Horace Afoot

by Frederick Reuss

  “That’s right.” I turn to browse the bottle rack.

  “See? I remember.” Playing the wiseass, he breaks into a stubble-faced grin.

  “Do you remember the notebook you stole from me too?”

  Schroeder shuffles toward me with a creaking of leather. He is smiling broadly. Up close he smells of tobacco and leather and several other unidentifiable odors. His straight blond hair is tied back, lighter and longer than I remember it. He has a purple bandanna tied around his neck. The current of youth that runs through him overwhelms his seediness; the dirt and grunge are a form of adornment. “Of course I remember,” he says in a confidential tone. “In fact, I still have it. I was going to give it back. You’re one hell of a poet, Horace.”

  Anderson hands the license back to Schroeder. “Well, Tom, congratulations. Have a glass of wine.”

  “What the hell,” Schroeder says and slides the laminated card into an inside pocket of his jacket. I peruse the wine rack.

  Anderson gives Schroeder a glass. “Happy belated birthday,” he says.

  Schroeder empties the glass in one gulp and puts it back on the counter.

  “That’s not how you’re supposed to drink wine,” Anderson chides him.

  Schroeder ignores him and strolls over to where I am browsing. “I’m not bullshitting, dude. I’d never admit I took it if I didn’t dig what I found.” His voice still has an adenoidal edge to it.

  “What you stole.”

  “Whatever.” He grabs a bottle from the rack, gives the label a cursory glance, then puts it back. “I gotta tell you, though, the poems helped me. No shit. They did. I been writing some stuff myself. Lyrics. Some dudes I know in a band are going to put ’em to music. If you want I’ll show ’em to you.”

  “What I would like is to have the notebook back.”

  “It’s at home. I just got back yesterday.”

  “I thought you were in college.”

  “I was. I mean I am. I cut out early.”

  “Or they threw you out.”

  I move down the aisle a few steps. Schroeder stays with me. Now I remember what I hated about him, his lingering presence. “I’m not the only one who likes your poems. My English professor liked them too.”

  “You showed them to your English professor?”

  “Yup.” Schroeder grins and grabs a half-gallon bottle of Jack Daniels from the shelf. “He gave me an A for them.”

  I want to laugh but keep a straight face. “Your English professor is an idiot,” I say, examining the bottle in my hand.

  Schroeder grins, bounces the half-gallon bottle against his thigh. “Don’t knock it, dude. It means he liked your stuff.”

  “If he’d known his stuff, he’d have flunked you for plagiarism.”

  Schroeder’s grin is undiminished. He gives the bottle in his hands a few aimless hefts, as though practicing with weights. “How’s he supposed to know I copied your poems?”

  “Because I copied them.”

  “No shit! Who’d you copy them from?” Horace.

  “Horace who?”

  “Quintus Horatius Flaccus.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Just one of the more famous Roman poets.”

  “No shit! Never heard of him.”

  “Nor has your professor, it seems.”

  “What’d you do? Copy them out of a book or something?”

  “I copied them out from memory.”

  Schroeder’s eyes widen along with his grin. “No shit!” He scratches the stubble of his cheek, then slaps his leather-clad thigh and laughs. “That’s fantastic!”

  “I can’t believe your professor didn’t catch you.”

  “Well, I changed them around a little so that they didn’t sound, like, too old-fashioned. It was fun, man. And know what?”

  “What?”

  “I made ’era better.” He strikes a pose and recites, “You rotten old bitch/my cock ain’t hard/’cause every tooth of yours is black/and between your flabby legs/a, hole as raw and nasty as a cow’s …”

  “All right, that’s enough!” Anderson shouts from behind the counter.

  “It’s a poem, man.”

  “I don’t care what you call it. Get what you came for and leave.”

  Schroeder saunters over to the register, where Anderson is waiting with a scowl. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of bills. I watch the transaction, my anger at Schroeder dissipating, a mysterious effect of his oafish charisma. I return to the rack and take down another bottle.

  “Don’t bother coming in here again unless you know how to behave yourself.”

  “Hey,” Schroeder calls on his way out the door, “I’ll bring your pad back later.” He pushes through the door, and both Anderson and I watch as he packs the bottle into a saddle bag, mounts, and drives off.

