to remain the same way tomorrow.
“Here,” I said. From one of the hip pockets of my jacket I produced the fabled Lov-O-Pus I’d bought this morning at the Giant Eagle, on the way out to Kinship. I tossed it at him, and he caught it in one hand. “Wear it in good health.”
He read the tentacular promises made in wiggly green letters on the label of the Lov-O-Pus condom. He smiled.
“Thanks,” he said. He started to close the door.
“Crabtree!”
He stuck his head back out into the hall.
“What am I going to do now?”
He shrugged. “Why don’t you go finish your book?” he said. There was a nasty and unmistakable gleam in his eye, and I saw that he had taken a look at the manuscript of Wonder Boys; there was no question about it. “Aren’t you just about done?”
“Just about,” I said.
“There you go,” he said. “Why don’t you give it a good hour and wrap the whole thing up?”
Then he drew back into the bedroom and firmly shut the door.
I went into the kitchen again, pressed my ear against