Someone had thrown a party in their garage. The beer was terrible. Everyone was talking at once. A man had cornered a woman near the beer keg. They talked because they were at a party and the alternative of not talking was terrifying. She wanted to leave soon, and wondered where her friends were. He smelled drunk.
"Oh yeah, I read tons of books. Tons!" said the man, quite proudly.
She smiled and said, "Oh, really, do-
"No, you're smiling but you don't understand. I mean, I read -- a lot. Holy shit, so many books. I am an avid reader."
"Oh, I also like reading. I...
"Yeah? Well, I fucking love reading!"
"Um, that's cool. Have you read Saul Bellow?"
"Bellow? Of course I've read Saul Bellow. Oh yeah, definitely read his stuff. I've read that stuff he's written. I've read everything. No, literally, every book. I have read it."
She smiled, didn't believe him, and said, "Oh, that's nice. Reading is...
"Yeah, it fucking is. It's the best thing."
"What are you reading right now?"
"I doubt you've heard of it. It won the Nobel Prize. And the Pulitzer. The writer is Polish."
"Yeah?"
"Great book. Really good. The best book," he said. "Really smart, too. A smart smart book."
"Can you tell me what it's called?"
He paused to think real hard, then shook his head, and said, "I can't remember."
"Okay," she said, and drank more.
Neither spoke for a while. The woman could not see her friends anywhere. A man across the room kept looking at her. She pulled at her skirt self-consciously. She moved to leave, but was halted by the words of the self-professed world's best reader of smart books.
"If you had a book you wanted me to read I would definitely read it. You seem like someone who reads smart books."
She smiled and said, "Well, I have this book in my bag..."
"Oh, you carry books around? That's cool. Let me see it. Probably read it but whatever."
She opened her green leather bag, pulled out a large tome of a book, and handed it to him.
He looked at it dubiously and with some disdain in his voice, said, "Uh...yeah read this. Great points about life. Ending sucked but endings suck in general. Good author, he was racist but whatever. Neo-nazi. NAACP and all that." He handed it back to her. "I wrote a book you know."
She rolled her eyes, drank more beer, and said, "Did you now?"
"Yeah, it has a fucking ton of pages. Only took about three months to write it. I was drunk most of the time though. I'm not an alcoholic but you seem like one. It's okay if you are. I think you've had five beers already and it's only seven o'clock."
She set her cup down and shook her head. "No, I'm not an alcoholic." And though she knew better than to ask, said, "What's your book about?"
"It's hard to say. It's just kind of, uh, about everything. You know? I mean, life is like so huge. Just gargantuan. It's pretty much limitless, so you can't really narrow it down. I mean, like ten things happened to me today that could go into a book. I might even write this conversation into a book. Or maybe I'll post it to my blog."
"So it's about nothing?"
"Yeah, sort of. And everything. It's about everything and nothing. Kind of like our conversation."
"Oh, well, who's the main character?"
"Well there are like twelve main characters. I'm a lot like George Orwell but not really. Actually I'm like Saul Bellow or Hemingway. James Cameron. You seen Avatar?"
"No."
"Me either. I hate that movie. Who is your favorite writer?"
"I really like Jorge Luis Borges."
"Oh fuck, he's great. Yeah, my style is a lot like him. Exactly like him actually. Funny you would say that because I was just about to say that he's my favorite author."
"Well, I'm going to um, run away... I think my friend is calling to me, so... "
"Does he read? Probably not."
The woman shook her head no.
"No one does anymore. Everyone here is an illiterate ass hole. Fuck I hate people. Mother fuckers, all of them. People suck, yeah? But it's okay because I wrote a book that tells you how to feel better about people and also, um, about other stuff. Man, so much stuff. All around us, like, all the time. Information age you know. Hey you want to get coffee sometime and discuss, um, um, um, um Jorge Borges? Don't look at me like that, it's not like I'm asking you to dinner, besides I couldn't afford that shit. I really think we should hang out though. I think I'll call you, yeah? C-can I do that? Hey do you have a pen? Oh that's a really nice pen. Are you rich? Parents probably. Do you write, man I love writing. Fuck. Hey, here's my number. Don't lose it. People never call me back but that's okay because I hate them anyway. My mom doesn't even call me back but whatever."
Afraid of encouraging him, she remained quiet.
"I was reading about skinner boxes today. You know what a skinner box is? I read about it on Wikipedia. I learned so much shit on that site. I've got this awesome smart phone. Pretty cheap. It was, um, like 400 bucks. I'm not rich or anything. I mean, I donate to charity and I volunteer. Hey, we should read some Wikipedia entries. I just pulled up this page on David Foster Wallace. You read his shit?. Hey, don't go, please? Please talk to me. Okay, no I'm sorry, I'm drunk. I'm the alcoholic, not you. You go. Yes, hang out with your friends who probably don't read, they just, y'know, play video games, watch reality TV, go to Applebees, or some shit. Fuckin' proles. They look like Christians, are they Christians? It's okay if they are. Fuck man, the hell is going on with this world I mean...for fucks sakes, somethin'... like, the TAXES, fuckin' econOMY and...shit like that. It's the fuckin babies, that's the problem! So many fuckin babies, so many babies. Too many babies. Babies need to grow the fuck up and stop being babies."
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