Page 294 - A Little Life: A Novel

having parents; or of lying awake in a motel room with Brother Luke,
trying not to move, not to rouse him, while the moon threw hard white
stripes of light across the bed; or of the time he ran away from the home,

the successful time, and spent the night wedged into the cleft of an oak
tree’s buckling roots that spread open like a pair of legs, making himself as
small as he could. He had thought he was lonely then, but now he realizes
that what he was feeling was not loneliness but fear. But now he has
nothing to fear. Now he has protected himself: he has this apartment with its
triple-locked doors, and he has money. He has parents, he has friends. He
will never again have to do anything he doesn’t want to for food, or

transportation, or shelter, or escape.
He hadn’t been lying to Willem: he is not meant for a relationship and
has never thought he was. He has never envied his friends theirs—to do so
would be akin to a cat coveting a dog’s bark: it is something that would
never occur to him to envy, because it is impossible, something that is
simply alien to his very species. But recently, people have been behaving as

if it is something he could have, or should want to have, and although he
knows they mean it in part as a kindness, it feels like a taunt: they could be
telling him he could be a decathlete and it would be as obtuse and as cruel.
He expects it from Malcolm and Harold; Malcolm because he is happy
and sees a single path—his path—to happiness, and so therefore
occasionally asks him if he can set him up with someone, or if he wants to
find someone, and then is bewildered when he declines; Harold because he

knows that the part of the parental role Harold most enjoys is inserting
himself into his life and rooting about in it as best as he can. He has grown
to enjoy this too, sometimes—he is touched that someone is interested
enough in him to order him around, to be disappointed by the decisions he
makes, to have expectations for him, to assume the responsibility of
ownership of him. Two years ago, he and Harold were at a restaurant and

Harold was giving him a lecture about how his job at Rosen Pritchard had
made him essentially an accessory to corporate malfeasance, when they
both realized that their waiter was standing above them, holding his pad
before him.
“Pardon me,” said the waiter. “Should I come back?”
“No, don’t worry,” Harold said, picking up his menu. “I’m just yelling at
my son, but I can do that after we order.” The waiter had given him a

commiserating smile, and he had smiled back, thrilled to have been claimed