Doctor Syntax by Michael Petracca

Author:Michael Petracca [Petracca, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, General
ISBN: 1877741035
Google: W1UrAQAAIAAJ
Amazon: 1877741035
Publisher: Capra Press
Published: 1991-04-01T05:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

We stood on the porch, the front door open, the bug-repellent porch light haloing Lissa in golden light while at the same time keeping moths off us. Lissa leaned against the doorframe and, exhaling forcibly, puffed out her lips with her breath. “The Combist League.” she said and then stopped as though gathering energy for some task that required superhuman strength, just as that poor sod in mythology—the one who had to keep pushing a boulder up a hill for all eternity—must have done before he put his shoulder to it. “It’s kind of complicated.” she began. “The Combists are something between a satanic cult and the Jane Austen Society, but closer to a cult.”

“That’s reassuring.” I said. “Last year I took a whole quarter of Jane Austen, and if I learned anything in that class it’s that if you spend too much time with them, Austen enthusiasts will sparkle you to death with their conversation. I’ll take my chances with devil-worshipers any day.”

“You wouldn’t be so flippant if you knew anything about the Combist League.” Lissa said ominously.

“I don’t know anything about them because you still haven’t told me anything about them.” I responded in a confrontational though by no means hostile tone. “All I know so far is that they don’t read Jane Austen, which doesn’t tell me much. Nobody reads Jane Austen unless they have to.”

With lips still pursed Lissa exhaled again and more sharply, so that I was reminded for a moment of the sound orcas make when they clear out their breathing apparatus upon surfacing.42 “The Combist League.” Lissa fragmentized for a second time, still searching for a firm handhold on the obviously precipitous and crumbly face of the topic. She tilted her head back, resting it against the painted wood of the doorframe, and exhaled yet again, this time with more of a weary sigh than a cetaceous blowhole-blast. “Have you heard of Laurence Sterne?” she asked.

I gave her a puzzled look. “Weren’t we just talking about Sterne?”

“Not my stepfather. The writer.”

“Oh, that Laurence Sterne. Sure, like I said, every English undergrad has to take a novel survey class, and Tristram Shandy’s always included in the list of required books. I forget most of what it was about but it was pretty funny, which in itself is rare for old novels; most of them are like four-hundred-page soap operas. I remember there was a blank page in there somewhere, which broke up to monotony, and some pictures, and—oh, yeah—I think a window comes down on the hero’s dick.”

“No wonder you’re having trouble with your dissertation. You don’t always pick the most … relevant details to remember.”

“I can’t help it. It’s like a disease.”

“You love it. It makes you feel as though you’re different, special. Unique.”

Ordinarily I won’t let anyone get away with using poop-butt dimestore psychoanalysis on me—even uncannily accurate poop-butt dimestore psychoanalysis as this probably was. I knew, however, that any protest by me would occasion lengthy discussion of my alleged developmental strictures,

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