Read Online A Moveable Famine by John Skoyles - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Skoyles
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lady!” With his youthful face and ironed clothes, Barkhausen hardly seemed imposing, but he spoke so fiercely the men shut up. A few moments later, one of them rested his shoe on the table, in the middle of his party’s drinks.
“The floor’s for your feet, so keep them there!” Barkhausen yelled, and the man sheepishly removed his loafer.
I told Artie he should just enjoy the show, but he said he couldn’t stand a lack of manners. When he went to the men’s room, Pryor asked me, “What’s with him?”
I said I had no idea.
“I kind of admire him,” Pryor said, shrugging.
Taryn returned to our table. McPeak praised her grace and imagination as he petted away the freckles on her face with a napkin dipped in beer.
Pryor told everyone about Barkhausen and, in his telling and retelling, Artie became known as a great defender of female honor. Pryor visited Harvey and Lawson in their offices, spreading Barkhausen’s fame, a little rubbing off on him by association.
Black Tuesday, the day of financial aid decisions, was approaching. The RAs might become TAs, and the TAs, TWFs. Those like me hoped for anything. The stipends were small, but each appointment came with in-state tuition, worth thousands of dollars. I had received mild praise from teachers and had stopped straining for surreal effects. Ridge said that one of the graduating TWFs had insisted to Harvey that I had shed my New York School influences and should be recognized. At The Deadwood one afternoon, Pryor said that he had gone to both Harvey and Lawson to make a case for me, bringing a copy of my poem, “Blue,” which was a list of blue things. Pryor said Lawson liked it and called it “an exercise in syntax,” which was news to me. Barkhausen joined the table and said his stomach was upset and asked Brandy for “a cup of teat.” Ridge squinted at me, but we really couldn’t be sure if we heard right. I glanced over at laughter coming from the two women at a table across from us, both pregnant, and each with a cup of tea. This made me wonder further about Barkhausen. He seemed to absorb things around him, and spit them out in a cockeyed way.
“I might go see Lawson myself about giving you aid,” Barkhausen said.
Ridge said, “Soon, the guy mopping the floor around Lawson’s desk will be whispering over Mitch’s shoulder about you.”
“It’s embarrassing,” I said.
“Just wait,” Ridge said. “You might get something.”
The next morning I couldn’t open my left eye. I went to the drug store and the pharmacist said I had either “reader’s eye” or “drinker’s eye” and gave me a bottle of artificial tears. I worried about my vision because my health care had always been poor. My family doctor worked out of his house with no staff, opening his wallet to make change. When forms had to be completed for admission to Fairfield, he signed the papers, saying, “If anyone asks if I gave you these shots, tell them I did.” My tonsils were removed in his office without anesthesia while I was sitting on my hands to keep me from knocking the scalpel away. The optometrist said my eyesight was twenty-twenty. After college, I was drafted, and an army doctor told me I was nearly blind in my left eye. Now I had only myself to blame, for drinking and reading, reading and drinking.
Pryor’s marriage was failing and McPeak broke up with Taryn, saying that having sex with her was like playing Chutes and Ladders. He dated an almost catatonic girl from the northwest, and another who hid her voluptuous body under heavy woolen ponchos before he found Maud Deering, a Boston debutante who mocked his Chevy Nova when he offered her a ride after class. He cashed his high school teachers’ pension to buy an MG he garaged in Iowa City, then raced along the Coralville strip with Maud’s scarf snapping in the wind. Meanwhile, Wendy flirted with everyone, and Pryor escorted his drunken wife from party to party, leaving a wake of torn paper.
Ridge
“The floor’s for your feet, so keep them there!” Barkhausen yelled, and the man sheepishly removed his loafer.
I told Artie he should just enjoy the show, but he said he couldn’t stand a lack of manners. When he went to the men’s room, Pryor asked me, “What’s with him?”
I said I had no idea.
“I kind of admire him,” Pryor said, shrugging.
Taryn returned to our table. McPeak praised her grace and imagination as he petted away the freckles on her face with a napkin dipped in beer.
Pryor told everyone about Barkhausen and, in his telling and retelling, Artie became known as a great defender of female honor. Pryor visited Harvey and Lawson in their offices, spreading Barkhausen’s fame, a little rubbing off on him by association.
Black Tuesday, the day of financial aid decisions, was approaching. The RAs might become TAs, and the TAs, TWFs. Those like me hoped for anything. The stipends were small, but each appointment came with in-state tuition, worth thousands of dollars. I had received mild praise from teachers and had stopped straining for surreal effects. Ridge said that one of the graduating TWFs had insisted to Harvey that I had shed my New York School influences and should be recognized. At The Deadwood one afternoon, Pryor said that he had gone to both Harvey and Lawson to make a case for me, bringing a copy of my poem, “Blue,” which was a list of blue things. Pryor said Lawson liked it and called it “an exercise in syntax,” which was news to me. Barkhausen joined the table and said his stomach was upset and asked Brandy for “a cup of teat.” Ridge squinted at me, but we really couldn’t be sure if we heard right. I glanced over at laughter coming from the two women at a table across from us, both pregnant, and each with a cup of tea. This made me wonder further about Barkhausen. He seemed to absorb things around him, and spit them out in a cockeyed way.
“I might go see Lawson myself about giving you aid,” Barkhausen said.
Ridge said, “Soon, the guy mopping the floor around Lawson’s desk will be whispering over Mitch’s shoulder about you.”
“It’s embarrassing,” I said.
“Just wait,” Ridge said. “You might get something.”
The next morning I couldn’t open my left eye. I went to the drug store and the pharmacist said I had either “reader’s eye” or “drinker’s eye” and gave me a bottle of artificial tears. I worried about my vision because my health care had always been poor. My family doctor worked out of his house with no staff, opening his wallet to make change. When forms had to be completed for admission to Fairfield, he signed the papers, saying, “If anyone asks if I gave you these shots, tell them I did.” My tonsils were removed in his office without anesthesia while I was sitting on my hands to keep me from knocking the scalpel away. The optometrist said my eyesight was twenty-twenty. After college, I was drafted, and an army doctor told me I was nearly blind in my left eye. Now I had only myself to blame, for drinking and reading, reading and drinking.
Pryor’s marriage was failing and McPeak broke up with Taryn, saying that having sex with her was like playing Chutes and Ladders. He dated an almost catatonic girl from the northwest, and another who hid her voluptuous body under heavy woolen ponchos before he found Maud Deering, a Boston debutante who mocked his Chevy Nova when he offered her a ride after class. He cashed his high school teachers’ pension to buy an MG he garaged in Iowa City, then raced along the Coralville strip with Maud’s scarf snapping in the wind. Meanwhile, Wendy flirted with everyone, and Pryor escorted his drunken wife from party to party, leaving a wake of torn paper.
Ridge
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