“Fuck you,” Scott said, surprising him. “Go fuck yourself. You don’t even know what kind of responsibilities I have. You don’t even knowme, you just see a caricature.”
“You present yourself as a caricature!” Carver screamed in his face, his voice echoing through the fairway.
Scott still hadn’t let go of his shoulders. He squeezed Carver hard, almost pushing him down a little. He was strong and firm and outweighed him. “I need you,” he said, “to stop seeing what you think you’re supposed to see, and see what you know to be true.”
“I don’t know what’s true.”
“You do. You do. You know who I am. You know me.”
“I don’t. I haven’t spoken to you in almost twenty years.”
“I haven’t changed. Carver, look at me. Am I a different guy?”
“I didn’t even know you when we were fucking teenagers!”
“Yes, you did. You did.”
“Well you didn’t knowme,” Carver said hoarsely. His throat felt scraped raw.
“I did know you, I still do.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s nothing to know. You’re working so fucking hard to make me into this idea in your head,” he spat in Scott’s face. “And you’re absolutely fucking delusional, okay? A person is the sum of their choices! What you fucking do is who you fucking are! Stop blinding yourself with this fantasy and look at who I am, andwake up!”
Scott withstood this with total unflinching equanimity. “What did you do that’s so awful?”
Carver stood there for a moment getting his breath. “I threw myself in the garbage,” he finally said. The remark came out of him without warning or conscious thought.
“Yeah,” Scott said, still hanging onto him.
Carver tore himself from Scott’s grasp and walked away, running his hands through his hair. He didn’t start walking toward the horizon again — he just walked in small circles in the grass.
“It’s not too late to stop doing that,” Scott said.
“Shut up,” Carver said. “Shut up for five seconds. My God.”
“I’m just saying.”
“You love the sound of your own voice.”
“I do,” Scott admitted.
“You have no idea how hard I worked to get what I have,” Carver said, filled with rage again, “or how fucking tired I already am.”
“Maybe you’re tired because you worked your ass off earning and paying for someone else’s life.”
“Whose?”
“Whoever this guy is you keep pretending to be.”
“But Iamhim! Fuck! In a lot of ways I am, I like a lot of this shit!”
“Some guys find ways to like being in jail,” Scott said.
Carver stopped mid-circle and turned to face him, squinting at his shadowed figure. “She was right that you want to save me, you want to rescue me.”
