Rafael Yglesias - The Work Is Innocent

“You’re so confused. I don’t know what you’re saying.” She scored with every line, touching on things about him or his ideas that he felt were embarrassing or irrational. He tried over and over to force her into discussing his points, but she remained personal, saying he was defensive, that he was too upset to think clearly.

He heard the other three laughing in one of the adjoining rooms, and occasionally a head would pop in to see if they were still fighting. He imagined he heard them comment on his stubbornness, and every laugh sounded derisive.

As Richard became more desperate, he began to return Lisa’s personal remarks. He called her manipulative when she accused him of defensiveness. His escalation must have caused her really explosive charge. “You’re just an intellectual,” she said at last. “You don’t like the idea of a poet being censored. It’s just a liberal hangup.”

“I’m an intellectual!” Richard didn’t have an angry reaction at first because it was incredible: he had railed against intellectuals in every other argument; he blamed intellectuals for the decadence of contemporary literature; he left school to avoid becoming one. He would have considered it more likely that he was a fascist. “How the hell am I an intellectual?”

For the first time during their fight he was comfortable. There was no unstoppable surge of rage to embarrass him. He smiled sarcastically at her and noticed with a thrill that she suddenly seemed at a loss. “Well, you read books—”

“I read books!” He laughed with real delight. “Boy, you have low standards. You don’t read books, I suppose.”

“I mean—”

“Only illiterates aren’t intellectuals.”

“Richard, will you stop being obnoxious? I mean, you relate to the world through books. You’re a novelist.”

She had stumbled into this line of attack but Richard could see, in her eyes, her determination to maintain it. He asked her if she meant that novelists were intellectuals and noticed, with dismay, that there wasn’t the slightest insincerity in her manner when she said yes.

He was hurt. The discussion was no longer merely tactical or excessively vehement. He was hit. “Novelists aren’t intellectuals. Don’t you know what intellectual means?” He was whining. “An intellectual perceives the world through ideas. A novelist observes and feels experience and then relates it.”

He was so obviously upset that even Lisa hesitated before continuing. “Why are you so defensive about it?” she said once more. It was apparently a favorite question, but this time it seemed more apologetic than offensive. “It’s not a terrible thing to say, Richard.”

He noticed the disturbance before he spoke. He had said how can you say that, twice, before he turned to look at what had gotten Lisa laughing. Joan was entering the room, riding on Salvatore’s back. “We come in peace,” she kept saying, addressing it to Richard mostly. Mark was behind them, smiling benignly.

“What the fuck do you two assholes think you’re doing!” Richard’s words broke up the carefree tableau quickly. To abuse them was satisfying. He felt his voice rumble into a storm of words that refreshed his self, his sense of self. “Don’t you come fucking around in here while I’m fighting! I don’t care how unimportant it seems to you. You think you’re cool and intelligent for not being involved. What are you? Too fucking civilized to be able to stand an argument?” Joan had slid off Salvatore and he had looked abashed. Sal muttered that Richard obviously didn’t think it was funny. And Joan had said Richard twice in protest. They all looked at him and he thought, Do they think I’m going to stop? “Get the fuck outta here. Right now! I’m tired of patronizing your sensibilities. I’m fighting with Lisa! So fuck off!”

Lisa allowed him to ramble on about how intellectuals weren’t artists when they were alone again. She was quite content with what had already been said and she began to say that it was foolish to go on discussing it. He knew he was through. He couldn’t judge which was more painful, continuing to talk to Lisa, or facing the others when it was over.

Mark made a joke about the heavyweight championship finally ending when Richard emerged and said to Joan, “I wanna go.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” she asked. “I’m an asshole, remember?”

“That’s hilarious,” Richard said. “Can we go?”

“All right.” She looked suddenly vulnerable and walked over to hug him. His mind told him to hold her and that would relieve most of his humiliation and hers, but his body pulled away against orders. She managed a look of pain and annoyance that was remarkable for its complexity.

“Come on,” he said, his voice twisted into a whine.

Her eyes stopped pleading. “All right! Calm down.”

He knew they would ride home in silence and that he would turn on the television as soon as they arrived. He didn’t want to behave peevishly, but he did. He hoped that after an hour or so he would be able to start talking to her and straighten it out, but she fell asleep almost immediately and he was left alone with ceaseless slow-motion replays of the fight.

He lay on his side, slipping into sleep. His mind was busy repeating his argument when he suddenly felt his body slide into space. He fell rapidly and wanted to wake up and move, but couldn’t. Fear rushed in on top of the struggle to move and pushed him up with a start.

“Sweetheart, are you all right?” Joan asked. Her eyes were red and one side of her face was streaked from the pillow.

“No. I woke up with a start.” He laughed. “I never knew what that meant. That’s heavy. It’s really unpleasant.”

“Poor baby,” she said, and wearily moved next to him. He accepted her gratefully and enjoyed the protectiveness of having her head on his chest.

“I wonder why that happened,” he said.

“It’s probably because we didn’t talk about the argument.”

“Oh, yeah?” He smiled as he realized that the bitterness he had felt about Joan’s behavior had been so quickly repressed. Such knowledge was still too new to be depressing. “Yeah, I was really pissed off at you,” he said casually.

“You were very mean, babes,” she said, only slightly less casually.

His attempt to absorb and accept this view of hers was intercepted by anger. “Well, that was just defense, you know? I mean, you fucked me up first.”

“What?” She moved away and looked at him. “How—” She stopped and then lay down. “It’s silly. You were upset.”

“Exactly,” he said in a loud quick tone.

There was silence and they both huddled into the blankets as if they were going to sleep. Richard’s nervousness increased as he remembered Joan entering the room on Sal’s back. He couldn’t believe she was so ready to ridicule him. “I’m gonna turn out the light, okay?” Joan asked.

“Uh, no. We’ve got to talk.” He said that grimly and tossed the covers aside violently. He got out of bed and hunted in his clothes for cigarettes.

She sat up, looking tired, and watched him. After he lit a cigarette, he stood at the foot of the bed. “I guess you don’t understand.”

“I don’t.”

“Yeah. Well, if that had been just a routine political discussion I wouldn’t have been right to be so upset that you wanted me to stop. She was talking about my father.” He paused and looked intently at her.

Joan returned his look and waited. “Do you want me to say something to that?” she asked at last.

“You don’t get it, huh?”

“Richard, I knew she was talking about your father.”

“Oh, come on! Fuck off!”

“What? What are you upset about?”

“I suppose you would have been casual about it if it had been your father. I suppose that it means nothing. I suppose it doesn’t even mean anything that she called me an intellectual.” Joan laughed. “What are you laughing at?” She looked stunned. “She was telling me I came from a family of intellectuals whose liberal perceptions—” He was overwhelmed by frustration. “She was calling me a pig.”