A Meaningful Life (29 page)

Not even his house belonged to him anymore. It was out of his control and no longer bore the mark of his hand. It bore the mark of Mr. Busterboy's hand instead, which was a much better hand than his. He walked through the darkened rooms, joylessly inhaling the odors of fresh plaster and newly sawed wood, feeling as though a giant trap was slowly being constructed around him. The place no longer meant anything; there were no dreams or excitements left in it. Yet he was going on, step by step, and God knew where his steps would lead him. Probably nowhere in particular. He knew now that the police were never coming. He was safe, and the one great act of his life would never be certified by the public realities of arrest and trial. He would never know the name of the man he'd killed or what kind of life he'd had or why he'd come to Lowell's house that night to drink beer in the parlor and meet his fate. Lowell would never even be able to prove that it had happened. Mr. Busterboy had been as good as his word, and all trace of the deed had vanished. Where the wall had been speckled with gore like raspberry jam, a huge patch of sterile new plaster glowed in the darkness; where the stain on the floor had been, there was a hole instead. A few miles away across the East River was the apartment he could never get used to, the job where he had nothing to do, the dozen or so people he knew slightly and cared about not at all: a fabric of existence as blank and seamless as the freshly plastered wall he faced. Soon his wife would return from New Jersey. Soon everyone would be back, and things would go on much as they had before. From the street outside came the sound of laughter and shouting, bottles breaking, voices droning in the warm air, and children playing far past their bedtime. It all meant nothing whatever to Lowell. Standing in the parlor of a house no longer his, listening to the voices of people whose lives where closed to him forever, contemplating a future much like his past, he realized that it was finally too late for him. Everything had gone wrong, and he had succeeded at nothing, and he was never going to have any kind of life at all.

THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

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Copyright © 1971 by Lawrence J. Davis

Introduction copyright © 2009 by Jonathan Lethem

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Davis, L.J. (Lawrence J.)

A meaningful life / by L.J. Davis; introduction by Jonathan Lethem.

1. Housing rehabilitation—Fiction. 2. Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction.

I. Title.

PS3554.A935M43 2009

813'.54—dc22

2008041187

eISBN 978-159017-394-7

v2.0

Cover photograph: © Camilo José Vergara, 40th St. at 9th Ave., New York, NY, 1995; cover design: Katy Homans

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