Sam Lipsyte - The Ask

"To somebody else? Whom would that be?"

"Fuck if I know," said Purdy.

"No, really," I said. "Tell me. I'm so curious."

"Are you?"

"Absolutely."

"Probably you are talking to yourself, Milo. You are probably talking to yourself. Or the deadbeat junkie that bought this ridiculously sad tetherball set for you."

I lunged, snatched Purdy by the collar, yanked him into my chest, wrapped the cord around his neck.

"Jesus!" he gasped.

"Sonofabitch," I said.

"Milo, cut this shit out right. ."

I tugged hard on the rope. Purdy clawed at his neck. "Where are the bodies?"

"Bodies?" gurgled Purdy.

"Where are the bodies, you motherfucking murderer!" I said.

"You're. . insane," said Purdy. "Bodies? No bodies."

"I know," I said. "It's just fun to say. I'm making my own fun. I just really feel like choking you right now. Is that cool? Are we cool?"

"Stop. . this shit. Can't breathe. Help!"

I heard the patio door swing open, a swish in the grass.

"Help!" said Purdy, choked, drooled.

I pulled Purdy to the ground, cinched the cord tight. Something heavy stabbed my head. A pointy hammer, I thought, right before thought stopped.

I woke a moment later in the wet grass, saw a blur of boots and black trousers, a flicker of metal, gone. Michael Florida stood over me.

"Man." Purdy coughed. "This is ridiculous. What the hell? You can't do that. Who does that? My fucking neck. My fucking trachea . What the. . I mean, that's. . what, were you going to kill me?"

Purdy coughed again, stood.

"Probably not," I said.

"Ridiculous. Unbelievable."

"I think it was a joke," I said. "I can't think."

"Get up," said Michael Florida, pulled me to my feet.

The patio door swung open again.

"What's going on?" said Claudia.

"Nothing," said Purdy, unspooled himself from the cord, coughed once more, hocked phlegm into the hedges. "Every-thing's fine."

"We heard these noises."

"Ladies," said Purdy, "it's been a beautiful evening. Let's do it again real soon."

Francine and Claudia nodded, frozen. Some sound, almost a growl, started up Claudia's throat, fell back.

"Milo," said Purdy. "Walk us to our car?"

Part of me considered resisting this little frog march across the street, but I was still dizzy and Michael Florida's grip on my arm was strong. He shoved me in the back of the sedan. He and Purdy slid in front. The door locks clicked. Purdy stared straight ahead. I rubbed the throb from my skull.

"Well," said Purdy. "We tried. You can't say we didn't try. But I really don't think we can be buddies anymore. It's so hard to keep up the old friendships, isn't it? People change. Priorities change. It's sad, but it's also natural, I guess. Let's remember the good times. The parties, the high blood-toxicity levels, the laughs. We had a lot of laughs. But those days are over, I think. Those days are definitely done. Let's just leave it back on Staley Street, shall we? Let's just never write or speak to each other ever again. That would be wonderful. Let me not ever see your face again and I will die, well, not a happy man, but maybe vaguely content on the subject of Milo Burke and how he tried to strangle me-with a fucking tetherball rope, mind you-because he happens to be a sick freak living in a pathetic hallucination of a life, though you wouldn't know that right away because he comes off as fairly normal at first so you might even befriend him, or re-befriend him, as the case may be, and then go so far as to trust him with some sensitive information until you realize, almost too late, that he is completely out of his fucking tree. Yes, I foresee vague contentment on my deathbed if we stick to this plan. Does that sound okay by you?"

"Sure," I said.

"I can't hear you, you piece of psychotic shit."

"Yes," I said.

"Good. Now, I know you're getting some severance from the university. But I also know how tough things are out there, and you with a kid, who nobody can blame for having a father like you. So, here's our severance to add to your other severance. Mix all that severance together. It's like a jambalaya of fucking severance. It's tasty and you can stuff your fat treacherous face with it. Michael?"

Michael Florida slid an envelope between the bucket seats. Everything with Purdy had been these envelopes, these seats. It could really put you off envelopes.

"That, along with the other cash I've given you, it should hold you for a while, no?"

"Sure," I said.

"Sure, he says."

"This should be sufficient," I said, everything still blurred from the blow. I felt the tender bloom of the wound under my hand.

"Sufficient," said Purdy. "You're a fucking loser, Milo, and it's got nothing to do with the fact that you didn't win. Do you understand that?"

"Maybe," I said.

"All I ever did was give love, Milo. To everybody, I gave love. Even my old man, and that bastard. ."

Purdy pinched his eyes shut, punched the glove box, lightly.

"I didn't wreck her car," he said. "I didn't put her in a coma. The doctors recommended she be moved. The state place was better suited. That was their phrase, better suited. It was their suggestion. I was still going to pay. I loved her. I still love her. I can't help it. And I am really tired of trying to help it when I truly cannot help it. You can all go to hell. None of you feel. You are feeling's assassins. Get out of my car."

The door locks clicked again.

"Wait," said Purdy. "Give it to him."

Michael Florida swiveled back. There was another glint in his hand.

"Jane heard you at the party," said Purdy.

"Pardon?"

Something dropped in my lap.

"And one more thing," said Purdy. "I never texted any drink order. That mojito? It was a mistake. They just made a mistake."

"What?" I said.

"Exit the fucking vehicle."

I got out of the car, watched it tear down Eisenhower, turn onto the county road.

I held my father's knife up to the moonless sky.

Don called late in September. I was living in the kiddie-diddler's basement, his boiler room. It was the only place near Bernie I could afford. Maura and I still spoke, but we'd stopped going to the marriage counselor. Maura quit when the counselor suggested she take a break from having sex with Paul. There was talk of finding another counselor, one more amenable to Maura having sex with Paul, of inviting Paul to a session, even, but nothing happened. We were still, I believed, the loves of each other's life. But that life was maybe over now.

The kiddie-diddler was a kind and extremely unstable man named Harold. He had, as I suspected, once been in radio, voiced some very famous advertising campaigns. I no longer wondered why whenever he spoke I thought of a certain laundry detergent or strawberry-flavored milk.

Harold's brother Tommy slipped me extra cash to make sure Harold didn't wander the streets at night. Harold had dozens of stories he told over and over again, in the way of a man who has traveled the world, or never been anywhere at all. I listened to him talk less for the delight of his adventures than his timbre, his pitchman's pitch.

The shopping bag stuffed with shopping bags was never far from reach, but when I asked him its meaning or purpose he told me I didn't have the proper clearance. He let me look at his notebooks, but I couldn't read his nanoscopic script. The drawings, far more maniacal than I'd imagined, depicted little girls in snowpants. These bundled moppets rode a magic toboggan through arctic skies. I figured my boy would be safe.

Every day I picked up Bernie at my old apartment, walked him to school. Happy Salamander had reopened. They'd booted Carl from the board. The creamery, apparently, was his new site of revolutionary practice. Maddie had been sketchy about the whole kerfuffle when she called Maura to offer Bernie a spot. We made a joint decision, as separated but equally engaged parents, to give very inexpensive experimental preschool pedagogy another go. Soon enough he'd be fresh meat for the wolf packs at the local kindergarten.