W.'s been asked to write his story, he says. He's been asked to give his account of the whole sorry saga. He might as well send them all the W. posts from my blog, he says. He might as well let me write his saga, since I seem to know more about it, to feel more about it, than he does.
I am best positioned to record the story of his decline and fall. I am closer to it, somehow. He knows it fascinates me. He knows that it's somehow just out of my reach, the story of his brief ascent, and then his decline and fall.
When his bloody end comes, as it doubtless will, W. says, I will be there to write the obituary and the memorial essay. I will present the story of our friendship as a story of our times. I will narrate his lifestory as the allegory it has become. A story of a man cut down in his prime. A story of a man of pure heart destroyed by cynicism and opportunism.
W.'s account of his story is all the more moving because of its typos, I tell him when he sends it to me. It's like the speech of Moses, prophetic but tongue-tied. Well, he simply sat down and wrote it, W. says. He sat down, and two hours later, there it was, his testimony, the record of his downfall, in its crude and simple truth. Doubtless it will stand alongside the autobiography of Solomon Maimon as an account of a mind destroyed by external forces. Doubtless scholars will pass it among themselves to remind themselves of their comparative good fortune.
What's to become of him now?, W. says. If it wasn't for Sal, he'd simply lie down and wait for the end. Or he'd head out to seek relief from his wretchedness in the dockside bars, before stumbling into the Sound and letting himself drown.
The end has come, as he knew it would, W. says. He's set down his account of the end, of his tribulations, and now? It's up to me to tell his saga as only I know how, W. says. It's up to me to write the W.-iad, the story of his defeat and humiliation.
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