French Exit

by Patrick deWitt

Joan was the only one Frances could be herself with, though this isn’t accurately stated since it wasn’t as if Frances suddenly unleashed her hidden being once Joan arrived. Let it be said instead that she did, in Joan’s company, become a person she was only with Joan—a person she liked becoming. Joan had many friends, but beyond Malcolm, Frances had only Joan.

Frances had come to think of gift-giving as a polite form of witchcraft.

Between the unkind honesty of the couriered letter and the abject stupidity of the card, she was beyond comfort.

Sometimes the world corrected itself, she knew this, for it had so many times in her past. She understood intuitively that it would not correct itself now, though.

“You know she’s getting you fat on purpose, don’t you?” “I know.” “Do you think it’s meant to turn me off specifically, or women in general?” “You specifically. Women in general never cared for me.”

“Would you describe yourself as a coward?” “No.” “How would you describe yourself?” “I don’t know that I’d bother in the first place.”

How had she come to care for this lugubrious toddler of a man? Love seemed evil at times, and human nature, this need to attain the unattainable, was so banal.

No matter what she said to wound him, the simple facts hurt her more.

He was a pile of American garbage and she feared she would love him forever.

the court was a performance environment, a stage play whereby the actors conceived their lines on the spot, and it was the finest entertainer who won the prize.

The winter sun was radiant in the windows and her blood thrilled at life’s gruesome pageant.

I’d sooner fuck an eel.”

“I keep trying to march in time but the drummer’s out to get me.”

He drank, at times to excess, but there was nothing dark about it; he was looking not to kill a thought but to reset the clock, to force an occurrence.

There’s something about a person met with tragic death; you recall their living moments in a kinder light.

Frances said, “I ran from one brightly burning disaster to the next, pal. That’s the way I was. Possibly you won’t like to think of your mother as one who lived, but I’ll tell you something: it’s fun to run from one brightly burning disaster to the next.”

He ate his cupcake with a fork and knife, and I thought, Who could love this man?”

“She was a demon. And if such a place as hell exists then that’s where she collects her mail.” Frances signaled the waiter for another drink. The captain was unsure how to respond, and so sat in silence, watching his steak and wondering if Frances was crazy, and furthermore if that made a difference.

He was a buffoon and she knew it but what was there to lose, at this late date, in straightforward fun?

“I’m Malcolm Price.” “Good for you. I’m Boris Maurus.” “Your name is Boris Maurus?” “Yeah.” Malcolm considered this. He said, “We both have horror-movie names.” The man turned to face Malcolm. “May be,” he said. “But I wouldn’t know because I don’t watch horror movies, because my life is already a horror movie, so what’s the point?” “Okay,” said Malcolm.

Malcolm was sometimes frustrated by his own inability to experience emotion, but in this moment it seemed he was feeling too much. It was not sadness or revulsion but something more like a too-loud noise in his ears. Behind him, the doctor was pulling out the other slabs, each of these holding a corpse, nine in total.

It occurred to her that, so long as she maintained forward motion, her life could not not continue, a comforting equation that conjured in her a sense of empowerment and ease.

She had occasionally in her life found herself loving men not in spite of but for their stupidity. Suavity was never more than playacting, she knew this, and it endeared them to her that they themselves were unaware of their transparency.

“Didn’t he like to do those types of things?” “No, and neither did I, and neither do I, but I don’t know how else to pass the time.” She pointed at Frances. “Do you know, he died in that very chair.” Frances suddenly became aware of the chair’s dimensions. It was an exciting thing to know and she was happy she’d been told about it.

Sometimes Malcolm saw them fighting one another, but other times the men could be seen slow-dancing to music on radios, or to the thrumming of an acoustic guitar. In his adult life, Malcolm had rarely thought of what it would be like to have male friendships; and he never pined for any. But to witness this camaraderie gave him the pang of an outlying jealousy, which embarrassed him, and which he pushed away.

“What’s the opposite of a miracle?”

Malcolm was wondering what the meanest thing he could say might be. There were so many mean things, but which was the absolute, the incontrovertible?

“I’ve upset your mother,” she told Malcolm. “She’s upset in a general sense,” Malcolm explained.

