Look at me. I'm bleeding in like a million places.

-You got a few scratches.

-A few scratches? We just fell all the way down that f.u.c.king hill! Look up there. Look!

-I'm looking.

-That's a pretty long way.

-It's kind of impressive, actually.

-Did you roll all the way? I feel like I maybe flew through the air a little bit. Like maybe I hit a clump of roots or a bush and actually went flying for a few feet.

-I don't know. It happened really fast.

-But it seemed to take forever.

-Weird.

-Yeah. Anyway, sorry about that. I kind of provoked you into pushing me, I think.

-I shouldn't lose my temper so easily.

-Well, I know how to push your b.u.t.tons. And I know that I know. And I shouldn't do it.

-In a perfect world.

-Which we can agree that this is not.

-Yes.

18. "OH, MARCUS, WHAT THE f.u.c.k IS YOUR PROBLEM ANYWAY?" REMARKS THE NOT ENTIRELY OMNISCIENT NARRATOR AS MARCUS VISITS HIS RECENTLY DECEASED FATHER IN A HOSPITAL IN DAYTON, OHIO, VERY CLOSE TO THE ACTUAL TIME OF THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING DEBACLE

He looks peaceful.

-Well, most dead people do, Mom.

-You're not the kindest person in the world, are you, Marcus?

-I'm my father's son.

-Also your mother's son.

-No, that's Guy. Guy's much nicer than me. He got all the nice genes from your side of the family.

-I didn't say nice. I said kind. There's a difference. You're a very nice person, Marcus. You're responsible, reliable, even-keeled. You almost never lose your temper or snap at people.

-I get it. Guy's not really a nice person in that sense. But he is kind.

-Yes. And I think your father understood that, somewhere deep down.

-What makes you say that?

-The money he left Guy.

He left Guy money? After all those years of refusing to loan him anything?

-Exactly. I think he always planned that after he ... pa.s.sed on, Guy would get the money he wanted, and then your father wouldn't have to watch him-potentially-fail at whatever it was he wanted the money for.

-His last thing was something to do with some kind of new web-based technology. I didn't exactly understand.

-For getting rid of spiders?

-The Internet kind of web, not the spider kind.

-The kind that requires a loan from his brother.

-He seemed really keen this time. Or desperate. I'm not sure there's a big difference.

-And you said no.

-Yes. I said no.

-Well, now you can tell him yes. If not for yourself, at least on your father's behalf.

-You want me to tell him?

-I think it's appropriate.

-What's appropriate would be for him to be here, now. What's appropriate would be for him to have acted, just once, like a member of this family, like we weren't simply people he called when he was in trouble or needed something.

-He's never been good about remembering birthdays. It's not one of his strong points.

-I'd like to know what are his strong points. Other than annoying the h.e.l.l out of Constance ...

-Who's not here ...

-Mainly because she was afraid Guy would be here.

-So now you're saying you're glad Guy's not here, because if he had been here, and your wife too, that would have caused a problem.

-She hates Guy because Guy never brushes his teeth. I mean, not brushing occasionally, that's forgivable, but never? That's just gross. But it's not the point, Mom. He should be here. And maybe Constance had other reasons for not being here. We've been having some issues lately and I didn't want to drag her into some big emotional family drama.

-Money or children?

-Those aren't the only things couples fight about, Mom.

-Then it's s.e.x.

-Oh G.o.d. Please stop.

-I'm right, though. Do you want me to talk to her?

-I think I'll call Guy. How much money is he getting?

-Fifty thousand. After taxes.

-He'll be thrilled. That's exactly what he was looking for.

-He's not picking up.

-He's probably busy.

-Yeah. Hey, it's me, listen, good news-bad news thing. Dad's dead, but he left you a bunch of money. Fifty grand, to be exact. I figured you'd want to know. About both things. You won't call me back, but if you want the money you'll have to call Mom at least. Bye.

-You really are not a kind person.

No, Mom, I'm not. But who would be right now? Given the circ.u.mstances.

-Maybe you're right.

19. GUY, DRIVING IN HIS STOLEN CAR AWAY FROM WHERE HE LEFT BILLY AT THE BOTTOM OF A HILL AFTER THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO, WRITES A SONG, AS YOU DO.

