Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - December 2021 edition

[JohnT]

Those of you who know of me probably have read my tales of driving for Uber – the time traveler, the Ubers of Shame, more. The following is a story told to me by one of my passengers, but instead of putting it in the Uber thread, I decided it fit more here. Note that this was a long ride so there may be parts where the story is redacted – the guy was long-winded and this is just a message board post, so my apologies upfront if you like boring descriptions of the arcana of American life as I cut them out. Go read Stephen King if you like that shit. So when you see actual passages in italics – like this opening paragraph – that’s me, the author, not me, the driver.

I hope this isn’t too confusing.

“Pete?”

“Yeah… you’re John?”

“Yup. Looks like you’re headed to (address)…?”

“Exactly.”

“Ready to go? Got wallet, keys, packages?”

chuckles “I’m good, appreciate you asking.”

We take off. The ride ahead is a long one -going all the way from Boerne, Texas to east of Seguin, I-10 the entire way. The passenger seems… drunk? He keeps chuckling, and by the third time I had enough

laughing “It’s not fair to keep something that funny to yourself, lol.” (Yes, I said ‘lol’. L. O. L. Shoot me.)

chuckles “It’s not that it’s funny, I just literally had one of the most amazing artistic experiences of my life about 10 minutes before you drove up. I was even asked by a concerned woman if I was OK…” and at this he starts chuckling again.

I stay quiet, then he asks…

“Do you want to hear a story?”

“I’d love to. We have about an hour to kill, so go ahead.”

And with that, my passenger begins…

I’m seeing this woman, not really dating, not really just friends. She’s in her mid-40s, extremely attractive, a bit of an American libertine – a theater teacher who decided to be a roadie in her younger days and speaks of her time in Israel, Germany, growing up in Laredo, switches fluently from language to language – really, I’m just outclassed here but she keeps coming back to me, so I enjoy the experience, keep my fingers crossed, always appreciating her more with each date.

Both being well-read, our last date ended up at a used bookstore where the conversation again turned to our favorite shared hobby – reading habits, preferred genres, more. So I asked her – ‘what three books would you recommend me to read?” She led me through the store, picking two titles, and said ‘get these.” “What about the other book?” “I have thirty of them in my trunk.” (we had met for the date, that’s how I knew it was just going to be lunch and shopping. Men suck, she’s had her share of sucky men, I completely understand the hesitation.)

Now you may think it’s weird that my Uber passenger would speak in parenthetical statements and asides, but as God as my witness, not only did I think turkeys could fly, I could also hear the parenthesis and asides in his voice. This man could use his voice like few others, that is a simple, pure-D, fact.

We go to her trunk, she opens it, and she was not lying – there was a milkcrate with about 20, 30 of the same mass-market paperback. Not the same editions, but the same title in different printings, all in the mass-market PPB size. (I assume people understand abbreviations, even if I use the word earlier in the sentence.)

“I love this book. It is my absolute favorite book. I like the movie, but I think the book is one of the best written in my life.” (Did I mention she was at her loveliest when she spoke of her art?)

“I am going to surprise you – I have neither read the book, nor seen the movie. The subject matter isn’t one that appeals to me.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I know how popular it is, even quote it among those who are fans, but no… I never saw it. Didn’t have any interest.”

She looked at me with those lovely, Marianas-deep, green eyes, said “I insist you read this first", knowing there was no way in hell I would say ‘no’.

Yes ma’am.

So I start reading it. And I like it – there’s this bizarre introduction written by the author about how he’s some hotshot writer and here’s a story he once heard, but the tale itself is OK. And, to be honest, with the internet and the past few years, I haven’t been reading books like I used to, so it was difficult to pick up the habit again. So I put it down and…

So this is the largest section I am cutting out, how he kept trying to get through this book, but it just wasn’t really doing it for him. Really, about 20, 30 minutes of how he sat down on the couch and then got distracted by a ping on his phone, or the day he spent Thanksgiving with his daughter, home from NYC (and a 2-minute digression of how awesome his kid is, and let’s be fair – she does sound awesome), pretty much every excuse you’ve given yourself for not doing something. So y’all don’t need this and I’m cutting it out for both our sakes. However, if you are truly interested in the minute details of divorced male American life, circa 2021, as recounted by the passenger, PM me. It was still riveting, just too much for this post.