  “I’ve known that kid since he was this high,” Anderson says, coming out from behind the counter and chopping his fat thigh with the side of his hand. “He’s been trouble for years, and his father pretends not to notice.”

  “What about the mother?”

  “That’s how it all started. She killed herself about ten years ago. They say she did it right in front of the boy—with a shotgun. I don’t know if that’s true or just gossip. It doesn’t matter one way or another because the whole town thinks it’s what happened, so the kid gets away with pretty much anything he wants.” Anderson shakes his head wearily, puts his reading glasses back on. “If he were mine I’d’ve put him over my knee a long time ago.” He pulls a bottle from the rack. “This is one I really like,” he says, picking up where he left off earlier.

  It’s dusk by the time I get home. The woodpile on the porch is nearly depleted, and while daylight fades I restack what’s left and sweep the porch before opening the Château Bel-Air Anderson sold me. I drag my rocking chair onto the porch and sit outside, despite the chill. The wine is full bodied and very pleasant, although Anderson’s opinion was that it still needed some time in the bottle. Maybe he’s right, but I’d never let considerations like that prevent me from drinking it. The air grows colder. The street is quiet, and it is nice to breathe fresh air after the long winter in front of the stove.

  I find myself wondering if I can still despise Schroeder as I have in the past. His ludicrous story did it. I even found his dirty leather swagger and his de-bowdlerized Horatian epode amusing, if only because Anderson was so repulsed. If he does return the notebook I’ll ask him about his mother—and the score between us will be settled.

  Night falls, and it is too cold to stay outside. I bring in a few logs and some kindling to start the fire. The wine has taken away my appetite, but I go into the kitchen out of boredom and make a pot of rice to eat with the last of the kidney beans and squash I’ve been eating for the past three days. An orange for dessert cuts the lingering aftertaste of the wine, and rather than finish the bottle as I’m tempted to, I cork it and return to the living room to read more about the ordo amoris in Selected Philosophical Essays.

  After a few pages the relation between the acts of love and hate and cognitive acts and acts belonging to the sphere of striving and willing confuses me and makes me restless. I put the book aside and turn to the copy of The Diatribes of Lucian I brought home from the library. It is not long before I am engrossed.

  Time passes.

  By early morning Lucian is a roaring atavism within me. I can hardly contain him, and I take out my copy book and begin to transcribe, copying first the Greek and then the English on facing pages. I remember the words of Dionysius of Halicarnassus: The reader’s spirit absorbs a similarity of character with what he reads by the act of continuous concentration. It’s what I intend to do, but after several pages I stop, realizing that I will have to work on my Greek, which is rudimentary.

  At dawn I go out onto the porch. I am Lucian. Lucian of Samosata. Lucian the Slanderer. Lucian the Blasphemer. The Atheist. The Mocker.

  I walk through the woods behind the house to the abandoned train
tracks. The first light of dawn filters through the trees. I strip myself naked, pull off the boots that saw me through the winter and begin to dig a hole. The ground is soft, and I am able to dig with my bare hands. After I have dug through the layer of topsoil the earth grows hard and I need a stick to break it up so I can scoop it out. Soon I am sweating from the effort. When the hole is a few feet long and a foot deep I lay my boots in it, cover them with my shirt and pants. Then I fill it in, tromping down the earth with bare feet, the air on my soil-streaked skin cool and invigorating.

  I stand in the clearing and listen to the birds singing my name in the trees—looshen, looshen—then make my way slowly through the woods, stepping tenderly through the undergrowth. I emerge into the sea of daffodils that surrounds my house. The morning sun is bright and the dew heavy on the ground, my stagnant little house an emanation on the horizon. As I approach it, the neighbor appears, clomping toward his truck in the driveway. He raises his hand, then stops short.

  I run across the yard trampling daffodils, bound up the porch steps and into the house.

  The pavement is warm against the soles of my feet. The sun is bright. By the time I’ve reached the top of the street I am damp with perspiration. I unzip my snowsuit as far as my navel to let the air circulate. The world has taken on a mild hallucinatory aspect, as though I am viewing a quiet avalanche of things through a clear but solid barrier, a pane of glass. On the way into town I think about the new name I have chosen and how it both binds me to and isolates me from this remote, shimmering world.

