The slam of the front door cut her off.
Morris stalked to the sidewalk with his head down, and when he reached it, he began to run. There was a strip mall with a liquor store in it three blocks away. When he got there, he sat on the bike rack outside Hobby Terrific and waited. The first two guys he spoke to refused his request (the second with a smile Morris longed to punch off his face), but the third was wearing thrift-shop clothes and walking with a pronounced list to port. He agreed to buy Morris a pint for two dollars, or a quart for five. Morris opted for the quart, and began drinking it beside the stream running through the undeveloped land between Sycamore and Birch Streets. By then the sun was going down. He had no memory of making his way to Sugar Heights in the boosted car, but there was no doubt that once he was there, he’d gotten into what Curd the Turd liked to call a mega jackpot.
Whose fault is it that you’re in here?
He supposed a little of the blame could go to the wino who’d bought an underage kid a quart of whiskey, but mostly it was his mother’s fault, and one good thing had come of it: when he was sentenced, there had been no sign of that sarcastic curl of a smile. He had finally wiped it off her face.
???
During prison lockdowns (there was at least one a month), Morris would lie on his bunk with his hands crossed behind his head and think about the fourth Jimmy Gold novel, wondering if it contained the redemption he had so longed for after closing The Runner Slows Down. Was it possible Jimmy had regained his old hopes and dreams? His old fire? If only he’d had two more days with it! Even one!
Although he doubted if even John Rothstein could have made a thing like that believable. Based on Morris’s own observations (his parents being his prime exemplars), when the fire went out, it usually went out for good. Yet some people did change. He remembered once bringing up that possibility to Andy Halliday, while they were having one of their many lunch-hour discussions. This was at the Happy Cup, just down the street from Grissom Books, where Andy worked, and not long after Morris had left City College, deciding what passed for higher education there was fucking pointless.
“Nixon changed,” Morris said. “The old Commie-hater opened trade relations with China. And Lyndon Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Bill through Congress. If an old racist hyena like him could change his spots, I suppose anything is possible.”
“Politicians.” Andy sniffed, as at a bad smell. He was a skinny, crewcut fellow only a few years older than Morris. “They change out of expediency, not idealism. Ordinary people don’t even do that. They can’t. If they refuse to behave, they’re punished. Then, after punishment, they say okay, yes sir, and get with the program like the good little drones they are. Look at what happened to the Vietnam War protestors. Most of them are now living middle-class lives. Fat, happy, and voting Republican. Those who refused to knuckle under are in jail. Or on the run, like Katherine Ann Power.”
“How can you call Jimmy Gold ordinary?” Morris cried.
Andy had given him a patronizing look. “Oh, please. His entire story is an epic journey out of exceptionalism. The purpose of American culture is to create a norm, Morris. That means that extraordinary people must be leveled, and it happens to Jimmy. He ends up working in advertising, for God’s sake, and what greater agent of the norm is there in this fucked-up country? It’s Rothstein’s main point.” He shook his head. “If you’re looking for optimism, buy a Harlequin Romance.”
Morris thought Andy was basically arguing for the sake of argument. A zealot’s eyes burned behind his nerdy hornrims, but even then Morris was getting the man’s measure. His zeal was for books as objects, not for the stories and ideas inside them.
They had lunch together two or three times a week, usually at the Cup, sometimes across the street from Grissom’s on the benches in Government Square. It was during one of these lunches that Andrew Halliday first mentioned the persistent rumor that John Rothstein had continued to write, but that his will specified all the work be burned upon his death.
“No!” Morris had cried, genuinely wounded. “That could never happen. Could it?”
Andy shrugged. “If it’s in the will, anything he’s written since he dropped out of sight is as good as ashes.”
“You’re just making it up.”
“The stuff about the will might just be a rumor, I grant you that, but it’s well accepted in bookstore circles that Rothstein never stopped writing.”
“Bookstore circles,” Morris had said doubtfully.
“We have our own grapevine, Morris. Rothstein’s housekeeper does his shopping, okay? Not just groceries, either. Once every month or six weeks, she goes into White River Books in Berlin, which is the closest town of any size, to pick up books he’s ordered by phone. She’s told the people who work there that he writes every day from six in the morning until two in the afternoon. The owner told some other dealers at the Boston Book Fair, and the word got around.”
“Holy shit,” Morris had breathed. This conversation had taken place in June of 1976. Rothstein’s last published story, “The Perfect Banana Pie,” had been published in 1960. If what Andy was saying was true, it meant that John Rothstein had been piling up fresh fiction for sixteen years. At even eight hundred words a day, that added up to . . . Morris couldn’t begin to do the math in his head, but it was a lot.
“Holy shit is right,” Andy said.
“If he really wants all that burned when he dies, he’s crazy!”
“Most writers are.” Andy had leaned forward, smiling, as if what he said next were a joke. Maybe it was. To him, at least. “Here’s what I think—someone should mount a rescue mission. Maybe you, Morris. After all, you’re his number one fan.”
“Not me,” Morris said, “not after what he did to Jimmy Gold.”
“Cool it, guy. You can’t blame a man for following his muse.”
“Sure I can.”
“Then steal em,” Andy said, still smiling. “Call it theft as a protest on behalf of English literature. Bring em to me. I’ll sit on em awhile, then sell em. If they’re not senile gibberish, they might fetch as much as a million dollars. I’ll split with you. Fifty-fifty, even-Steven.”
“They’d catch us.”
“Don’t think so,” Andy Halliday had replied. “There are ways.”
“How long would you have to wait before you could sell them?”
“A few years,” Andy had replied, waving his hand as if he were talking about a couple of hours. “Five, maybe.”