This was met with laughs and applause at the overall appreciation of young Dolly’s naïveté concerning the world and her charming use of excrement as metaphor for love. Marjorie rolled her eyes and said, “As if that old fart could have written something like that.” Charlie said, “You mean he didn’t write it?” “No,” she said. “Of course not. I wrote it. I sold the rights to him. I just told you. You think he knew what it was like being a teenager in the 90s, or being preyed on by an older man? Well, maybe that part he could work out, but he’s got no imagination. He’s not a writer, he doesn’t know anything except about getting born into upper middle class suburbia and growing up in upper middle class academia. Even before I came along, the stuff he wrote was complete garbage.” She finished her drink. “But I guess I can’t criticize that. I was the same way when I met him. I didn’t have a life, I didn’t have any experiences, and that’s why I wasn’t a real writer.” She clinked her glass with a chipped fingernail, indicating the bartender should send her another one. Then she said, “Herman Melville.” “Excuse me?” said Charlie. She pointed at Melville’s author portrait, hanging directly over the bar, gazing disapprovingly at her. “Herman Melville. Now he was a writer. Don’t get me wrong, Moby Dick was as boring as waiting for an oil change, five hundred pages of allegorical bullshit. I mean, Jesus, the whale is God, the Peqod is America, and man can’t save her, we get it, now just get to the end already, but Herman Melville was a writer. You wanna know why? ‘Cause he lived that shit. He traveled the world, saw everything he wrote about. I respect that. He wrote real poetry, not this contrived bullshit everyone writes nowadays.” The bartender handed her another drink. He looked at Charlie. “Can I get you anything?” Charlie shook his head. They were both quiet for a minute, Charlie because he didn’t know what to say, but she finally said, “I’m pretty sure that’s why I stayed. I wanted to be like Herman Melville. I wanted
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