Read Online The Tenants by Bernard Malamud - Free Book Online Page B

thought and says what he feels he has to as Willie, pretending patience, calm, nothing much to worry about, interlocks stubby fingers on his green-sweatered chest, then gives up immobility and strokes his little woolly beard.
    Lesser says: “To start with, there’s no question you’re a writer, Willie. Both parts of your book, the autobiography and the five stories are strong and moving. Whatever the writing lacks there’s obviously a talent at work.”
    Willie laughs mildly derisively. “Oh, come on, dad, who you telling that to? It don’t mean anything much
when you know your book is in trouble. Come on down to the cold-shit truth of it.”
    Lesser says the truth of it is the book is good but could be better.
    “I told you that myself,” says Willie. “Didn’t I say I wasn’t satisfied? Now go on to what I really asked you, like where I steered off the track.”
    “I was going to say if you aren’t satisfied with the writing, Willie, then I guess you have reason not to be. I would say that the form of the whole is not sufficient. There’s a flawed quality, what you call blurred, that gives the shifting effect that bothers you.”
    “Where does it start, man?”
    “Right from the beginning of the autobiography. Not that you don’t work hard but there has to be more emphasis on technique, form, though I know it’s not stylish to say that. You’ve got to build more carefully.”
    Willie rises, groaning, as though somebody would nail him to the chair if he didn’t.
    “I want to show you how full of crud you are, Lesser, in what you just said. First off, you dead wrong in the way you classified my work. The part you call autobiography is pure made-up fiction that I invent as I go along. Man, I am makin it up. The I guy who is narratin it ain’t me. That cat is straight out of my imagination all along, pure and simple, comin and goin. Myself, I was born on 129th Street in Harlem and moved to Bedford-Stuyvesant with my mama when I
was six years old, and which I ain’t been south of except to swim at Coney Island. I have never been in Mississippi and would not put my foot in that shithole. I never in my whole life ate chitterlins because my mama and me couldn’t stand the smell of them, and I think I would throw up if I did. I never worked in Detroit, Michigan, though my true daddy did for three years in a job cleanin toilets. But on the other hand, four of the short stories happen to be dead true. They happened to brothers I knew all my life just exactly like I tell it, and everything I say really happened and that’s the only real autobiography there is and there is no other, period and end of period.”
    Lesser admits surprise.
    “The book has the tone of autobiography, but even if it’s pure fiction the point is that something’s not coming off right or you wouldn’t have asked me to read it.”
    Willie calmly and thoroughly scratches his balls.
    “I’m not soundin on you, Lesser, but how can you be so whiteass sure of what you sayin if my book turns out to be two different things than you thought?”
    “In any case we both agree it needs more work.”
    “Work,” Willie mimics him, his moist eyes rolling. “I’ve worked my ass to the flat bone. I’ve worked past misery, man. This is my fourth draft, how many more do I have to do?”
    His low voice rose high.

    “Maybe try one more.”
    “Fuck you on that.”
    Lesser is angry with himself for having got into this hassle, having known it would end as one.
    “Willie,” he says irritably, “I’ve got to get on with my own book.”
    Willie’s bulky body sags, ebony turned tar.
    “Don’t put your whammy on me, Lesser, you. Don’t give me that grief. Don’t hit me on my self-confidence.”
    Lesser asks Willie to grant him good will. “I know how you feel, I put myself in your place.”
    In cold and haughty anger the black replies. “No ofay motherfucker can put himself in my place. This is a black book we talkin about that you don’t