Percival Everett by Virgil Russell by Percival Everett Read Free Book Online

of another, a mountain maybe, a wind pressing against me, issued from some sea I could not see, and so I fled onward, recalling with every step that which none can leave behind, how lucky are the amnesiacs, when a panther addressed my presence and then a lion and then a love long lost, all three heads uplifted, but the last of them, she brought upon me much sadness, the kind that comes with fear, and she wept with me despite her hunger and we were cast back into some light, away from the cats, and while I was rushed back there was a man, whose silence seemed well practiced, and I yelled to him in that barren place to help me and he said that he was a poet and
    Dad.
    Yes?
    Okay, okay.
    You will be my Virgil?

To Wonder and Conjecture
Was Unavailing
    If I could only reach the switch. I could either brighten this room or electrocute myself, which comes to about the same thing. I could begin my story here or your story there or you could begin my story, from the beginning or middle or end, depending on how you want it or I need it. These pages that I would have you write, if you wrote, or that you are writing because I wrote, that need to be written but not necessarily read. Pass the barbiturates.
    In the year of your lord 1963, August 27, I was in a hotel room with John Lewis and three other members of SNCC and I was livid. I had provided several lines to John’s speech and they were being removed. I remember the lines. The first was, If the dogs of the South continue unchained, then we will bite back, we will move on those tender parts that bleed so readily, that bleed so profusely. Okay, I said, understanding that there was a lot of blood in the statement—rather, threat—and so I added the word nonviolently. This was not satisfactory. The next line was, The Kennedy administration does not even talk a good game, failing to support voters’ rights while paying mere lip service to civil rights, as if there is a difference. We say fuck the administration that still walks hand in hand with Jim Crow. Well, I could see that the word fuck was a bit strong and so I suggested screw and then 45 screw nonviolently. I was never much of a player in the politics of the day after that evening. The only person I met at the march that remained a close friend was Charlton Heston. I am Nat Turner and I’m sort of pissed off. Just fucking with you, I’m Bill Styron.
    I am my son’s father. I will tell my story or stories as I would have him tell my story or stories. And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you. I’ve always loved that bridge line. When you put words someplace, like on a bridge, they can roll to either side. It never pays to be proprietary about them. I suppose it could pay, but I am not here to argue that point and what you’ll find is that I will not argue any point, or nearly any point. I’m happy to believe all things. I’ll even believe in god for a while if it will get me laid.
Aliud tamen quam unde sumptumb sit apparet
    Back to Murphy. I’ll be Murphy and I’m waiting outside the fat twins’ house because I’m afraid to knock. But instead of a handyman, I’ll be a doctor. The other brother is sick, but he’s afraid of hospitals and emergency rooms or he’s too fat to get out of his drug den of a house. And I know that this one is Donald, because I’ve inserted the line from his brother in my previous telling: Oh, you can tell us apart because Donald likes to shoot. If you see Donald, duck. Get it, Donald Duck? So I wait by the car with my bag until the door of the house opens. With my doctor’s bag and what is in there? I will tell you: stethoscope, sphygmomanometer, thermometer, reflex hammer, tongue depressors, peak flow meter, auriscope, speculae, alcohol streets, ophthalmoscope, gloves, prescription pad, tape measure, ECG ruler, obstetric calculator, urine bottles and dip sticks, tourniquet, magnifying glass, and a
    map.
    And then some other stuff:
    Antacid
    Analgesic (I like