Read Percival Everett by Virgil Russell for Free Online

argument, if I had a side in the argument, if it was an argument. But it was all, if nothing else, immaterial.
    Then there was yet another fellow that I knew. He had this theory that there was no such thing as race, refused to acknowledge the subject even. Some low-level academic took him to task about his so-called theory. Like most theories, about most anything, it was all beyond me, leaving me feeling like I was looking at a clock with three hands. The whole idea of coming up with a theory about something that didn’t exist was, however, of great interest to me. But this guy I mentioned, the hack academic, his name was Housetown Pastrychef or Dallas Roaster, something like that, wrote that my friend was essentially full of excrement and that, furthermore, race was not only a valid category but a necessary one. This may or may not have been true. Like I said, I didn’t understand any of the discussion, but my friend dismissed the academic, his name might have been Austin Cooker, by saying that of course he believed such a thing, since he made his living and career out of being the ethnic, you know, cooning it up. They nearly came to blows when they encountered each other in a bar in DC. My friend said, This nigger believes in race as a valid category. The insult made little, if any, sense, but language’s function is not to inform but to provoke.
    You had quite a few friends.
    I did. More or less. In fact, I knew yet another man, still. Well, he was more of an acquaintance than a friend. I encountered him on my walk to campus. He was a nice-enough-looking fellow but had large blue cubes where his arms should have been. I stopped and stared, as you can well imagine. I looked at him and nodded to his blue cubes. He said, Oh, these. Yes, I said. You see, I found this old pewter lamp. When I rubbed it a genie appeared. He was large, muscular, much taller than us. He told me I could have three wishes. Well, I wished first for a beautiful and comfortable home. You can see it behind me here. He gestured with a cube. And indeed behind him, on a short hill, was a beautiful Victorian house, large and clean, colorfully painted. I told him it was a nice house. He nodded. It is, he said. And then I wished for a beautiful wife. There she is on the porch back there. He gestured again with a blue cube. The woman on the porch was in fact quite striking, gorgeous, long dark hair, dark eyes that I could appreciate at even such a distance. And then, I asked. And then, he said, something went horribly wrong when I wished for blue cubes as arms.
    Do you have a point here?
    It’s just a story.
    But it’s clearly not true.
    And?

Only the Past Is Subject to Change
    I was just coming out of the shower when the phone rang. A woman with a shrill voice barked at me, Are you the trainer?
    I’m a trainer, I said.
    I got this horse.
    Yes?
    He’s nasty. Nobody can ride him. He hurt my husband.
    Yes?
    Can I bring him to you?
    You plan to ride him at my place?
    There was silence on her end.
    Your horse is acting up at your house, so I should see him at your house. At least at first, don’t you think?
    I guess so.
    Where are you?
    I’m up in Simi Valley.
    It was my turn to say nothing.
    Hello?
    I’m out near Joshua Tree. That’s a long way. Can’t you call someone closer to you?
    Buddy Davies gave me your name.
    I don’t know Buddy Davies.
    Well, he knows you.
    It will be expensive for me to come way over there. It’ll cost you four hundred just to get me over there. I said that so she would say no, but she didn’t. Then there’s my time with the horse.
    That’s fine.
    What does the horse do exactly?
    He bucks. Everything will be going along fine and then he’ll freak out, bucking or bolting. He reached around once, tried to bite my husband’s leg. My husband was just sitting in the saddle and he came around like this.
    I’ll be there tomorrow morning at eleven, I said. She gave me the address and I hung up.
    What what what could be at the