The Librarianist

AS A MAN OF VAST VANITY, LINUS WEBSTER SUFFERED UNDER HIS physical condition; all the more so because, as Bob discovered, there was a time in his life where his self-regard was of a piece with his outward appearance. Linus one day showed Bob a black-and-white snapshot of a bronzed and godlike young male in a skimpy swimsuit. The person in the picture was a musclebound giant, six and a half feet tall and without flaw to a point approaching the surreal. Bob didn’t understand why this was happening.

“Who is that?” he asked.

“That’s me.”

Bob took the picture in his hand and looked at it closely. “No it’s not.”

Linus removed an aged identification card and gave this to Bob. There was that same impeccable skin, the ambitious bouffant of lustrous hair, and the name corresponded with his own, and now Bob understood that these two distinctly separate men were one — and he simply did not know what to say about it. Linus was staring moonily at the snapshot, and he shrugged his rounded shoulders and said, “I mated, Bob. I mated with the hostile determination of the political assassin, but also with a love for the deed, like a craftsman. And I thought it would go on forever, that that was what life was made up of, fornicating in the buffet style with whichever beautiful partner I wanted.”

“But, what happened?” Bob asked.

“I wish I had a more pronounced tale to tell you. I wish there had been chapters, eras, but no. One day, a Sunday let’s say, I was Paul Newman, and when I snapped my fingers the world rushed to my side. Monday morning and I couldn’t hail a cab. Elevator operators told me, take the stairs. The Fates banded together to shut me out. I still had my looks, for a time, but if one does not water the flower, the flower surely dies. When the attentions to my person dried up, then did my flesh wither, and quickly. Something had gone out inside my brain.”

“Your brain felt different?”

“The rules had changed while I slept. My membership had been revoked.”

“Maybe you were cursed.”

“Don’t laugh,” he said, suddenly somber. “I think I was cursed. I mean, I think that’s my story — my headline.”

“Who cursed you?”

“Take your pick. I had no staying power in the romantic field, and this caused unrest, and not just with the women, but with their mothers, fathers, their uncles, their boyfriends, their husbands — it went on and on. Every date, and there was sure to be tenfold trouble. I sometimes asked myself if it was worth it.”

“And was it?”

“Probably not. But I kept at it, all the same.” He shivered. “Do you know the word schadenfreude?”

“Yes.”

“You know what it means?”

“Yes.”

“It means when people wish you poorly and are happy for your suffering.”

“I know what it means, Linus. Schaden translates as ‘harmful’ or ‘malicious,’ Freude as ‘joy.’”

“All right, egghead, take it easy. There’s a lot of bullshitters around here, say they know things they don’t. Now let me ask you this: Have you ever experienced it?”

Bob never had, at least never to any great degree. This struck him as regretful; was it not a signal he hadn’t lived his life to its fuller potential? Linus agreed that, yes, it probably was. He said, “It’s a powerful thing, like witnessing extreme weather. By that I mean that it’s frightening but also beautiful, somehow. It follows a natural social order. I should think that schadenfreude existed before there was such a thing as German, or any language for that matter.”

“Envy is one of the seven deadlies,” Bob observed.

“But schadenfreude is not merely envy, Bob. It’s envy plus — the revenge component. It was thrilling for me to see people come into their own as purveyors, as owners of hatred. Certain of my enemies actually said the words, put clear language to the idea that I’d been given too much, and that it wasn’t fair in their eyes, and that it was their intention to level the balance.”

“With violence?”

“Sometimes violence. More often it was a petty meanness or put-down of some kind. Also common was for my antagonist to tell the corrupted woman in question an ugly lie about my character. More common still: they would tell the woman an ugly truth about my character. It all led to the same thing, which was my return to the marketplace of carnal congress. Commerce was brisk, I had no time for remorse until after I was barred from the establishment altogether.”

Linus began to regale Bob with specific details of his sexual adventures, the proclivities of certain partners, their attributes. Bob could never relate to the crude male perspective regarding the mysteries and machinations of sex. He was not an innocent, but felt that to speak of fornication as winnable sport was to demean and be demeaned at once, and there was always the question for him of, Why do this? When you could, as an alternative, not? Linus saw that his enthusiasm was not matched in Bob, and he trailed off. “I never went in for this sort of talk,” Bob explained.

“A soldier speaks of combat.”

“To other soldiers.”