While the bookstore’s owner introduces him, Samuels experiences a novel sense of appreciation for the woman. Five years earlier, someone with her forced witticisms and brittle smile would have made his teeth grind. But now he’s touched by her earnestness, and, yes, bravery — who but the lionhearted would own a bookstore in the middle of Indiana in the age of Amazon? Yet, here she was, in her probably bought-for-the-occasion blouse, urging the audience to welcome, “A major force in modern American literature.”
“I’m really not worth your careful preparation,” Samuels wants to tell her; “As a writer, I’m really quite mediocre and will fade quicker than April snow on a milk barn roof.”
Samuels first realized he probably never ranked higher than the literary canon’s second rung about the time his son, his child by his first wife, had that terrible snowboarding accident. But when his third wife walked out, he fell off the canon’s ladder completely. In addition to a substantial slice of his wealth, she robbed him of the deliciously sardonic tone that had made his previous books successful. And left him to write God Laughs.
“Samuels’s gone soft,” critics ranted, “Traded in his trademark irony for so-called insight, resulting in misbegotten mush.” But Samuels couldn’t help it: the disaffected hipsters who peopled his previous books had deserted him, and into their place walked Gayle and Pete Spencer, a middle-aged couple grappling with their beautiful daughter, Lily’s addiction while trying to raise Lily’s twin sons.
The younger, bi-coastal fans of his earlier books had come to his readings seeking validation — the world’s all fucked up, so why should anyone, especially me, give a shit? But tonight he looks out at the people crammed into the little bookstore and sees a crowd he’s known all his life. Throughout his Kansas childhood, the fundamental decency and sensible natures of people like these sustained him, provided foundational support, and even portals for his curiosity.
At the podium, Samuels thanks the bookstore owner and opens his marked-up reading copy of God Laughs. He smiles at the audience and puts on his glasses, “Five years ago, I didn’t need these,” he jokes, “Now, five times a day, I can’t find them.” A nice smattering of chuckles. Good, they’re with him.
“Before you give a reading, practice until you’ve practically got it memorized. That way, you won’t keep your eyes glued to the page and can focus on one or two individuals . . . make contact.” a Pulitzer- prize winning poet once had advised him.
So, for his first passage, Samuels picks out a white-haired woman draped in a tasteful paisley shawl and reads the passage where Pete, despite having agreed with Gayle to devote their resources to Lily’s twins, buys an expensive yellow, down-filled coat and searches for his daughter near a truck stop. He gives her the coat and shows her pictures of her boys in their Pop Warner Football League jerseys, “The high school’s letting them play on its field Saturday. They’re so excited, you’d think they were going to the Superdome.”
For the next passage, Samuels chooses the youngish, goateed man at the end of the third row and reads how Gayle’s miffed that Pete’s broken their agreement and that he’s spent money on a coat Lily probably will sell for drugs. And that he hadn’t brought their daughter home with him.
For the third passage, Samuels concentrates on a graying professorial type in a sagging Harris tweed sport coat. Samuels reads the passage where Lily wants to see her sons play but worries that her yellow coat will attract attention—she doesn’t want to meet anyone who once knew her. So, she turns the coat inside out and watches the game from under the bleachers —her boys running up and down the same field where their father once was star quarterback. And she, head cheerleader.
After he answers a few questions, Samuels signs several copies of God Laughs — Best wishes, for Julia; Hope you enjoy this, for Taylor; Brings back memories, for Charlie.” The man in the Harris tweed waits near the end of the line. When he reaches Samuels, he says, “For Justin.”
“And the message?” Samuels asks.
“No message, just ‘For Justin’.” The man looks like he’s about to cry, “Your character, Lily . . . she . . . she.”
“Sure you don’t want a message?”
“No, nothing . . . nothing. On second thought, don’t bother. It’s fine . . . it’s fine. Just leave it.” The man snatches his copy of God Laughs from Samuels and hurries to the register. He almost stumbles.
The signing over, the bookstore owner drives Samuels back to the Best Western on the edge of town. He wonders if he should invite her for a nightcap, but, instead, thanks her and gets out. Up in his room, he pours himself a drink from the minibar, shuts off the light and opens the blinds. He stares out at the starry splendor of the Midwestern winter night sky alone, and suddenly thinks of his father, a good, patient man. A Methodist minister, who sometimes decried his inability to assuage his congregants’ pain. “They want me to pray it away,” he once told Samuels; “But they don’t understand pain is the human condition. Every one of us is walking around with holes in our hearts. Every blessed one of us.”
Samuels takes a long drink, turns the light back on, and gets out his reading copy of God Laughs. He sits at the motel’s insubstantial desk, opens to his book’s blank flyleaf and over and over inscribes, “To Justin. To Justin.” No message, just, “To Justin.” Until his glass is empty, and his fingers cramped. Just, “To Justin” A litany to the bottom of the snow-white page.
Patricia Schultheis is the author of Baltimore’s Lexington Market, published by Arcadia Publishing in 2007, and of St. Bart’s Way, published by Washington Writers’ Publishing House in 2015. Her most recent book is A Balanced Life, published by All Things That Matter Press in 2018.
