Free Gun Church by Reed Farrel Coleman Page A

miracle you still talk to me after all the bullshit and heartache I put you through, but can you stall them a little while? Tell them I want to be sure I can handle the road again.”
    “Fine. I’ll tell them whatever I have to, but other than pissing away a lot of my hard work and a fat payday, why exactly am I doing it?”
    “So you can think of a way to have the deal include a clause for a new book.”
    There was dead silence on the other end of the phone. At least I didn’t hear her collapse to the floor or beg me to call 911.
    “A new book?” she said at last. “You’re writing again?”
    “Yes, sort of.”
    “Can I see it?”
    “Not yet.”
    “So you’re willing to blow the biggest money offer we’ve had since MTV actually played videos because you’re sort of writing again?”
    “Something like that, yeah.”
    “This ain’t old times, Kip. I’ve got lots of other clients who pay my various mortgages, but you’re all you’ve got.”
    “I know.”
    “There won’t be any more offers like this.”
    “I know that too.”
    “Okay, I’ll ask, but they might think you’re being difficult like the Kipster they all know and hate. This might queer the whole deal. You understand that? Are you sure this is what you want me to do?”
    “Strangely enough, Meg, it is.”
    When she clicked off at the other end, my hands were shaking. It had been many years since I’d burned a bridge, and I remembered it being much easier as the Kipster.

Nine

Lipitor
     
    About an hour after I got off the phone with Meg, the St. Pauli Girl showed up on my doorstep with three bags of groceries. Did I have mixed feelings? Fuck no, especially when I saw her smile. It was like a love letter in the
Times Book Review
. Those smiles, the lighting up when you came into view, the brush of fingers against cheek, the first desperate hug, that first kiss are more powerful than a locomotive. But the flip side is always more insipid, because you don’t notice the individual aspects of attraction when they’re going, only when they’re gone. You can feel yourself falling in love, not out of it. By the time you’ve noticed the fading, all the color’s been bleached out.
    Love?
Who was I kidding?
I’d be bored with Renee soon enough. I always got bored. It was in my nature. My fame, even the frayed and threadbare variety with which I was now afflicted, guaranteed me a steady stream of eager young women like Renee or bored women like Janice Nadir. I may well have been a self-absorbed prick, but I wasn’t so shut off that I didn’t recognize the underlying current of anger in my boredom. Every first kiss, every orgasm—genuine or suspect—was a reminder of persistence and loss: the persistence of my inconsequential fame and the loss of my talent.
    Still, I smiled back at the St. Pauli Girl. She had already occupied my attention longer than anyone in my sorry tenure at Brixton, with the exception of Janice Nadir. And why not? Renee was easy to look at, fucked like a demon, and was as yet untouched by the bitterness of age. No pillow talk of limp penises for the St. Pauli Girl. My inevitable boredom didn’t prevent me from enjoying the onset of romance, no matter how brief or ill-fated. I was an asshole, not anhedonic. And when I smiled back at Renee, I was smiling as much at the three bags of groceries as at her.
    Other women had tried this sort of mothering, you-look-like-you-could-use-a-good-home-cooked-meal approach on me before with little or no success. Sometimes I enjoyed the meal, sometimes the sex. Seldom both. On those most rare occasions when I did, my partner didn’t. Janice Nadir tried this routine early on, but abandoned it almost immediately. She was a bright woman. I hoped the St. Pauli Girl would catch on quickly too.
    When I opened the door for her, she put the groceries down on the table, felt my smile with her fingertips, and kissed me hard on the mouth. I returned the favor.
    “What’s on the