"May I ask," said the fat man with the huge white moustache, "if you two gentlemen are members of the sacred confraternity of letters?"
"You may indeed, sir," said Addison, "and, yes, we are."
"By thunder, I knew it!" said the man. "Just something about your demeanor, and I speak, sir, not merely of your some might say shabby suit of mud-colored flannel, nor of your fedora liberally rumpled and stained with what might indeed be mud, and one hopes that's all it is, nor of your young companion's ostentatiously proletarian peacoat and newsboy's cap, in such telling contradistinction to his delicate infantile hands which have obviously never done physical labor more taxing than lifting an imperial pint beer stein to his thin lips, nor of your matching pallid complexions, calling to mind the oily morning mist clinging to the dockyards of a grim and unforgiving February, no, sirs, it is that immaterial air exuded from the both of you, that faint but unmistakeable spiritual odor of paper and ink and midnight lucubrations."
"And something tells me, sir," said Addison, "that you also are an écrivain de métier."
"Attempted, my dear sir," said the fat man, "striving or would-be one might say, indeed an unkind critic might dub me a lifelong manqué, but in point of fact I have been working on my chef-d'œuvre, lo, these forty years or more."
"And what is the nature of this life's work?" asked Addison, although in truth he could barely care less, but he believed in being polite up to a point.
"It is a novel, sir," pronounced the man, "a roman fleuve if you will, now totaling some twenty thousand pages, with no end in sight."
"And may I ask," said Addison, "what is the subject of your novel, if it's possible even to say?"
"Of course you may ask, my good fellow. But, by the way, before I continue, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Quilby, Petronius Z. Quilby. And may I know your appellations, dear sirs."
"This is my friend Milford," said Addison, gesturing to the young fellow, who was looking into the gently dissipating head of his beer. "He does have a Christian name, but he prefers to be called simply Milford."
"Put 'er there, Gilford," said Petronius Z. Quilby, extending his hand, which was as rubicund and bulbous in its own way as his face.
"Milford?" said Addison.
"Yes?" said Milford.
"Mr. Quilby is offering you his hand."
"Oh, sorry," said Milford, and he took his own hand away from the handle of his mug and allowed it to be enveloped in Mr. Quilby's.
"Very pleased to meet you, Grimley," said the fat man.
"Oh," said Milford, "yes, likewise," and he quickly withdrew his thin small hand with a sound like a garden snake slithering away across damp grass.
"And your name, sir?" said Mr. Quilby, to Addison.
"Well, it seems that all my acquaintances call me Addison," said Addison, "but in fact the name on my birth certificate is –"
"Very pleased to meet you, Harrington," said Mr. Quilby, and now he offered his hand to Addison.
"And I you as well, sir," said Addison, allowing his hand to be swallowed by the older man's. The hand was sticky, and it felt as if it were made of plum pudding still warm from the oven. Fortunately the fat man held onto Addison's hand for no longer than half a minute.
"You asked," said Mr. Quilby, picking up his own huge beer mug, which still had a few ounces of yellow liquid in it, "the subject of my magnum opus. It is quite simple really. It's a novel about a man writing a novel."
"Oh, well, that sounds promising," said Addison.
"That is to say," said Mr. Quilby, after taking a moustache-wetting sip, "it's a novel about a man writing a novel about a man writing a novel. And guess what that man is writing a novel about?"
"A man writing a novel?"
"My God, sir, you are a sharp one," said Mr. Quilby. "But you'll never guess what that man is writing a novel about."
"Well, I can only make an attempt at a guess, but may I venture that this man is writing a novel about a man writing a novel?"
"Ah ha, there's where the twist comes in. Because, no, sir, that man is writing a novel about a man writing a novel about a man writing a novel about a man writing a novel. Nice little curve ball there, hey, my lad?"
"Yes, very much so," said Addison.
