But what about his art?

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The talk we had between us is etched upon my brain. Conversing is like horse-shoes played while waiting for a train or time spent watching paint dry or visiting Algiers.

Anyway, the truth is, you tear me up with tears. But do not get me wrong, my friend, no, I blame you not at all. For if not you, the chances are that I would take a fall and wind up like the devil or Dr. Frankenstein, planning for the end of days and thinking, “Ain’t that fine?”

But you and I, we’ve been through that and know it isn’t true. Yes, we’re like a tenor solo that makes me think of you.

Your cousin,

Jim

The kingdom of experience makes the blackjack barber scream. He protests his indifference, but keeps his conscience clean. He speaks of matchstick models of thoughts that he has made and whittles circus patterns that coalesce, then fade. Always in a rainstorm that scours the country-side; never in a hurry to take me for a ride to some old distant relic or some forgotten land where he can lead an orchestra or strike up Johnny’s band. Rebel reggae music cuts into the night, dubbed in crashing noises that ease my line of sight. Altered moonlit hell-hounds nip me at my heels. Is this the way it turns out? Is this the way it feels?

Love, Jim

Anyway, about getting fired and all: Pencey calls me into his office. I sort of knew the ax was about to fall. He had that “I’m about to can you” grimace, you know. I didn’t blame him. I hadn’t been hitting my numbers for months, not even close. I kept telling them I’d shape up, and even I half-believed it, but who was I kidding? I always had a shitty work ethic, and I brought this same half-assed attitude to Bigelow & Bigelow. But I’ve always been quite good at faking that I can cut the mustard, so good in fact that they tend to keep me around, at fancy schools and the like, for longer than their own good.

Pencey’s office had this big desk with corny stuff like a coffee mug that said “World’s Best Dad.” I hate stuff like that. World’s Best Dad. Yeah, right. Pencey didn’t strike me as The World’s Best Dad. He didn’t strike me as the world’s best anything.

“What do you think of your performance, Jim?” Pencey asked. I knew I was getting canned. I didn’t say anything. Then Pencey puts up my numbers for the last six months on his screen. “We here at Bigelow are quite disappointed with your stats, Jim.”

And here I am.

I was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. I cared nothing for boxing, in fact I disliked it, but I learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness I had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton. There was a certain inner comfort in knowing I could knock down anybody who was snooty to me, although being shy and a thoroughly nice boy, I never fought except in the gym. I was Spider Kelly’s star pupil. Spider Kelly taught all his young gentlemen to box like featherweights, no matter whether they weighed one hundred and five or two hundred and five pounds. But it seemed to fit me. I was really very fast. I was so good that Spider promptly overmatched me and got my nose permanently flattened. This increased my distaste for boxing, but it gave me a certain satisfaction of some strange sort, and it certainly improved my nose. In my last year at Princeton I read too much and took to wearing spectacles.