The Biology of Luck (25 page)

A white-haired, red-faced waiter arrives to announce the dinner specials and to take their beverage order. He is an undersized, skeletal creature decked out in an apron and bow tie. His entire bearing announces his flimsiness. Larry's heart goes out to him as he requests a glass of white wine. The poor man is one of the unchosen, one of the spurned, a kissing cousin to Peter Smythe and the panhandlers of Morningside and the portly women at the Lenox Avenue post office. And to Larry Bloom. They all possess lifetime memberships in the fraternity of ugliness, the voiceless auxiliary to the Brotherhood of Man. This does not mean happiness and romance are forever beyond their reach. It does mean that they must struggle for it, laboring day after day, in a manner that the chosen few, those blessed with outward beauty, will never experience and never understand. Larry Bloom—as tour guide, as author—might not muster the courage to reveal himself to the beautiful woman across the table. But Larry Bloom, self-styled spokesperson for the millions of unattractive and underappreciated men and women across the city, across the nation, suddenly feels capable of facing any challenge. To hell with Colby Parker and Jack Bacomb and all the good-looking, privileged men whom Starshine complains about. They've had their share of happiness. It's time for the Larry Blooms of the world to have their opportunity. This is Larry's deepest wish, his purpose, his calling—and still he hesitates.

He reaches into his pocket and retrieves the letter. Although marred by both fire and water, singed at the edges and stained with coffee, the distinctive quill pen of the agency's letterhead still stands out above the sea of smudged ink. He runs his fingers over the seams
of the envelope, as though soaking up luck from an enchanted amulet, worshipping the great gods Stroop & Stone in his hour of need. Then he gazes into Starshine's eyes, so inviting, so forbidding, marshaling his will for a first and final offensive. Now Larry knows his plan of attack. He will have Starshine open the envelope and deliver the verdict. All of his eggs will rest in one basket. The evening will end in a crescendo—of either anguish or bliss. Her answer will be epic and all consuming,

“Starshine,” he says. “I have something I need to tell you. Something important. “

She flashes him an elusive smile, more accepting than encouraging. He has seen this expression before, but he has never deciphered its meaning. Is it a mask, a protective barrier, veiling fears and insecurities as profound and as troubling as his own? Or is it merely a courtesy, a mode of interaction, an open admission that there truly are no monsters lurking behind those placid features? He has wondered; he has doubted. Now he will learn for certain.

“I have a lot to say,” says Larry. “I'll respect your answer, whatever it is, but all I ask is that you hear me out from start to finish without interrupting. I only have the courage to go through with this once. Is that okay?”

Starshine nods. He feels that she is not looking at him, but through him. That her thoughts lie elsewhere and she has her own burden to unload. Never has she seemed so careworn, so drained. Larry fears he has chosen the wrong evening for their meeting.

“I'll put all my cards on the table,” he says. “I'm in love with you.”

Starshine does not recoil. She does not reciprocate. She simply nods her head again and smiles pleasantly, honoring his request and withholding her judgment. Her eyes are glassy and opaque. If he didn't know any better, he might conclude that she wasn't even listening.

“I've been in love with you since the first moment I met you,” Larry continues. “Do you remember it? We spent all afternoon combing through the maps in Peter Smythe's cellar. You probably
don't remember, but I do. Ever since that day, you've been the woman of my dreams, the one person with whom I'd want to spend the rest of my life. I know that sounds insane, Starshine, and maybe it is. But it's also true.

“I'll admit that I don't have much to offer you. I'm certainly not the best-looking guy in the world or the most successful or even the most charismatic. I'm not going to inherit a beach chair fortune. I'll never have the courage to overthrow the government. I'm not even very good in bed. But the bottom line is that I really do love you, and being with you makes me happy—and if you feel the same way about me, then none of those things should matter. Even a poor tour guide is entitled to some happiness.”

Larry is suddenly conscious that he is rambling, even pleading. An army of tears has encamped behind his eyes. He wipes his face with a napkin and attempts to regain his composure.

“I've written this book,” he says. “It's a novel about you. About your life on the day I tell you how I feel. About today. I think it's a pretty good book, maybe not up to par with Whitman and Melville, but a minor masterpiece in its own right. I've been working on it every night for the past two years and I promised myself that when the manuscript was complete, when I finally had something to offer you, I'd tell you how I felt. Well, I have a letter from a literary agency. A response to my manuscript. I've been waiting to open it all day until I heard your answer, but I thought maybe you'd be willing to open it for me. That's really all I wanted to say. I wanted to tell you that I love you and that I've written a book for you and now I'll shut up, before I make any more of a fool of myself, and I'll let you determine my fate.”

Larry stops speaking and fumbles with his napkin ring. He fears he hasn't done justice to the depth of his devotion, fears that he has left so much out, but nothing else he says will make any difference. Yet even as he slides the decisive letter onto the tabletop, his hands trembling, he longs to make one more pitch for her affections. His entire being hangs in the hope of the moment.

