Me: just stared. Couldn’t get it.
“It’ll be fixed next week.”
Me: Fanbloodytastic. Really helps me. What’s the prob?
Stared at me blank. Sarcasm: new territory for her. So shocked felt faint. Hotel parked in booniest boondocks. No village, no Internet café, so either someone lent me his HSDPA card, or situation pitch-black. And come on, nobody lends you their Internet card, everyone’s afraid you’ll download movies at company expense. So: catastrophe. Catacombs. Night night.
Dinner. No need to describe it to you, you know it: food-fight at buffet, pushing, shoving. Everything good already gone when you want some. Then at table: to my right, a bearded type from T-Mobile talking about his new wooden floor, to my left a female skeleton from Vodaphone has a cousin of her brother-in-law’s who’s scored an Opel at rock-bottom price. Me: radio silence. Never say anything in front of strangers. Can’t, won’t, no app. Went back to buffet instead, then again, then I would toss, then out into parking lot, nicotine fix. Not allowed to smoke inside, not allowed to smoke anywhere. Telling you, no worse under the Nazis.
Rain, a whole load. Under porch roof, man with a cigarette. Almost dark by now, so at first only saw his outline and luminous red dot. Asked for a light, and while he groped nervously, recognized him.
“Leo Richter!”
Jumped. Looked at me. It was him!
Okay. So I’m asking you: What would you have done? Pre-amble: been a fan of his for years, totally crazy. That one book, don’t remember title, Lara Gaspard teaching in Paris meets these totally wasted types and then in the last story goes down to the Underworld. Read it, totally crazy, couldn’t believe it, mega-trip. The style, the wit, smokin’ good, but most of all, the woman. Have to add have never been winner with opposite sex, all that roundabout stuff and blablah and then always “Leave me alone, you’re a nice guy but not that way, now go!” and so on, all the bullshit you guys know, and on FindyourLove, even if it was all A-1 to begin with, the moment I put my photo online, blackout. Contact gone? But Lara, for sure, wouldn’t have happened that way with her. She’s not superficial. And though she looks crazy-good, she’s also so smart she doesn’t care about a man’s outsides. And she thinks like me! And me like her. Know you’re not supposed to read books that way, but sometimes … well, seem crazy to you?
I mean, I know she’s a made-up person. And that—of course I googled as soon as I’d read it—Leo Richter wrote it when he was in Paris himself and then when his wife gave him the boot came the three stories where Lara leaves her husband, The Moon and Freedom, Herr Müller and Eternity, forget the title of the third. So, the shit that happens to him then happens to her, what he does, she does later, and whoever meets him can surface in story. In the Literaturehouse chat room, somebody called this autobiographical narcissism, but I flamed him and he won’t ever chat again about stuff he doesn’t get, dumpster dog. Only story I didn’t like was the one about the old lady going to Switzerland to throw the poison down, he wasn’t in it anywhere, and the ending made no sense, no idea who could see through it, not me for sure.
“Your book! Where d’you think I read it?”
Hiccups. Logicaclass="underline" the excitement. Hard to talk to strangers, don’t normally do it. But I was crazy-excited. “Between Munich and Brussels! Dining car! Finished it as we pulled into the station.”
He looked at me. Turned away, then back to me. Strange moves, sort of angular and nervous.
“Exactly the right length! You leave Munich, you start. You reach Brussels, you’re done. Wicked! I was going to a seminar on UMTS.”
“Remarkable,” he said.
(Hey, not making this up. Wrote his words down as soon as I got to my room. Why? Logical—for this forum.)
Me: Where do you get your ideas?
He turned away, looked down at the gravel, then up at the porch roof. “In the bathtub.”
“Really? Chill! Fact?”
“Promise.”
“Chiller than chill. Eat my socks! Bathtub.”
Then both of us silent for a time. He smoked, I smoked, the rain did its raining thing.
Then me: “And are you writing right now? What’s Lara doing, what’s in the plan? Can I stop being formal with you?”
He threw his cigarette away. “I have to go back in.”
“What are you doing here? Of all the gin joints?”
“Lecture.”
“Hey?”
“A bank’s giving a seminar and they contacted my agent to book me. I thought why not, a few days in the green. But it doesn’t ever stop raining.” Looked at me, as if it was my fault, and again, “Ever!” Turned around and back into the house. Me: Stood there, smoked one more, chilled, and tried to figure out what had just gone on. My God. Wow. Then went up to my room.
I admit, my head was cross-wired and scramble-brained. Too much colliding: the fight with mother and being so stupid as to give out my IP. And worry about tomorrow: okay, a pro like me can make a presentation, but I hadn’t netsurfed for nine and a half hours, no longer up to speed with anything! Not a spark about how lordoftheflakes, icu_lop, ruebendaddy, and pray4us had responded to my postings. Made my stomach heave just to think of it. Potatoed in front of the TV, but nothing but world-level shit, and then I see there was no shower, only a tub, so narrow you couldn’t fit in it. So today would be hygienically challenged too.
A few minutes on the laptop. PowerPoint, not easy to use. Typed a little, moved some windows around, couldn’t get it to work. Well, it would have to work tomorrow morning. So bed, lights out, clutch pillow. The dream Olympics, as mother always says.
But couldn’t sleep. One floor down, sounds of whole choir of drunken nerds. Constant thundering of feet in the corridor. Always like that with Congresses, the desk jockeys can’t handle it and down the booze like drains. Funny ideas in my head. Holy Ninjas: being in the same house as Leo Richter, who made up Lara Gaspard. The guy who decided what she saw and did. Shaking his hand was almost like shaking hers—you pierce my meaning?
And then, at that moment, in the darkness of my room, I had an A-1 flash. If you’re surfing the net as much as I am, then you know—how to say it? Well, you know that reality isn’t everything. That there are spaces you don’t enter with your body. Only in your thoughts, but definitely there. Meeting Lara Gaspard. It was possible! In a story, of course.
Leo used stuff he saw? Guys he met? Events that happened? Yes, he could even use me. Nothing against it! Appearing in a story—really no different from being in a chat room. Transformation! Transport yourself into some other place. In a story I’d be someone else, but also me. In the same world as Lara.
You on my page? I crazy-worship this man, and I wanted to get into a story. He had to get to know me. I had to make him notice me! Either become his buddy or—main thing, had to notice me. My whole shit life, the nonstop fights with Mama, my dog boss, and that huge porker Lobenmeier: I felt suddenly there was a deliverance. As I went to sleep, I was happier than I’d been for long time. And you know what else? I felt light.
Next morning: wake-up. Still no luck with the bathtub, far too narrow. Went down to breakfast room. Made mistake of three plates, one in the left hand, one in the right, and one balanced in the middle, and of course preciselyexactly that one felclass="underline" scrambled eggs on the floor, bacon stuff, two rolls, everything garbage fodder. Leo was sitting far back against the wall, alone. Approached him, naturally, and “Slept well, hombre?”
He stared. Funny way of watching. Eyes wide, mouth twitching nonstop. Relaxed, believe me, he’s not.
“Didn’t get the chance to talk yesterday!” Began to eat. Blob of scrambled egg fell down, paid no attention. “Do you want to know something about me?”