Shriver (6 page)

Shriver stared at the photo. Upside down, the man looked
even less like him, though those curtains in the background
were
familiar.

“If you're finished with your soup,” Simone said as she returned the brochure and other items to her bag, “I can show you around upstairs.”

/

She climbed the stairs gracefully, with the slicker draped over one arm, a slight but perceptible wiggle to her walk, her legs smooth and tan beneath a tight orange knee-length skirt. Shriver followed lopsidedly, feeling the pull of the envelope full of coins in his right coat pocket.

In the upstairs lobby, he stiffened at the sight of a long folding table covered with books for sale. People milled about, browsing and chatting. Several called out hello to Simone as she led him toward the table, where she introduced him to the various conference workers. They all appeared excited to meet him, smiling warmly, shaking his hand. So far the books seemed to be having no effect on his colon.

“And this is Ora Lee Sanford,” Simone said, nodding toward a stout, spiky-haired woman behind the long table. “She's in charge of selling your books.”

Ora Lee shook his hand rigorously. “Your book is selling like hotcakes, you'll be happy to know.”

Shriver glanced down at the books laid out on the table: collections of plays by Basil Rather, books of poetry by Gonquin Smithee, and several volumes of stories by Zebra Amphetamine. At the end of the table sat a fanned pile of unsold books by T. Wätzczesnam, all with photographs of horses on the covers. But the tallest stack of books consisted of the paperback edition of
Goat Time
, with the same satyr on the cover that had graced the hardback copy he'd signed for Delta
Malarkey-Jones. Feeling bold, he picked one up. On the back, voluminous blurbs praised the novel for its “bacchanalian fervor.” He opened the book to a random page. At first the words made sense—something about a blind woman on a subway train—but then the letters blurred.

Shriver felt his face go cold. His bowels gurgled. As the two women chatted (“Have you noticed the mosquitoes?” “I think they're going to be bad this week”), he set down the copy of
Goat Time
and discreetly excused himself, gesturing toward a nearby restroom. He somehow managed to reach the door without running, but once inside he scrambled into a stall and frantically lowered his trousers. He slammed himself down on the seat, yelping at the pain of his newly bruised rear end.

He would have to steer clear of the book table from now on, he decided.

When he emerged from the restroom several uncomfortable moments later, his face damp with sweat, the women watched him closely.

“Are you okay?” Simone asked.

He paused several feet shy of the table.

“Airline food,” he said. “But I'm fine now.”

“Simone says you're going to read something new?” Ora Lee said.

He hovered at this apparently safe distance, feeling the gradual return of blood to his face. “I'm hoping to.”

“Gosh, that's exciting. This is going to be something else!”

“Don't make him nervous, Ora Lee,” Simone said. “Here, let me show you the main room, where all the action takes place.”

Feeling grateful, Shriver followed her past the table and into a vast ballroom. Hundreds of black folding chairs faced a
long raised stage against the far wall. On the stage sat a table draped with crimson fabric atop a dais. At one end stood a pale wooden podium.

“This is where it all happens,” Simone said. “But don't worry. We can bring in extra chairs if we have to.”

The fruit bat caged inside his ribs had now transformed into a squawking, fluttering crow.

At the afternoon reading by Gonquin Smithee, seated among the students toward the rear of the filled ballroom, Shriver found himself leaning to the right to take some weight off his smarting behind—easy to do, with all the change weighing down his right coat pocket. This position also afforded him a better view of Simone, who sat in the front row, her long yellow hair casually pulled over to one side and bunched at her shoulder, her head cocked as she took in Ms. Smithee's words.

The poet wore a man's tailored suit, complete with necktie, her chiseled face framed by graying hair cut short and choppy. She read her work aggressively, each line a stone hurled at the audience.

