Horace Afoot (25 page)

“Very elegant. Where are you off to so dressed up? An audition?”

Mohr grins his clacky dentured grin. “Just the oncologist,” he says. “I like to put my best foot forward.”

“For radiation?”

Mrs. Entwhistle shoots me a horrified look and returns to the circulation desk.

“For chemo,” Mohr says.

“Why bother getting all dressed up for that?”

Mrs. Entwhistle emits a little gasp. If I were her son or her husband she’d probably swat me.

“I’ve found that they stop treating you like a hopeless case when you’re well dressed.” He asks Mrs. Entwhistle if she would mind if I accompanied him upstairs.

“You two go right ahead,” she says, her mock cheer regained. “Just make yourselves at home.”

The suit hides Mohr’s advancing sickness well. I follow him upstairs as he tells me that he has had to force himself to stay away from the library.

“Maybe you should come back to work,” I say as we reach the second floor.

Mohr waggles his cane. “Too late for that. And anyway, I’m settling into my books. You’d be surprised how long it takes to get back to real reading after a lifetime of noisy distraction. But also what a pleasure.”

“What is real reading?”

Mohr doesn’t respond. We enter his old office, and he stands in the doorway for a moment, leaning on his cane. The blinds are drawn, but a fair amount of light filters through the slats. “It’s stuffy,” he says and advances toward the window to pull up the blind. The room is transformed by the light. Mrs. Entwhistle has cleared away the boxes that cluttered the floor but left the room essentially the way it was before Mohr left.

“I don’t understand,” Mohr says. “Why hasn’t she moved in? This is the head librarian’s office. Why doesn’t she use it?” He sits down behind his old desk and twirls his cane between his knees. The desk top is clear except for the telephone and an old blotter pad decorated with decades of Mohr’s own doodles.

“She’s waiting for you to die,” I blurt.

Mohr looks up at me for a moment, holding his cane between his knees. “I think you might be right.”

Now I know I don’t like her. Some macabre sense of propriety is preventing her from staking her claim. She wants the place completely and absolutely to herself and doesn’t want even to be reminded of Mohr. The worst is that she would never admit it.

“What are those papers you have?” Mohr indicates the legal forms rolled in my hand.

“I’m going to change my name.”

Mohr’s brows arch slightly. “But Quintus Horatius Flaccus is such a—nice name. Why change it?”

I shrug, not really in the mood to explain myself.

“Have you decided on a new one?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

“A few.”

“Tell me.”

“Flavius Arrianus. Arrian for short.”

Mohr nods his head appreciatively. “Whom are we referring ourself to this time?”

“The author of the
Discourses of Epictetus
.”

Mohr nods again, continues twirling his cane. “Why not go all the way?”

“What do you mean?”

“Call yourself Epictetus.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I lack
prosopon
.”

“
Prosopon
? As in
prosopopoeia
? Or
prosopography
?”

“
Prosopon
is Greek for person. But Epictetus meant it in a special way. For him,
prosopon
meant the proper character and personality of a person.”

Mohr continues his nod, repeats the word
prosopon
several times.

“It’s a Stoic idea. When one finds one’s true character and personality—one’s nature—it is one’s obligation to display it to the world.”

“So you don’t think you’re up to Epictetus. But you can handle his amanuensis?”

“You could put it that way. I’d rather think Arrian
is
Epictetus in the same way that, say, Plato is Socrates. Or the poet Fernando Pessoa is Bernardo Soares, Assistant Bookkeeper of the City of Lisbon. You look like him, by the way.”

“Like whom? Pessoa?”

“No. Like the Assistant Bookkeeper of the City of Lisbon.”

“Thank you, Horace. But that’s enough. I’m getting confused.”

“If Arrian didn’t call himself Epictetus, how can I?”

“I don’t know what to say about the logic of it,” Mohr answers in an indulgent tone of voice. “But your reasoning is interesting.” He pauses for a moment. “What about Horace? Do you think you had
the prosopon
?”

“Maybe. But it’s time for a change.” I walk over to look out the window. It is late afternoon, time to go home, drink a few glasses of wine, watch the daffodils. The sun’s rays slant long and golden. The big white house behind the library looks almost yellow in the light.

Mohr’s chair creaks as he leans back in it. He is amused by our conversation and wants to continue. “Can I offer a suggestion?”

“Be my guest.”

I sit on the edge of the desk. A glint escapes Mohr’s eyes that I haven’t seen since the evening we drank together at my house. Maybe it’s the suit, his new dapper look. He leans forward, placing one hand over the other on the hilt of his cane. “Forget Arrian,” he says.

“Why?”

“You’re too young for Stoicism. And too healthy. Save the forbearance stuff for later. When you’re in my shoes.” He stops for a moment to clear his throat, then continues, “Besides, I don’t think you really believe that the whole, undivided universe is really all
good
. Do you?” Before I can respond he continues, “And there is a theistic element in Stoicism that can’t be escaped.”

“So?”

“So. You have always struck me as more agnostically inclined.” He smiles, reshuffles his hands on the hilt of his cane. “I was going to suggest something more eclectic, in the direction of Cynicism.”

