Larry Volt. Pierre Tourangeau

too, that she could very well agree to fuck Allie Buy, just to see, because she’s curious, to boot. And so, you never know, with a bit of bad luck or happenstance to make things go wrong, he might get it right the very first time, concerning Anna Puma’s body. Which is altogether possible, since the more of an imbecile you are, the less you worry about the proper procedure and the more you rely on instinct, which after all explains, sex-wise, what allowed the human race to multiply. When it comes to imbecility, no one is more of an imbecile than that scumball son of a judge. Imagine for a second how much instinct he must have, the beast. In bed he must be a total beast. So Anna, who has a body worth knowing what to do with, could very well disregard the rest and tap into the beast in him. Then, instead of the lesson she promised me, I’d have to get by with jerking off.

      Still, for now, Anna doesn’t seem at all ready to add to her trophy collection the imbecile son of a judge, whom she’s seriously upset, the moron. It does me good to see morons upset, this one in particular. They come by happiness much too easily, morons do. It’s not fair, because when it comes to happiness, they generally get it all. This, by the way, ought to console me, because I realized a long time ago that happiness is not my thing. I live in unhappiness. You might say that for unhappiness and me, it’s until death do us part, and that I do whatever it takes to keep unhappiness and me forever united. That’s because when I do on occasion feel happy I feel like an imbecile. And since one imbecile deserves another, I find myself surrounded by a bunch of imbeciles I can’t get rid of and end up acting ridiculous. So, when happy, I’m not. Ergo, I do what I have to to be alone. That way, I’m not an imbecile and I’m not ridiculous.

      Apparently it’s inborn – solitary people are solitary by nature and are unable to learn how to leave their placenta. It must be true, since I was already alone when I arrived in the world. The phrase is “arrived in the world,” not “arrived at the world.” We say, “arrived in the world” the way we say, “arrived in Kazakhstan.” When I go to Kazakhstan, I won’t know anyone. When I came into the world, I didn’t know anyone. When I go to Kazakhstan, I’ll be alone, I won’t talk, I won’t dress, I won’t eat like the people of Kazakhstan. I’ll have to learn. Ever since I came into the world, I’ve never managed to speak, act, or do things like everyone else. That’s why I’m alone in this world. That’s also why I won’t be going to Kazakhstan.

      Taurus has told me over a hundred times that I should do something with my life, because unhappy is no way to live. That may be the reason I kidnapped the CEO. It’s exactly the sort of thing that can stick to you for the rest of your life. I can already see myself with Satan:

      “What have you done with your life, Mr. Volt?” “Me? I kidnapped a CEO.”

      “A CEO? Really? That’s interesting, but a little slim, don’t you think? Well, as they say upstairs, excellentissimum donorum omnium intentio bona.¹

      Say, that’s amazing. Satan, in my daydreams, speaks and dresses like the gentlemen of Saint Suspicius.

      On the college grounds, there’s an enormous maple. It’s one of the few remaining. Maples, these days, are cut, burned, turned into furniture. They’re not independent, ever since maple leaves were put on flags. They’re exploited. Worse than that, they’re bled – we drink their blood, which as everyone knows tastes sweet. I’ve even heard that certain vegetarians use the leaves in salads so as not to harm any animals.

      The maple on the college grounds is old. Tomorrow, when it’s dead, there’ll be no more maples and we’ll no longer be able to say, I see a maple standing. Tomorrow, all we’ll be able to say is, once I saw a maple stand.

      Where am I going? It’s because I’ve kidnapped the CEO that this question haunts me. It’s also because I’ve got Anna Purna constantly on my mind. I’ve been lodging this stranger in my basement for three days now. I say very little to him and I feed him powdered protein milkshakes laced with Halcion. There are two things this house clearly doesn’t lack: sleeping pills and slimming powders. If she weren’t able to slim down every time she puts on a little weight, Virgo would find her life empty and senseless. The fact is, if she didn’t take her pills, she would sleep less, and if she slept less she would use up more energy, would not put on weight and would not have to gob any powders to lose it. Only, her life would no longer have any meaning.

      Every day I lose a little more hope, because every day I have to harden myself some more to be able to tolerate the sight of this man in a cage and the idea that I’m the one who keeps him locked up there. No matter how many scorched Vietnamese I count at night, to put myself to sleep, I can’t manage to persuade myself that the Americans are going to stop the massacre just because some French Canadian pipsqueak has kidnapped one of his own kind, even if he works for them and is in danger of being chopped into little pieces.

      The other night, after I’d gone downstairs to bring him his glass of milk and powder and his sandwiches and to empty his slop pail, he asked me if there was any way he could get something else to eat.

      “I’m a little tired of ham, you understand…”

      I told him quite bluntly there was not much else in the house, that I hated shopping for groceries and if he didn’t like the menu he could always go to a hotel. I immediately felt like a fool, and he didn’t have to reply for me to understand that he would like nothing better. He was insistent.

      “You could have something delivered, I don’t know, like a pizza for instance.”

      I didn’t say yes right away, because I had my suspicions. He may have thought up a trap or something of the sort. After all, they’re supposed to be clever, CEOs, and this one must be clever in spades for Americans to agree to have him replace an American. I pretended to be broke, since I was obliged to turn him down, given that I was a kidnapper and in such situations you’ve got to be careful about your image.

      “I don’t have enough money on me to pay.”

      “My treat,” he said to me, instantly dipping into his wallet, which I’d never dreamed of taking away from him, because I may be a kidnapper, but certainly not a thief.

      I was pretty uneasy about accepting under the circumstances, but he looked so set on having his pizza, I finally took the ten-dollar bill he held out to me through the bars and went upstairs to phone in the order. As I was afraid he might start shouting when he heard the delivery man coming, I stayed near the door and opened it quickly as soon as the doorbell rang. I grabbed the box and handed him the ten dollars, telling him to keep the change, thank you Lou.