Queer's Progress by Steven Key Meyers

Author:Steven Key Meyers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steven Key Meyers
Published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

24.

ANDREW TOOK FOREVER to read Ned’s manuscript. Weeks passed before he called up one Saturday—quite possibly drunk—to say he loved it!

Of course, he had the excuse of his new job. Oh yes, in the middle of a recession, when every day the zombie procession of the laid-off carried their office things home in cardboard boxes, Andrew got his fancy new job. But then, Ned reflected, he’s the kind who always gets the job, who goes through life with nothing too bad ever happening to him, blessed with health and smarts (to a degree), good looks (ditto), somehow exempt from the shit that mires the rest of humanity.

For instance, one night Andrew got mugged. What did it cost him? The 20 bucks in his wallet—in a neighborhood where people get killed for less. Don’t have to worry about Andy-boy!

But Ned knew that most so kind as to read something of yours will take their lordly time of it. It’s one of those ways you can get away with torturing people. He’s sure he’d do it himself, except he refuses to look at anyone’s stuff. (What’s the use?)

Obviously he’d missed the whole point of the book, but the writer’s meed is so often anguish that any prattle of praise is sweet. Ned invited him over to return it.

“Don’t feel up to it, Ned. Just thinking about Edward.”

“You’re kidding: Still?” Andrew waited him out. “Moping alone should do it.”

“What time’s good?”

When he arrived Ned’s neighborhood was grooving to its warm-weather war-zone soundtrack. His block was tranquil as can be: Landmarked townhouses facing a 19th-century seminary standing in its own park. But years ago the city demolished the similar blocks to the south and built high-rise public housing, balconies wrapped in chain-link. It’s the noise Ned finds insufferable. Tonight some to-do had called forth a raft of police cruisers. Cops barking over their speakers sounded like dogs fighting. Noise begets noise until we’re all insane.

Andrew’s arrival made a diversion. After entombing the pages in his safe, Ned set him up in the wingback with a Jack Daniel’s, an adoring Dolly at his feet.

Had to admire his handiwork. Every time he saw Andrew he looked more Manhattan. But whatever did Ned eat that made him so gassy? Of course he was a pastmaster at the courtly art of the silent fart, but the smell (though he savored his own) meant poor Dolly began to come in for accusing looks.

“Andy, I am so thankful. Nothing helps a writer more than a good reader looking at his work and saying what he thinks, no holds barred.”

There was a snap out his rear he couldn’t suppress. But then, it’s not healthy to.

Andrew shifted uncomfortably. “I liked it,” he said, “though I might suggest some changes.”

“Tell me, what do you see as the theme? What comes across?”

“Shame, I think.”

“Exactly!”

“You told me that yourself. You said you use status to talk about it, but that I didn’t find. Unless you mean that for her to take a factory job after

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