Gus was a bastard and a liar and he always had been, but I had more respect for Gus than I did for myself.
Gus Chickenson was the kind of man who always entered a toilet as if he were looking for a fight. He would kick the door inward, swing into the next step and, with arms raised asymmetrically in a dramatic kung-fu pose intended to reduce his horizontal profile, slip through before it touched him; he would then reach gingerly for the no doubt filthy handle of the second door, and repeat the manoeuvre. By the time he reached his porcelain throne Gus had dodged and weaved through the empty bathroom as a thin man might push, ghostlike, through a crowded ballroom.
And what would be in that little grubby stall? Only one thing of importance – fastened by tape on the underside of the bowl like some parody of a conjustespieler, a little package tied up with string.
And inside the package – Gus would wait to find out; he would transport it home in a loose pocket, and until then keep his mouth shut tight and his mind on one track only.
Gus and I were brothers. Well, not really brothers. But we were sworn to uphold the same vows, and that was as good as. I, too, collected such packages, and I, too, anticipated their contents – though I didn’t approach the drop-off point with his panache.
He kicked his way into my office one day, brandishing a sort of staff, an engraved, dark-enamelled artifact covered in writhing designs.
What an interesting object.
“You’re getting paper everywhere.” My office was a scene of chaos, and Augustus ben Gallus (this being his real name) swung the staff, hitting a stack of papers on the floor that supplicated at his knees. Luckily, I had so much paper that only a few sheets were disturbed: like a Roman tortoise, the mass of the whole protected itself.
Too much paper. A great, an infinite, profusion of paper. And almost all of it useless, of course. I eyed the staff. How quickly, now, could I end this conversation?
“Ah, this? I acquired it during a six-month stay in the Indus valley.” And his voice sounded so pompous, so affected, that I burst out laughing. “My good man, what has overtaken your senses?” He spoke in the stentorian manner of an old Latin instructor, with cane and quote at the ready. “This is a very serious matter. Do not make light of it.”
“You’re an imbecile.”
“Mayhaps. Yet I am tolerated among our compatriots. For the blood of the porker…”
“…Is thicker than the water of the truth.” We said in unison.
“Yes, I get it. Speaking of pork…”
“You pursue a meat-based line of inquiry?”
“I’m adding chickens to this manuscript for the Clinathean market.”
“Contentious move.”
“You know how they feel about that.”
Now a second intruder poked his head into my office.
“You’re disturbing the others.” Gregor said.
“Greg, get in here. Maybe you’ll know. I’ve got this novel, for the Clinatheans, and I think this is a good spot to put chickens in.”
I handed him the manuscript.
“It’s very good already. They’re unholy animals over there, aren’t they? But merit is always incidental.”
The beginning of one of his pre-written monologues. I knew the rest by heart:
“Everything good in this world is like a rolled-up carpet. To get the full effect you have to clear the whole floor and spread it out and give it a close inspection, and it takes forever to do – but when you’re finished, it’s become fundamental; it’s a thing that lies below everything else.”
By the time he finished, Gus and I had recited half the monologue along with him.
Gus laughed. “Every time. And I always tell you, it’s not as if you actually have to go through something fully to know about it, or even understand it to a point. All that unrolling of your dusty carpets is a coping mechanism, Greg. You’re still looking for the same dust.”
“No, no. It is fundamental.”
They’d forgotten I was there, and that this was my office. The same debate, again and again.
“Listen. I’m trying to add chickens here. Good, or no?” I cut in. Eyeing the staff in Gus’ hands.
“Of course it’s good.” Gregor said. “They’re Clinatheans, you’re adding unholy beasts – it’ll be banned in a second. Got anything violent in there? Any gore?”
“I decided the villain should be a paedophagist. In a sacrificial context.”
“Very good! They’ll despise that. Make sure the hero doesn’t hate him for that reason, too.”
“I will. I wasn’t going to change a thing about his thoughts or dialogue anyway. Makes him more callous since he’s surrounded by so much worse stuff…”
“My exact thought process. That’s LitGlav for you. Good work.”
He turned and left.
“Promotion coming your way.” Gus said.
“While you’re here, Gus.” I paused. “Maybe it’s not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m leaving.”
Gus Chickenson’s face whitened, like the flesh of his namesake. “You can’t leave. It’s LitGlav. You’re here for life.”
“I know, I know, but…what’s the point of living if life’s just this? I can’t tolerate this shit. Every day I come in here and I add offensive shit to art from other countries. Can’t we just publish one good book for once?”
“Publish what? Have you ever heard of anything like that?”
“Heard of…”
“Heard of a good book?”
I blinked. “Of course not. But if all books are bad, and we make them worse, there must be a good one…right?”
“Do you remember the first book you ever read?” Gus asked. “I do. It was when I started working here. I was ten years old. I did what I had to do, collected the package, and I opened it, and it held this weird white brick made of a thousand thin slices. I got to my desk and looked at it. ‘En psyche l’pee dear’ it said. An encyclopedia of the possible mental effects of urinary products in the context of relationships, intended for the French market, but someone had set the path I was to take it by making it into a bizarre and vulgar pun.”
“And?”
“I guess from that point on I was satisfied.”
“Well I’m not, and I’m leaving after today.” I said. “I can’t stand it. I’m going to try and write a good book.”
“And you call me an imbecile!” Gus laughed. “That’s a total contradiction in terms. It’s like saying you’re going to light a wet fire, or make LitGlav make sense. Once you do it, if you even can, the thing you’ve made stops being a fire, or LitGlav, at all. A ‘good’ book. What would that even look like?”
I put my pen down, now. “It would have,” I announced grandly, “a plot that made sense, and which had a beginning, middle, and end. It would have multiple different characters, neither too many nor too few, but just enough to demonstrate the piece’s principal themes. Those characters would act like real people, if the book demanded it; if the book was more abstract or metaphorical, they would act perfectly abstractly, perfectly strangely, to pull the reader into a strange new universe, allowing him to reflect on the absurdities inherent in reality. Their interactions and internality would change as the story progressed, with them both affecting and being affected by various exciting events. The book would have prose that made sense, and was only as descriptive as necessary to show the reader the intended image – not peppered with too much detail, nor overly laconic such that it left too much room for unnecessary mental interpolation. Its themes would be worth exploring, sometimes subtle and sometimes minor, but powerful, and explored fully through the prose and the characters’ thoughts and actions. It would be fun to read, not overly vulgar, and worth re-reading over and over again; a reader might gain much wisdom from reading it at multiple different stages of his life.”
Gus had backed away. “You’re insane.”
“I am formed by my environment, Augustus. If I am mad, LitGlav is madder. If I am mad, you, too, must be stark…raving…loopy…done for! Done for, Gus!” I screamed at him, now, and Gus turned tail and ran from my office, leaving his intricate staff behind.
Now I stood from my desk and went to pick it up. Smooth, dark black wood, polished, covered in designs of screaming faces; my staff, mine. Good to have it.
verso folio 