I Am Having So Much Fun Without You Read Free Page B

to head to the gallery, a man in purple high-tops and a yellow helmet pulled up next to the news kiosk on a beat-up scooter.
    â€œRichard!” he yelled, flipping up his face shield. “I thought that was you!”
    Just when I thought my spirits couldn’t get any lower, my submarine heart took a dive. I wiped my buttery fingers on my jeans and stretched my hand out to greet his in an amalgamation of a fist bump and a punch.
    â€œPatrick,” I said. “How’s it going?”
    â€œGood, good! I was just on my way to my new studio, in Bercy? And at the red light I was like, is it or isn’t it? I haven’t seen you in years!”
    â€œI know, man,” I managed, with a “whatever” shrug. “Offspring.”
    â€œOh, yeah? Me, too.” He took off his helmet. “It’s good to see you! I kept thinking I’d run into you somewhere, but . . . I don’t know. Have you been traveling?”
    â€œNot much. You?” I said, preparing myself to resent every answer to every question I was about to ask. “I thought you moved back to Denmark?”
    â€œI did. For a year. But once you’ve been in the States, everything feels kind of rigid, don’t you think? I just finished a residency in Texas, actually, at the Ballroom Marfa? Brought the wife. The kid . . . oh, here!” he said, reaching into his back pocket. “I just came from the printers actually, so . . .” He waitedas I examined the flyer in my hand. “I’ve got a show coming up at the Musée Bourdelle. Performance art, if you can believe it.”
    â€œOh, yeah?” I said, my stomach tightening.
    â€œYeah, it’s pretty . . .” He shifted his weight on the scooter. “Have you ever read The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell?
    â€œIt’s just a book of questions,” he continued, after my “no.” “A novel of them, really. Question after question. For example.” He adjusted his helmet under his arm. “‘Should a tree be pruned? Is having collected Coke bottles for deposit money part of the fond stuff of your childhood?’”
    â€œYou’ve memorized them?”
    â€œNo,” he said, with a laugh. “Just a couple here and there. They’ve got me set up in Bourdelle’s old studio, where I’ll be in residence for a week, sitting there with the book. Each person can come in one by one and sit with me, and I’ll just pick up with the questions from where I left off with the last person. Anyway,” he said, nodding toward the flyer. “You should come! I’m really excited about it.”
    â€œYeah,” I said, running my thumb across the heading. “I might.”
    â€œWell, I’ve gotta run, but it would be really great to catch up some more, hear what you’ve been up to? Hell, our kids could have a playdate!”
    I smiled at him weakly. “Seriously?”
    â€œâ€˜If someone approached you saying, “Lead me to the music,” how would you respond?’”
    I blinked. He blinked back at me. He shrugged. “It’s from my show.”
    â€œOh,” I said, pushing a laugh out. “Cool.”
    He eased his scooter back to the pavement with his purple high-tops, repeating that he really, really meant it. Coffee. Soon.
    And off he went. Goddamn Patrick Madsen, who was sogenerous and wholehearted I couldn’t even hate him and his rip-off show. Back at RISD, he’d majored in kinetic animation—for his sophomore evaluation, he’d outfitted the heads of four taxidermied boars with recordings from the film version of Roe v. Wade that were only activated when a woman walked past. For his thesis show, he wired and grooved a series of his German grandfather’s photographs from the Second World War so that they could actually be played on a record player. The sounds that came out of the photographs were