  At the bank Derringer rises to greet me. “Run out in a hurry this morning?” He looks me up and down, extends his hand across the desk. “You forgot your shoes. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Can I get you some coffee?”

  “No thanks.” I reach into the inside pocket of my suit and take out the documents from the court. They are limp and wilted looking. Derringer has seated himself in his fake leather chair and removes the yellow ball from the top drawer of his desk. He sits back, squeezing the little orb. “What can I do ya fer today?”

  “I need you to notarize this form.”

  Derringer takes the document and glances at it for a moment. Application for Change of Name. His left hand pumps the ball as he reads. He looks up at me with cheerful inquisitiveness and then continues reading the document, returning his yellow ball to the drawer and fishing out his notary tools without taking his eyes from the form. “Lucyann? Have I got it right? Lucy-ann of Same-es-atta?”

  “Looshen,” I correct him. “Looshen of Sam-os-ahta.”

  Derringer repeats, pronouncing it more or less correctly. “What is it? French?”

  “Greek.”

  “You like them Greek names, don’t you? Isn’t Horatius Quintus, whatever it is. Isn’t that Greek too?”

  “It’s Latin.”

  “Well, it’s got a ring to it. I’ll say that.” He turns the document over and hands it across the desk. “You have to fill in the second part,” he says, pointing with his finger. “Number three. Reason for Change of Name. Can’t put my chop on it ’til you got it all filled out correctly.”

  “I left it blank intentionally.”

  Derringer shrugs and smiles superficially. “Well, you have to put something down. I can’t notarize an incomplete form.”

  “What if I don’t want to explain myself?”

  Derringer leans back, shrugs his heavy shoulders, and reaches for the rubber ball. “Put ‘none’ down. Not applicable.” He rolls the ball on the top of the desk with the flat of his hand, then sits back in his chair and begins to squeeze.

  “Why do you squeeze that ball all the time?”

  Derringer seems a little surprised at my question and transfers the ball from one hand to the other. “Keeps me calm,” he says. “Relaxed. Used to smoke. The doctor says this is one hundred percent healthier.”

  As Derringer speaks an answer occurs to me, and I fill in the blank box on the form: Expression of personal identity. I slide the paper across the desk.

  “Well, it’s a free country, I always say. And a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” Derringer puts the ball away, takes the iron clamp, and squeezes tightly, embossing the seal at the bottom. “Paper’s a little damp,” Derringer says, examining the mark. “Could be a little crisper.” He waves the form as though to dry it and then signs with a flourish and returns it to me. “Now, what else can I do ya fer?”

  “I need some money.”

  “No problem,” he sings, peeling a withdrawal slip from a small stack at the side of his desk. He turns to his computer terminal. “By the way.” He begins tapping on the keyboard. “You’ll have to bring all the paperwork from the court so we can make the changes in your account.”

  I nod. Derringer keeps pecking at the keyboard, then copies numbers onto the slip. “I see your certificates of deposit are coming due. Want to talk about that now, or do we wait?”

  “Just do whatever it is you did before.”

  Derringer finishes on the computer, then swivels in his chair so he’s facing me. “You know, there are a variety of other financial tools available for someone in your position.” He has completely changed his tone of voice, speaking now with what he must consider to be the authority of his profession but sounding more like a precocious child trying to talk like a grownup. “If you’re interested I can put you in touch with our investment division. They’ll discuss the full range of options with you. Equities. Annuities. Mutual funds. That kind of thing.”

  “I don’t really care.”

  Derringer gives a professional shrug and pretends indifference. “Just thought I should say something. With your level of liquidity, you could be looking for higher returns.”

  “I don’t want to think about it.”

  Derringer gives a sagacious nod, then shrugs again. “That’s what money managers are for,” he says, pushing his chair back and getting to his feet. “Just wait here a minute and I’ll go to the cashier for you.” He lumbers off. I take the notarized form, fold and return it to the insulated dampness of my pocket.

