The Fun Parts (22 page)

“Sorry about this. Not what we were expecting, is it?”

Light twirled in the gold weave of Baltran. The elf’s shimmer steadied Gunderson.

“So, it’s bullshit? The calendar? The prophecy? Dimensional interface? You?”

“No, it’s not bullshit,” said Baltran. “It can’t be.”

“Are you just a figment of my imagination?”

“Fuck you. Figment.”

“You told me to do you proud.”

“You did do me proud, kid. I saw what you accomplished. It won’t be forgotten. Not by me.”

“And now what?”

“I don’t know, exactly. The beat goes on?”

“The beat,” said Gunderson, and he felt his phone vibrate, read the backlit text:
Serious offer
.

“Hey, shouldn’t I be dead yet?” said Gunderson, looking over at Baltran. “This thing’s been crashing for a while.”

“Not really. That’s just how you’re experiencing it. Okeydokey, here it comes, baby.”

“I can feel it,” whispered Gunderson. “I can taste it. It’s coming on sweet.”

“That might be your lozenge. See, really, there is no sweetness. What comes is pitiless, blind to you.”

“Aren’t we all connected?”

“Yes, we are all connected,” said Baltran, “but that’s not really a good thing. For the record, I always liked you, Gunderson. Breathe easy.”

Gunderson watched his friend’s form collapse into a sprinkly nimbus.

“Connected how?” cried Gunderson. “To what?” But he knew what, had known for some time, a few thousand years at least, back before his own shaman days on the shores of Oaxaca, longer, much longer, back before his human days, his golden molting days, his wailing vapor days, back before anything you could call a day, when he was just another stray vector shooting through great jagged reefs of anti-space. He’d known, but had he believed? Had he ever believed? Did it matter? Beyond the seal of the multiverse was a wet, blazing mouth. It slavered. It meant to munch. It had journeyed through many forevers to reach what it existed to devour: the real-ass jumbo.

Gunderson began, or ceased, to dream.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the editors who first worked with me on these stories, including Willing Davidson, Deborah Treisman, Amy Grace Loyd, Jeff Johnson, Lorin Stein, Rob Spillman, Hunter Kennedy, Jason Fulford, Michelle Orange, Tom Beller, and Joanna Yas. Thanks to Eric Chinski, who helped me make a book out of them. Thanks to the late George Kimball, whose book
Four Kings: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran and the Last Great Era of Boxing
proved a valuable source in the writing of “The Worm in Philly.” Thanks to Ira Silverberg and Eric Simonoff. Thanks to Ben Marcus. Thanks to the MacDowell Colony, where several of these stories were begun. Thanks to Ceridwen Morris, who encouraged me to finish them.

ALSO BY SAM LIPSYTE

The Ask

Home Land

The Subject Steve

Venus Drive

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

Copyright © 2013 by Sam Lipsyte

All rights reserved

First edition, 2013

These stories previously appeared, in slightly different form, in the following publications:
J&L Illustrated
(“Ode to Oldcorn”),
Jane
(“Snacks”),
McSweeney’s
(“Peasley”),
The New Yorker
(“The Climber Room,” “The Dungeon Master,” “Deniers,” “The Republic of Empathy”),
Open City
(“Nate’s Pain Is Now”),
The Paris Review
(“The Worm in Philly,” “This Appointment Occurs in the Past”),
Playboy
(“The Real-Ass Jumbo” as “The Gunderson Prophecy,” “The Wisdom of the Doulas”), and
Tin House
(“Expressive”).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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eISBN 9781466836051