Listen Up Philip Page #6

- They're art house.

That sun.

Baby, I love you both night and day

Baby, you throw me

so as I can't think what I should say

Seeing you, I feel weak

And I can hardly speak

'Cause you are making me nervous

Making me nervous

Every time I see you on a Sunday night,

I get a fright

The way I talk, behave and act,

it don't come out right

I'm no kind of freak

But I can hardly speak

'Cause you are making me nervous

Making me nervous

Like an actor in the wings

Like a man before he sings

You know you're gonna make it if you try

'Cause you are making me nervous

Making me nervous

You know they're gonna like you

if you try...

'Philip had returned for his winter

clothes the third week of July.

'By early September,

Ashley had at last begun to feel

'as though her life was her own again.

'All signs of Philip had been erased,

save for a few irrelevant boxes,

'allowing her to go hours,

occasionally days,

'without being preoccupied

by thoughts of him.

'Once, when she failed to keep him

out of her mind,

'Ashley decided to uncover

and finally read

'the short stories Philip had written

while in college and shortly thereafter,

'before they had met.

'She was sad to discover

that the stories were,

'as Philip had always promised,

'not of any remarkable quality.

'Ashley felt her final remaining vestiges

of admiration for Philip slipping away,

'although she respected his progression

from these to his recent work.

'Ashley wondered if Philip's first novel

would have excited her as much as it once did

'if she had read these stories

when they first met.

'Following this episode,

'Ashley put the stories and Philip away

for as long as she could manage.

'By this point, the truth was

'that she had no idea of

what he had been doing all summer,

'nor was it of any

pressing concern to her.

'Ashley's dedication to carrying on

with early autumn traditions,

'ones formerly enjoyed with Philip,

'did much to distract her

from the shifting of seasons

'and all the connected feelings

that could come along with it.

'Her dedication to normalcy

allowed Ashley to stave off

'a seasonally-augmented

sense of melancholy,

'which prevented her

from regressing back to the darkness

'she had completely left behind.

'Yearning for intimate interaction

detached from her work

'and regular circle of friends,

'and needing to spend an evening away

from Gadzookey the cat,

'to whom she had discovered

she was mildly allergic,

'Ashley made social plans

with her ex-boyfriend Peter.

'They had dated for just under two years

prior to her meeting Philip,

'and seldom saw one another,

'so the invitation came to him

as something of a surprise.

'The ease with which

their conversation flowed

'made her further disdain Philip for not

only the void he had left in her life,

'but also the energy she had decided

he routinely drained from it,

'which she now felt being

slowly breathed back in.'

You didn't talk about him at all.

Got nothing to say.

How is he?

I did so well. Can you not ask?

Please.

Thank you.

I feel him weighing on me

more in his absence,

than I did when he was around.

Where is he?

He's just gone.

It's like he was a figment

of my imagination.

I'm fairly certain I'm not welcome here.

Ding-ding-ding.

It's late. I've been sitting here

waiting to make a scene for hours.

What do you want?

I'm very lonely.

That's unfortunate.

I don't like teaching creative writing

as much as I assumed I would.

Well, you're a cruel, miserable person,

so it makes sense you'd end up

in a miserable situation.

What happened to my desk?

That's my bonus desk.

- Nobody at the school likes me.

- Nobody here likes you.

I think I might resign and come home.

You don't live here.

You live upstate.

No, I don't want that to be my home.

It's lonely and sad

and the faculty have turned on me.

Boo-hoo! The last few weeks

have been so hard for you.

Whose cat is this?

It's my cat.

- We don't have a cat.

- Apparently I do.

Oh, look, see? There it is.

Come here, big boy.

This is Gadzookey.

Gadzookey, meet Philip.

Don't get attached. He was just leaving.

Do you ever make a decision

that at the time seems sound,

but quickly reveals itself to be empty?

Good-bye, Philip. I don't like you.

He's kind of an a**hole.

What a strange feeling.

So off... it's like my head is a car,

but I can't drive fast

because there's too much traffic.

So instead I'm just

moving very, very slowly.

It's so hard, what I do.

I mean, it's not at all,

and that is the joke, right?

- God, this is so boring.

- A big joke.

Ashley's so bored right now.

Just go back where you came from.

I'm getting angry at myself,

do you understand?

Because it doesn't even upset me

to see you like this.

I want you to leave and leave me alone.

I don't know why you are here,

but I'm not interested, so don't tell me.

God, do you remember

there was a time when we just...

We wanted to go to sleep together

and wake up together,

every day, indefinitely.

Now I don't even give a sh*t

if I ever see you again.

I want you to leave,

and just don't come back

and stop hurting me.

I got asked to write a short story

about photography.

By who?

Oh, God, you'd be so mad if I told you.

Isn't that what you want?

I don't know what you want me to say.

You used to be so exciting.

Now you're just pitiful.

I'm afraid you've seen

the last of me for a long, long time.

- Hey.

- I know you.

Do you know where he is?

I don't.

Do you, like, live here now?

I still have the keys.

No, now I live

in a depressing faculty apartment.

How is the college?

It's fine.

I assumed he'd be here.

- Seems I was mistaken.

- Yeah, that makes two of us.

Hey, you can stay if you want to.

That won't be necessary.

'For reasons unclear to him,

'the exchange with Melanie

caused overwhelming anxiety in Philip,

'who had driven through the night

to get here.

'In the weeks he had spent living with Ike,

when Melanie was not around,

'she was never brought up

in conversation.

'Philip would have forgotten about her,

'had it not been for

the smattering of photographs

'that still remained in the guest room

where he slept.

'Sitting meekly on the couch,

'Melanie embodied the high cost of isolation

and detachment from loved ones.

'Unable to stand it any longer,

'Philip excused himself and returned

to his pitiful life at the college.'

Tell him I was here.

Your little protg

stopped by yesterday.

He's not a protg, he's a...

He's a friend.

I still haven't read his book.

I couldn't find it anywhere.

My copy is in the city.

Should I read it?

Well, it is remarkable.

He suffers a little

from being too arrogant,

both in his writing and as a person.

Oh. Match made in heaven.

I don't know if I can continue

to accommodate you here.

Why is that?

Because you're a pain in the ass.

I have to go to the city today.

What for?

See my agent.

- Henry?

- Henry? No.

Henry's not been with me for 10 years.

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