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Show •233 was. You always thought you were finer than me. Why? Because you had the wit to be a complete failure in life? I don't know if I mean wit-good taste maybe. Well now I say the hell with you." He started to walk away heavily, careless that his shoes splashed in the water. "Wait," I said. "Be fair: didn't I say those same things about myself? Didn't I admit I'd fucked my life too? Don't forget that." "Oh yes. You said so. But while you were talking you were thinking that at least you'd fucked it in style. Weren't you, Buck? You supposed yourself to be some kind of romantic doomed person, like Byron or Dylan Thomas, only without the excuse of poetry, and me, I was just a clod. A lawyer." He was still walking away from me; he shouted those words straight ahead at nobody, like the crazy people I used to meet sometimes with Fancy on the streets in New York. I ran to catch up; when I got alongside him he stopped "You think I love my life in Denver? But there are responsibilities. You've got style? Fine, you've got style. But I have some too." "Where would you be without me?" I said. He turned. "What?" "Nothing." What he said was more or less right anyway. That's the way we Skinners are: we love each other, we look down on each o t h e r . In front of us the r i v e r flowed |