I Think You're Totally Wrong (11 page)

DAVID:
I'm your former teacher, I'm a much more established writer than you are, but you seem much more certain of yourself.

CALEB:
I tell Terry that I'm the king of uncertainty.

DAVID:
You are?

CALEB:
I'm so not certain, but when I say something I don't incessantly qualify it with doubt. Inside—inside, I'm uncertain.

DAVID:
That's a relief, and it makes me believe even more in you as a writer. It's that Graham Greene line: “When we are not sure, we are alive.”

CALEB:
What do you think about Greene?

DAVID:
He has a Manichean view of the universe: good and evil.

CALEB:
Sounds pretty certain to me.

CALEB:
When Toni Morrison was nominated for a National Book Award and didn't win, did she really say to a judge, “Thank you for ruining my life”?

DAVID:
According to my former teacher, yes.

CALEB:
It seems beneath her.

DAVID:
Why would it be beneath her? She's just like anyone else.

DAVID:
Are you an atheist?

CALEB:
I consider myself an Einsteinian agnostic.

DAVID:
I'm an atheist. Tomorrow I might get hit by a bolt of lightning and change my view, but I'm living my life as if we're animals and we're here on earth, more evolved than a muskrat but not essentially different. My friend Robert, who's Catholic, says the only thing that interests him is eschatology.

CALEB:
The study of shit?

DAVID:
Not scatology. Eschatology.

CALEB:
Oops.

DAVID:
Dostoevsky wondering endlessly, “Is there a god?” “If there is no god, how do we live a moral life?” “What happens after we die?” These are children's questions. I'd rather talk about why we kill. What's the difference between a Hindu god and an Incan god? You're all deluded. What does Bertrand Russell call it? The celestial teapot. If you want to believe this teapot is magical, fine, but it's no more meaningful than believing that a curtain rod carries divinity.

CALEB:
You hear about the dyslexic, insomniac agnostic?

DAVID:
I probably have, but I forget the punch line.

CALEB:
He stayed up all night wondering whether there's a dog.

CALEB:
At family gatherings, I come across as a moronic dude who likes to drink beer. I'm accident-prone, I spill things, I break dishes, and I like sports. There's a certain pretense on your part. You're the artist above it all.

DAVID:
Well, sure. I'm very pretentious, but I'm not a snob.

CALEB:
In
Black Planet
you were. You had two season tickets to Sonics games and had trouble finding someone to go with you. You advertised, and then Henry offered to buy six tickets. Then you dismissed Henry because he worked at Elma Lanes bowling alley. You even wrote to begin the paragraph, “I'm a snob.” You missed an opportunity.

DAVID:
I know. I agree.

CALEB:
Henry represents the world.

DAVID:
If it turned out bad, it would have been better. Two hours of painfully literal conversation.

CALEB:
Again, you're dismissing Henry as if everything will go over his head. And it might have, but stuff like this makes me wonder if you even want to understand people at “ground level.” Forget about the sixty to seventy percent of humanity struggling for basic comforts, food and shelter and survival; they have reasons why they don't read. But even in America, of the population that can read and does read, many don't read literary works. They're not all morons. Why would they read David Shields if David Shields doesn't want to hang out with them? Walk through a casino—look at everyone putting money in slots. Hang out in a dive bar.

CALEB:
Terry likes that I don't like porn.

DAVID:
What man doesn't like porn?

CALEB:
I wouldn't say I don't like it—I'm fascinated by it; I enjoy watching erotic images—but I've spoken out against it, too. Prostitution in Cambodia's a lot different than in Vegas. I believe humans should be free to seek their own abysses. Anything is permissible as long as there's no outside harm. I try to apply that to porn.

DAVID:
How does Terry know whether you do or don't like porn?

CALEB:
She's my wife. I don't have porn. Okay, I have about ten Chinese
Playboy
s from Hong Kong. They're almost thirty years old. My mom bought them last time she was in Hong Kong.

DAVID:
What's that all about?

CALEB:
My mom's—well, a book of her own.

CALEB:
I stopped watching the Mariners because of Josh Lueke.

DAVID:
Is he the one who hit his wife?

CALEB:
That's Julio Mateo. The Mariners released him.

DAVID:
Lueke raped a girl?

CALEB:
He was charged with rape. Lueke's DNA was on the anal swab. He pled to the obscure lesser felony of “kidnapping with violence” and served time. He was in the minors, and I told Terry if the Mariners move him up from AAA, I'm done with the Mariners. He made the team, so I'm done, for what it's worth. First year I've been in Seattle and not attended at least one game.

DAVID:
How did it come out that it was anal rape?

CALEB:
Just look on the web.

DAVID:
Is he that great of a player?

CALEB:
He throws ninety-five, has potential. He's young.

DAVID:
He's a reliever?

CALEB:
Uh-huh.

DAVID:
I wonder how they justified that. “Let's give him a second chance”?

CALEB:
The Mariners fired the scout who recruited him.

DAVID:
It was the scout's fault?

CALEB:
Lueke's public statement was, more or less, “I made a mistake—talk to my lawyer.”

DAVID:
In
The Fall
there's a Frenchman who welcomes and loves all humanity despite being surrounded by a war machine. One day he opens the door and is greeted by a bayonet to his gut. Camus then describes a woman forced to choose which child she wants executed.

CALEB:
When did Styron write
Sophie's Choice
?

DAVID:
Twenty years after
The Fall
. I'd take any sentence of
The Fall
over all of
Sophie's Choice
. In that Camus paragraph I get everything. I don't need four hundred pages of
Sophie's Choice
. The student of mine who “shot a dude”: you want a whole book about that. I'd say, “Just give me the line.”

CALEB:
I don't want a book, but I want more. Prison life must be very dramatic.

DAVID:
What about prison life interests you so much?

CALEB:
They're doing time. People who aren't very reflective all of a sudden have nothing to do but meditate on life, death, crime, punishment, family, and pain. Everyone
in prison has a story. There's murder, capital punishment, redemption, recidivism, justice.

DAVID:
Not everyone in prison has shot someone. Some people just wrote a bad check.

CALEB:
You hear about the rapper who went to prison?

DAVID:
Uh-oh.

CALEB:
“Rhyme and Punishment.”