Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon [42]
“He’s out,” I said.
We sat for a moment, watching the regular rise and fall of James Leer’s chest within his glen plaid shirt. The skinny little tie had come halfway unknotted and drooped at his throat like a blown flower. Crabtree dabbed at the ribbon of spit with the corner of a cocktail napkin, tenderly, as though wiping a baby’s mouth.
“He has a book,” said Crabtree. “I hear he has a novel.”
“I know it. Something about a parade. Love parade.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just found out myself tonight. He’s carrying it around in that knapsack of his.”
“Is he any good?”
“No,” I said. “Not yet he isn’t.”
“I want to read it,” said Crabtree. An oily lock of hair had fallen down across James Leer’s forehead, and he reached out to brush it back.
“Come on, Crabtree.” I lowered my voice. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?”
“He’s a kid,” I said. “He’s my student, man. I’m not even sure if he’s—”
“He is,” said Crabtree. “Take my word for it.”
“I don’t believe that he is,” I said. “I think it’s more complicated than that. I want you to leave him alone.”
“Is that so?”
“He’s really fucked up right now, Crabtree.” I lowered my voice all the way to a whisper. “I think he was planning to off himself tonight. Maybe. I don’t know. Anyway, he’s a mess. He’s a disaster. I don’t think he needs sexual confusion thrown into the mix right this minute.”
“On the contrary,” said Crabtree, “it could be just the ticket. Hey, what’s the matter, Grady?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “What do you mean?”
“Looked like you just, I don’t know, winced.”
“Oh,” I said. “It’s my foot. My foot’s killing me.”
“Your foot? What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I just—I fell.”
“Yeah, you know, you look kind of shaken up,” he said. His eyes had lost their fevered Cortés luster, and I thought I saw real tenderness in them for the first time all night. Our chairs were pushed close together and he leaned his shoulder against mine. I could still smell Tony’s perfume on his cheek. The waitress arrived with my shot of Dickel and I sipped at it, feeling the slow poison work its way into my heart;
“I like the way she dances,” said Crabtree, looking out across the floor toward Hannah Green and Q. The selection now playing was “Ride Your Pony,” by Lee Dorsey. One of the many features that marked the Hat as a survivor of the great lost era of Pittsburgh dives was its telephone jukebox. There was no actual box, only a coin-operated telephone, black and heavy as an old steam iron, mounted on a pillar at one end of the dance floor. Attached to this phone by an oft-repaired length of wire was a dog-eared, barbecue-stained playlist, typed a million years ago by some manic alphabetist, that featured over five thousand selections, grouped by genre. You picked your songs, dropped your quarters, and had a drunken, shouted conversation with an old Slovenian lady hidden away somewhere in Pittsburgh inside an underground bunker of black vinyl. A few minutes later you would hear your songs. At one time, according to Sara, many bars in town had been so equipped, but now the Hat was one of the last. “She shows a heavy Pharaonic influence, I’d say, in the elbow movements. With perhaps just a soupçon of Snoopy in the feet.”
“How long have she and Q. been going at it?” I said.
“Too long for Q., I think,” said Crabtree, shaking his head. “Look at him.”
“I know it,” I said. “Poor bastard.”
I attempted to ignore the ivy fingers of desire for Hannah Green that climbed along my spine as I watched her dance.
“Hey,” said Crabtree, “look at that guy.”
He pointed to a table just at the edge of the dance floor.
“Who? Oh my.” I smiled. “The one with the hair sculpture.”
He was a small man, with delicate cheekbones and an amazing, radiant, processed pompadour, a cresting black tidal wave of hair atop his head. Many of the great hairdos of bygone ages, I’d found, survived