Read Online The Morels by Christopher Hacker - Free Book Online
Authors: Christopher Hacker
Ads: Link
“Departmental politics. Not all that different from seventh grade, actually.”
“It’s the very thing that bothers me. Trivia. It’s what the age has reduced us to. World knowledge as nothing more than a set of browsable, meaningless facts.”
“Wine,” said the woman next to me, handing a bottle to Lucy. Lucy thanked her and took a Dixie cup from the stack on the ground. The woman, who had introduced herself as Marsha a few moments ago, said, “It’s a good point you make. Didn’t it used to be that only the people in power had knowledge? Keepers of special knowledge?”
“The Church,” Leslie said. “Who had it on good authority that there was a big hole in the South Pole where a race of giants lived.”
Arthur had come over and was standing just outside our semicircle. He said, “You’re thinking of Poe’s novel.”
“Based on a going theory of the time.”
“It used to be that knowledge was power,” Marsha said. “But now knowledge isn’t powerful. It’s—”
“Trivial,” Arthur said.
“Fine,” the editor said, “but can you answer me this:
Do porcupines masturbate
?”
“That’s not a question!”
“No?” I offered.
“Wrong. Guess again.”
“What’s the question?” This was the man next to Marsha.
“I’m Marsha,” she said to Sri Lanka. “And this is my husband, Greg.”
“Greg and Marsha?” Sri Lanka said. “Are you serious?”
“Except we’re not brother and sister.”
“Neither were your TV counterparts—they totally could have fucked.”
Arthur stood there for a while—large hands shifting from under his armpits to his pockets to his elbows—as he looked around for a way in. After some time, he took a cross-legged seat on the gravel. I became engaged in some lighthearted repartee with Greg and Marsha, then looked over again to see Arthur staring out blankly, the way one does when caught in an awkward social situation. The people on either side of him were involved in other conversations, leaving him alone in this now-boisterous group. Eventually, he got up, brushed at the bottoms of his chinos, and wandered off. I excused myself.
I caught up with him at the base of the immense water tower. We talked for some time there, wandering the labyrinth of an idea I kept losing the thread of. In my tipsiness, I didn’t really care, content enough to drink my beer and nod away as he pursued a train of thought. Then he said, “I’m not good at this.”
“At—”
“Being with other people. I don’t know how to relax. To chat casually about the world. I do this, what I’ve been doing with you, which seems to alienate most people.”
“We can talk about the weather if you want.”
“Penelope is different. She thrives in these situations.” We regarded her as she stood by the grill some yards off with two others, gesturing wildly with a pair of barbecue tongs. The couple she was with held paper plates, onto which Penelope delivered two blackened pieces of chicken off the grill. She caught us looking and waved with the tongs.
“How did you two meet?”
“On a bus. If I think about that day, I can still smell it, the air inside that bus. That’s memory! The humid earth, the coffee, the cologne. It had been raining. Sometimes I wake up next to her, amazed. A wonderful thing, marriage is—no longer having to navigate the baffling bureaucracy of life alone. To have a partner. Someone who believes in you. Her belief is so strong. Sometimes I wonder if, without her, I’d exist at all.”
“How’d you manage it—if you’re so bad at small talk? She turned on by long tracts about the reader-driven model of literature?”
“I got her pregnant.”
“I like your technique. Effective. I’ll have to remember that. And being a father? As wonderful as marriage?”
“The boy’s a born artist—all children are, I suppose. But you get to see just how natural the impulse is to invent things out of thin air. His most recent project has been Tug,
“It’s the very thing that bothers me. Trivia. It’s what the age has reduced us to. World knowledge as nothing more than a set of browsable, meaningless facts.”
“Wine,” said the woman next to me, handing a bottle to Lucy. Lucy thanked her and took a Dixie cup from the stack on the ground. The woman, who had introduced herself as Marsha a few moments ago, said, “It’s a good point you make. Didn’t it used to be that only the people in power had knowledge? Keepers of special knowledge?”
“The Church,” Leslie said. “Who had it on good authority that there was a big hole in the South Pole where a race of giants lived.”
Arthur had come over and was standing just outside our semicircle. He said, “You’re thinking of Poe’s novel.”
“Based on a going theory of the time.”
“It used to be that knowledge was power,” Marsha said. “But now knowledge isn’t powerful. It’s—”
“Trivial,” Arthur said.
“Fine,” the editor said, “but can you answer me this:
Do porcupines masturbate
?”
“That’s not a question!”
“No?” I offered.
“Wrong. Guess again.”
“What’s the question?” This was the man next to Marsha.
“I’m Marsha,” she said to Sri Lanka. “And this is my husband, Greg.”
“Greg and Marsha?” Sri Lanka said. “Are you serious?”
“Except we’re not brother and sister.”
“Neither were your TV counterparts—they totally could have fucked.”
Arthur stood there for a while—large hands shifting from under his armpits to his pockets to his elbows—as he looked around for a way in. After some time, he took a cross-legged seat on the gravel. I became engaged in some lighthearted repartee with Greg and Marsha, then looked over again to see Arthur staring out blankly, the way one does when caught in an awkward social situation. The people on either side of him were involved in other conversations, leaving him alone in this now-boisterous group. Eventually, he got up, brushed at the bottoms of his chinos, and wandered off. I excused myself.
I caught up with him at the base of the immense water tower. We talked for some time there, wandering the labyrinth of an idea I kept losing the thread of. In my tipsiness, I didn’t really care, content enough to drink my beer and nod away as he pursued a train of thought. Then he said, “I’m not good at this.”
“At—”
“Being with other people. I don’t know how to relax. To chat casually about the world. I do this, what I’ve been doing with you, which seems to alienate most people.”
“We can talk about the weather if you want.”
“Penelope is different. She thrives in these situations.” We regarded her as she stood by the grill some yards off with two others, gesturing wildly with a pair of barbecue tongs. The couple she was with held paper plates, onto which Penelope delivered two blackened pieces of chicken off the grill. She caught us looking and waved with the tongs.
“How did you two meet?”
“On a bus. If I think about that day, I can still smell it, the air inside that bus. That’s memory! The humid earth, the coffee, the cologne. It had been raining. Sometimes I wake up next to her, amazed. A wonderful thing, marriage is—no longer having to navigate the baffling bureaucracy of life alone. To have a partner. Someone who believes in you. Her belief is so strong. Sometimes I wonder if, without her, I’d exist at all.”
“How’d you manage it—if you’re so bad at small talk? She turned on by long tracts about the reader-driven model of literature?”
“I got her pregnant.”
“I like your technique. Effective. I’ll have to remember that. And being a father? As wonderful as marriage?”
“The boy’s a born artist—all children are, I suppose. But you get to see just how natural the impulse is to invent things out of thin air. His most recent project has been Tug,
Similar Books
