Kid shrugged. “Most poems are shorter than stories.”
Newboy, Kid saw, was suppressing a laugh. Kid felt embarrassed.
“And you’re not going to write anymore?”
“It’s too hard.” Kid looked down. “I mean if I kept it up, I think it would kill me, you know? I never did it before, so I just didn’t understand.”
“That’s sad—no, I can be more honest than that. It’s frightening for one artist to see another one, any other one turn away from art.”
“Yeah.” Kid’s eyes came up. “I know. I really know that. And I wish—I wish I didn’t frighten you as much as I do. What is it? What’s the matter with you, now?”
“Nothing.” Newboy shook his head.
“I wish I didn’t,” Kid repeated. “The last poem…” Kid began to turn through the galleys. “What did you think of that one, I mean compared to all the rest of them?”
“The one in meter? Well, it isn’t finished. We printed it up to where you broke off. That’s another thing I wanted to query about—”
“How do you like what there is?”
“Frankly, I didn’t think it was as strong as many of the others. When I went back over it the fourth or fifth time, I began to see that the substance of it was probably on its way to a great deal of richness. But the language wasn’t as inventive. Or as clean.”
Kid nodded. “The rhythm of natural speech,” Kid mused. “I had to write it. And it was pretty bad, wasn’t it? No, I don’t think I’ll write anymore. Besides, I’m probably never going to have another book published…?” He raised an eyebrow at Newboy.
Newboy, lips pursed, considered. “I could say that I sincerely don’t believe that should be a consideration. Or that, as I remember it, it was something like eleven years between my first and second book of poems. Or that I think you’re asking for confirmation of something that really doesn’t have anything to do with poetry.”
“What else could you say?”
Newboy’s lips unpursed. “I could say, ‘Yes, possibly you won’t.’”
Kid grinned quickly and went back to correcting.
“It’s very silly to commit yourself to something like that, if you’re going to write or not. If you wrote these, you will write more. And if you promise yourself you won’t, you’ll just be very unhappy when you break the promise. Yes, a good part of me doesn’t like the idea of an artist giving up art. But that is another part of me talking. Believe me.”
Kid’s mind was on Lanya.
He pulled it away, to reflect on: Golding’s Metamorphosis. He’d seen the book on a dozen shelves in a dozen bookstores, picked it up as many times, read the back cover, the first page of the introduction, flipped through three or four pages, unable to read more than three or four lines on each. (The same thing, he realized, had happened with Pilgrimage.) The first half? He’d been unable to read a whole page! Poetry, he thought. If it makes me start lying to a guy like this, I should stop writing it.
Kid corrected the last half-dozen sheets in silence drenched with vision. He flipped them, rattling like dry feathers, together.
He leaned on the couch arm (he breathed gently: but felt breath’s coolness only on the left side of his upper lip) and looked at the paper over his lap. I’ve just corrected the last half-dozen sheets, he thought: his upper arms were bone tired. Pains pulsed in his finger joints. He loosened his grip on the pencil.
The title-page, he noticed now, read:
BRASS
ORCHIDS
BY
He started to smile; the muscles of his mouth blocked it.
Mr. Newboy, gone to the kitchen, returned now with another steaming cup.
“I guess—” the smile broke through—“you better take the ‘by’ off the title page.”
“Ah,” Mr. Newboy raised his chin. “That does bring up a sort of strange subject. I talked to your friend Mr. Loufer. And he told me about—”
“I mean it’s okay,” Kid said. “I think it would be a good idea if it came out with no name. Anonymously.”
“Mr. Loufer said that you’re—rather picturesquely—called ‘the Kid’ by many of your friends?”
“That would look pretty stupid,” Kid said. “‘Poems by the Kid.’ I think it would be better with nothing.” Somewhere beneath the thing inside that made him smile, there was the beginnings of embarrassment. He sighed, still smiling.
Gravely, Mr. Newboy said: “If you really feel that way, I’ll tell Roger. Are you finished looking them over?”
“Yeah.”
“That was quick. How were they?”
“Uh, fine. I mean not that many mistakes.”
“That’s good.”
“Here.”
“Oh, are you sure you wouldn’t like to keep the notebook?”
It was opened back in the middle. Kid lowered the papers to his lap. To avoid the feeling of confusion he let his eyes take the page’s opening lines:
Poetry, fiction, drama—I am interested in the arts of incident only in so far as fiction touches life; oh no, not in any vulgar, autobiographical sense, rather at the level of the most crystalline correspondence. Consider: If an author, passing a mirror, were to see one day not himself but some character of his invention, though he might be surprised, might even question his sanity, he would still have something by which to relate. But suppose, passing on the inside, the character should glance at his mirror and see, not himself but the author, a complete stranger, staring in at him, to whom he has no relation at all, what is this poor creature left
Newboy was saying, “You’re all sure now that you don’t want to write again. But be certain, inspiration will come, arriving like one of Rilke’s angels, so dazzled by its celestial journey it will have completely forgotten the message entrusted to it yet effectively delivering it merely through its marvelous presence—”
“Here!” Kid thrust out galleys and notebook. “Please take it! Please take it all. Maybe…I mean, maybe you’ll want to check something else.” He watched his extended hands sway to his thumping heart.
“All right,” Newboy said. “No, you keep the notebook. You just may want it again.” He took the papers, and hefted his case against his hip. “I’ll take these back to Roger this evening.” The papers rustled down in the case. “I probably won’t be seeing you again. I really don’t know how long the printing will take. I wish I could see the whole project through.” He snapped a last snap. “I’m sure he’ll send me a copy when it’s done—however your mail system works here. Good-bye.” His hand came forward. “I’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve spent together, the talks we’ve had. Do say good-bye to your little friend for me…?”
Kid shook. “Yes, sir. Um…thank you very much.” The notebook was on the floor, one corner over Kid’s bare foot.
Newboy walked to the steps.
“Good-bye,” Kid repeated into the silence.
Newboy nodded, smiled, left.
Kid waited for the disturbing memory to flicker once more. His heart quieted. Suddenly he picked up his and Newboy’s coffee cups and went into the kitchen.
Seconds after he began to rinse them in the sink, he noticed how firm the water pressure was. He ran his forefinger around the crock rim. The water hissed on enamel.
Somebody struck a dissonance on the piano.
Curious, Kid turned off the water. The cups clinked on the sideboard. As he crossed the floor, one of the boards squeaked: he had wanted to be completely quiet.
At the darker end of the auditorium, someone in work clothes stood before the brass innards. The orange construction shoes and the coveralls momentarily recalled the woman on the ladder changing the street signs.
The figure turned and walked to the couch. “’Ey…” A heavy, flattened voice, a slight nod and slighter smile: George Harrison picked up an old Times and lowered himself to the couch, crossed his legs, and opened the tabloid-size paper.