“ ‘Your eyes like an ice-cold speculum,' ” she read from the podium, “ ‘pushing deep into the tender pink folds of my soul.' ”

Earlier, just before his intestinal difficulties, while he was browsing through the books on the lobby table, Shriver had noticed the enthusiastic critical endorsements printed on Ms. Smithee's book jacket. “A painfully honest exploration of survival.” “Gonquin Smithee plumbs the depths of emotional truth as she attempts to exorcise the demons that have possessed her.” “These are gut-wrenching poems that do not flinch from the hard truths.” Glancing through the pages, he'd noticed a number of poems concerned with rape
and/or blood. The author's bio, accompanied by a rather severe black-and-white photograph, broadcast the information that she had been sexually abused by her father.

“ ‘Your hand as big as a vulture's wing on my buttery skin,' ” Ms. Smithee intoned. “ ‘Fingers long and hairy between the knuckles / their tips rough as a cat's tongue.' ”

Simone, Shriver could see, took all this in like it was the Gettysburg Address. He wondered if she would do the same with his story—if he ever got to read it. Then she glanced over and caught him watching her. Surprised, he did not even bother to turn away. She looked at him for a moment with an impenetrable expression, then returned her attention to Gonquin Smithee.

“She's very intense,” someone whispered into Shriver's ear. He turned to see Edsel Nixon beside him. Shriver had not even noticed the grad student sitting there. He'd been too busy watching Simone.

“Who?” Shriver asked.

“Why, Gonquin Smithee, of course. Who else?”

As Shriver attempted to digest the poetry—“ ‘Your cock,' ” Ms. Smithee chanted, “ ‘tastes salty and smells of yeast / and baby powder' ”—he was suddenly overwhelmed by the abrupt realization that he was in this strange room in a strange town full of strangers. Why on earth was he here? What business did he have consorting with poets who wrote openly about their fathers' genitals? His heart pounded. Icy sweat erupted on his forehead. He wondered how long it would take him to get back home—to get to the airport, to fly halfway across the country, to take a cab to his building—if he walked out of here right now. He was sure he would die if his heart did not slow down.

He shut his eyes and thought of Mr. Bojangles, who was
always able to comfort him at anxious times such as these. The cat would somehow sense his distress and leap daintily onto his lap. Shriver would then stroke Mr. B.'s silky head and ears, feeling the vibrations building up deep inside the animal. He had seen a program on public television about cats in which experts admitted bafflement about the origin of purring—how the noise is manufactured, and even where. Apparently, it remained a pleasant mystery.

“Are you okay?” Edsel Nixon whispered.

Shriver realized that he'd been miming the act of stroking a cat.

“Fine,” he said, shifting in his seat.

He made an effort to pay more attention to the poet's words, in case he would have to speak with her later on, at dinner. He wanted to be able to say something intelligent and, hopefully, complimentary, and needed a concrete example of her work to talk about.

Ms. Smithee was now reading from her epic poem
Menstrual Show
: “ ‘You have finally killed me, I thought / when you pulled out your blood-drenched sword / but then disgust spread across your face like a shadow / and I knew it was I who had somehow done wrong.' ”

Shriver wondered if perhaps he should compliment her vivid imagery but worried that this was not original enough for a writer as sophisticated as the real Shriver seemed to be. He rehearsed to himself various comments—“I particularly enjoyed your comparison of semen to wood glue,” or “How did you come up with so many striking rape metaphors?”—as Gonquin Smithee brought her performance to a well-received climax.

“ ‘Remember this,' ” she read. “ ‘Though I cannot murder you / though I will not yank the ragged fingernails from
your hands / though I dare not take a razor to your dangling scrotum / my words will tear you limb from limb / and I / and thousands of readers / will applaud that some sort of justice has been served.' ”

After a lengthy amount of justice-serving applause, during which Ms. Smithee stood tall and defiant at the podium, the poet asked if there were any questions. No one raised a hand. Shriver watched as Simone scanned the apparently stunned crowd. Seven hundred people, and no brave volunteers.

Simone stood and said, as loudly as she could manage, “Okay, I'll get the ball rolling.”

How courageous she is, Shriver thought.

“Is it difficult,” she asked, “to be so open about your personal story in these poems?”

Gonquin Smithee mulled over the question as if it had never been asked before. Then she leaned toward the microphone and said, “Yes.”

