Bright, Precious Days by Jay McInerney

Author:Jay McInerney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

21

“ONE DAY I WAS A TEACHING ASSISTANT in Iowa City,” Phillip said, “and then suddenly my picture was in the Times Book Review and I’m on the Today show.”

They were at KGB, an East Village bar known for its literary readings and authentically rude, Russian-style service. Russell had invited him to hear Jack Carson read, and afterward, as the rising star disappeared into the throng of admirers, Phillip was garrulously apologizing to Russell for his long-ago breach of contract while revisiting the days when he, too, had been a celebrated new fiction writer.

“As soon as the semester ended, I moved to Manhattan, flew to Hollywood on a first-class ticket and hung out with River Phoenix at the Viper Room three nights before he croaked out on the sidewalk. On the one hand, it all seemed perfectly natural, my just deserts, a slightly belated recognition of my innate talent and hard work. Of course, I’d always believed I was an unappreciated genius. On the other hand, I felt like a complete fraud, overpraised and unprepared for the role I’d been thrust into: a wunderkind, the voice of a new generation. And I wondered why it wasn’t me who’d OD’d outside the Viper Room, given the amount of coke I’d snorted that night. I’d dabbled in coke before, but now that I had money and a modicum of celebrity, I was hitting it way hard. The first time I ever did coke, I knew I’d found my drug, my own best self. I felt normal, like I could walk into a room and imagine that I belonged among other humans without any degree of self-consciousness. So it seemed in the beginning, and for years to come. Eventually you figure out it makes you more self-conscious and cleaves you entirely from the great majority of your fellow humans, who are not doing coke all the time, and forces you to lie reflexively and incessantly, calling your agent at ten in the morning to cancel a lunchtime reading in Philadelphia because, you claim, you have a sudden attack of diverticulitis, not because you’ve been awake all night doing blow with a waitress from Bar Tabac. Eventually you’re lying before the fact, bailing on any event that isn’t likely to involve coke, and lying after the fact, apologizing for the missed dinner, the missed birthday, the missed deadline.”

Russell could see a group of young women registering Kohout’s presence; they were too cool to fuss about it, though he could sense they were annotating the sighting among themselves.

“Still, I was maintaining, in a way. You tell your agent and your putative editor the second book’s going great. Pages soon, any day now, really good stuff. It’s amazing how many people are willing to be lied to. It takes a village, right? It almost makes you believe in the innate goodness of humanity, experiencing the credulity of the species. The more famous you are, the more your mendacity will be indulged. Women—you hate to say it; it

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