… and so earlier today I decided to finish it. Just sit down, go through the last 75 pages, and finish the book. I was getting into what the author… Bill was his name, I think, can’t expect much from any writer named “Bill”, in my humble opinion… was doing, even though the story was still kind of a nothing burger, but I had settled into the rhythms of the narrative style (including those parenthetical statements and authorial asides and all that shit).

Like I said, my guy was quite a speaker. He made you realize that, yes, you can hear parenthetical statements AND paragraph breaks! Also, would like to let you know that the passenger was quite blue, but I edited most of the cursing out as this is a family forum. But not all.

… my dog and I, sitting in the front yard, the always present Diet Coke by my side (Jeffery Katzenberg thinks he likes Diet Coke. No, Jeffery, I like Diet Coke.) And I’m reading this story and, man, I’m finally getting it you know, the authorial flourishes coming sooner and sooner, it has come back, John, this ability I have to stop reading and just watch the book as the scenes appear in your minds eye, and I’m feeling it for the first time with just three pages to go, faster as it spins between perspectives and themes, structure and characterization, and finally, like Mary Lou Retton in 1984, just fucking sticks the landing like no other book I have read in a damned long time.

Years.

Decades.

I sat there, gobsmackedness turning into giddiness. I got it. At the last 3, 5 pages, I got it. I know I didn’t read the greatest piece of literature created by the hand of man – the Russian masters can still breathe easy (well, if they weren’t all dead and shit) – but I know that at the very least I had read a master class in fiction composition: Setting. Theme. Characters. Plot. Point of View. Text vs subtext. What it means. What it really means.

And the thing that I find most appealing in art – structure.

Like a loon, I just sat there in the front yard of my suburban San Antonio house laughing at just the expertise of it all, overjoyed in a way that I haven’t been in years, since well before the divorce… overjoyed at least in ways that didn’t involve women, that is.

I lay down, my borador next to me, looking up at the rain of leaves from the oak tree which drops its leaves in December (the other oak tree drops its leaves in April because San Antonio temperatures confuse stupid oak trees). I chuckle, as I make a realization - amazing how he interwove the various perspectives at the end - laugh aloud as I make another - he even told us he was going to do this! - lying there for 10, 15 minutes, appreciating the moment, listening to the leaves fall.

I didn’t want to get up. I wanted the moment to stretch.

“Are you OK?”

Sitting up, “I’m sorry?”.

Next to my mailbox, there’s one of those new station wagons which everyone lies to themselves and calls it a SUV or a “sports utility wagon” or some such shit, but it’s still a $50,000 station wagon. A 50-ish lady is looking out at me, concerned.

“I saw you lying down, your chest heaving- just wanted to make sure you’re not having a heart attack.”

I hold up the book, front cover facing her. I don’t know if she can see it. I’m still chuckling at the overwhelmingness of it all, and I continue chuckling as I say

“Ten minutes ago I finished this book and found the ending such a tour de force of narrative and technique that it literally took my breath away, forcing me to lie down. I’m still in recovery.”

I’m sitting here listening to my passenger, noting that he hasn’t even said the name of this book.

And, in recounting and then re-reading this, I notice he didn’t really talk about the plot either. Or anything else, for that matter.

We’re getting close: surprisingly, our exit to Seguin is in a half mile, his drop off point isn’t much further – a BBQ restaurant off I-10 which had seen better days – the passenger was a helluva talker, I will give him that. I still had most of my Diet Coke!

… She chuckled, said “Of all the answers I could have expected, I would never have expected that one!”… squints, calls out the name of the book which I confirm… “Oh, is that the movie? I’ll check it out!”

We pull in to the restaurant, as he winds down his story, looking for the red Ford he said his friend was driving. Spies it, makes sure I see it, and I pull up, stopping just as he was rummaging through his backpack, he still in story mode.

“Here.” Holding it up. “It’s less than 300 pages. Have you seen the movie?”

“No, but lord knows it’s inconceivable that I haven’t seen it, given my nerd history.”

“Take it. She has thirty copies, she passes them out to any one who wants one, and if she needs it replaced, that sounds like another fantastic book-shopping+lunch date. I am rather smitten with her.”

I thanked him as he departed, turned off the app, and turned the book over, so the cover was facing upward.

And then I, too, found out the name of the book which gobsmacked the passenger. Looking forward to reading it!