Percival Everett - Erasure

“Oh, I know that,” I said. I stopped at the door and turned back. “That was a different thank you from my thank you for not raising me as a Christian.”

“Oh, we know that,” Father said.

“Why do you thank us for that?” Mother asked.

“Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point,” Father said.

“I know my reasons,” I said.

“Good boy,” Father said.

“Vive le roi,” I said.

Father laughed. Mother had already turned back to her book.

I recalled the stupid fight that had ended my brief, and no doubt short-lived-anyway, relationship with Marilyn. It was not her lack of taste or possession of questionable taste that caused me to make a scene upon finding that awful novel by her bedside. I reacted because the book reminded me of what I had become, however covert. And that was an overly ironic, cynical, self-conscious and yet faithful copy of Juanita Mae Jenkins, author of the runaway-bestseller-soon-to-be-a-major-motion-picture We’s Lives In Da Ghetto.

Not only my situation but my constitution seemed to make me an unsuitable candidate for the most basic of friendships, new or old, and romantic involvement seemed nearly ridiculous to me. Perhaps my outburst with Marilyn was as much a well-timed retreat as it was an expression of snobbish literary outrage.

My agent was not so much angry as he was amazed by my demand that the title of the novel be changed to Fuck. He asked me if I was crazy and I reminded him that he thought I was crazy when I first suggested he send My Pafology out.

“You’ve got a point,” he said. “Still, don’t you think you’re pushing it just a bit?”

“Not really. This thing is in fact a work of art for me. It has to do the work I want it to do.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t think they’re going to let you do it. Why not Hell or Damn? Why Fuck?” I could hear him shaking his head.

“That’s the title I want.”

“What if their lawyers say no.”

“They won’t say no.”

After a pause. “And what did you say to Morgenstein?”

“Nothing really.”

“Well, the guy’s in love with you. He’s scared to death of you, but he said, ‘ That fuckin’ guy’s da real thing. ‘”

“He’s right.”

Rothko: I’m sick of painting these damn rectangles.Resnais: Don’t you see that you’re tracing the painting’s physical limits? Your kind of seeming impoverishment becomes a sort of adventure in the art of elimination. The background and the foreground are your details and they render each other neutral. The one negates the other and so oddly we are left with only details, which in fact are not there.Rothko: But what’s the bottom line?Resnais: The idiots are buying it.Rothko: That is it, isn’t it?Resnais: I’m afraid so. They won’t watch my films and believe me, my art is no better for the neglect.Rothko: And no worse, Alain.

Yul: They say you can have the title change if you spell it with a PH.Me: P-huck. Why would I spell it with a PH?Yul: They say it won’t be as offensive on the jacket.Me: The hell it won’t. Fuck with an F or they can p-huck off.

(LATER) Yul: They said okay.Me: That’s fucking great.

I visited Mother every day for the first three weeks. The drive to Columbia wasn’t so long and it made for a healthy break in my boredom. I would awake each morning, piddle around in the garage-turned-workshop, go for a long walk, sit down at my desk for several hours and try to construct a new novel that would redeem my lost literary soul, then get in the car to go see Mother. Once I was back home I would read, then torture myself about work. I was lonely, angrier than I had been in a long time, angrier than when I was an angry youth, but now I was rich and angry. I realized how much easier it was to be angry when one is rich. Of course, there was the accompanying guilt and the feeling stupid for feeling guilty, what I was told was one of two common intellectual’s diseases — the other being diarrhea.

Mother was more out than in lately, but the staff kept a close watch and I was confident that she was safe. The irony was that as her mind failed, her body became healthier, she even put on a few pounds and her hand strength was greater than it had been in years. The doctor told me that it would be a short-lived irony. Of course, he didn’t put it that way. He said, “Her body won’t be that way for long.” He said it as if to reassure me, as if the incongruity of her mental and physical states should be more offensive than her complete and total decay.

When she was herself, we listened to music and talked fancifully about going into the city to hear something at the Kennedy. Then she would drift, rather peaceably, off to sleep. It was all very sad and I more than once sat behind the wheel of the car and cried.

The call came in the morning and it was basically what I needed — something to do. Carl Brunt was the director of the National Book Association, the NBA, which sponsored the so-called major award in fiction each year, called simply and pretentiously The Book Award.

“Your name came up as a possible judge for the award,” Brunt said.

“I’m flattered.”

“Personally, I’d really like to have you as a judge. There will be five of you and about three hundred novels and collections of stories.”

I listened.

“We don’t pay much. A couple of thousand and travel to New York for the ceremony. Your library will be greatly fattened.”

“That’s fine.”

“Are you interested?”

I detested awards, but as I complained endlessly about the direction of American letters, when presented with an opportunity to affect it, how could I say no? So I said, “Yes.”

“Well, that was easy.”

“Who are the other judges?”

“I haven’t lined all of them up yet, but Wilson Harnet has agreed to be the chair of the committee. Do you know him?”

“Yes, I do. He should be good.”

“Well, this is great,” Brunt said. “I’m looking forward to working with you. And of course keep this to yourself until we announce the panel.”

“Certainly.”

“Great.”

The Judges

Wilson Harnet(chair): Author of six novels. His most recent book was a work of creative nonfiction called Time is Running Out, about his wife who was diagnosed with cancer. As it turned out, his wife did not die and all the secrets of theirs that he revealed led her to divorce him and so the literary community eagerly awaited his forthcoming book titled My Mistake. A professor at the University of Alabama.

Ailene Hoover:Author of two novels and a collection of short stories. Her book of stories, Trivial Pursuits, won the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her novel, Minutia, reached four on the NY Times bestseller list. A resident of upstate New York (apparently all of it).