Flatscreen by Adam Wilson Read Free Book Online

minivan, attempted loss of virginity. Performance anxiety.
    • Twelfth grade, April, my bedroom, actual loss of virginity. Eva White again.
    • Twelfth grade, April through May. More sex. Eva. Multiple positions (two).
    • Present day, Alison Ghee’s basement, Alison Ghee. Sex. Doggy-style. (See above.)

seventeen
    The 55 bus was like Alison: sad-smelling, spit-shined, a bumpy ride. Took me close to the Glent-Kahn–Aldridge’s renovated Victorian. Seymour was temporarily residing in the pool house. “Just until the papers go through,” he’d said on the phone. Didn’t ring the bell. Instead came through the garden as per Kahn’s instructions.
    I’d hoped for a chance to see Sheila again. She’d been on my mind since Whole Foods. But better this way. What would I have said? “I’ve come to sell your ex-husband a small quantity of a Class D substance. Would you be so kind as to hold me against your chest until I can feel the beating of your heart against my own, thus reconfirming my belief in the existence of the human soul”?
    Plus, there was the possibility that Erin, not Sheila, would have answered the door. Surely Benjy had spilled the beans, whispered in the soft light of dusk that his brother was a fuckup, killing himself slowly, immobile, moving only in minuscule steps toward eternity. She would have looked at me with an expression that said, “We get to enjoy grown-up things like dry cleaning and group social life, while you, poor boy, are locked away in paralyzed infancy by yourdrugs, your inadequate hygiene, and your idle, treacherous heart.”
    Knocked on the door of the pool house as I entered. Kahn reclined in a La-Z-Boy, eyes closed, head bopping to horns and upright bass. Kahn rhythmically tapped the coffee table in response to my arrival, as if we were part of the jam session, riffing off each other.
    “Seymour,” I said.
    “Charlie Mingus,” he replied, eyes still closed.
    Small room, sparsely decorated. Wood and Nail poster hung on the wall. Dinged-up Golden Globe in the corner. Half-drunk bottle of scotch, vase of dead flowers on the coffee table, 40-inch Sony Bravia LCD. Only pieces of furniture were the bed, the La-Z-Boy, and Kahn’s wheelchair. Opted for the wheelchair, immediately rolled backward, knocking over the vase, spilling water on the floor. Kahn opened his eyes.
    “Send me dead flowers by the mail,” he half-said, half-sang.
    “Mick Jagger.”
    “Very good. Now clean that fucking water up.”
    Got a towel from the bathroom. Kahn refilled his giant crystal goblet.
    “I see you started the party without me,” I said.
    “Kid, I started this party before you were born. This is the tail end, my friend. The dawn is coming soon. Twilight is a sad and beautiful time. I once held a woman in my arms the way the moon holds light, refracting her image for the world to enjoy. Now I can’t get a job. Now the drugs have no colors, only inertia. The women wear sunglasses to cover their eyes. You see what I’m getting at? The ghost of a party.”
    Was it true I’d missed the party? I’d heard a professoron NPR’s On Point talking decline of the empire. Romans and Greeks had their fun, look what happened. This was it for us: reality TV, virtual reality, planes into buildings.
    “So what now?”
    “Now you roll us a joint, of course.”
    Rolled the illest joint I could manage. Kahn handed me my own giant crystal goblet.
    “Listen to this,” he said, like I had another option.
    “Chaos. That’s what that sound is. Fire and sandpaper, harsh breath, an old cargo train. Mingus understood. Listen to those notes. We’re just toys of the gods. We’re all toys.”
    His speaking voice—like last time—was mannered, modulated, a performed monologue, as if always onstage, his last great act, modern-day King Lear (BBC, 1983) amid his crumbling castle. I was his remaining audience. He wanted to convince me, seduce me the way he knew how to seduce, by projecting his thunder-low baritone