User:Chelsey.brantley/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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“Watch out, kid,” I say, “you shouldn’t even be here.” “It’s okay,” Mailer says. “She has my permission.”{{pg|512|513}}

She throws the empty popcorn box over the ropes. “Please take me home,” she whimpers, and as she stands there the power enters me, the ppf quotient floods my own soul, and I rush, not in fear, not in anger, but in full sweet confidence, I rush with both fists to the middle of Norman Mailer.

First my left with all its quixotic force and then my sure and solid right lands in the valley of his solar plexus. Next my head in a raw, cruel butt joins

the piston arms. Hands, arms, head, neck, back, legs. As a boy for the first time shakes the high dive in the presence of his parents, with such pride do

I dive. And with the power of falling human weight knifing through the chlorine-dark pool do I catapult. As a surgeon lays open flesh, indifferently, thinking not of tumors but of the arc of his raquet in full backswing, with

such professional ease am I engulfed.

I hear the wind leave his lungs. Like large soft earlobes, they shade me from the glare of his heart. The sound of his digestive juices is rhythmic and

I resonate to the music of his inner organs. I hear the liver weakened from drink but on key still, the gentle reek of kidneys, the questioning solo of pancreas, the harmonicalike appendix, all here all around me, and the cautionary

voice of my mother: “Be careful, little one, when you hit someone so

hard in the stomach. That’s how Houdini died.”

Somewhere else Archie Moore is counting ten over a prone loser. Judges are packing up scorecards and handbags snap shut. I am comfortable in the

damp prison of his rib cage. His blood explodes like little Hiroshimas every second.

“Concentrate,” says Mailer, “so the experience will not be wasted on you.”

“It’s hard,” I say, “amid the color and distraction.”

“I know,” says my gentle master, “but think about one big thing.”

I concentrate on the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It works. My mind is less a palimpsest, more a blank page.

“You may be too young to remember,” he says, “James Jones and James T. Farrell and James Gould Cozzens and dozens like them. I took them all on, absorbed all they had and went on my way, just like Shakespeare ate up

''Tottel’s Miscellany''.”

“No lectures,” I gasp, “only truths.”

“I am the Twentieth Century,” Mailer says. “Go forth from here toward the east and earn your bread by the sweat of your brow. Never write another line

nor raise a fist to any man.” His words and his music are like Christmas

morning. I go forth, a seer.

[[Category:Short Stories (MR)]]

@@ Line 146: / Line 146: @@
 “Watch out, kid,” I say, “you shouldn’t even be here.” “It’s okay,” Mailer says. “She has my permission.”{{pg|512|513}}
+She throws the empty popcorn box over the ropes. “Please take me home,” she whimpers, and as she stands there the power enters me, the ppf quotient floods my own soul, and I rush, not in fear, not in anger, but in full sweet confidence, I rush with both fists to the middle of Norman Mailer.
+First my left with all its quixotic force and then my sure and solid right lands in the valley of his solar plexus. Next my head in a raw, cruel butt joins
+the piston arms. Hands, arms, head, neck, back, legs. As a boy for the first time shakes the high dive in the presence of his parents, with such pride do
+I dive. And with the power of falling human weight knifing through the chlorine-dark pool do I catapult. As a surgeon lays open flesh, indifferently, thinking not of tumors but of the arc of his raquet in full backswing, with
+such professional ease am I engulfed.
+I hear the wind leave his lungs. Like large soft earlobes, they shade me from the glare of his heart. The sound of his digestive juices is rhythmic and
+I resonate to the music of his inner organs. I hear the liver weakened from drink but on key still, the gentle reek of kidneys, the questioning solo of pancreas, the harmonicalike appendix, all here all around me, and the cautionary
+voice of my mother: “Be careful, little one, when you hit someone so
+hard in the stomach. That’s how Houdini died.”
+Somewhere else Archie Moore is counting ten over a prone loser. Judges are packing up scorecards and handbags snap shut. I am comfortable in the
+damp prison of his rib cage. His blood explodes like little Hiroshimas every second.
+“Concentrate,” says Mailer, “so the experience will not be wasted on you.”
+“It’s hard,” I say, “amid the color and distraction.”
+“I know,” says my gentle master, “but think about one big thing.”
+I concentrate on the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It works. My mind is less a palimpsest, more a blank page.
+“You may be too young to remember,” he says, “James Jones and James T. Farrell and James Gould Cozzens and dozens like them. I took them all on, absorbed all they had and went on my way, just like Shakespeare ate up
+''Tottel’s Miscellany''.”
+“No lectures,” I gasp, “only truths.”
+“I am the Twentieth Century,” Mailer says. “Go forth from here toward the east and earn your bread by the sweat of your brow. Never write another line
+nor raise a fist to any man.” His words and his music are like Christmas
+morning. I go forth, a seer.
 {{Review}}
 {{DEFAULTSORT:Inside Norman Mailer}}
 [[Category:Short Stories (MR)]]