Starshine accepts the letter without speaking. Her delicate
hands break the seal of the envelope and she reads to herself for an eternity. Then she looks up. Her expression is inscrutable, almost blank. For several seconds, it is impossible to tell whether she is aghast or aglow. Or merely astonished. She stares at Larry, speechless, like a woman who has been offered Captain Kidd's treasures, like a woman who has been given a puppy she does not want, like a woman who is grappling with a life and death decision at the end of a very long day. Her lips part slowly; she delivers her answer in the softest, sweetest voice Larry has ever heard. It is the answer Larry has expected since his first night at the word processor, since his first crossing of the Brooklyn Bridge, since the first surge of affection and hope in Peter Smythe's subterranean archive that has led to this decisive moment. It is the answer for which ships are launched, kingdoms imperiled, and epic novels written. It is an answer older than Larry, older than Starshine, older than the city, a magical phrase that loses nothing for time or repetition, inspiring each and every one of us to push forward, buoyed by the remotest hopes, through the tumult, through the trauma, through the cloud.

It is the only answer possible:

“Yes and no …”

A conversation between ERB publisher Jotham Burrello and author Jacob M. Appel.

Q:
I have read love stories. I have read parallel narratives. I have read books that take place in a single day. I have read books in the present tense. I have not read books where one character has written a novel about another character's day, and then said book is presented as a novel-within-a-novel. What challenges or surprises did this structure present?

A:
I haven't read a book like that either. That's why I wrote this one. For many years, I studied dramatic writing with the brilliant Tina Howe at Hunter College. Howe's advice to students is to create something onstage, something that you've never seen before. Creating something entirely new is also my goal whenever I write a story or novel. The challenge, of course, is that I didn't have a model to work from. Writing this novel also proved difficult because it is very different, in both structure and tone, from most of my other writings, which often contain magical elements. Not being allowed to have a character spontaneously combust or turn into a penguin without warning proved a considerable constraint on my imagination, and one that took a while to adjust to.

Q:
When you submitted the manuscript you labeled it the “anti-novel” and “a postmodern love story.” Can you break down these two terms in relation to the book?

A:
I think of this as an “anti-novel” in that it defies as many of the rules of the traditional novel as possible and yet still remains a novel. I was partially inspired in this regard by architect Philip Johnson's iconic “glass house,” which breaks as many of the traditional rule of home design as possible, yet remains a house. While the structure is “postmodern” in the spirit of Donald Barthelme or John Barth, that's not what I meant when I wrote of a postmodern love story. Rather, I meant that the love itself is “postmodern”—hyper-aware, ambivalent, fragmented. That's the world of romance that we live in today.

Q:
For many readers this novel will be their first time experiencing your work. But you are a prolific writer of short stories and essays, plus an accomplished playwright, and work a demanding day job as a psychiatrist. When I sent out blurb requests for the novel, one writer whom I was trying to corral wrote back saying he no longer blurbed books, then added, “that's one hell of a vita” upon reading your accomplishments. For the writers online who blog about you winning so many writing contests, I need to know, do you ever sleep? Are you really a cyborg? Or do you keep a stable of co-writers à la James Patterson?

A:
Psychiatrists are notoriously bad at analyzing their own behavior. That being said, the primary reason I am so prolific is that I enjoy writing very much. I suppose there's also some fear of literary inadequacy and a desire to be remembered after I shuffle off my mortal coil. But if I wrote all day, every day, for the next fifty years, I don't think I could catch up with Joyce Carol Oates, so my subconscious feelings of inadequacy will remain.

Q:
Pulitzer Prize winning author Robert Olen Butler described your work as “richly funny and quite smart about relationships.” How has your psychiatric training assisted you in depicting such keenly observed characters?

A:
Everybody asks me that, but the irony is that most of my work is with the severely mentally ill—patients with schizophrenia and similar psychotic disorders. So while my interest in human nature inspired me to pursue a career in psychiatry, my actual clinic training has little bearing on the fictional world I create. If anything, it's observing people in a social setting that has trained my mind in this way.

Q:
At the time of this interview, I am certain I've read the book more than any other reader. And while I was struck by the humor and voice in my initial reads, subsequent tours reveal a darkness/despair beneath the surface of Larry's and Starshine's lives. I count numerous references to suicide. How did you craft and balance the lightness with the darkness in writing the book?

A:
Having worked for years in various hospitals and psychiatric facilities, I've come to recognize that life is strikingly unkind and unfair—and anyone who hasn't noticed this yet is either strikingly naive or dreadfully spoiled. Unfortunately, many people see their own lots as unfair, while not recognizing how others suffer. One of the goals of the novel is to make my readers aware of this blindness to the suffering of others through the parallel narratives. Of course, if my message were simply “Life is bleak,” people could look out their windows or visit the waiting room at their local prison, rather than reading my book. You have to offer a bit of comedy and joy to lure in the crowds.

Q:
Larry Bloom traverses NYC one fine June day. In Joyce's
Ulysses
Leopold Bloom does a walkabout of Dublin in a single June day. (The former English majors among us may recall the parallels
between
Ulysses
and Homer's
Odyssey
.) This is good company to keep. What similarities did you intend or not intend between these seminal works and
Biology
?

A:
The only thing I share with Homer and Joyce, I fear, is poor eyesight. (My mother once wrote an entire study on the role of poor vision in
Ulysses
, so maybe that's how I first became aware of the novel.) But I'll concede that I had grand ambitions to parallel the novel after both of its predecessors—although, at the end of the day, the structural parallels often gave way to the need for a compelling read. (
Ulysses
, as you may have noticed, isn't exactly hopping off the shelves in airports.) That being said, I believe a number of the parallels still remain. I can't wait for the day that a reader takes on the challenge of finding these parallels and writes an essay on the subject. I welcome anyone (except my mother) to give it a shot.