Stephen Dixon - Friends - More Will and Magna Stories

“I can drink to that.” They drink.

“Then it’s all straightened out with him?”

“Straightened out? Sure. Well. Listen, Floyd, why am I lying to you? Lie to you, lie to everybody — I just ought to stop. I called Gabe with good intentions, but once I heard his voice and we started talking, I got upset about what he did with my manuscript then. So I—”

“You didn’t. Brought it up? You told him off?”

“That’s what I did. I called him a thief and worse. But do you know what he had the balls to tell me?”

“You’re a bastard, do you know that? For do you realize how sick he is? Kicking the goddamn guy like that when he’s so far down?”

“Listen, I know Gabe too and I thought he’d appreciate the truth more — or just what I was thinking more — the grudge I’ve held — than some b.s. about how much I liked his book. But you know what he said about my manuscript? That he never—”

“I don’t want to hear. Dave,” he yells to the bartender. “Please, I have to go. Will a twenty take care of it?”

Dave nods. Floyd puts two tens on the bar, gets his coat off the hook behind them and heads for the door.

“Well, I just don’t think an illness, no matter how severe—” Will’s saying to Floyd’s back. “Oh, maybe if he was on his deathbed,” but Floyd’s out the door.

Will grabs his coat and runs after him. He catches up with him a half-block away. “Listen to me, Floyd — I told Gabe the truth, the truth, because the issue has been with me a long time. Because my gripe I thought was as big as his — that he stole and didn’t apologize. Even bigger. That I didn’t write him was the least of what I wanted to do then. I wanted to sue him. Did for a couple of years. I wanted to turn him in to every writing organization there was. You don’t know — you’re not a writer — what it’s like to write something for two-plus years and then have some guy — a friend — copy from it left and right and make your manuscript useless.”

“You could have rewritten and changed the parts you say he took from. So it would have taken awhile. But it would have saved the manuscript and for all you know, made it better. Anything can stand more work.”

“He took the best parts. I would have had to change the whole tone or something. He took the spirit out of that novel or just out of me. Whatever he did, I just couldn’t go back to it.”

“Maybe then, but now?”

“Now it’s old stuff to me. I’m doing other things in other ways — I couldn’t imitate that style anymore. That’s what happens.”

“You say. Maybe you should get over the idea that you can’t. Anyway, you know your business, but what I want from you right now is to call him. That’s right — don’t look at me as if I’m nuts. There’s a booth there. If the phone’s working, call him and apologize. Even if you don’t mean it — though you should — say you’re sorry. You lost your head, you didn’t mean what you said, you realize he didn’t steal from your book. Maybe a line here, a word there, but so what? — and you were just drunk or something before. Not ‘something’; you drank too much tonight and said those things out of some drunkenness or some blind rage against something else that’s been bothering you, but it wasn’t what you know is true.”

“He’ll know you put me up to it. I already told him you told me to call him to say what a great book he wrote—”

Floyd swings at him, grazes his forehead, lunges at him again with his arm cocked but Will steps back and walks the other way, saying with his back to Floyd “It’s just what I always thought about life. Not always but for a long time. People don’t want to — oh the hell with it.”

“Of course they don’t in certain situations, you idiot,” Floyd shouts. “You bastard. You goddamn pitiless sonofa-bitch and your goddamn pitiless truth. Sure, keep walking, but no wonder your writing smells.”

Will goes into the bar, says to Dave “If you think you don’t want me in here because of the commotion I made before, tell me and I’ll go.”

“No, it’s okay. Only don’t get so loud again if you don’t mind. Brandy?”

“Right. A double. Not the expensive kind Floyd ordered; just the house stuff.” He drinks two doubles, turns it all over in his mind several times. Maybe I was wrong. No, I was right. Stealing from an unpublished manuscript is bad news — unforgivable if the person who stole it doesn’t acknowledge it. I should call him. He should have called me. Ages ago. But I gave away Floyd’s secret. So what’s he complaining about? I made him look like an even nicer guy to Gabe. But Gabe’s dying, Floyd says. Maybe he is. Let’s say he is. No, he is — everyone says he is. They say I wouldn’t recognize him even if I made an appointment to meet him someplace and he showed up at the exact spot at the right time. That he’s lost maybe thirty pounds and he was always thin. All right. I did the wrong thing. I couldn’t control myself. That’s how I am. No, that’s not good enough. Floyd was right about everything. I have to apologize to him when he gets home. Call him in five minutes. And Gabe. Call him and apologize for everything — say you were drunk — and then call Floyd and say you called Gabe and apologized just the way he asked you to.

He goes to the phone, calls Gabe. Gabe says “Yes?”

“Listen, Gabe, it’s Will.”

Hangs up. Calls back. “Gabe, don’t hang up. I apologize. I was drunk. I’m a schmuck. I didn’t mean what I said at all. I was mad about some other things and took it out on you. This woman I was seeing — she dumped me. I’ve been bitter and depressed about it for weeks and have been dumping on everyone since because of it.”

“Whew. Nice excuse. You’re a writer. Writers usually have good excuses. I should know. I’ve got good excuses too when I need them — to me, to the people I’m excusing myself to. Fine. I accept your apology. I accept it because I’m not a big grudgeholder and because it took a lot to call back. Floyd obviously pressured you into it, but it still took a lot.”

“Floyd won’t even speak to me now. He tried to slug me after I told him what I told you. But literally — threw a punch.”

“Really? That’s very flattering. Floyd’s a good guy; you and I, we’re not such good guys. Hey, I think we should talk more, Will, but now^ not the time. You want to have lunch soon?”

“Sure, when? Why don’t you come to my place? I’ll make us something.”

“I can’t get around much.”

“I’ll send a cab and pay for it too. Call it part of my apology.”

“You’d do that? My old pals are really coming through for me tonight. But you’re so apologetic, so guilty. Never saw you like that.”

“That’s right, I am. But I’ll do it. I want to forget what happened. Let’s say we worked it out. Have we?”

“I think this phone conversation has done something to that effect.”

“Then, and I’m saying this in all sincerity and without any animosity, admit to me something too. You stole, didn’t you?”

“If I said yes, just to see what you’d say, I know you’d call me the worst names going. You’re wily and changeable like that. But I’ll say yes, I did steal, just to see what you’ll say.”

“No, the truth. Say it without those added things. Did you or did you not steal from Flowers? And not just a few words or sentences from it. I’m talking about whole characters and parts. You read the whole thing. You had to have.”

“I read twenty, at the most thirty to thirty-five pages on the subway as I said. And skip-reading. You’re asking too much to think anyone could read it any other way or read more.”

“Look, I’m not going to prosecute or hold you to it after this call. It’s all over. My novel’s junked. I just want to know for my own satisfaction.”