Page 492 - A Little Life: A Novel

and severely. The hyenas are beginning to make little howls, sharp yelps
that seem to come from some other creature within them, and he knows that
they will be quieted only by his pain. He considers what to do: Willem will

be home in a week. If he cuts himself now, the cuts won’t heal properly
before he returns, and Willem will be angry. But if he doesn’t do something
—then he doesn’t know. He has to, he has to. He has waited too long, he
realizes; he has thought he could see himself through; he has been
unrealistic.
He gets up from bed and walks through the empty apartment, into the
quiet kitchen. The night’s schedule—cookies for Harold; organize Willem’s

sweaters; Richard’s studio—glows whitely from the counter, ignored but
beckoning, pleading to be heeded, the salvation it offers as flimsy as the
paper it’s printed on. For a moment he stands, unable to move, and then
slowly, reluctantly, he walks to the door above the staircase and unbolts it,
and then, after another moment’s pause, swings it open.
He hasn’t opened this door since the night with Caleb, and now he leans

into its mouth, looking down into its black, clutching its frame as he had on
that night, wondering if he can bring himself to do it. He knows this will
appease the hyenas. But there is something so degrading about it, so
extreme, so sick, that he knows that if he were to do it, he will have crossed
some line, that he will, in fact, have become someone who needs to be
hospitalized. Finally, finally, he unsticks himself from the frame, his hands
shaking, and slams the door shut, slams the bolt back into its slot, and

stumps away from it.
At work the next day, he goes downstairs with another of the partners,
Sanjay, and a client so the client can smoke. They have a few clients who
smoke, and when they go downstairs, he goes with them, and they continue
their meeting on the sidewalk. Lucien had a theory that smokers are most
comfortable, and relaxed, while smoking, and therefore easier to manipulate

in the moment, and although he had laughed when Lucien had told him that,
he knows he’s probably correct.
He is in his wheelchair that day because his feet are throbbing, although
he hates to have the clients see him so impaired. “Believe me, Jude,”
Lucien had said when he had worried aloud about this to him years ago,
“the clients think you’re the same ball-crushing asshole whether you’re
sitting down or standing up, so for god’s sake, stay in your chair.” Outside it

is cold and dry, which makes his feet hurt a little less for some reason, and