Powers, Richard - Orfeo

I know. I’m a pig, aren’t I?

Bonner broke away and toured the room. He picked up and sniffed a fireplace log. He ran his fingers down the spines of Els’s books. He glanced out the window at some invisible assailant. The man had put on maybe thirty pounds.

Amazing trip up here, he said . Got me a five-hour education in West Coast hip-hop.

Bonner stopped fiddling, crossed to Els, and rested an elbow on each of his shoulders. How would you like to help ruin my career?

I take it you’re staying for dinner, Els answered.

ELS POACHED A WHITEFISH. Richard contributed a bottle of Malbec out of the trunk of his car, two fistsfuls of dietary supplements, and an account of his latest coup. Els listened in monosyllables.

It seems , Richard said , that City Opera wants a work for their 1993 season.

Els had to laugh, and did.

I know , Bonner said. Not possible, right? The kind of thing they offer to real artists. Not punk boho kids.

Bravo, Richard. You’ve arrived. What’s the piece?

You’re not listening, dickhead.

And then Els was. The opera board had decided that a bankable iconoclast of Bonner’s rep might revive a dying house on controversy alone. They’d given him carte blanche to settle on a libretto and choose a composer.

I told them I want you. They think I’m nuts.

Only when his chunk of fish went down did Els bother to say, They’re right.

But they hired me to be nuts. You see the beauty here?

Night had fallen. Outside, above the town’s holdout lights, the mountains darkened. A raiding raccoon clicked across the roof shingles. An owl sang half a mile away.

Don’t make me beg, Bonner said.

When could I ever make you do anything?

Richard slumped back in the Shaker chair, his neck against the top slat. Something’s happened, Peter. The game’s gone flat. I’m playing myself. Formula transgression. Turn the crank, and out come the little predictable spurts of stylized outrage.

Els stacked the dirty dinnerware, studying the problem as if it were the Sunday crossword.

Doesn’t sound like anything I can help you with.

Richard manacled Els’s wrist. Don’t game me, asshole. You want me to tell you I need you?

Els withdrew his trapped wrist, sat, and steepled his fingers to his lips.

Don’t give me that Buddha shit either, Bonner said. You remember everything. We used to discover things. Laws of science. We worked for God, once, you and me. And anyone who didn’t like it could go save themselves.

As Els remembered it, God’s preferences had been largely unknown to them. Yet he held still and listened.

Bonner slipped into a fantasia for the audience of one. The whole globe’s convulsing. But this country is walking around in a gauzy, super-sized, antidepressant-laced, MTV-fueled cocoon. Game Boys and Party Girls. Fuck: I’m not making art. I’m just the next consumer-friendly dose of distraction for people who’re bored by halftime spectacles.

You want something, Els said.

Bonner looked at him, startled by the insight. Dying for it.

And you don’t know what.

Oh, but I do. I want to wake people from their dream of safety.

And you think I can help you do that .

You’re the only person I’ve ever met who wants more than I do. Look at you! Not afraid to torch your entire life. Writing for no one.

Els didn’t bother to correct either lie. He stood and took the dirty dishes into the kitchen. He returned with two cartons of ice cream and two spoons. Bonner grabbed a spoon and set to work on both cartons at once. Els just watched, thinking the man might be abusing some prescription drug.

He said, You are a miserable human being. Why should I put myself through that again?

Bonner nodded mid-scoop, agreeing with everything. Because your stuff with me is the best work you’ve ever done.

You’ve got a problem, Richard.

You don’t say. Bonner raised his spoon in the air and sang, News, news, news, news, news, news, news has a. . has a. . has a kind of mystery. .!

So what is it? You’re a repressed queer? Is that your great secret?

Bonner swung the spoon like fencing foil. Oh, fuck off. Queer, straight: Who makes these things up? Is anybody anything?

You’re manic?

Bonner dove back into the box. What does that even mean? He fished for bits of nut in the melting mass of cream. We’re either hungry or dead. Don’t talk to me about finer distinctions.

Els went back into the kitchen to put the kettle on and fill the sink with hot suds. A large mammal was foraging around the trash on the back porch. He didn’t bother to scare it away. When he returned to the dining room with tea, Bonner was still launching his frontal assault on the melting cartons. Els picked up the other spoon and started in. He leaned on his elbows and poked at the butter pecan, as if conducting a flea orchestra.

Every time we’ve worked together, you’ve ended up insulting me.

Every time? Oh, come on. That’s bullshit.

Els flipped the spoon across the room and stood. Bonner grabbed his hand.

Peter. I have to. Everything satisfying disgusts me. I have to keep. .

Els sat and rested his hands in his lap. He stared at his small white draftsman’s table in the next room. Bonner followed his gaze. A thought drifted through Els like a crane across a Chinese landscape painting. He held up a finger, and vanished. After some minutes, he returned with a square of torn cardboard.

Bonner took it. What the hell’s this? Some kind of concept piece?

Els waited. Recognition was slow in coming.

Oh, Jesus. You’re kidding me. You saved. .? Bonner started to laugh — stress hysterics. Didn’t I say you were the one person crazier than me? He sobered, looked up at Els, and squinted.

Els squinted back. How do you plan to sell City Opera on an unknown composer?

I told them you were the only person I’d work with. Now shut the fuck up and let’s make something.

Bonner tugged Els down the dark road where he’d left the rental. Then the two of them drove the quarter mile back up the hill into Els’s driveway. Richard got out and took two hulking green duffel bags from the trunk. He offered one to Els. Peter looked at the vintage military issue stenciled with a long Polish name.

Are you moving in?

What’s it to you, Maestro? Come on. Could you give me a hand, here?

Yes: I’m guilty of playing God. But thousands of such creatures have already been composed, and millions more are coming.

In the morning, when Els came out to the kitchen, Bonner was in the front room jabbing and thrusting. Els thought another squirrel had come down the chimney at night and Richard was chasing it. Richard loped around in a vulpine circle, then made several klutzy lunges. He looked like a teenage boy writhing in a private sports fantasy. Els fought back a horrified laugh. The man was inventing. Coping. Call it dance.

That morning, they packed a lunch and walked through snow calf-deep up into the mountains. Els figured Bonner would be gasping for air after twenty minutes, but Richard held tough. He talked straight through the two-hour climb, his words steaming in the January air. He laid out what he wanted for the opera. He’d spent his entire life fleeing from narrative, and now he discovered, to his surprise, that it might not be too late to embrace the kind of storytelling that the world craved.