Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation
Adam Resnick
Language: English
Pages: 272
ISBN: 0147516218
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
“Damn, this book is good.” —Jon Stewart
Emmy Award–winning writer Adam Resnick began his career at Late Night with David Letterman before honing his chops in movies and cable television, including HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show. While courageously admitting to being “euphorically antisocial,” Resnick plunges readers deep into his troubled psyche in this uproarious memoir-in-essays. Shaped by such touchstone events as a traumatic Easter egg hunt and overwrought by obsessions, he refuses to be burdened by chores like basic social obligation and personal growth. Resnick is cut from the same strange cloth as Louis C.K., and Will Not Attend showcases his writing at its brazenly hilarious best.
him. It was full-strength Merv Resnick I trailed down the hallway of James Buchanan Elementary: the cigarette, the suit, the snake ring. Fuck, just the way he moved. It was the first time he’d ever set foot in the school, but by the way he walked, you would have thought he’d built the place with his bare hands. Kids, teachers, and custodians stopped in their tracks and gaped. My God, who is that? I’d seen the reaction countless times before, whenever my father entered the space of mortals.
Mitzi up and twirls her around, saying, “I’m on my way to the stars, baby. And you’re coming along to wax the rocket.” Mitzi becomes too heavy for him. Winded, he lays her down on the floor. • • • If life is indeed a series of familiar scenes and passages, I still don’t get the razor blade thing. Was it a big deal, or just a forty-dollar deal? What if I had saved another person’s life—a child’s, perhaps—simply by being in the right place at the right time? Maybe that’s the sole reason I
beautiful. I didn’t have a penny to my name. She’s gotta be the kindest human being who ever lived.” Me: “I agree.” “She makes Jesus Christ look like a prick.” Joyce: “That’s awful. Don’t say that.” “Adam, let me put it to you this way—if anyone ever touched her, I’d put ’em in the fucking cemetery.” “You always made that clear.” “So, listen, the next time you’re in town I’ll show you the spot. You know the lake behind the buildings? Right by the big tree there. Just dump
“No.” “See me first thing tomorrow or I’ll have your ass wrapped in cellophane. This shit won’t fly, you know that, right?” So many questions. How do people deal with so many questions? When it comes to guilt, I’m an easy lay. I have a habit of believing only the bad things that are said about me. And Big Ben obviously knew me inside out. He had my number all right, that listless fat fuck. Or did I have his? Could truthful words be spoken in a voice that was itself a lie? Did Big
Kid returned the next day and I was truthful; I told her everything. Her face slowly contorted, and then the levee blew. I held her tight and apologized over and over, I told her how much I loved her, I offered to buy her another turtle and tossed in a water frog. She took the deal, but deep down, I knew we weren’t square. It was a betrayal. A scar. It was the my-father-got-rid-of-my-piano story; something she’d share one day with her college roommates, her husband, her children, and her