The Killing Circle by Andrew Pyper Read Free Book Online Page A

me that I ask myself: How does the rest of the circle see me? Most favourably, how I see myself on the best of days, I suppose: an endearingly rumpled Preppie that Time Forgot. Most unfavourably, how I see myself on the worst of days: a dandruffy channel flipper fast approaching the point of no return. Beyond debate are the wide shoulders that lend the illusion of one-time athleticism. And good teeth. A set of ivory chompers that always impress when encountered in Say Cheese! snaps.
    Once the smokers return, we get started on the readers who remain.
    And this is where things get a little foggy.
    I must have read the page I brought with me, as I remember bits of what the other members saidafterwards. (Evelyn found the first-person mode "captures your character’s sense of being trapped in himself", and Petra could detect a "hidden suffering"). William requested a pass on reading his own work, or I think he did, as I only recall the sound of his voice and not its words. A low grinding, like air forced through wet sand.
    But all I really preserve from the second half of the meeting is Angela.
    My first thought, as she opens the cracked leather journal on her knees and lifts it slowly, even reluctantly to her eyes, is that she appears younger than I’d guessed the week before. What I took to be the indistinct features of an adult may instead be the unblemished, baby fat smoothness of a girl coming out of her teens.
    And yet, even as she reads, this impression of girlish youth turns into something else. Her face is difficult to describe, to remember, to see , because it’s not a face at all. It is a mask. One that never sharpens into full focus, like an unfinished sculpture in which you can recognize the subject is human, but beyond this, taken at different points of view, it could be a representation of virtually anyone.
    These considerations of Angela’s appearance come and go within seconds. Soon, all of my attention is on what she reads. We listen without shifting in our seats, without crossing or uncrossing our legs. Even our breathing is calmed to the smallest sips.
    It’s not the virtuosity of her writing that dazzles us, as her style is simple as a child’s. Indeed, the overall effect is that of a strange sort of fairy tale. One that lulls for a time, then breaks its spell with the suggestion of an awaiting threat. It is the voice of youth taking its final turn into the world of adult corruption, of foul, grown-up desire.
    I have been playing with the dictaphone in my pocket this meeting as I had at the last, clicking the Record button on and off. Unthinkingly, a nervous tic. Now I press it down and leave it running.
    Once she begins her reading I have no other thoughts except for one: I will not attempt to write again. There will be what I do for the newspaper, of course. And I can always force out a page here and there, whatever it takes to bluff my way through the next four sessions. But Angela’s story blots out whatever creative light that might have shown itself from within.
    It’s not envy that makes me so sure of this. It’s not the poor sport’s refusal to play if he can’t win. I know I won’t try to write for the circle again because until Angela’s journal comes to its end, I am only a reader.
    After the meeting, I have a drink with Len at The Fukhouse. That is, I’m the first to nip into the bar below Conrad White’s apartment, and Len follows me a moment later. He takes the stool two over from mine, as if we are going to entertain the pretence of not knowing who the other is.A couple minutes after our facially tattooed bartender delivers our drinks—beer for me, orange juice for Len—the space between us becomes too ridiculous to maintain.
    "You enjoying the class so far?” I ask.
    "Oh yeah. I think this might turn out to be the best."
    "You’ve done a writing workshop before?"
    "Plenty. Like, a lot ."
    "You’re an old pro then."
    "Never had anything published, though. Not like you."
    This