There’s a strain in Welles’s voice, a false note, but Stanley can’t think of the right question to ask to decipher it. He’s still feeling shaky, pissed off at himself for cracking up. That list of names you just gave me, he says. I’m not gonna remember it. Could I maybe get you to write ’em down?
But of course. Of course. It would be my pleasure.
Stanley picks up his beer and finishes it. His gut turns queasy as the last of it goes down. You probably think I’m a damn fool, he says. Don’t you? For wanting to do this.
Welles takes the pipestem from his mouth, slowly shakes his head. Not at all, he says. Quite the opposite, in fact. This is a difficult time for you, I can see that. I don’t know you well. But I have confidence in you. I believe in you. And I — Synnøve and I — would like to help in any way we can.
Stanley’s tearing up again, though he’s not sure why, not sure if it’s real or fake. He thinks of an armed robbery he was on a couple years ago where he and his team all wore gauze Halloween masks: he remembers how it felt to hold a pistol on the humiliated nightwatchman, to look him straight in the eye and know that he could see nothing but the crude face of a weeping clown. Stanley feels that same way now — powerful and ashamed — only this time the mask is inside him, and he can’t control it.
I gotta be straight with you, Mister Welles, he says. I don’t think about myself the way you think about yourself. About the reasons why I do things, I mean. There’s never really been a time when I didn’t know what to do, or at least have some idea. So I’ve never had to stop and just think. Sometimes I feel like it wouldn’t be bad for me do that once in a while, but I’m not even sure how. And it’s starting to scare me. Because lately I feel like I’m turning into something, and I don’t know what.
Welles is silent, puffing rapidly. Soon the pipe has burned to ash. For what it’s worth, he says, I am not worried about you.
It ain’t specifically me I’m worried about, Mister Welles. It’s everything else. I just don’t always feel like I belong in this world.
A deep chuckle rises from Welles’s gut. I daresay I know that feeling, he says.
I guess you’re about to tell me that I’m gonna grow out of it.
You might. Though I sincerely hope that you do not.
He steps forward slowly, then grips Stanley’s shoulder in his thick-fingered hand. It’s a cheap and stupid little world, the one we’re given, he says. Don’t fucking settle for it. Go out and make your own.
He straightens, puts the pipe back in his teeth. Now, he says. Did you remember to bring the book?
Yes sir. Downstairs, in my coat.
Well, run and get it. I’ll be writing out that list I promised you.
As he descends, Stanley can hear Synnøve somewhere nearby, singing wordlessly to herself, but he doesn’t look around. He opens the hall closet, pulls The Mirror Thief from his pocket, mounts the stairs again.
Welles has turned on the desklamp; it glows under its opaque green shade. As Stanley approaches, Welles lifts with a flourish the page he’s written and hands it over. This will keep you busy for a while, I’ll wager, he says. May I?
Stanley gives him the book, takes the page. He looks it over in the dim light: a long column of strange names, uniform and equidistant, as if plotted with a ruler. The handwriting is neat, but cramped and peculiar, and he knows he’s going to have a hell of a time making sense of it.
When Stanley looks up again Welles has the book open on his desk, a fountain-pen in his hand. He’s motionless, wearing a confused expression. Oh yeah, Stanley says. I guess I forgot to tell you. Somebody already wrote in my copy. Like I said, I got it second-hand. I never been able to read the message.
Welles begins to laugh. It’s a funny laugh: a little hysterical, then joyless and forced. Ah, he says. This is beginning to make sense. Where did you say you found this, again?
The Lower East Side. It belonged to a thief who got sent off to Rikers.
What was his name? Do you know?
Stanley shrugs. Everybody called him Hunky, he says. I never met him.
Hmm, Welles says. Then I suppose you got it — let’s see — third-hand, at the very least. Here, I’ll read it to you. Dear Alan—ah, good, I see I misspelled that—I salute your naked courage. Yours respectfully, Adrian Welles.
Oh, Stanley says.
I gave it to a poet who came through town two summers ago. A young self-styled visionary. Blake, by way of Whitman. Larry Lipton, I think, had invited him to come down from San Francisco. During the reading he had an altercation with someone from the crowd, and to demonstrate—something, his sincerity, his commitment, I don’t know what — he disrobed completely. It struck me at the time as a rather impressive gesture.
Welles closes the book, sits to open a drawer. You know, he says, this copy is rather the worse for wear. I’ve got one here in my desk that’s essentially untouched. Let me replace—
Stanley puts a quick protective hand on the book. If it’s all the same to you, he says, I’d just as soon keep the one I got.
Welles’s eyes track up Stanley’s arm to his face. Something in them seems slightly wounded. Then he smiles.
When he rises, he’s holding a metal ruler. He sets it down, fishes a razorblade from the top drawer. Opening the book again, he slips the ruler inside and cuts out the inscribed page with a single swift motion. Stanley tenses for an instant, about to spring, to seize Welles’s arm. Then he realizes that he doesn’t care. He’d rather be rid of it.
Welles flips to the preceding page, uncaps his pen again. As the nib scrapes the paper, Stanley’s eyes drift across the room: the mountains of books, the arsenal desk, the great barred door. After a moment Welles blows across the ink to dry it and puts the open book in Stanley’s hand. I tried to be more forgiving with my penmanship this time, he says. Can you read it?
Sure, Stanley says. Most of it.
It’s a quotation from Roger Bacon, the Thirteenth-Century English magus.
Okay. What’s it mean?
Welles caps the pen, turns off the lamp. It means I’m glad I met you, he says. Very glad indeed.
Welles picks up his pipe and steps toward the french door again, but Stanley doesn’t follow him. He stands next to the desk, holding the book, staring into space. Thanks for everything, Mister Welles, he says. Really. But it’s time for me to go.
Back downstairs, as he’s pulling on his jacket, Synnøve does her best to get him to stay — there’s a murphy bed in my studio, she says; I promise it’s quite comfortable — but he exits as quickly as he can, accepting a peck on the cheek, giving her an awkward hug. Wait! she says. Did you want to take your fish-buckets?
Oh, Stanley says, those aren’t actually mine.
Welles walks him down the path to the gate. What shall I tell your friend when he and Cynthia return? he says.
He’ll know where I am. You don’t need to worry yourself.