I still have that fear, and no plans to find out how well founded it is. Well—maybe on my deathbed if the opportunity arises. It’s not that I’ve lost interest in knowing the nature of my inadvertent certain something, just that I have a far greater interest, as both a writer of fiction and a borderline shut-in, in continuing to hear people like Lotta—even people like Chad-Kyle—monologize.
I think that covers the first part of the question, but in case it doesn’t: yes. Chad-Kyle and Lotta spoke to me in the way I’ve reported.
As for the second part of the question: also a yes, but more qualified a yes. I have taken liberties in reconstructing what Chad-Kyle and Lotta said. I’ve taken liberties, and will continue to take liberties, in reconstructing what anyone in this memoir says, including myself.
I possess, I believe, a very strong memory, one specifically (however inadvertently) trained by having journaled daily for most of my boyhood. What’s more, that daily journaling, which often focused on my conversations with inans, particularly strengthened my ability to recollect the speech of others: not only what they say, but how they say it. Yet my brain is by no means a tape recorder. Not everything I report hearing or saying in this book is transcribed verbatim.
For example, I’ve written that Lotta said,
That must have been what Chad-Kyle said. That when Jonboat came in, it was like the time he saw the singer at the IHOP eating pancakes, but squared because Fondajane was right beside him, holding his hand, getting kissed on the cheek by him.
But she might have said,
That must have been what Chad-Kyle said. That when Jonboat came into the bank, it was just like the time he saw the singer at the Denny’s eating waffles, but squared because his wife was right next to him, squeezing his hand, getting shoulder-hugged by him.
Or,
What Chad-Kyle said must have been that it was like the time he saw the singer at the Golden Nugget eating fries but squared because of how, when Jonboat came in, he was with Fondajane, and they were all over each other, husbandy-wifey, touching and kissing.
I’ve reported Lotta saying what she said the first way rather than reporting it the second or third way not because the first way seems to me to more accurately depict what Lotta said or who Lotta is than do the second or third way, but because all three seem to me to be highly and equally accurate depictions and, to my ear at least, the first way sounds better (it’s more in keeping with the rhythm of the paragraph from which I’ve excerpted it, and it comes across more clearly with regard to pronouns) than the second or third way. And I suppose that I could indicate, throughout the memoir, every instance in which what I’m quoting is other than verbatim, and then, much as how I have above, offer, perhaps in a footnote or endnote, alternate versions of what the speaker in question might have said, but that would, in addition to repeatedly breaking the spell of the narrative, become far more tiresome far more quickly than even this tiresome paragraph has.
In sum: Since I don’t have audio recordings of any of the dialogues or monologues spoken with or to or at or by me during the period this memoir covers, and because I wish to include some of the dialogues and monologues in the memoir—to disinclude them, let alone describe them (e.g. “Chad-Kyle, in the course of blathering on about all the hip bands he was one of the first people to ever see, eventually explained how he got ahold of Independence.”) would portray them (and the whole fabric of my reality) less accurately than do my reconstructions of them—I must take liberties in reconstructing the dialogues and monologues. That said, I reconstruct them as truthfully as possible, without any slant of which I’m aware, without any hidden or sneaky agenda, as all conscientious memoirists reconstruct what the people in their memoirs say to them.
If you’re reluctant to trust in my conscientiousness, I do understand. I rarely trust in that of other memoirists myself. It’s one of the reasons I so rarely read memoirs. With just a couple exceptions, the only way that I’ve gotten through the ones that I have read is by pretending they were novels. I even enjoyed a few of those. So were I to somehow learn that you were reading this as a novel, I’d say, “Go ahead.” I’d probably do the same, were I in your shoes.
* * *
Why wouldn’t you show Blank to Chad-Kyle or Lotta?
Maybe you’ve already determined that my refusal to unsleeve Blank upon request stemmed from an ignorance of basic social norms that was somehow symptomatic of my psychotic disorder. That’s not the case. And I know that the following statement, coming as it does from a thirty-eight-year-old uncelebrated novelist who lives with his father, receives SSDI, and converses with inans, is going to sound even more unbelievable than it otherwise might, but the Blank I refused to show to Chad-Kyle and Lotta was the same Blank at which I rolled the mini basketball the morning I coined the phrase “pissing through a boner.” I.e. Blank was not a clone of an earlier Blank. I.e. Blank was one of the oldest cures in the world.
It may, in fact, have been the oldest. There’s no way to know for certain, of course—there could have been others like me, keeping quiet—but even if that monk from the Inhuman Self Denial documentary hadn’t succumbed to temptation (I, like millions of others, and perhaps you, too, reader, saw the tabloid headlines that claimed he hadn’t (i.e. succumbed); that after he’d sworn a vow of humility which prevented him from taking any part in a sequel, his documentarians had spread the false rumor of his overload in order to drum up publicity for Inhuman Self Denial’s home video release), little Basho would’ve been only eighteen years old, whereas Blank was twenty-five. Nobody knew.
Whenever I was asked, I’d lie about its age. By the time it was nine, though, lies weren’t enough. Kablankey had continued, like the TV spots promise, to become more adorable with each passing day, and people who’d catch sight of it, even just a glance, could sense there was something different—better—about it, and their eyes would go thieflike and murderous quick. As such, I’d taught Blank to return to its sleeve (I still wore an original, windowpocket-less model) when people came near, or, if it couldn’t get there in time, to hide its face. Like the majority of other single-legged tripeds, its four-fingered hands were disproportionately large (large enough for juggling uncracked walnuts and jumbo gumballs), so although its head was slightly bigger than average, it could, while pressing its palms to either cheek, interlace its digits atop its skull, leaving just the very end of its muzzle exposed.
But no defense is foolproof. Occasionally, someone would sneak up on us, get a good look, and press me to account for Blank’s excess of cuteness. More often than not, I’d just respond with incredulity, sometimes going so far as to accuse the interloper of making fun of my cure, which might not, I would say (in a wounded/hostile voice), be all that much to look at, but was loyal to me, and warm, and decent, and, at ten weeks old, an age of such extreme impressionability, shouldn’t be made to suffer the ridicule of strangers. In most cases, the interloper, as subject as most of us to the power of suggestion, would back off apologetically, doubting what his own eyes had seen—i.e. the unparalleled cuteness of my cure (Blank would have, by this point, gone back inside its sleeve)—and would explain that, well, no, no ridicule was intended whatsoever; that my cure, at least from the brief glance the interloper’d caught of it, seemed really very cute, and would I please reveal to him what, if anything, it was that I had done to mature it so adorably. Pretending at begrudgement, I’d make something up about allowing it to drink only filtered water, feeding it boutiquey herbal supplements, and making sure it slept on a regular schedule. The interloper would often write down what I told him (or at least pretend to), then walk away, vaguely embarrassed for the both of us. When, however, that tactic didn’t work—when the interloper’s eyes retained their criminal set even after I’d performed my incredulous routine—I would say strange things and behave erratically. I dropped to the ground once, and did twenty push-ups while muttering about church bells and the Mexican president. Another time, I pretended to converse with a spider. Twice I’d mumbled, “It hurts! It smells!” and scratched inside my pants and reached forward. The rare few times the madman act failed, I ran away, shouting “Fire!” and “Rape!” I’m a pretty good sprinter, despite all the Quills, and not a bad climber. I shout as well as anyone. The getaways were clean.