Free Checkpoint by Nicholson Baker

amount of interest in the particulars of some killer’s life. They’re mostly just dumb people who happen to have a violent streak. I mean, look at the president. I stick to the history section. You know there’s a glossy new book on the Kennedy assassination?
    BEN:  I can’t say it surprises me.
    JAY:  Supposedly Lyndon Johnson did it.
    BEN:  Johnson did it? I thought it was the mob.
    JAY:  It changes from day to day.
    BEN:  Listen, you’re spending way too much time in the wrong parts of the bookstore. Forget the books. You need a nice long break. You need some gentleness and some love. Just like that good old Grace Slick said.
    JAY:  I’ve got to find somebody to love?
    BEN:  Yes, you do.
    JAY:  I agree. I feel like an asteroid. I’m so far out I’m somewhere beyond the Kuiper belt. But I think I first have to get rid of this impulse.
    BEN:  Yeah, well, get rid of the impulse.
    JAY:  By acting on it.
    BEN:  No, just get rid of it. Rid yourself of it.
    JAY:  No, Ben, what the man stands for is this whole entire tradition of blood and greed and bullshit. Blood, greed, and bullshit! Dietrich Bonhoeffer, think of him. A mild-mannered person, and he sees Hitler and he decides the only right thing to do is to kill the guy. There’s a point beyond which even Dietrich Bonhoeffer has to act.
    BEN:  You think Bush is as bad as Hitler?
    JAY:  No, he’s not. Of course he’s not as bad as Hitler. But we’ve reached a point beyond the normal— We’ve reached a point of intolerability. And he’s escalating. And we’ve got these new scandals just popping up like daisies. We’ve got to shut the man down.
    BEN:  Shut him down—you sound like Kissinger.
    JAY:  Excuse me?
    BEN:  Think of your kids. Why aren’t you there with them? Why aren’t you being a father to them? You need to take a look at that.
    JAY:  Come on, I love those kids. I know, I know I’m too much of a naysayer, I know that.
    BEN:  You can’t naysay all the time, it’s deadly. I have to be careful about it myself. It’s not fair to Julie.
    JAY:  Lousy naysayers, always down on life.
    BEN:  When we were in high school, did we sit around on our beanbag chairs thinking about the Vietnam War? Plotting how we would take bayonets to Richard Nixon? No. We did our chemistry homework.
    JAY:  You did, I didn’t.
    BEN:  We read the books Mrs. Hunsell assigned.
Point Counter Point,
remember?
    JAY:  God, that was awful. Deadly stuff.
    BEN:  We listened to all that Zappa. “What will you do when the label comes off—”
    JAY:  “And the plastic’s all melted, and the chrome is too soft?” I believe we smoked a joint or two.
    BEN:  I believe we did. But were your parents always talking about the war? Mine weren’t.
    JAY:  No, mine weren’t, either.
    BEN:  I just wonder if they had spent every evening upset over that war—and you know, there was plenty to be upset about, there were the atrocities, My Lai, there was Operation Ranch Hand. Would it really have been better for us to have been raised in a state of constant misery over that war?
    JAY:  No, you’re right, I had a good childhood. I made a few mistakes, everyone does. Totally fucked myself up later on. My poor mother. Remind me what Operation Ranch Hand was?
    BEN:  Oh, the defoliation. Agent Orange.
    JAY:  Right. More Bella?
    BEN:  I probably should switch over to coffee. But yeah, hell, give me a little more. You know, you’re mellower now, I think. Or am I imagining things? You don’t have that squinty look. Where’s the gun?
    JAY:  Mmm? Oh, it’s available. And I know a way in through the fence. One of the corners.
    BEN:  You won’t get fifteen yards, man. You might as well give me the gun and let me shoot you right now. Save yourself a walk.
    JAY:  I think I’ve got a fifty-fifty chance.
    BEN:  What can I say that’ll make you stop? Whistle the theme to the
Andy Griffith Show
?
    JAY:  Not now, please.
    BEN:  What if I threw this glass at your head?