The hills are on fire. Literally ablaze, thought Guy, driving north on Larkin Heights, and it's not the sunset, it couldn't be, because the hills are to the north and the sun sets in the west, and in any case it's only around two in the afternoon.

Wretched Catullus, stop playing the fool and consider lost what is lost. But what does this mean: lost? There is no loss, only an accretion of circ.u.mstance, a heap of learning, a frantic scramble to retain focus while the walls of the world crumble. The walls of the world are always crumbling, it's their natural state. Inviolable entropy demands constant flux. Change is a brick wall that looks exactly like no change, and the headache you get from one is the mirrored throb of the other. I would like to lodge a protest against the notion of progress as reflected in the debased journalism of the marketplace. I would like to stand athwart history and spit. I would like a place I could call my own. I would like to tell better jokes.

In his head, at that moment-which turned out to be among his very last moments-Guy wrote a song, called "The Last Lonely Man."

The Last Lonely Man words & music by Guy Forget Verse (DGC) Out of the corner of my eye I watch you walk on water I'm not afraid to say goodbye This is the room I fit in I sleep, but Not always I'm not afraid to say goodbye Bridge (AmDm) And n.o.body's ever here And n.o.body's left to hear Chorus (CGDG) He stares at the moon and sun He's in love with everyone The last lonely man's heart breaking The last lonely man's heart breaking Verse (DGC) Out of the corner of my eye I see the water rising I'm not afraid to say goodbye This is the room I fit in I sleep, but Not always I'm not afraid to say goodbye Bridge (AmDm) He lives on a riverboat That will not, cannot float Chorus (CGDG) And the tide is always out And that is all she wrote The last lonely man's heart breaking The last lonely man's heart breaking C Section (DBF) I'm crashing down, I'm crashing down I'm crashing down, I'm crashing down Back to the ground where I belong Chorus (CGDG) Fade Out (DGC) (Many years in the making Now he's yours for the taking)

20. THE VILLAIN SVEN TRANSVOORT SLANDERS VIOLET MCKNIGHT IN AN ATTEMPT TO JUSTIFY HIS ACTIONS, SITTING IN AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION SEVERAL WEEKS AFTER THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO.

Violet had been brought up to think that nothing she did could in any way be held against her, because she was ent.i.tled to act however she thought fit. Her sense of ent.i.tlement derived partly from some innate personality quirk, possibly inbred, but was equally the fault of a world that granted to girls of a certain age and a certain bearing and a certain way of moving through the world-as if they were the still center of that moving orb-an almost limitless degree of slack. If you were young, and attractive, and self-centered, without a thought in your head that did not concern either your immediate physical desires or your immediate-future physical desires, then you were given the real world equivalent of an All Access pa.s.s, and treated by most of the world in the way that you saw yourself, which, without putting too fine a point on the matter, is to say you saw only yourself, with the possible exception of those people or things who could supply you with whatever it is you might want, in which cases the near-total eclipse of everyone else's personality by your own would lift, for a moment, allowing a mild, refracted light to pinhole the gloom of your presence, only to resume when your restless vision set your restless feet in motion.

The good news, for those left behind, wondering What the h.e.l.l just happened? as Violet continued on her way, was that the eclipse would soon lift entirely, and daylight (or nightlight, as the case might be) would resume its natural or artificial course, leaving, as in the Middle Ages before such phenomena had been adequately explained by science, only a sense of unease and mild confusion, which too will pa.s.s, cla.s.s.

You can understand and even-I admit this may be going the extra mile, but why not go the extra mile?-empathize with a girl like Violet, who has never not gotten her way in the smallest of life's transactions, for instance when she didn't have enough money to pay for a six-pack of beer at the gas station, but smiled sweetly at the attendant, who told her to just go ahead, what's money anyway but a commodious vicus of recirculation. We are to blame, you understand, in this and all other instances. We are the force that drives a movie star to steal beautiful clothes from an expensive store even though she could easily afford the clothes-because when everything is given to you, there is no pleasure in receiving, only taking. We are to blame when a rich young man drives over the curb at five in the morning on his way home from a nightclub and plows his armor-plated luxury vehicle through the dark windows of a souvenir store, scattering T-shirts and baseball caps and coffee mugs and little plastic replicas of the Statue of Liberty all over the linoleum floor. That's our fault too, because the rich young man has no one he can really trust, and I will tell you why: because he is rich and young. And society preys on the young and the rich, we turn them into objects of fascination, into playthings, we use them up and spit them out, usually into a plate gla.s.s window, leaving them with an inadvisably high blood-alcohol content-also our fault, both for inventing alcohol and effectively marketing its miraculous powers-and a month-long stay in a rehabilitation center, which does not come cheap, because the rehabilitation of rich people is a serious, time-consuming, and expensive procedure, not unlike the artificial insemination of cows (or horses).

