Julian is stunned. “Sixty items? You’re joking.”
“I never joke, Mr. Laxner. Never.”
“And what about the rest—the furniture, the stereo, our clothes?”
“Read your contract, Mr. Laxner.”
He can feel himself slipping. “I don’t want to read the contract, damn it. I asked you a question.”
“Page two hundred and seventy-eight, paragraph two. I quote: ‘After expiration of the sixty-day grace period, all items to be sold at auction, the proceeds going to Certaine Enterprises, Inc., for charitable distribution, charities to be chosen at the sole discretion of the above-named corporation.’” Her eyes are on him, severe, hateful, bright with triumph. This is what it’s all about, this—cutting people down to size, squashing them. “You’d be surprised how many couples never recall a thing, not a single item.”
“No,” Julian says, stalking across the room, “no, I won’t stand for it. I won’t. I’ll sue.”
She shrugs. “I won’t even bother to remind you to listen to yourself. You’re like the brat on the playground—you don’t like the way the game goes, you take your bat and ball and go home, right? Go ahead, sue. You’ll find it won’t be so easy. You signed the contract, Mr. Laxner. Both of you.”
There’s a movement in the open doorway. Shadow and light. Marsha. Marsha and Dr. Hauskopf, frozen there on the doorstep, watching. “Julian,” Marsha cries, and then she’s in his arms, clinging to him as if he were the last thing in the world, the only thing left her.
Dr. Doris and Susan Certaine exchange a look. “Be happy,” Susan Certaine says after a moment. “Think of that couple in Ethiopia.” And then they’re gone.
Julian doesn’t know how long he stands there, in the middle of that barren room in the silence of that big empty house, holding Marsha, holding his wife, but when he shuts his eyes he sees only the sterile deeps of space, the remotest regions beyond even the reach of light. And he knows this: it is cold out there, inhospitable, alien. There’s nothing there, nothing contained in nothing. Nothing at all.
(1992)
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following magazines where these stories were first published: Antaeus, The Antioch Review, The Atlantic Monthly, Epoch, Esquire, Fiction, Fiction International, Gentleman’s Quarterly, The Georgia Review, Granta, Harper’s, Interview, The Iowa Review, The New Yorker, The North American Review, Oui, The Paris Review, PEN Syndicated Fiction Project, Penthouse, Playboy, Quest/77, Quest/78, Rolling Stone, The South Dakota Review, The Transatlantic Review, TriQuarterly, and Wigwag.
Most of the selections appeared in the following short story collections of Mr. Boyle, all published by Penguin Books: Descent of Man (1979), Greasy Lake (1985), If the River Was Whiskey (1989), and Without a Hero (1994).
Acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following copyrighted works:
“I Shot the Sheriff,” written by Bob Marley. Copyright © 1974 Fifty-Six Hope Road Music, Ltd., and Odnil Music, Ltd. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
“Poem Without a Hero,” by Anna Akhmatova from Poems of Akhmatova, translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward. © 1972 by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward. By permission of Darhansoff & Verrill Literary Agency.
“Don’t Be Cruel,” by Otis Blackwell and Elvis Presley. Copyright © 1956 by Unart Music Corporation. Rights assigned to CBS Catalogue Partnership. All rights controlled and administered by CBS Unart Catalog, Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. By permission of CBS Songs, a Division of CBS Inc.
“Hound Dog,” by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Copyright © 1956 by Elvis Presley Music and Lion Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright renewed, assigned to Gladys Music, Inc., and MCA Music. Administered in the U.S.A. by Chappell & Co., Inc. (Intersong Music, Publisher). International copyright secured. All rights reserved. By permission of Chappell/Intersong Music Group-USA.
“Heartbreak Hotel,” by Elvis Presley, Mae Boren Axton, and Tommy Durden.
Copyright © 1956 by Tree Publishing Co., Inc. Copyright renewed. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. By permission of Tree Publishing Co., Inc.
“Whales Weep Not!” from The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence, collected and edited by Vivian de Sola Pinto and F. Warren Roberts. Copyright © 1964, 1971 by Angelo Ravagli and C. M. Weekley, Executors of the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.
“Spirit in the Night,” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1972 by Bruce Springsteen.
All rights reserved. By permission of Bruce Springsteen/Jon Landau Management, Inc.
“I’m a King Bee,” by Slim Harpo, reprinted by permission of Excellorec Music.
“Stones in My Passway,” “Phonograph Blues,” and “Hellhound on My Trail,” words and music by Robert Johnson. © (1978) 1991 King of Spades Music. All rights reserved. Used by permission of King of Spades Music.
“That’s Amore,” by Jack Brooks and Harry Warren. Copyright © 1953 by Paramount Music Corporation and Four Jays Music. Copyright renewed 1981 by Paramount Music Corporation and Four Jays Music. By permission of Paramount Music Corporation.
Some of “The Extinction Tales” was suggested by material in Jay Williams’s Fall of the Sparrow (Oxford, 1951).
T.C. Boyle Stories Page 99