The Devil Tree by Jerzy Kosinski

Author:Jerzy Kosinski [Kosinski, Jerzy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2011-01-06T08:00:00+00:00

“Have you decided what you’re going to do with yourself, Jonathan?” Anthony asked me. “Are you going into business? You’re still young, and it would be a real pity to waste yourself doing nothing—or doing the wrong thing.”

Anthony seemed to think that my present life, like my years of draft dodging and drugs, was nothing but evasion of responsibility. I changed the subject, chatted about my travels, said how much I had learned from my exile. Anthony remarked that I was lucky to have so much freedom—meaning money. When I tried to tell him that money could not buy the inner freedom I have always desired, he wasn’t interested. When he said how much I resembled my father, I became angry. I wanted to tell him that was a lie, as he of all people—a black man, the archetypical American servant—should know. But I checked myself. I started instead to talk about some of the women I had had, asking him pointed questions about his own sex life and telling him increasingly realistic stories. He laughed at first, but as the episodes became more lewd and violent, he began to grow uncomfortable, and exhausted by the thought of even the possibility of such adventures, he slumped in his chair. I don’t know why, but perversely I continued until I was sure he realized that my life was beyond his experience.

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