The dark victories Violet won, whether effortless or not, were so small in scope, so lacking in imagination and foresight, that the only appropriate reaction, as far as I was concerned, was to shake my head in wonderment. Full disclosure: I never slept with her. Usually when a man tells you he's slept with a beautiful girl you accuse that man of bragging. There's really no other reason for telling. You're making a statement, in the same way that a hunter who brags about bagging a twelve-point buck is making a statement: I'm good, he's telling you, I'm a good hunter. Stands to reason that I'm saying something the opposite of that: I'm no good, Sven Transvoort is telling you, I'm an ineffective s.e.xual predator.

As such, as an unspurned nonlover, I can claim perfect objectivity with respect to Violet's peccadilloes. Which I am nevertheless, in the manner of an overindulgent stepuncle, perhaps too easily ready to forgive and forget, or at least forgive.

I have no similar inclination toward Guy Forget. Guy used girls like Violet to get things he could not easily get himself, but held no special affection for them. I'm not sure Guy held special affection for anyone, except maybe Billy, but that's no excuse. She may have been many things, she may have fait des betises, but that is no excuse.

My point being that had Guy loved Violet more, or had she loved him less, none of this would have happened. In the end, though, you could fairly say that he got everything that was coming to him.

Please don't get me wrong. Violet was no angel, and I am anything but gallant. I don't rescue fair maidens. I don't slay dragons. I carry out personal vendettas. That's my thing. And to answer your unasked question, Mr. Dead Lennon, I sleep just fine at night, thank you very much.

21. THE ONLY TIME GUY VISITED VIOLET'S APARTMENT, OR, MORE PROPERLY PUT, THE ONLY TIME HE WAS ALLOWED TO DO SO, FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

Guy followed Violet into the murk of her living room. A sputtering fire-charred newspapers and the splintered skeleton of a chair-was being prodded laconically with an iron poker by a gloomy short-haired fellow, to whom she did not bother to introduce Guy.

As his eyes adjusted to the light he made out a rickety table, a mossy, anemic easy chair, and a cushionless couch backed against the farthest, darkest wall. Something that may have been a bookcase, now barren and partly stripped for kindling, was propped unsteadily against the amphibrachic couch. On the table by the easy chair were perched a squat stoneware lamp embossed with a blue dragon breathing green fire, and a telephone painted in several fluorescent colors, obscuring the numbers.

Above the mantel hung a large painting, about the size of a refrigerator door tipped on its side, in color and composition resembling the telephone. On the mantel itself were arranged a foot-high plastic Tyrannosaurus rex, a black lacquer canister of wooden matches, and a pair of scissors.

-You want some tea? said Violet, moving from the living room to her kitchen. She filled a kettle with water from the tap and set it on the stove.

Pushing through a curtain of plastic beads, she headed into her dark bedroom. She bent over a pair of fat candles and lit them with a match. Wispy ropes of smoke trailed helically from the tip of each candle flame toward the ceiling. In the flickering light he could see hardened wax pooled on the bare wood at the base of the candles.

Violet had no bed, but slept on a futon which she pulled now from between the shadows of a wobbly armoire and a bookcase constructed of cinder blocks and planks of sc.r.a.p wood. Her window was large and uncurtained, and looked out over a short, unkempt hedge along the street below. The window allowed large squares of lemony streetlight into the small room to stretch across the varnished floor. Adorning the pale walls were three large unframed posters, reproductions of famous works of abstract art. Guy arranged himself nervously on the futon while Violet went into to the kitchen, summoned by the crescendoing whistle of the kettle.