Free The Matter With Morris by David Bergen Page B

like. You can write me letters. You can come over and walk in my door anytime. You can phone me at home, just like that. To tell the truth, if you were the only one in the world who had my number, I’d keep my cell. It’s the others I don’t want to talk to. My editor, my agent, your mother, Meredith.”
    Libby jumped on this. “Why don’t you say sorry to Meredith? She’s waiting. She told me that you’re stubborn. Called you a mule and said that all you had to do was say sorry and she’d let you see Jake.”
    “She said that? ‘Stubborn’?”
    Libby nodded.
    Morris spooned the last of the soup from the bowl. Little flecks of peppers, a remaining noodle, the last bit of shrimp. He said, “We did talk. She wouldn’t really listen, but she did say I could see Jake. I’m taking care of him next Saturday. The thing about Meredith is she’s inflexible.”
    “No, Dad, it’s you. You say sorry and then you break into this long rationalization for why you said what you said or how it’s the other person’s fault for why you said what you said. Just say sorry and shut up.” She wiped her mouth with a napkin. Said that she had to get home. She was meeting a friend. She wrapped a yellow scarf around her neck. Morris imagined that she would never find a boy good enough for her, which was why she was dating this Shane, who was probablya postmodernist to boot. She was too vulnerable, and though she would say she was unimpressed by credentials, there was something gullible about her. She loved her father, wasn’t that a sign of gullibility? Though a daughter like her would forgive her father of much. Had already. She had never said a word about Martin, whom she loved, even after he and Lucille had sat her down and given her all the facts, even told her about Morris’s anger and threats and the challenge to Martin to just go and join the fucking army already. She had said nothing. Just hugged her father and cried and said, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Who wouldn’t want to be with a girl like that?
    He dropped her off at home, watched her run up the stairs of the old house he used to live in, a three-storey Tudor style that was begging for a paint job. Perhaps Lucille’s new man, a heart surgeon and handy at many other things, was also a scraper and a painter, and while repairing Lucille’s heart, he could have a go at the house. Morris drove away, surprisingly full of good cheer. Libby had kissed him on the cheek and hugged him and told him to be good and to think twice about getting rid of his phone. He meandered happily through the city, torn between liberty and licence. He had in mind a tryst, someone who would offer him tricks, a prestidigitator, a juggler. He flipped open his cellphone as he drove and phoned the Fort Garry Hotel and made a reservation for that night, and then he dialled the 800 number by memory.
    The woman who answered was efficient, as always, and Morris imagined her as the secretary slotting appointmentsinto various daybooks. The time and the place was agreed upon. No credit card was required; Morris had an account with this company. When the woman asked what he preferred that night, Morris said, “Surprise me.” When the woman called Morris back, she told him that Alicia would be joining him, and that she would arrive at midnight. Morris hung up and experienced the charm of humble awe. A brief meditation on the human soul. His soul. He saw that he knew nothing, and in acknowledging this he was suddenly at peace with not knowing. In the past, as a columnist, he had been expected to know something, had even presented himself as knowledgeable, and in pretending he had found prestige. No longer. Socrates had said something about ignorance: All I know is that I know nothing. Morris had been reading about Socrates lately, trying to make his way through The Republic, thinking that if he could understand the bigger questions, questions that soared above his own insignificant world, then