The Rosy Crucifixion 3 - Nexus Read Online Free Page A

my father’s customers, knowing in advance that I would get no order but driven by an all consuming hunger for conversation.
    There was one individual in particular I always elected to visit on such occasions, because with him the day might end, and usually did end, in most unexpected fashion. It was seldom, I should add, that this individual ever ordered a suit of clothes, and when he did it took him years to settle the bill. Still, he was a customer. To the old man I used to pretend that I was calling on John Stymer in order to make him buy the full dress suit which we always assumed he would eventually need. (He was forever telling us that he would become a judge one day, this Stymer.)
    What I never divulged to the old man was the nature of the un-sartorial conversations I usually had with the man.
    Hello! What do you want to see me for?
    That’s how he usually greeted me.
    You must be mad if you think I need more clothes. I haven’t paid you for the last suit I bought, have I? When was that—five years ago?
    He had barely lifted his head from the mass of papers in which his nose was buried. A foul smell pervaded the office, due to his inveterate habit of farting—even in the presence of his stenographer. He was always picking his nose too. Otherwise—outwardly, I mean—he might pass for Mr. Anybody. A lawyer, like any other lawyer.
    His head still buried in a maze of legal documents, he chirps: What are you reading these days? Before I can reply he adds: Could you wait outside a few minutes? I’m in a tangle. But don’t run away … I want to have a chat with you. So saying he dives into his pocket and pulls out a dollar bill. Here, get ourself a coffee while you wait. And come back in an hour or so … we’ll have lunch together, what!
    In the ante-room a half-dozen clients are waiting to get his ear. He begs each one to wait just a little longer. Sometimes they sit there all day.
    On the way to the cafeteria I break the bill to buy a paper. Scanning the news always gives me that extrasensory feeling of belonging to another planet. Besides, I need to get screwed up in order to grapple with John Stymer.
    Scanning the paper I get to reflecting on Stymer’s great problem. Masturbation. For years now he’s been trying to break the vicious habit. Scraps of our last conversation come to mind. I recall how I recommended his trying a good whorehouse—and the wry face he made when I voiced the suggestion. What! Me, a married man, take up with a bunch of filthy whores? And all I could think to say was: They’re not all filthy!
    But what was pathetic, now that I mention the matter, was the earnest, imploring way he begged me, on parting, to let him know if I thought of anything that would help … anything at all. Cut if off! I wanted to say.
    An hour rolled away. To him an hour was like five minutes. Finally I got up and made for the door. It was that icy outdoors I wanted to gallop.
    To my surprise he was waiting for me. There he sat with clasped hands resting on the desk top, his eyes fixed on some pin point in eternity. The package of samples which I had left on his desk was open. He had decided to order a suit, he informed me.
    I’m in no hurry for it, he said. I don’t need any new clothes.
    Don’t buy one, then. You know I didn’t come here to sell you a suit.
    You know, he said, you’re about the only person I ever manage to have a real conversation with. Every time I see you I expand … What have you got to recommend this time? I mean in the way of literature. That last one, Oblomov, was it? didn’t make much of an impression on me.
    He paused, not to hear what I might have to say in reply, but to gather momentum.
    Since you were here last I’ve been having an affair. Does that surprise you? Yes, a young girl, very young, and a nymphomaniac to boot. Drains me dry. But that isn’t what bothers me—it’s my wife. It’s excruciating the way she works over me. I want to jump out of my skin.
    Observing