Free The Music of Chance by Paul Auster Page B

that he was also in pain, and rather than force him to hold out any longer, he called for the check.
    “You’re fading fast,” he said. “It’s probably time you went upstairs and took a nap.”
    “I feel like shit,” Pozzi said, not bothering to protest. “Saturday night in New York, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to make it.”
    “It’s dreamland for you, friend. If you wake up in time, you can have a late supper, but it might be a good idea just to sleep on through till morning. There’s no question you’ll feel a whole lot better then.”
    “Gotta stay in shape for the big fight. No fucking around with the broads. Keep your pecker in your pants and steer clear of the greasy food. Road work at five, sparring at ten. Think mean. Think mean and lean.”
    “I’m glad you catch on so quickly.”
    “We’re talking championship bout here, Jimbo, and the Kid needs his rest. When you’re in training, you’ve got to be ready to make every sacrifice.”
    So they went upstairs again, and Pozzi crawled into bed. Before he switched off the light, Nashe made him swallow three aspirins and then left a glass of water and the aspirin bottle on the night table. “If you happen to wake up,” he said, “take a few more of these. They’ll help dull the pain.”
    “Thanks, Mom,” Pozzi said. “I hope you don’t mind if I skip my prayers tonight. Just tell God I was too sleepy, okay?”
    Nashe left through the bathroom, shut both doors, and sat down on his bed. He suddenly felt at a loss, not knowing what to do with himself for the rest of the evening. He considered going out and having dinner somewhere, but in the end he decided against it. He didn’t want to stray too far from Pozzi. Nothing was going to happen (he was more or less certain of that), but at the same time he felt it would be wrong to take anything for granted.
    At seven o’clock, he ordered a sandwich and a beer from room service and turned on the television. The Mets were playing in Cincinnati that night, and he followed the game through to the ninth inning, shuffling and reshuffling the new cards as he sat on the bed, playing one hand of solitaire after another. At ten thirty, he switched off the television and climbed into bed with a paperback copy of Rousseau’s
Confessions
, which he had started reading during his stay in Saratoga. Just before he fell asleep, he came to the passage in which the author is standing in a forest and throwing stones at trees. If I hit that tree with this stone, Rousseau says to himself, then all will go well with my life from now on. He throws the stone and misses. That one didn’t count, he says, and so he picks up another stone and moves several yards closer to the tree. He misses again. That one didn’t count either, he says, and then he moves still closer to the tree and finds another stone. Again he misses. That was just the final warm-up toss, he says, it’s the next one that really counts. But just to make sure, he walks right up to the tree this time, positioning himself directly in front of the target. He is no more than a foot away from it by now, close enough to touch it with his hand. Then he lobs the stone squarely against the trunk. Success, he says to himself, I’ve done it. From this moment on, life will be better for me than ever before.
    Nashe found the passage amusing, but at the same time he was too embarrassed by it to want to laugh. There was something terrible about such candor, finally, and he wondered where Rousseau hadfound the courage to reveal such a thing about himself, to admit to such naked self-deception. Nashe turned off the lamp, closed his eyes, and listened to the hum of the air conditioner until he couldn’t hear it anymore. At some point during the night, he dreamt of a forest in which the wind passed through the trees with the sound of shuffling cards.
    The next morning, Nashe continued to delay the test. It had almost become a point of honor by then, as if the real