  The walk to Schroeder’s Shoes takes twice the time it should because I have to stop every ten minutes to give the soles of my feet a rest and to cool down inside the suit. By the time I get out to the strip of development that bulges like a tumor from the northern end of town my feet have been thoroughly tenderized. I had considered doing without shoes and even thought the suit might make a sort of cowl-less habit. But asphalt is too hard to walk on and the suit is too hot for late spring weather.

  When I enter the shoe store Tom Schroeder Sr. is nowhere to be seen. A bangled and teased-up young woman approaches me, a smile splashed across her face. Her name tag says she is Cathy, the manager. She takes one look at my feet and bursts out with, “Wow! Do we need shoes or what?”

  “Is Tom Schroeder here?”

  Cathy shakes her head vigorously. “Nope. He hardly comes in since the new store opened.”

  “New store?”

  “Out at the Pavilion.”

  “Pavilion?”

  “The new mall. Since they opened up out there, traffic’s down here by about half. They got a food court and a cineplex and a virtual-reality arcade called Hyperworld.”

  “I’m looking for a pair of walking shoes.”

  Cathy motions me over to a display. “These are what you want. Lumberlands.” She lifts up an object that looks like something for incubating eggs in. She turns it over in her hand and traces a finger along the sole. “They’ve got a patented insulation system, vacuum sealed to create a cushion of air between your foot and the ground. Try it on. It’s like walking on air.”

  “I’m not interested in walking on air. What about a plain leather shoe?”

  “This is no gimmick. These are the best shoes on the market. Everybody who buys ’em loves ’em. I got two pairs, I like them so much.”

  “I just want a normal leather shoe.”

  “These shoes let your foot breathe.”

  �
��I don’t want my feet to breathe. I want them to walk.”

  “Very funny.” She puts the shoe down. “Plain vanilla? We got plain vanilla.” She marches across the store, beckoning me with a crooked finger. “Here’s what you want.” She holds up a boot that is all laces and thickly notched sole. “A hiking boot.”

  I shake my head. “I just want an ordinary shoe.”

  “An ordinary old shoe,” she repeats. “Sit down. I’ll bring you the plainest oldest ordinariest shoe we got.”

  I sit and watch the dazed procession of shoppers moving past the display window. Cathy reappears a few minutes later and hands me a pair of white socks. “You’ll need to put those on first. These are the plainest oldest shoes we have,” she says, kneeling. She begins threading the laces. “The company has been making these sexy things since 1921 and hasn’t changed a thing about them. Not even the color. They only come in black.” She grabs my foot to slip the shoe on.

  “I can do it.” I take the shoes from her and put them on.

  “How do they feel?”

  I stand up and take a few steps toward the front of the store. “I’ll take them.”

  “Need anything else?”

  “More socks.”

  “No problem.” She grins, snaps a bright red fingernail. “I’ll even let you keep the ones you have on for no extra charge.”

  Across from Schroeder’s Shoes is a clothing store where I buy three pairs of jeans and four shirts, two white button-down and two black tee shirts. I’ve not bought or worn new clothes for over two years, and when I emerge from the mall wearing shiny black shoes, stiff new jeans, and a white shirt, a peculiar self-consciousness overwhelms me. I look at my reflection in the glass doors at the mall entrance. A stranger looks back. It occurs to me that the physical forces that bind me to the reflection in the glass are analogous to the semantic forces that link name and identity together; and that amid this phantasmagoria of names and things, to be named Lucian of Samosata is nothing more than to cast a reflection.

  I walk back to town carrying a bag containing my new clothes and the snowsuit. Passages from Selected Philosophical Essays filter through my mind along the way, passages containing words like Being, Transcendental Ego, Subject, Object. What good is a name for a thing—a being—that transforms itself spontaneously by nature or by an act of willing? From nothing to egg to zygote to embryo to fetus to infant to child to adolescent to adult to geriatric to corpse to decaying flesh back to nothing. Or from Quintus Horatius Flaccus to Lucian of Samosata? Is there a single identity that inheres and abides throughout? Or is identity an accretion that builds up like a crust around a name and even continues for a time after death like hair and nails growing on a corpse? If it is nonsense to say that two things are identical and meaningless to say that a thing is identical to itself; and if the universe is an infinity of names with different meanings—what then of identity?—except to say that it is a stream running through all of nature—and names are the hooks we use to fish in it.