A Clue to the Exit: A Novel Read Free Page A

me?’
    ‘I’m not writing about death any more.’
    ‘You’re just like my wife,’ he said, and chuckled. ‘She goes to the doctor every day. It’s an illness: hypochondria. She thinks she’s dying. I have to work my ass off so she can afford to be hysterical. So what’s the new project?’ he asked, expertly lowering the entire lobster down his throat like a sword-swallower.
    ‘It’s a novel,’ I said.
    Although he had a claw sticking out of each corner of his mouth, Arnie’s indignation allowed him no pause.
    ‘An ovel!’ The claws appeared to become animated as he mumbled. ‘What the fuck you writing an ovel fo? Ovelist is the schmuck gets aid peanuts for the wights if, ig if, he finds a poducer.’
    ‘It’s about consciousness,’ I persisted.
    Arnie spat out the claws. They clattered onto the plate, the flesh sucked from their shattered exoskeletons.
    ‘What’s the story line?’ he mocked. ‘Consciousness meets consciousness, they become super-conscious and live consciously ever after?’
    ‘You must be psychic,’ I said.
    ‘Sure I’m psychic,’ said Arnie, reluctant to refuse a compliment. ‘Listen, Charlie, first you tell me you can’t get death off your mind; now you tell me you can’t get your mind off your mind. Sounds like you oughta sack your therapist and write a sequel to Aliens with a Human Heart . Don’t you have any sense of social responsibility? Fifty-three million people are waiting for that sequel. Now, Charlie,’ said Arnie, all avuncular, ‘I know consciousness is a hot topic on the campuses. Did you read Mind Matters ?’
    ‘I must have done,’ I said, feeling the memory of another dozen books slide down Lethe’s greasy banks.
    ‘How about Mind Your Language ?’
    ‘I … I think so.’
    ‘That was a nice deal. The man who represented that book is a personal friend of mine. You wouldn’t believe what some of these academic boys get paid. But a novel, Charlie, a novel. You gonna put synapses in a novel?’
    ‘I don’t have to put them in, they’re in there already. My synapses are totally committed to this project,’ I gushed. ‘That’s the beautiful thing about it, talk about “the medium is the message”, this is the big one. Medium–message, form–content, they just kind of make out with each other the whole time.’
    ‘You’re writing a pornographic novel about consciousness?’
    ‘I could,’ I said obligingly. ‘I was going to set it at a conference.’
    ‘All they ever do at conferences is screw, right?’ said Arnie, chucking back a double espresso.
    ‘Lecture and screw.’
    ‘Drop the lectures; just go right into the passion,’ he advised.
    ‘They could have thoughts about the lectures while they were screwing and thoughts about the screwing during the lectures. It would be a metaphor for the total interpenetration…’
    ‘Total interpenetration, there’s a market for,’ said Arnie with a wink.
    By now I was floundering. All I could remember from my reading was a couple of lines from Now and Zen .
    ‘Listen to the wind moving through the pines,’ I stammered.
    ‘What fuckin’ pines? This is Third Avenue. You having a psychotic episode? You think you’re in the Pokanos?’
    ‘The sound of the traffic, then,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
    ‘What d’ya mean, it doesn’t matter? You have any idea how much it costs to rent in this neighbourhood?’
    ‘In the sound of the wind moving through the traffic is all the teaching we’ll ever need…’
    ‘Right,’ said Arnie, cocking his ear towards the door. ‘It’s telling me I’m late for a meeting.’ He heaved himself up from the table and left with a marked lack of ceremony.
    I think I blew the pitch.

 
    6
    I’m back in St Tropez. Arnie is right: there’s no real market for death or consciousness. I’m going to have to go it alone on this one. I’ve taken a last handful of Prozac and thrown away the bottle. My whole New York trip was a Prozac mirage. Thank