James Sallis - The Long-Legged Fly

I wrote till two or three that morning, weaving the nurse ever more tightly into the book’s pattern, and fell asleep finally on the floor when I lay down for a few minutes’ break.

Sometime around dawn (I heard birds, and in half-light could make out the phone’s dim shape at the corner of the desk) bells went off.

“Lew, I know it’s quite ea r ly the r e….”

“I was almost up. Giving it serious consideration, anyway.”

“ Voila . He r e it is, then. I’ve been ’ r ound to the pension where David was staying, and he left the r e, acco r ding to plan, in late August, somewhe r e a r ound the twenty-fifth, giving his New Yo r k add r ess fo r fo r wa r ding. Jean-Luc r ang up the t r avel agents and confi r med a r ese r vation in the name of David Griffin, depa r ting Pa r is nonstop to New Yo r k on the twenty-sixth, fa r e cha r ged to David’s Ame r ican Ai r lines ca r d.”

“Not bad for amateurs.”

“The o r iginal meaning of amateu r is someone who ca r es, who loves, Lew. Is the r e anything mo r e we can do to help?”

“Not just now, but I can’t say how much I thank you both.”

“You don’t have to. Ecris-moi, ou appelles-moi encore?”

“Bientot, ma chere.”

The connection went, leaving me alone there in the rump end of America. I put on water for coffee, showered, shaved and brushed my teeth, none of which helped much. I ate a peach (thinking of Prufrock) and some scrambled eggs. I lay down again, in a bed this time, and was almost asleep when the phone rang.

“Lew? I’ll be coming home tomorrow morning, if that’s all right with you.”

“I’ll have breakfast ready,” I said after a moment.

“… I could come tonight. Or now.”

“In that case you do breakfast.” And fell back asleep, waking later to the smell of bacon, fresh coffee, hot grease, butter. It was dark outside, and I was disoriented. I walked out into the kitchen.

“Good whatever-morning? evening?” Verne said. “Have a seat and some coffee, not necessarily in that order.”

I did, and while I drank she pulled skillets with omelettes and potatoes out of the oven, slipped buttered bread in to take their place, exhumed crisp bacon from layers of toweling. When the toast was done, she poured new coffee for me and a cup for herself, warm milk and coffee at the same time, New Orleans-style, and sat down across from me.

“How’s the book going?”

“Slow as usual, but okay?” I said nothing about David, about Janie calling. “I may put you in it. Not you really , but someone like you.”

“There isn’t anyone like me, Lew.”

I looked at her then, the way she held the toast, looking at it slightly cross-eyed, and I knew she was right. It’s never ideas, but simple things, that break our hearts: a falling leaf that plunges us into our own irredeemable past, the memory of a young woman’s ankle, a single smile among unknown faces, a madeleine, a piece of toast.

“I guess it’ll have to be you, then,” I said.

We finished the meal without talking. As Verne gathered up dishes, she said, “I’ll be going after I’ve done these, Lew.”

“But you just came back.”

She shook her head. “A visit. That’s all you allow, Lew. Whether years or a couple of days, always only a visit to your life.” She began drawing water into the sink, squirted in soap. “You’ve never asked me to stay with you, not even for a night.”

“But I always thought that should be up to you, V.”

“ ‘Up to you.’ ‘Whatever you want.’ How many times have I heard that all these years-when I heard anything at all? Don’t you want anything, Lew?” She turned from the sink, soapy water dripping onto the floor in front of her, hands curled back toward herself. She closed one hand and raised it, still dripping, to chest level. “I could be anyone as far as you’re concerned, Lew- any woman.” The hand opened. “People are interchangeable for you, one face pretty much like any other, all the bodies warm and good to be by sometimes.”

She turned back to the sink, scrubbed at a plate. I took a towel from the drawer and stood beside her.

“In your books you never write about anything that’s not past, done with, gone.”

She handed me the plate, and she was right. I dried it. Put it in the rack at the end of the counter.

“Okay,” I said, “but it doesn’t make sense for you to leave. You stay here, keep the house, and I’ll go.”

She shook her head. “I’ll stay with Cherie until I find a place. You do whatever you want to with the house and the rest.”

We finished in silence, the past, or future, shouldering us quietly apart. I looked at the clock above the sink. It was 9:47. When Verne came back in to tell me she was leaving, it was 10:16.

Not too long after, the phone rang. I picked it up.

“Yes?”

“Is La Verne there, please?” someone said after a moment’s hesitation.

“No.”

I hung up, turned off the light and sat staring out into the darkness. Somewhere in that darkness, sheltered or concealed by it, maybe lost in it, was David; and somewhere too, Vicky, Verne and others I’d loved.

In the darkness things always go away from you. Memory holds you down while regret and sorrow kick hell out of you.

The only help you’ll get is a few hard drinks and morning.

I pushed the door open and saw his back bent over the worn mahogany curb of the bar. I sat beside him, ordered a bourbon and told him what I had to.

For a long time then we were both quiet. I could hear traffic sounds from the elevated freeway a block or so away.

“La vie,” he finally said , “c’est toujours cruelle, n’est-ce-pas?”

“Mais oui,” I said . “C’est vrai. And nothing to help us but a few hard drinks and morning.”

“Le matin, it is still far away, and this I can do nothing about. But the drinks, I can do. A bottle, please,” he said to the bartender, and to me: “You will join me?”

“ Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

And that was it. I skipped a few spaces and typed The End , mixed another drink and started proofing the final pages.

Not long after Verne had left, I’d made a pot of coffee, turned on the fans and the stereo, and settled into work. The phone had rung several times and I’d ignored it, letting the machine earn its keep. When the coffee was gone I had mixed a pitcher of martinis and drunk that, then more coffee, more martinis, and about eight in the morning, some scrambled eggs and toast. After that I switched to margaritas, and with the third or fourth came to the end of the novel, far and away the best I’d done, maybe the best I’ll ever do. I mailed it off to my agent and slept for three days. Then got up to answer all the calls.

Most of them were junk and hang-ups. One was from Verne giving me her new address. Two were from Janie. The school had called to ask me to fill in for Dr. Palangian, advanced conversational and nineteenth-century French lit, next month while he was in Paris. A magazine editor wondered if I would consider doing a short piece for her, on whatever topic I’d like. The Times-Picayune was sending out a book for possible review.

Twice, whoever called neither spoke nor hung up, keeping the line open until the machine automatically closed it. I found those twenty-second segments of tape somehow profoundly unsettling. To this day (for I have them still) I find them so, though without good reason.