“Do you ever feel,” she asked, “that adulthood was thrust upon you at too young an age, and that you are still essentially a child mimicking the behaviors of the adults all around you in hopes they won’t discover the meager contents of your heart?”

Julius was shy. He had always been shy, from the point of cognition down the line. Any small interaction caused him discomfort, and occasionally anguish. The post office, the market, the tailor’s: the pleasure of camaraderie others derived from these moments was denied him. As a child he had been comforted when his mother explained the shyness would pass as he came of age, but it didn’t pass and still had not, and then she’d died so that he could never correct her.

She wrote: I saw a man’s penis yesterday. He was pissing in the courtyard of the apartment. Actually I’ve seen a number of penises since my arrival. Have you noticed men simply take them out and use them here? No harm in it, I suppose, but it takes some getting used to. Yesterday’s was memorably large. What a gift that must be for a man. What a lottery life is. It was nice to see it, I’ll admit.

I’ve always admired your heart. Your heart is the rightest of all.

She knew she was living improperly but hadn’t the strength to correct herself.

Malcolm and Frances made no comment. They’d become used to Mme Reynard’s neediness and had decided the best way to curb it was to ignore her until she began behaving attractively again. Sometimes it took a while, for Mme Reynard was not unfond of self-pity, but sooner or later, thanks to time, or drink, or a restorative nap, she would return to her typical grace and good humor.

Hers was a mixed fate, she thought: to know brilliance on sight, but never to command it.

Franklin Price learned that an animal cannot commit suicide, this due to its survival instinct, which overrides emotion and will. He limped away from the tower, taking bitter solace in the thought that he would likely die from malnutrition in the near future.

He lately had been feeling that the world was showing him more than the needed amount of unpleasantness.

Tom’s foremost characteristic was his handsomeness; his second was his normality; his third was his absolute lack of humor; his fourth, his inability to be embarrassed.

“What am I doing?” she asked, but Malcolm only shrugged. “I wonder,” she said, “if you can take your head out of your ass for just the briefest moment.”

It hurt her to think of her effects and artifacts stacked in crates in a darkened underground storage facility somewhere. They would be sold in bulk, at auction, to a buyer who did not know her, and so could not be worthy to possess them.

Frances lit a cigarette. “Do you regret not having children?” “Never once. Never for a day. Do you regret having one?” Frances laughed. “I’m being serious,” said Joan. “Oh. Well, sometimes I do, to be honest.” “But you wouldn’t change him.” “Yes, I would.” “But you wouldn’t change him much.” “I’d change him quite a bit.” “But you love him.” “So much that it pains me.”

“What you want is to know someone’s there; you also want them to leave you alone. I’ve got that with Don. But, I was shocked because I suddenly understood that the heart takes care of itself. We allow ourselves contentment; our heart brings us ease in its good time.”

do you know what a cliché is? It’s a story so fine and thrilling that it’s grown old in its hopeful retelling.”

“But I’m not in love with Malcolm,” Madeleine said. “To be honest, I don’t even like him very much.” “I’m comfortable not talking about it,” Malcolm said, pulling up a chair.

Frances stood, drink in hand. She was going to tell a story, she said. “Is it a happy story?” Mme Reynard asked. “No,” Frances said. “What’s it about?” “It’s about the time I set my parents’ house on fire.” “Well,” said Mme Reynard. “I’ve heard this before,” Joan said. “It’s a good one.”

In recent months Malcolm had found his thoughts shifting from the benignly strange to the grotesquely sexual and apocalyptic. He supposed this meant he was growing up, but he didn’t want to grow up. Adulthood had no benefits that he could see and he was loath to join that cruel population.

He slept long hours to kill away the days, but unhappy dreams pursued him.

It hadn’t occurred to him to pack a corkscrew so he couldn’t open the wine; he flung it down a steep, forested incline. It fell and fell and when it finally disappeared it made no sound, which was at once heartbreaking and divine.

“But I shouldn’t hate him,” said Malcolm. “You can and maybe it’s inevitable but I’m telling you it’s a waste of your own time and that by hating him you’re only empowering him and giving him more credit than he deserves. Your father is an emotional moron, but he isn’t evil.”

“I don’t like myself when I’m around you,” Frances added. “I don’t like the way I behave,