3.

“How’s your roast beef, Mr. Crabbe?” Carolyn Poole asked.

“A bit tough, but I’ve had worse,” Crabbe said.

Carolyn was cutting up cooked carrots for the baby Liza, who sat in a highchair between mother and father. She caught enough of the slight that a look of hurt crossed her face, unnoticed by Mr. Crabbe.

“So what do you go by? Is it Eugene or Gene or…maybe Butch?” Thomas asked, smiling.

“My mother named me Eugene,” Crabbe said.

“Oh,” Thomas said, taking a bite of beef.

Silence. Thomas felt uneasy at the quiet.

“Timmy, stop playing with your food,” he said, though Timmy was just doing his usual thing, stirring the food about to make it look like he’d eaten.

“I don’t like carrots,” he said.

Thomas ignored him.

“So tell us how you came to be Poet Laureate, Eugene.”

“Every year in April, the Poet Laureate is selected for a one year term of service by the Librarian of Congress. Even so, the job is essentially permanent until I decide to give it up. I may not want it more than a year, however. It has typically been considered the last coach station before the grave, if you take my meaning.”

“I think so,” Thomas said. “Kind of like the way retiring usually hastens men’s death.”

“Exactly,” Crabbe said.

“Did you meet the President?”

“I met him. He called me the ‘poet lariat,’ however.”

“He did?” Carolyn said.

Crabbe didn’t answer for a moment. He was fascinated by the sullenness of the boy, Timmy. Like to see John Thomas give the brat a good whipping for not eating his carrots, Crabbe thought. Little shite-hole, he thought, using his favorite epithet. Mother’s cunt-licking, fart smelling shite-hole.

Crabbe believed his anger at humanity generally, but particulary at children, was a deep and abiding well-spring of his poetic talent, and he nurtured his ill-will like some people nurture rare, tropical orchids.

“Oh yes,” Crabbe said, returning. “It’s all a little shtick, you see, playing dumb. He plays dumb for the liberal media, who then proceed to underestimate him. And he plays dumb for the rubes in Iowa, who adore him for it. He’s a crafty man.”

“You know, I’ve thought as much myself,” Thomas said. “He makes a mockery of these elite liberals, let me tell you. That’s one thing I love about the man. Hell, I’d vote for him even if he were stupid, just to confound the intellectuals.”

“I saw you on Today the other morning,” Carolyn said. “Little did I know, I’d be renting a room to you before the week was out.”

“Yes, well, I had to live somewhere,” Crabbe said.

“I’m curious, Eugene,” Thomas said. “Now don’t take this the wrong way, but I do wonder what in the world you’re doing here. Why don’t you have your own place?”

Crabbe sighed at having to explain himself.

“I have an office in the Library of Congress, you see, plus regular official responsibilities. As I said before, though, I don’t know if the job will suit me, and I don’t see a point in buying a home if I decide to relinquish the position after a year.”

Crabbe would never relinquish the position. He could never relinquish the position.

As if his explanation weren’t good enough, though, he added, “I’ve always rented. I am resistant to the American insistence on buying a home. Plus, poets don’t make much money. We’re not super stars.”

The little girl, Sarah, was eating her roast beef in a ruminative way that reminded Crabbe of a sloe-eyed calf about to be struck in the head with a hammer. The thought of the girl’s skull being crushed by a hammer pleased him.

“What kind of official responsibilities?” Thomas asked.

“What?” Crabbe asked.

“What official responsibilities?”

Crabbe did not hesitate; he lied with perfect fluency.

“Oh, my first commission is to write a dedicatory poem for the new Wal-Mart the company is building in the District.”

“You mean if they build it,” Carolyn said. “There are a lot of people who oppose Wal-Mart moving in here.”

“A lot of liberals with their usual anti-corporate nonsense on a placard,” Thomas added. “I think that’s wonderful, a poem for Wal-Mart. That’s real American, if you think about it, to write a poem to a beloved corporation.”

Crabbe felt himself in full-flowered lying mode, now.

“After that, I have been asked to write a poem celebrating the birth of Teddy Kennedy’s newest grandchild.”

“You’re kidding me?” Thomas said.

“Not at all,” Crabbe replied.

You idiotic, nose-picking, probably lick your wife’s asshole when she asks, freak of a fool. You don’t even know when you’re being made an ass.

“Beyond that, I will be called upon for the usual Fourth of July encomiums, Christmas lyrics, etc. And who knows what other business besides.”

“Wow, sounds really impressive,” Thomas said. “Oops!” Liza threw a carrot chunk that landed in the gravy bowl, splashing brown gravy on the tablecloth. No one bothered to remove the carrot from the gravy, which disgusted Crabbe.

Fucking little parasite probably had the thing in her gummy mouth, slobbered on with her germs, little fucking shite-hole, shitting and pissing all day, nastyfucking suckling beasty…

“Mr. Edwards liked my gravy,” Carolyn said out of the blue, looking at the carrot floating in the bowl, but not offering to do anything about it.

After a pause, in which he cursed Carolyn as a fucking fat flabby bitch/cunt, Crabbe asked, “How old was Mr. Edwards?”

“65 I guess, when he retired,” Carolyn said. Thomas nodded in agreement.

“Haven’t heard from him since,” Thomas said. “Seemed depressed to leave, but we couldn’t have a retired gentleman hanging round the house all day. Though he was like a grandfather to the kids. They loved him, dear old Mr. Edwards. He said when he left he’d really miss the children; they kept him young, he said.”

“And what did he teach at University?” Crabbe asked, sneering a little.

“Ancient history,” Carolyn said.

• Contents
• Previous Chapter
• Next Chapter