There was a pause as the audience awaited further elucidation. None came. Shriver heard a few titters as people realized this. Simone, he could see, was worried. She now stood off to the side of the room, watching for any raised hands. Ms. Smithee, meanwhile, remained proudly at the podium, awaiting the next question.

“Come on,” she said. “I won't bite you.”

Several people coughed. Shriver felt sorry for Simone, who now seemed embarrassed. No doubt she had played up the audience-participation angle to the author. She wiped at the sheen of sweat on her brow.

Impulsively, Shriver raised his hand.

“Mr. Shriver,” Gonquin Smithee said with an exaggerated nod.

How does she know who I am? Shriver wondered as murmurs
spread through the crowd. He could hear his name being whispered all around him. He stood. Simone, obviously relieved and grateful, smiled encouragingly.

“What is the question?” Ms. Smithee asked. He thought he detected a hostile tone to her voice.

Shriver licked his dry lips and tried to think. He looked down at Edsel Nixon, who watched him with great anticipation. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the intense gaze of Delta Malarkey-Jones, who sat as if frozen in the act of taking a sip from a large soda. He said the only thing that came into his mind.

“Have you ever written a poem from the point of view of your father?”

During the long moment that followed, a truck could be heard backing up—
beep, beep, beep
—somewhere outside the building. Why he'd asked such a question was a mystery to Shriver. He knew nothing of literature, never mind poetry.

The poet looked down at him with an amused expression. “And why would I do that?”

Still standing, Shriver felt 1,398 eyes turn toward him. He cleared his throat. “I just thought it might be interesting.”

The audience buzzed.

“Any other questions?” Ms. Smithee asked, looking around the room.

Shriver glanced over at Simone, who did not meet his gaze. A woman in the rear called out that she too had been abused by a family member, and she'd written six hundred poems about it. Ms. Smithee responded warmly to this information.

When the Q-and-A had ended, Shriver followed Edsel Nixon into the lobby, where hundreds of people now loitered. A few smiled at him; others looked away, embarrassed. One young man, tall and dressed in dark clothes, seemed about to
approach him, then turned and hurried away, as if he'd been caught doing something illicit.

“Shriver!”

From across the lobby, a man's voice.

“Shriver, you old devil!”

A middle-aged man in a cheap suit squeezed his way through the crowd. Rather portly, he wore thick glasses and a gray mustache that contrasted sharply with his brown toupee.

“You haven't changed a bit, you mischievous old SOB,” the man said, offering his hand. “Jack Blunt. Remember?”

Fate tapped a paradiddle on Shriver's heart. He tried to brace himself, but it was no use. This man knew the real Shriver. Here was the moment he was to be exposed.

“I interviewed you years ago,” Jack Blunt said. “Your book had just been published. We went out and tied one on.” He laughed. “Jesus, I think I'm
still
hungover.”

He doesn't remember, Shriver thought. Relieved, he said, “Of course. Blunt. That was a long, long time ago. I hardly recognize you.”

“You look the same,” Blunt said, sizing Shriver up through cola-bottle glasses.

“I do?”

“Of course not,” the reporter said with a laugh. “None of us do. Listen, how about an interview?”

“Oh, I don't know.”

“This is a big occasion. Your first appearance in, what, twenty years? I flew all the way out here for this.”

“I'm not really doing interviews, Mr. Blunt.”

“And it's only appropriate you talk to
me
,” the reporter said, “since I was the one who got to you first all those years ago, when you were a nobody. That article was a big deal for
you, Shriver. This will make for a delicious bookend. Plus, I really need the break.”

“But I don't have anything to say.”

“Look, let's go to this little hole-in-the-wall around the corner, I'll buy you a drink or two, and we can just shoot the shit. Off the record. Then you can decide. How about it?”

He felt he was stepping deeper into a quagmire, but a drink sounded very good to Shriver, especially after that reading.

“I think there's a dinner thing planned,” Edsel Nixon said. “With Gonquin and a few of the others.”

“I'll have him back in time,” Blunt promised.