oldnumberseven

‘You wreck everything,’ she said to Woolcott. ‘You wreck everything.’ He did not pretend it was any good, there was nothing to gain. Nothing at all.

‘Read any good books lately?’
‘No, I haven’t read anything.’
Woolcott watched her move about the bar. He sat at the bar and watched her in the mirror behind the bar, then counted the bottles on the shelf in front of the mirror, and silently composed pastoral love poems. There were not many people at the bar. With the fair weather every one sat at the tables outside. Woolcott had a drink and a cigarette, ogled the waitress. She wore her hair up, and he thought of how it would slowly fall if he took all the pins out.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘What books have you read lately?’
‘A biography called ‘Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man,’ it was very good but could prove to be dangerous.’
‘I read a history of the earth, it was fifty pages with illustrations. Took me fifteen minutes.’

Woolcott drank. He remembered a time in Bethany, West Virginia when he met a girl and they talked of books in general, and then a specific book of which he had two copies. The girl went with him to his rooms that night. He gave her one of the copies. Later, she left.

Woolcott saw some friends later that night.
‘Well,’ they said.
‘I believe I am a little drunk.’
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing.’
They didn’t like the answer, and needled Woolcott about it for a long time.
‘So what. So, I didn’t take advantage of her. Hell,’ Woolcott said. ‘Maybe she only wanted the book, or maybe she wanted more, and I wasn’t bright enough to pick up on it.’

Woolcott sat at the bar, at the end, one open chair from the door. Heather came over and sat next to him.
‘I have spent much time in the dark nights.’
‘Have you found any answers?’
‘A few, but there is no single key to check these things against.’

‘I am so bored,’ she said.