Page 94 - A Little Life: A Novel

“Like Judy here: we never see him with anyone, we don’t know what race
he is, we don’t know anything about him. Post-sexual, post-racial, post-
identity, post-past.” He smiled at him, presumably to show he was at least

partly joking. “The post-man. Jude the Postman.”
“The Postman,” Malcolm had repeated: he was never above grabbing on
to someone else’s discomfort as a way of deflecting attention from his own.
And although the name didn’t stick—when Willem had returned to the
room and heard it, he had only rolled his eyes in response, which seemed to
remove some of its thrill for JB—he was reminded that as much as he had
convinced himself he was fitting in, as much as he worked to conceal the

spiky odd parts of himself, he was fooling no one. They knew he was
strange, and now his foolishness extended to his having convinced himself
that he had convinced them that he wasn’t. Still, he kept attending the late-
night groups, kept joining his classmates in their rooms: he was pulled to
them, even though he now knew he was putting himself in jeopardy by
attending them.

Sometimes during these sessions (he had begun to think of them this way,
as intensive tutorials in which he could correct his own cultural paucities)
he would catch Willem watching him with an indecipherable expression on
his face, and would wonder how much Willem might have guessed about
him. Sometimes he had to stop himself from saying something to him.
Maybe he was wrong, he sometimes thought. Maybe it would be nice to
confess to someone that most of the time he could barely relate to what was

being discussed, that he couldn’t participate in everyone else’s shared
language of childhood pratfalls and frustrations. But then he would stop
himself, for admitting ignorance of that language would mean having to
explain the one he did speak.
Although if he were to tell anyone, he knew it would be Willem. He
admired all three of his roommates, but Willem was the one he trusted. At

the home, he had quickly learned there were three types of boys: The first
type might cause the fight (this was JB). The second type wouldn’t join in,
but wouldn’t run to get help, either (this was Malcolm). And the third type
would actually try to help you out (this was the rarest type, and this was
obviously Willem). Maybe it was the same with girls as well, but he hadn’t
spent enough time around girls to know this for sure.
And increasingly he was certain Willem knew something. (Knows what?

he’d argue with himself, in saner moments. You’re just looking for a reason