“The Cynics are too demanding. The wallet and staff thing is too much. I don’t want to live in a barrel and harangue people and beg. It’s too noisy and extreme. Besides, they’d throw me in jail.”

Mohr waves off my objections. “I agree. I don’t see you barking at people in the street either. Or hugging icy statues and masturbating publicly.” He breaks into strangely noiseless laughter and drops his cane. His whole frame shakes weakly, and a few tears erupt from the corners of his eyes, which he wipes away with the back of his hand. There is something unfunny about his outbreak, and I can’t bring myself to laugh with him, so I just smile and look down at the floor and shake my head in mirthful sympathy. He recovers and bends to pick up his cane. I twist around and look past him through the window. The tops of the trees just outside the window are swaying in the breeze.

“I’m sorry,” Mohr says. “I didn’t mean to be so. Silly.”

“Then let’s have your suggestion.”

“I was thinking of Lucian. Lucian of Samosata.”

“I don’t know him.”

Mohr drops his cane again and bends to pick it up. “You don’t know Lucian? Shame on you.”

“Was he Roman?”

“Not one bit. Samosata was some backwater in Syria, I think. He lived at the time of Marcus Aurelius. A satirist—with a Cynic bent who lived to expose shams and phonys. He traveled the world of his day delivering diatribes on every subject. Mainly he poked fun at the bigmouths
and the pompous philosophical schools of the day. Best of all.” He rests his chin on his hand and continues with a wry grin, “He thoroughly despised his own epoch.”

The door opens and Mrs. Entwhistle pokes her head into the room. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”

I want to say she is, but Mohr waves her in. “We were just having a little philosophical conversation.”

Mrs. Entwhistle steps in, leaving the door open behind her. “Memories, memories,” she says in a sickeningly cheerful voice. “I hope you don’t mind. I’ve done a little straightening up.”

“Not at all,” Mohr responds with his shaky reed of a voice, returning cheer with cheer. “But tell me. Why haven’t you moved in yet?”

Mrs. Entwhistle crosses her arms over her narrow bosom. “Well, Mr. Mohr. I just haven’t had one extra minute since you left, and until my position is filled I don’t see any reason to begin moving things around. And besides,” she pauses to choose her words carefully, “I just can’t get used to not having you up here.”

Mohr swallows the bait. “Well, Mrs. Entwhistle, I honestly can’t get used to it either.” A moment of subdued silence ensues, and I slide off the corner of the desk and make for the door. “Leaving us?” Mohr asks.

“I still have some things to do.” I hold up the rolled papers in my hand. Mrs. Entwhistle begins to rearrange a stack of papers on one of the shelves along the walls.

“I wanted to tell you before we got off the subject. The archaeology team arrives next week. They’ve told me we can come out to watch the excavation. Would you like to join me for an afternoon?”

“I’d like that.”

“I’ll call you to arrange a time.”

I detour through the stacks and locate a battered old bilingual Greek/English edition titled
The Diatribes of Lucian
. Mohr’s suggestion intrigues me, and, testing my library liberties, I leave a note for Mrs. Entwhistle informing her that I have taken the book.

On the way home I stop in Winesburg Wine and Liquor. I haven’t visited for over a month, since I bought a case of 1981 Château Léoville-Las-Cases and a case of Hattenheim Steinberger that Anderson became sold on after a short trip to Germany last fall—as he did on everything German. He happily shows off his newest selections and invites me to sample a bottle he has just opened.

We stand in the neon light of the small store, and I listen while Anderson tugs at his walrus mustache and rambles on using jargon taken from magazines and his growing collection of wine books. He keeps them on a shelf near the register for the benefit of his customers, whom, he says, he has been trying to educate for years. Anderson sees himself as something of a novelty in the town, but in fact he is the kind of man who lives contentedly by all the accepted conventions of taste—a true connoisseur, in other words. We stand facing each other, Anderson’s belly pressed up against the counter, savoring the wine.

“Full bodied,” he says, swirling his glass. “Nice tannins.” He pokes his nose back into the glass, snorts and sips and smacks with red-lipped relish. “Big. Very big,” he says from under his walrus mustache. He delivers his appraisals and opinions with guarded enthusiasm—amusing, since I know that none are his own. He has adopted wine to substitute for a basic lack of originality, which is to his credit because without the veneer of connoisseurship he wouldn’t have anything to think about at all and would just be a slave to his alcoholism—like me.

A motorcycle drives up to the door with a loud rumble. Tom Schroeder, wearing black leather from head to foot, dismounts and marches into the store, closing the door behind him with a bang. “How’s it goin’?” he asks, taking the two of us in at a glance.

“Now, Tom,” Anderson begins, “you know better than to come waltzing in here like that.”

Schroeder holds up his hand, reaches into his jacket, and brings out a driver’s license, smirking. He is spattered with mud and wearing leather gloves that leave the upper halves of his fingers exposed. “Turned twenty-one last month. Ein und zwanzig.” He saunters over
and presents the laminated plastic card to Anderson with a ceremonial flourish. “And I got the stretch marks to prove it.” He turns to me. “Horace, right?”

“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.”