Read Moo for Free Online Page B

cream cone.
    G IRL : That was just dessert.
    (Silence)
    G IRL : Are we going to that party tomorrow night?
    B OY : What party?
    G IRL: You never listen.
    B OY: I was listening. I know what party. I was just joking.
    G IRL : What party?
    B OY : That friend of yours in, uh—
    G IRL : On Auburn Terrace. Melissa, on Auburn Terrace. I’m, like, talking to you all the time, and you’re, like, thinking about something else. It never fails.
    B OY: You know where it is, why should I ? You’ll remind me no matter what.
    G IRL : What’s that supposed to mean?
    B OY : Nothing. Did you put on some weight?
    G IRL: No.
(Pause)
Yes. Just, like, two pounds, though. You can’t tell. Can you tell?
    B OY: A little.
    G IRL: You can’t tell. You’re guessing. Does it look bad? Where do you see it?
    B OY : Around here.
    G IRL : Here? or here? Exactly where?
    (The bedsprings creaked)
    G IRL: I don’t see it. Well, maybe a little here.
    B OY : The back looks worse.
    G IRL : What back? What do you mean?
    (Pause)
    B OY : Your ass.
    G IRL : My ass looks bad from the back?
    B OY : It doesn’t look
bad
.
    G IRL: You said it looked bad.
    B OY: I said it looked
worse
, not bad yet.
    G IRL : Almost bad?
    B OY: No, no. Not even almost bad.
    G IRL: How long till bad? On a scale of one to ten, where ten is bad.
    B OY : Shit.
    G IRL : Tell me.
    B OY : Just lose the two pounds.
    G IRL : It’s water weight. It’ll go away by itself.
    BOY:
(unintelligible)
    G IRL : What?
    B OY : Nothing.
    G IRL : Tell me.
    B OY : You’ll get mad.
    G IRL: No, I won’t.
    [Gary thought, Yes, Lydia, you will.]
    B OY : It better.
    G IRL : It better what?
    B OY : It better go away.
    [Gary thought, What a dope.]
    (Silence)
    (Silence)
    G IRL: You asshole.
    B OY : Me asshole! You asked!
    G IRL : I didn’t push. Really you wanted to tell me. You think I’m fat.
    B OY: No, I don’t. You’re fine.
    G IRL : Fine but not good, right?
    [Gary thought, Two pages, that’s enough.]
    He saved his file and printed it out, secreted it in his binder, turned off the computer. He didn’t feel too bad, not as bad as he usually felt, trying NOT to hear Lyle and Lydia talk. Maybe Mr. Monahan was right about how if you faced up to some horror and wrote about it, you felt better about it, you made it yours, and smaller than you. Horror was exactly the word for Lyle and Lydia. Bob said not to pay any attention, but Bob spent most of his time with a hog somewhere.
    Lydia appeared in the doorway and smiled at him. She had a great rolling voice and beautiful smile, she was petite and her hair was thick and honey-colored. Given a choice, Gary would have put her in a much different story.

7

Homo Economicus
    D R . L IONEL G IFT , distinguished professor of economics, was, as everyone including Dr. Gift himself agreed, a deeply principled man. His first principle was that all men, not excluding himself, had an insatiable desire for consumer goods, and that it was no coincidence that what all men had an insatiable desire for was known as “goods,” for goods were good, which was why all men had an insatiable desire for them. In this desire, all men copied the example of their Maker, Who was so Prodigious and Prodigal in His production of goods that His inner purpose could only be the limitless desire to own the billions and billions of light-years, galaxies, solar systems, worlds, life-forms, molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles that He had produced. Perfect in the balance He incarnated of production and consumption, He represented a model that the human race not only COULD strive for, but MUST strive for. In this, his private theology, Dr. Gift felt that he had reconciled faith and relativity, self and the vastness of time and space. In fact, every time astronomers demonstrated that there was more out there, and that it was farther away than anyone had thought, every time a physicist successfully quantified vastness, or even minuteness, for that matter, Dr. Gift felt a genuine thrill, the