The Anthologist

by Nicholson Baker

  Later a woman told me that when she took LSD she thought she could unscrew her breasts and hand them out to people to use as drinking bowls.

  I kept my word to Roz and didn’t have an affair, which wasn’t too difficult because there was no possibility of it.

  17

  I WROTE TWENTY-THREE POEMS on the plane back from Switzerland. I always write lots of poems on airplanes, but this was a personal best. When I got home, I saw that Nan’s son, Raymond, had piled my mail neatly on the kitchen table. I stared for a long time into my dry beautiful sink. The disposal said “IN-SINK-ERATOR.” I’d never read my own disposal before.

  Then I sat down at the kitchen table for three days and I put together a clean draft of the introduction to Only Rhyme and sent it off to Gene. I wore the same shirt the whole time so as not to lose momentum. The introduction explains things, but clumsily. Everything is much quieter and more filled with exceptions than how I’ve presented it. But at least there are things I’ve said that I know are true. I’m happy about that. It’s two hundred and thirty pages long.

  I called Roz and told her I’d written twenty-three poems and the introduction to Only Rhyme and would she move back in with me. She called back and said she didn’t want to move back in—that she’d spent a lot of money at IKEA and gotten her place the way she wanted it, so not right now. But did I want to come over for dinner on Saturday? I said yes, I did, I very much did.

  I’M WORKING for Victor now, painting houses. Or “Vick,” as he likes to be called. Much much better than teaching. Painting houses inside and out, jabbing the brush into corners and clapboard seams. It helps me think. I’m up on an aluminum ladder for real. Being paid for my work. The first evening of Vick’s poetry series is going to be devoted to Sara Teasdale. I sent a letter to Mary Oliver inviting her to come up. I doubt she will, but it’s fun to invite her.

  I wonder what it must be like to be part of something ongoingly huge like a number-one sitcom or part of a magazine when it’s in its golden moment—like The New Yorker in the thirties—or a fashionable restaurant or a hit musical. Something that everyone wants to think about at the same time. Some people have that privilege. Most don’t. And the ones who do are no more content than I am.

  Out of the poems I wrote on the plane, I sent three off to this year’s TLS poetry competition. Alice Quinn and Mick Imlah are the judges. Good old Alice. I know I won’t win, but it’s like inviting Mary Oliver to our series—a welcome flutter of excitement. And Gene has now read the introduction to Only Rhyme. “We’re going to need to make some cuts,” he said, but he said it’ll do. So I’ll get a pale green check from him. I’ve invited Roz to come over to play badminton, also Nan and Chuck and Raymond. I’ve taught Smacko not to bite the birdie by hitting it out onto the grass and then rewarding him with a crouton when he doesn’t lunge.

  The summer’s over. It’s fall. Shadows on the windshield. Rest.

  About the Author

  NICHOLSON BAKER was born in 1957 and attended the Eastman School of Music and Haverford College. He is the author of several novels, including The Mezzanine, Vox, and The Fermata, and four works of nonfiction: U and I, The Size of Thoughts, Double Fold (winner of the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award), and Human Smoke, which was a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller. He lives in Maine.