The Subject Steve: A Novel by Sam Lipsyte

the ordeal."
    "Stoic."
    "Not stoic. They'd go bananas. You motherfucking bear-fucker, your tribe is rabbit shit. Something to say while you're being flensed alive."
    "Was this passed down in family lore, DaShawn?"
    "I researched it for my thesis. My family passed down a fondness for Ring-Dings."
    "We had Devil Dogs," I said.
    "Those are good, too."
    A man stooped out of the hut. Bits of ash hung in the air about him. He was naked, smeared with soot and blood. A piece of metal poked out of his hand.
    We saw a flash, heard a boom, felt something thud into the elder.
    Tonight, after pears in syrup, Heinrich stood for a word. He'd showered, looked rested, his wet hair combed back into an impromptu pompadour. There were still a few streaks of ash on his hands, a little scallop of dried blood on his ear.
    "People, I have an announcement to make. It concerns our very own Bobby Trubate. Today was an extra-special day for him. You know of what I speak. It's uncertain if we'll ever see him again, but suffice it to say he has finally tasted truth. Trubate. Perhaps name is destiny, after all."
    "You hear that, Spanky?" Parish whispered into my ear.
    I nodded, spooned up some pear.
    Back at the cabin Old Gold was stuffing Bobby's clothes into a duffel bag.
    "Did he go home?"
    "I don't know," said Old Gold.
    "What happened?"
    "I don't know. I guess he was no match for mothering fire."
    "He's a good guy."
    "Avram, has it ever occurred to you that a lot of this stuff might be figurative? That really the idea of life is just to get along as best we can under the circumstances?"
    "Oh, you mean like Nazi Germany?"
    "Don't pull that Nazi shit with me. I'm a Jew, too."
    "Who said I was a Jew?"
    "I read it in your story in the
Tenets
."
    "Maybe I just meant that figurative."
    Old Gold left and I lay in my cot for a while. My classical kindergarten education had trained me to always take a few moments before sleep to review my day, ruminate on any schoolyard atrocities the banality of evil or banality may have glossed. Pigtail tuggings. Marble-maimings. Bastard shot at me, was all I could think. My day, for the most part. There was a knock at the door and Heinrich capered in all soft-shoe, twirled a phantom baton.
    "Cabin visit."
    "Are you going to tuck me in?"
    "I could, but then you'd just get up again to proceed with your wheelchair assignations."
    "No secrets around here, huh?"
    "Renee," said Heinrich. "Poor kid came here thinking about miracles. Just like you. People get crazy ideas. Even smart people like Renee. They think they're going to overcome their personal tragedies. They employ the phrase 'personal tragedy.' But I have deep feeling for Renee, I do. Marooned colonies of feeling, even."
    "No respect for Velcro, either."
    "Privacy's a dead end, Steve. What's the saying? Last refuge of scumbags?"
    "Do you read everyone's items?"
    "I paid for the pen, man. And the paper. So, how did you like being shot at today?"
    "Is that what that was?"
    "Toughie. How's your mysterious rot going?"
    "I'm not sure."
    "That's a good sign."
    "The symptoms come and go."
    "As they will."
    "It's not all in my head."
    "Hey, if it's in your head it's in you."
    "I'll try to remember that," I said. "Or my head will. What were you doing to Trubate in the mothering hut?"
    "Midwifery."
    "What happened?"
    "You were there."
    "Is he dead?"
    "Why would he be dead?"
    "Because his things were still here. Because I heard those screams. Because you-"
    "Careful now. I what?"
    "I don't know."
    "No, you don't, do you? You're deducing again."
    "I want to leave here."
    "And go where?"
    "Home."
    "Where would that be?"
    "Shit," I said, "you tell me."
    I threw a fit. I decided to throw a fit. It was a technique I'd honed at the agency. Sometimes, uncertain times, it proved judicious to appear unhinged. A timely spaz bespoke passion, salary-worth. Mine were maybe tantamount to office culture, too, like the late-night car service or the Monday massage. Don't pitch a Steve, people would