Absence of the Hero Read Free

eyes becoming round, dog round; the little glitter funneled to his reading. Then the spherical head came up.
    â€œHave a pretzel,” he said.
    I reached to the high, white bowl, sensing he was going to launch an analytical look, so I let him have full sway. I came back with my pretzel and bit off half of it.
    â€œI thought you were a younger man,” he said.
    â€œI’m twenty-five,” I answered, “but I’ve led a hard life.”
    â€œStill, you look the way I thought you would. I can always tell the way you fellows will look.”
    I knew what he meant: darkly sophisticated and strung up on a rather sharp edge. I stood up, took off my coat, threw it over a chair and loosened my tie. I would have taken off my shirt, too, but I wasn’t wearing an undershirt. I sat down and took another pretzel. The coffee began to boil.
    â€œSay, where’s the bathroom?” I asked. He gave me directions, and I set out. It was a surprisingly large bathroom for such a little hut . . . probably a Russian architect or an acephalous Irishman . . . but I went ahead with good intentions. I heard a sound and looked around: the door had opened a notch and a big hand was sticking through the notch with a towel. I took the towel from the hand. “Thanks,” I said. There was no answer. The big hand withdrew and the door closed.
    When I returned, the coffee was ready, and he suggested that we go to the bedroom. We picked up our cups and walked carefully so the coffee wouldn’t spill. There wasn’t a table in the room, but we went over to a desk. He held his saucer waist-high, lifted the cup, dipped the oval head, the vagrant yellow mustache, and sipped. Then he put his cup down on the desk and left the room.
    There were clippings and photographs all over the walls. On the floor was a wooden box filled with empty brown envelopes, written upon, the stamps cancelled, the brass clips twisted away. On the desk was a paper book. There was a pencil drawing on the cover, not exceptional, and the book was entitled The Collected Stories of K________ M________ . I ran a thumb through the typewritten pages, then pushed the book away. I felt close in the room, as if I were being examined for assassination.
    He came back with his high, white bowl of fourscore pretzels and set them before me. I obliged and sipped at my coffee. He stood in the center of the room.
    â€œYou know who that is, don’t you?” He was pointing to a magazine clipping, a photograph of somebody, pinned to the wall. I left the desk to examine the clipping.
    It was a woman, looking diacritic, argute, behind thick-rimmed glasses. She looked like a teacher of upper algebra.
    â€œWho is it?”
    â€œRead underneath.”
    Martha Foley, it said.
    I went back to the desk, sat down, and ate another pretzel.
    â€œI didn’t make it this year,” he said. “I think I’ll make it next year, though. She was lucky to get a book out this year . . . moving . . . she lost some of her things. I had to send her two extra copies of the magazine . . . the one with your story in it. I have letters from her. Do you want to see them?”
    â€œNo, it’s all right. . . . Look, let’s go catch a drink.”
    â€œI don’t drink,” he said.
    â€œHow about a beer?”
    I heard him rumbling about in the closet, and turning in the swivel chair, I saw his buttocks working in the musty grey pants as he bent over looking for something. Perhaps a bottle of wine?
    I got up and went to the window. I saw a grassless backyard surrounded by a profusion of lots. Well, he was alone, at any rate. There was a tire back there, an incinerator, a box of cans. It was all I could make out in the moonlight, and it was enough.
    He came out of the closet with a paper shoebox. He stood next to me and lifted the lid. For the first time, he smiled at me, at last coming out of his hoop