"But here's the thing," said Mr. Quilby, "and this is where I think the themes of the book thicken into a gloriously rich ragout: that last man who's writing a novel is writing a novel about a man writing a novel about a man writing a novel about another man writing a novel about a man who is also writing a novel about a – guess what?"
"A man writing a novel?"
"How did you know?"
"Just a wild surmise," said Addison.
"But there's really so much more to the work," said the fat man. "I could go on and on, but I don't want to bore you. Unless you insist."
"Um," said Addison.
"What about you, Bernard?" said Mr. Quilby, looking at Milford, who was back to looking at his beer.
"Milford?" said Addison.
"Yes?" said Milford.
"Mr. Quilby asked you something."
"Oh, I'm sorry," said Milford. "What was the question?"
"I asked," said Mr. Quilby, "if you would like me to tell you more about my novel."
"Oh," said Milford. What novel? "Um, you know, I really think I'd rather wait until it's published, so that I can come to it fresh."
"Oh. Without preconceptions or prejudice you mean."
"Yes, exactly."
"Smart lad. May I ask what sort of thing you write?"
"Oh, nothing much. Just whining, despairing, foolish and instantly forgettable poetry."
"Oh, but I'm sure it's wonderful. You know what they said about Swinburne, when he was just starting out?"
"No."
"They said his work was hopelessly boring and jejune. But look at his reputation now! One of the unassailable giants."
"Um," said Milford.
"And you, Harpyman," said Mr. Quilby, addressing Addison. "Don't tell me – you are a fellow novelist."
"I plead guilty as charged," said Addison.
"I'm going to guess you're one of these modernist chappies, or is the term post-modern? I honestly can't tell the difference myself."
"Well, I suppose my work might be called post-post-post-modernist," said Addison. "So much so that I might even have come full circle to be considered a traditionalist."
"Interesting. May I ask if you've published."
"Not yet," said Addison, "but you see I'm still working on my début novel, which I envision as –"
"No, don't tell me," interjected the fat man. "It's a tale, autobiographical in a sense, of a young or no longer in the first flush of his youth would-be novelist living in squalor in the big city, supported by occasional remittances from his elder female relations, spending most of his time sitting blathering with other failures at his local bar on the Bowery, but his days and nights nonetheless are filled with incident, which some might consider inconsequential, but to him they possess all the import of the adventures of Odysseus. Nevertheless, despite his drinking and his penchant for idleness, he persists in spending at least a half hour each day, or most days, at his trusty Olivetti, tapping away at his incipient masterpiece, somewhat autobiographical in nature, a novel of a no longer quite young chap in the big city who's writing, or attempting to write his first novel, but who meets a beautiful but doomed poetess who for reasons known only to herself enters into a passionate affair with our hero. The descriptions of their sexual dalliances are vivid, but tasteful, and informed, if not by actual experience, then by the author's deep reading of the popular novels of the day, featuring the liberal use of such phrases as 'his bold, pulsating manhood', and 'her musky, moist, and beckoning recesses', as well as 'the soft clamor of their ecstasies'. Am I far off?"
"Well, actually," said Addison, "I'm writing a novel set in the Old West, about a wandering gunslinger named Buck Baxter…"
"And that's all well and good," said Mr. Quilby, "but have you considered making it a novel about a no-longer quite so young novelist living on the edge of poverty on the Bowery, who is writing a novel about an Old West gunslinger that turns into a novel about a fellow in his late thirties, living on scant means in a city slum, who writes a novel about another fellow wasting his time writing a novel about another chap writing a novel of the Old West, a subject he knows nothing about, and which will never be finished, let alone published?"
"Perhaps," said Addison, "I should consider that."
"I really think you should," said Mr. Quilby. "But what do I know?"
"Um, uh," said Addison.
"There are so very few ways to succeed in the literary game," said the fat man, "but so many ways, so infinitely many ways to fail."
{Kindly go here to read the unexpurgated "adult comix" version in A Flophouse Is Not a Home, profusely illustrated by the illustrious Rhoda Penmarq…}
