Read Online The Morels by Christopher Hacker - Free Book Online Page B

light’s small cone a suggestion of the great void above. I found myself standing with Penelope, both of us slurry with beer. Sri Lanka had described her as a MILF, and I guess she was, though she was our own age. She was curvy, and her playful green eyes complimented a high, singsongy voice. The arm-length tattoo was sexy, I had to admit; after she caught me staring, she held it out for inspection. “It’s a snake,” she said. The beast’s mouth was open around her wrist, its scales like chain mail. The illustration was made to look as though her limb was being devoured. “I got it so this would be less noticeable.” She touched three raised patches on the snake’s body each the size of an infant’s palm print and made of what looked like the pebbly skin of a nipple. I hazarded a feel. “The guy who did it is an artist. His ink work costs triple what anyone else on the East Coast charges. The dishwasher where I was working at the time had his back done tolook like one of those old anatomy drawings, skin peeled to show the veins and muscle and all that?”
    She spoke of Arthur’s mother and father, whom she described as “totally batshit.” She said that Arthur wisely steered clear of them. “They’re Manhattan fixtures. They live downtown in a loft and keep their front door open for anybody to walk in off the street. In fact they encourage it; they welcome everybody in. That place was a madhouse back in the day. Arthur tells me stories. Once, when he was maybe thirteen he was taken by a couple—they came in right off the street and Arthur wandered back to their Lower East Side apartment with them. And here’s the kicker: his parents? Didn’t even realize that he was gone—and he was gone for two days.
Two days!
Arthur laughs when he tells that particular one, so I don’t think anything too bad happened to him while he was away, but there are other stories he doesn’t laugh about. And a few he refuses to even talk about. I’ve dropped by their loft a few times but didn’t mention who I was. Kind of fun being undercover!”
    “They’ve never met you?”
    “They’ve never met me, never met Will. They don’t know he’s published a book—even though the bookstore around the corner has it in the window!”
    “I’ve been meaning to read it.”
    “Oh, you should. He’s brilliant. You read the crap from those people he teaches with, and it’s so clever you want to vomit. Art’s the only serious one of the bunch, definitely the only one those students should be taking advice from.”
    “Said the wife about her husband.”
    “It’s true, though! Those others?” She cocked a thumb at a clutch murmuring behind us. “They’re just trying to keep up with their careers. They spend as much time sleeping with each other at MacDowell and schmoozing with known members of grant committees as they do thinking about what they write. Art’s different. He could care less about career, about tenure—if he continues to teach, he’ll be an adjunct for the rest of his life, and I say fine. What, you’re surprised hear me say that?”
    “You’re living in the city and raising a child. Health insurance and a steady paycheck? That doesn’t interest you?”
    “You’re thinking about some other man, some other marriage. I knew what I was getting into when I picked Art. He’s barely employable. He thinks too much, takes too much to heart. But it’s also what I love about him. I figured out long ago that if we were going to be together, I would have to do the breadwinning, so to speak—” She told me earlier that she was the head baker at Balthazar. “It’s okay, though. I’d rather him be brilliant and happy than a miserable so-and-so. Better for me and better for Will.”
    I didn’t have a bedside lamp—reading in bed was not a habit—and so I took the gooseneck from its perch on the piano’s music stand and clipped it onto the radiator’s knob by my bed. Pointing it at the wall gave me plenty of