Jonathan Lethem - You Don't Love Me Yet

“It wasn’t meant to be a party,” said Falmouth. “That’s the problem. You threw a party.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jules Harvey. Steel flashed behind his usual gray tone of haplessness. “It’s what I do.” Lucinda understood that Harvey really was indomitable, the human equivalent of a cartoon turtle who appeared to plod ineffectually, yet when you tried to outrun him, turned up seated calmly on a log a few feet ahead of you, smoking a cigar and annotating a racing form with a stub of pencil.

Falmouth gestured for his interns, who didn’t budge. “We’ll be selective,” he said. “I won’t let them up without headphones.”

“I’d prefer not to disappoint so many people,” said Jules Harvey.

“What do you suggest, then?” said Falmouth.

“Let’s have them up. We can feed and entertain them for a while. Get them on your side, Falmouth, then you can propose something. Here.” Harvey reached across Falmouth’s knees and plucked the pistol from the cushions. “One of you children handle this.”

One of the interns nodded and stubbed out the joint, took the pistol from Harvey.

“It makes a very loud noise, so be careful. When you’ve got their attention, try to explain.”

The intern nodded, and she and her companion moved to the spiral stair. Lucinda saw that some mysterious but unmistakable transfer had occurred. These were Jules Harvey’s interns now.

When they were gone, Lucinda said, “I ought to go down and, uh, greet my compatriots.”

Harvey spread his hands. “Maybe we should all go. We can leave this stuff up here for now.”

Falmouth nodded disconsolately. The sacks of headphones and tape players seemed irrelevant now, the very medium of his great project demoted to “stuff.”

“Do you want something to drink, Falmouth?” said Harvey.

“I’d like some water, please.”

Lucinda led the other two downstairs. Denise and Bedwin hovered at the base of the stair. Jules Harvey led Falmouth into the kitchen and Denise told Bedwin, speaking as if to a child, “Go with them. I’m sure Jules can help you find something.” Bedwin drifted in after Harvey and Falmouth, leaving Denise and Lucinda alone.

“There’s an aura of doom around here,” said Lucinda.

“I guess we all get to keep our day jobs,” said Denise.

“By my count you’re the only one who has one.”

“Don’t you work for Falmouth?”

“I don’t see a big future for myself in complaints.”

“We can all move into my apartment,” said Denise. “We’ll be one of those bands that’s also a utopian collective, an experimental group marriage, and then we can all kill one another.”

“Don’t forget a certain, ahem, bathtub-dweller.”

“There’s room for everyone.”

“What’s Bedwin looking for, anyway?”

“He wants a stool for onstage. He said playing standing up makes him feel naked.”

Falmouth came glaring from the kitchen, startling them. “Don’t be so blatant with your mutinies,” he said ferociously.

“What do you mean?”

“That you imagine I’ve fallen so low I’d accept the charity of living in the squalor of your band is disgusting enough. What I really can’t fathom is how you awarded me the nickname ‘bathtub-dweller.’”

The interns rematerialized, stopping Falmouth in his tracks. They stood like Shakespearian courtiers, waiting to deliver their report. Jules Harvey, apparently attuned to the young women by some deep wavelength, emerged from the kitchen and bowed at them to begin, ducking his baseball cap with Buddhist complacency.

“We failed,” announced one of the interns. The other nodded, consenting that they spoke with one voice.

“Did you fire the gun?” asked Harvey.

“Yes. We fired the gun and opened a dialogue with what seemed like a reasonable faction.”

“I’m surprised they don’t yet have elected representatives,” said Falmouth.

“It also helps that Mr. Oo had the fire extinguisher,” the intern explained, ignoring Falmouth. “I think that got their attention more than the pistol.”

“Fire extinguisher?”

“A contingent of sound poets had lit a bonfire between two parked cars. But Mr. Oo put it out.”

“Go on.”

“At a certain point negotiations broke down. They figured out there isn’t anything to drink up here.”

“That’s not necessarily the case,” said Harvey. “I always have a few bottles in reserve.”

“You have to listen,” insisted the intern. “They don’t need us anymore. They intercepted your caterers. Someone leaked a rumor that the banquet wasn’t going to be made available to the dancers. That isn’t actually true, is it?”

Jules Harvey looked at Falmouth, who shrugged. Lucinda was impressed at Harvey’s effect on the students. She’d never heard them speak so many words while in Falmouth’s dominion.

“They’re having a sort of tailgate party now,” said the intern. “I think it’s even bigger than before. A couple of the servers are friends of ours from school, as it happens. They’re walking around with trays of chicken satay and tuna belly on rice crackers.”

Jules Harvey scratched his chin and adjusted his spectacles, summoning his deepest resources. The rest of them stood twitching slightly, deferring to his turtle authority.

“Go back downstairs, but don’t use the gun this time. What we want is more along the lines of a whispering campaign. Tell a select few that the band is about to start. Propose that they might want to get a good spot near the stage. You don’t have to talk to strangers. Let the majority be curious. Mention it to those server friends of yours, especially if they’re young and attractive.”

“Should we say which band?”

“They don’t have a name,” said Falmouth bitterly.

“It’s better that way. Just say the band is about to start. It implies that anyone would know which band it was, suggesting a reference to something already confirmed as desirable by others. That’s why they’re all here anyway.”

“To see the band?” asked Lucinda, confused.

“No. I mean because most of them heard someone refer to ‘that party everyone’s going to tonight,’ as if they should already know about it. Like ‘that restaurant everyone goes to,’ or ‘that girl everyone’s trying to date.’ It’s much better than anything specific.” Harvey urged the interns to the elevator. “Go now. Falmouth, come help me open the windows.”

“For jumping, I hope.”

“I want them to hear.”

“Hear what?”

“The band, of course. They’ll have to play loud.”

Lucinda understood now that her old friend had gone up against a force more profound than Jules Harvey. Falmouth’s past works had involved manipulating people’s despair, pensiveness, ennui. Those were malleable materials, lightly guarded by their possessors. The Aparty was another matter. Here, Falmouth had tried to appropriate other people’s happiness, and been met with that property’s devastatingly blithe resistance. Happiness was disobedient, had its own law. As a freshly minted local expert, Lucinda felt qualified to know.

matthew sat on the riser’s edge, taking the private interlude as an opportunity for tuning his guitar. For Matthew, Lucinda knew, this was a humbling ordeal, one which, like certain bodily functions, stood a better chance of being accomplished without witnesses. More than once at rehearsal he’d abandoned the effort and shamefacedly handed his guitar to Bedwin for adjustment. Lucinda felt a surge of tenderness. She almost wished they could leave Matthew alone there, not prick the bubble in which he dwelled, elegant as a black-and-white photograph of some legendary figure caught backstage. He’d shaved, trimmed his sideburns into neat wedges, donned a black turtleneck, shined his boots, made every attempt to retrieve himself from the kangaroo’s slough his apartment had become and make himself ready for the band’s unveiling. He’d be the last to know they were going to play aloud. Lucinda wanted to be the one to tell him.