Read Online The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Padgett Powell
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be in hospital or in the jail? What is the best meal you have ever had (and forgiveme if I have asked this before; if I have, do not feel compelled to give me the same answer)? If something could happen right now that is not likely to or impossible but that would really cheer you up if it did, just light you up like a child again, what would it be?
Do you know what is involved, with respect to leather, in tanning? Does a regulatory commission strike you in general as a good thing or a bad thing? In households in which a child has died, do you think what goes on at night in that household is radically different, superficially different, or no different from what goes on at night in households in which no child has died? If you were to be locked in a room naked for an unspecified length of time by a party you could not identify and for an infraction you could not determine, and you were offered a pair of wool socks or a pistol, which would you take? If it then developed that a big cat would share the room with you, would you prefer it be a lion or a tiger, given free choice? Would your choice be affected in any way were you assured both cats were friendly and that you had also, as part of the terms of your incarceration, to bathe the cat?
Was there an opportunity for you to have had your first sexual encounter before you actually hadyour first sexual encounter? Was it the case that you didn’t realize it was an opportunity for your first sexual encounter? If you could, would you return to that opportunity and remove whatever prevented your realizing what an opportunity it was? Or, if you did at the time perceive that it was an opportunity, but there were other obstacles to the fulfillment of the encounter, would you have those obstacles removed and proceed with this first sexual encounter earlier than the first one you actually did experience? If there is a missed first sexual encounter in your past, do you recall the name of the person it might have involved? Would you be willing to share that name and the particulars with me?
Do you ever buy tea already brewed in bottles or jugs? Wouldn’t it be sporty and fun to carry around a riding crop and whip things with it? Do you think of yourself as a quitter, and, if you do, was there a time you did not think you were a quitter? If there was a time you did not regard yourself a quitter, and you do now acknowledge that you are a quitter, was there one event or a series of events that persuaded you that you are actually now a quitter? In this context, or perhaps not in this context but in any pertinent context youwould like to supply, do you ever call yourself, specifically, “a pussy”? If you do call yourself a pussy sometimes, or all of the time, what I think is interesting is that there must have been a time in your life, as in everyone’s life, that you did not call yourself a pussy, either because you did not yet have cause to believe you were a pussy or because the very notion of one’s being a pussy or not being a pussy had not yet entered your consciousness—and what I want to know is exactly when did this sound barrier of self-regard get punctured or broken for you? Can you believe that I once knew a girl a couple neighborhoods over who was precociously blond and developed who had drawn the attention of older boys and who succumbed to their carnal wolving but who would apparently have nothing to do with younger boys like me, and that brashly as we hovered about her house while probably an older boy was actually inside it with her or soon would be I told another of the younger boys that it might be the case that we could not have her but that I would have her before he would have her, and that this boy somehow relayed this utterance to the girl, who later confronted me with it, without scoff, with in fact a note of interest or invitation to stand and deliver, which noteI did not pursue, embarrassed to have had this brashness transported to her and certain that she
Do you know what is involved, with respect to leather, in tanning? Does a regulatory commission strike you in general as a good thing or a bad thing? In households in which a child has died, do you think what goes on at night in that household is radically different, superficially different, or no different from what goes on at night in households in which no child has died? If you were to be locked in a room naked for an unspecified length of time by a party you could not identify and for an infraction you could not determine, and you were offered a pair of wool socks or a pistol, which would you take? If it then developed that a big cat would share the room with you, would you prefer it be a lion or a tiger, given free choice? Would your choice be affected in any way were you assured both cats were friendly and that you had also, as part of the terms of your incarceration, to bathe the cat?
Was there an opportunity for you to have had your first sexual encounter before you actually hadyour first sexual encounter? Was it the case that you didn’t realize it was an opportunity for your first sexual encounter? If you could, would you return to that opportunity and remove whatever prevented your realizing what an opportunity it was? Or, if you did at the time perceive that it was an opportunity, but there were other obstacles to the fulfillment of the encounter, would you have those obstacles removed and proceed with this first sexual encounter earlier than the first one you actually did experience? If there is a missed first sexual encounter in your past, do you recall the name of the person it might have involved? Would you be willing to share that name and the particulars with me?
Do you ever buy tea already brewed in bottles or jugs? Wouldn’t it be sporty and fun to carry around a riding crop and whip things with it? Do you think of yourself as a quitter, and, if you do, was there a time you did not think you were a quitter? If there was a time you did not regard yourself a quitter, and you do now acknowledge that you are a quitter, was there one event or a series of events that persuaded you that you are actually now a quitter? In this context, or perhaps not in this context but in any pertinent context youwould like to supply, do you ever call yourself, specifically, “a pussy”? If you do call yourself a pussy sometimes, or all of the time, what I think is interesting is that there must have been a time in your life, as in everyone’s life, that you did not call yourself a pussy, either because you did not yet have cause to believe you were a pussy or because the very notion of one’s being a pussy or not being a pussy had not yet entered your consciousness—and what I want to know is exactly when did this sound barrier of self-regard get punctured or broken for you? Can you believe that I once knew a girl a couple neighborhoods over who was precociously blond and developed who had drawn the attention of older boys and who succumbed to their carnal wolving but who would apparently have nothing to do with younger boys like me, and that brashly as we hovered about her house while probably an older boy was actually inside it with her or soon would be I told another of the younger boys that it might be the case that we could not have her but that I would have her before he would have her, and that this boy somehow relayed this utterance to the girl, who later confronted me with it, without scoff, with in fact a note of interest or invitation to stand and deliver, which noteI did not pursue, embarrassed to have had this brashness transported to her and certain that she
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