Gilbert Sorrentino - The Moon In Its Flight

The model for the boss was, of course, the man, Peter, whom Edward wanted to anger and wound. The cause of his dislike went back almost twenty years, when he and most especially his wife, Patricia, insisted on thinking of him and Peter as partners in a small restaurant in what was then, the early seventies, a just newly fashionable SoHo. Peter was, in actuality, Edward’s boss. There had been a falling out between them as the restaurant began to make money, or, as it is said, “real” money. At this point, the friends’ differences quickly surfaced and became unmanageable. Edward felt, on the strength, really, of no more than their joint literary, ah, proclivities, let’s say, that he was being deprived of his bonus: his loft apartment, his summers on the Island, his good clothes, his this, his that. And Patricia! It’s enough to say that she simply blamed Peter for everything, from her spoiled childhood to her sullen years at Hunter and the School of Visual Arts to her haphazard marriage to Edward — Edward, who had been cheated of his rightful partner’s place as entrepreneur and literary force. She hated Peter, even more, perhaps, than she hated Edward some few years later, at the time of their separation and divorce; hated Edward so cleanly and thoroughly for his varied failures, that in her last conversation with him she’d told him, rather sadly, understandingly, and even sweetly, that in their eight years of marriage he had never once made her come. He stood quietly before her news, looking, as an old phrase has it, like death chewing on a cracker.

After the dissolution of the friendship and “partnership,” Edward began teaching beginning creative-writing courses at coolie wages; writing reviews for Booklist, Library Journal, and the like; freelancing as a copy editor and proofreader; and, in general, living the shaky life of the barely published and virtually unknown author. Patricia worked as an editorial assistant for a small scholastic publisher, and they got by, seeing, if not the same friends they had been seeing, the same kinds of friends. It should be mentioned that, at this time, Patricia was somewhat admiring of Edward for insisting, at her urging, of course, on his rights and perquisites, and so she regularly told him, to his delight. She was convinced that Peter, “that bastard,” was much inferior in business acumen than her husband; and as the author of a wretched little book of poems, Table d’Hote —published by Peter himself as the Chambers Street Press — he had no right to think himself superior to anybody about anything! In sum, she maintained little but an offhand, careless disregard for Peter; who, in turn, vilified her, pointedly or subtly, to people whom he knew that Edward would run into. She was, in his creation, the scattered and selfish Zelda to Edward’s hapless Scott.

The rub was that although Edward broke off his friendship or relationship or association with Peter in a swirl of hurt feelings and envy, still, oh yes, still, he wondered if he might have been right about Patricia. About her “interference,” her “malicious interference,” as he had put it, in his work and career. That Edward’s work and career were, to be extremely kind, negligible, is neither here nor there: he thought it was work; he thought it a career. Or, to gloss that particular text, it’s the rare mediocre writer who knows how mediocre he is. When Patricia left him, soon after it was apparent to her, or so he figured it, that his dissociating himself from Peter would in no way allow his star ever to grow bright enough to have a chance at dimming, left him with her peroration on his sexual limitations, he thought, he knew that Peter was right and had been right. He was ashamed of himself, he was what an earlier generation called mortified. Why had he listened to his bitch of a wife? Why had she so despised Peter?

Over the next several years, as Edward established himself as a reliable contributor of short fiction and reviews to a myriad of magazines, he vacillated in his feelings about both Peter and Patricia. He heard many stories of Peter’s financial success, and of his mockery of him and his work, of him and his contemptible third-rate literary niche, of Patricia. And concerning her, concerning her … although Edward’s thoughts of her were tinged with pain and embarrassment, he yet felt, in some unbalanced way, protective of her — even more absurd, he felt loyal to her. And so he began, again, to blame Peter for this and for that and for, well, for everything. It is simple to understand, then, why “The Birds Are Singing” was written, why it was important to Edward that Peter read it, why it was important that he respond to it with, at the very least, irritation. Edward wanted to demonstrate things to Peter, salient among which was that he had, indeed, become a writer, by Christ, and that his writer’s eye had been sharp enough all those many years ago to see Peter for what he had been: he’d not been fooled, for a moment, by him! — who had been crude and grasping and filled with contempt for him and Patricia, whom he’d hurt and somehow embittered. Edward wanted, simply, to get even with Peter. And so strong was his desire, perhaps his need, to knife Peter, to shock him with a view of himself as a vulgar, cheap, mean poseur, that, as already noted, he sent a copy of the story to him, followed, a week or so later, by a letter.

Dear Peter,

I hope you got the new story I sent a few days ago. This is all out of the blue, I know, but “the old days” have been on my mind lately. I thought that you, more than anyone, would “see” the story clearly, and recognize the furniture, so to speak. It’s maybe a little dark, and nobody comes off too well, but I think it’s pretty true to the feel of that time, confused as things were. Anyway, drop me a line if the spirit moves you. I often wonder how we came to part so completely, considering how our differences, whatever they were, seem so trivial now. I hear, by the way, that you are doing fine with a specialty catering business, as well as with a new restaurant in Chelsea. I got this from Marge, who also gave me your address. I’m pleased for you, really. Take care, and cheers,

Fondly,

Ed

As suggested, the “gift” of the story to Peter was a mistake, one that was richly compounded by the above letter. And as if to polish these mistakes into perfection, Edward, awash in the lies of nostalgia that his acts had awakened, quite unaccountably and foolishly, began to feel bad about everything that had happened: the story, its grotesque caricature of Peter, its dispatch to him, the letter, and, most tellingly, their shattered friendship, which Edward managed to burnish into much more than it had ever been or ever could have been. This broken relationship he now nimbly contrived to place, such were the powers of corrupted memory, on the shoulders of Patricia. She was, yes she was, yes, yes, she was to blame, the snob, the cynical snob, the bitch. And to think that he had felt that she had cared about him, had thought to protect his interests, Jesus Christ! There had been no reason, had there, for him and Peter to break their easygoing relationship, their, in a way, partnership? They were in accord on ideas, notions of the comic and the absurd, politics, books, on notions of what was good. Hadn’t this been the case? He even thought, fleetingly, to be sure, of calling Patricia, if he could track her down, to ask her, to yell at her, to do something! And so he poked at himself, rereading, two or three times, “The Birds Are Singing” with distaste and regret and a growing sense of shame.

A month passed, during which time Edward thought of calling Peter every day, to maybe make a date for lunch or a drink? To talk, to mend fences. He might, he could, he would, yes, apologize for the story itself. One day he received a letter from Peter, and opened it with hope and pleasure. Peter, of course, felt the way he did; he, too, wanted to resume their old camaraderie, tempered, surely, changed, but still real. Patricia’s malice would be diluted, it would be banished, at last.