Forever Odd

deep into his gut and without hesitation slashed down.
        Relinquishing the twist of my hair, he seized the wrist of the hand that held the knife. He let go of the gate, fell into the flood, and pulled me with him.
        We rolled across the gate-held trash and plunged underwater, broke the surface, face to face, my hand in his, the knife contested, thrashing, his free hand a club battering my shoulder, battering the side of my head, then pulling me down with him, submerged, blind in the murky water, blind and suffocating, then up and into the air once more, coughing, spitting, vision blurred, and somehow he had gotten possession of the knife, the point of which felt not sharp but hot in a diagonal slash across my chest.
        I have no memory from that slash until a short but inestimable time later, when I realized that I was lying across the accumulation of debris at the base of the gate, holding to a horizontal bar with both hands, afraid that I was going to slip down into the water and not be able to get my head above the surface again.
        Exhausted, all power drained, strength consumed, I realized that I had lost consciousness, that I would pass out again, momentarily. I managed, barely, to pull myself up farther on the gate, to hook both arms around verticals, so if my hands relaxed and slipped loose, the crooks of my elbows might still hold me above the flood.
        At my left side, he floated, snagged on the trash, faceup, dead. His eyes were rolled back in his head, as smooth and white as eggs, as white and blind as bone, as blind and terrible as Nature in her indifference.
        I went away.

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    SIXTY
        
        THE RATAPLAN OF NIGHT RAIN AGAINST THE WINDOWS… Wafting in from the kitchen, the delicious aroma of a pot roast taking its time in the oven…
        In his living room, Little Ozzie fills his huge armchair to overflowing.
        The warm light of the Tiffany lamps, the jewel tones of the Persian carpet, the art and artifacts reflect his good taste.
        On the table beside his chair is a bottle of fine Cabernet, a plate of cheeses, a cup of fried walnuts, which serve as a testament to his genteel quest for self-destruction.
        I sit on the sofa and watch him enjoy the book for a while before I say You’re always reading Saul Bellow and Hemingway and Joseph Conrad.
        He does not permit himself to be interrupted in the middle of a paragraph.
         I bet you’d like to write something more ambitious than stories about a bulimic detective .
        Ozzie sighs and samples the cheese, eyes fixed on the page.
         You’re so talented, I’m sure you could write whatever you want. I wonder if you’ve ever tried.
        He sets the book aside and picks up his wine.
         Oh, I say, surprised. I see how it is.
        Ozzie savors the wine and, still holding the glass, stares into the middle distance, not at anything in this room.
         Sir, I wish you could hear me say this. You were a dear friend to me. I’m so glad you made me write the story of me and Stormy and what happened to her.
        After another taste of wine, he opens the book and returns to his reading.
         I might have gone mad if you hadn’t made me write it. And if I hadn’t written it, for sure I would never have had any peace.
        Terrible Chester, as glorious as ever, enters from the kitchen and stands staring at me.
         If things had worked out, I’d have written about all this with Danny, too, and given you a second manuscript. You would have liked it less than the first, but maybe a little.
        Chester visits with me as never he has before, sits at my feet.
         Sir, when they come to tell you about me, please don’t eat a whole ham in one night, don’t deep-fry a block of cheese.
        I reach down to stroke Terrible Chester, and he seems to like my touch.
         What you could do for me, sir, is just once write a story of the kind you’d most enjoy writing. If you’ll do that for me, I’ll have given back the gift that you gave me, and that would make me happy .
        I rise from the sofa.
         Sir, you’re a dear, fat, wise, fat, generous, honorable, caring, wonderfully fat man, and I wouldn’t have you any other way.
        TERRI STAMBAUGH SITS in her apartment kitchen above the Pico Mundo Grille, drinking strong coffee and paging slowly through an album of photographs.
        Looking over her shoulder, I