The Four Fingers of Death by Rick Moody Read Free Book Online Page A

because there is no air in which sound can take place, and thus silence is the biggest part of the universe. The stripping away, the leaving behind of literature and language so that silence takes its place, this is preferable, the bookshelf that is three-quarters empty leaves room for more .
Jenny’s departure had left just the publisher of Mud Hut and the unknown black guy. And Noel. It was unclear whether Noel’s posture—slumped over the register—was asleep or simulating sleep. At this point, I determined to cut short my program, and skipped back to one of my greatest moments as a writer, and I recited from memory the story about the stealth bomber , which I’m sure I don’t need to repeat here. What’s more important is what happened next, because after I presented the story just mentioned, I thanked the audience for its patience, having taken up no more than nine minutes, which has to be a world record where readings are concerned. Some poets use up more than nine minutes just telling you how many poems remain to be read.
The program was now completed. Jake Cohn, for one, applauded energetically. The store was comically somber except for Jake and the unknown black man, who, despite the strange circumstances of the evening, seemed to be attentive and waiting around, I supposed, to meet me. Jake was already backing toward the door. Graciously, he invited me to submit anew to Mud Hut , if and when he managed to put together additional funding. But before he pushed back the glass door with all the band handbills on it, it occurred to me that I had forgotten to croak out the invitation that was always such an important closer at any literary event, “Does anyone have any questions?”
Jake hurried to his folding chair. It was getting on toward night, and there were the blackouts to consider, the OPEC embargo and all of that, and so at ten P.M. the lights were meant to go off for all nonessential businesses. Everyone wanted to get home in advance of the blackout, especially when a lot of them were walking home. And so why did I ask for questions? Better to ask why the borscht belt comic works himself into a frenzy with the house three-quarters empty. Better to ask why the protestors, who number only three, play to the camera as the traffic rushes past heedless. If you can wish a vanished world into being, if you can dredge up your dreams from the lake bottom, why not do so with brio? The imposing black man raised his hand immediately, and in a hoarse whisper that recalled certain jazz greats during talk-back portions of their bonus tracks, he immediately asked—“Where do you get your ideas?”
Since Jake did take this opportunity to press on to other engagements, since Noel had most of the chairs folded and stacked so quickly that it was as if they’d never been set out at all, there was nothing to do but take this man and his question out into the dusty night. He was about a foot taller than I, and his hair was grayer than I’d thought when he was sitting in the back of the room. In close company, in fact, his manner was even more halting and irregular than when he had first attempted to pronounce his hoarse question. The phrase wild, staring eyes was made for interlocutors like this. Since I’m a fan of the new expanded edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—Eighth Edition , since I flip through it looking for syndromes that I have yet to contract, I did have a couple of diagnostic speculations about this gentleman who later announced his improbable name as: D. Tyrannosaurus.
My speculations touched upon aggravated hydrophobia with hygiene aversion , which you found a lot of in our town, and though it was considered a civic virtue to refrain from bathing, a virtue taken to extremes by some local ragamuffins, Mr. Tyrannosaurus undertook to fulfill this duty with especial loyalty. There was also mixed caffeine obsession with chronic caffeine dependence , which became evident when