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Stories
49 pages, Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 1974
3 people want to read
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January 26, 2026
Got to be one of the most underrated story writers I’ve read in a long time, though ‘underrated’ isn’t even the right word because to be underrated you still have to be read and I’ve never heard anyone talk about the stories of Scott Watson. Unfortunately, he only published two books of fiction.
Some favorite moments:
“I must walk by a thousand people and each one I touch in some way, the thousand of us are all here on the street with each other, doing the same thing, walking along it, trying our damndest not to be, to avoid some brute fact about it, in its presentness, it is all there is for now.
I meet everyone, that man is threatening, might kill me, that woman is beautiful, I love her for less than a second, that boy I could fall in love with, if, but no if, I keep walking, falling in love and being afraid to die, in rapid succession, like silent machine-gun fire.”
“Brian is glum, full of an indifference that sometimes rises to disdain, he would rather not be here, I wonder why I bother, I keep saying things to him, try to talk about books, and he keeps replying, with a child-like flip-pancy, people say he's all right after the fatal, ‘once-you-get-to-know-him,’ I don't believe it.”
“When we get to my place, we talk and smoke. David tells me that he's been in prison. I am intrigued, ask what for, it was for dealing dope. He says that he became literate in prison, had nothing to do but read, so he read lots. We talk more about books, or he does, I listen, being struck by the odd incongruity of his looks, manner, rough tough guy, while he goes on and on mostly about Andre Gide, who he really likes, and I pretend to like for him.
He says that everyone in prison reads Lopsang Rampa, and that it took him ages to catch on to breakfast conversation he overheard because it was all about astral travelling. Guys in for murder and armed robbery, the two most glamourous crimes to be in for, would remember together in the morning bumping into each other in Hawaii or Peru or wherever it was they bumped into cach other in the night. So it all sounded like a travelogue.
David thinks Lopsang Rampa is a phoney but we wonder together how all that could go on, the men in prison, going places in the night.”
“There is no ground chili pepper, but there is this jar the old tenant left, full of dried red chilies, they look like a jar full of the skins of some strange insect, I've always wanted to throw them out but thought I might need them, someday, like now, when I'm trying to make chili. I take one out, crush it in my hand, wonder how many to use, taste a piece of it about the size of a speck of dandruff, my tongue burns suddenly, and with pleasure. I'll use two, I think, and 1 crush them and put them in the frying pan, all day this arduous, tiring, dealing with sensual stimuli, strangers, desires, has left me numb, feeling suffocated by it all, as though the world had turned into the Muzak in the supermarket and I was wandering around in it, the super-market, trying to figure out what to get for dinner. Which is exactly where I was before I got here, making dinner.”
“I've got all these books with me so I read on the bus, look at the people, get that sense that it doesn't quite make a sense, of all the possible things that could be, or ways, I mean the people, they seem so interested in being human, the man in front of me is about forty, I didn't see him come on, just the back of his head, hair cut so. A hat is an innate idea? What are hats doing in the universe anyway?, overcoat cut just so, if one were to describe him from the back in terms that everyone would understand but would remain meaningless outside a human context, he looks stuffy, and he has just farted and I am revolted. Perhaps I am unfair, but I imagine his imagination of himself to be completely absent of astonishment. And this horrifies me.”
Some favorite moments:
“I must walk by a thousand people and each one I touch in some way, the thousand of us are all here on the street with each other, doing the same thing, walking along it, trying our damndest not to be, to avoid some brute fact about it, in its presentness, it is all there is for now.
I meet everyone, that man is threatening, might kill me, that woman is beautiful, I love her for less than a second, that boy I could fall in love with, if, but no if, I keep walking, falling in love and being afraid to die, in rapid succession, like silent machine-gun fire.”
“Brian is glum, full of an indifference that sometimes rises to disdain, he would rather not be here, I wonder why I bother, I keep saying things to him, try to talk about books, and he keeps replying, with a child-like flip-pancy, people say he's all right after the fatal, ‘once-you-get-to-know-him,’ I don't believe it.”
“When we get to my place, we talk and smoke. David tells me that he's been in prison. I am intrigued, ask what for, it was for dealing dope. He says that he became literate in prison, had nothing to do but read, so he read lots. We talk more about books, or he does, I listen, being struck by the odd incongruity of his looks, manner, rough tough guy, while he goes on and on mostly about Andre Gide, who he really likes, and I pretend to like for him.
He says that everyone in prison reads Lopsang Rampa, and that it took him ages to catch on to breakfast conversation he overheard because it was all about astral travelling. Guys in for murder and armed robbery, the two most glamourous crimes to be in for, would remember together in the morning bumping into each other in Hawaii or Peru or wherever it was they bumped into cach other in the night. So it all sounded like a travelogue.
David thinks Lopsang Rampa is a phoney but we wonder together how all that could go on, the men in prison, going places in the night.”
“There is no ground chili pepper, but there is this jar the old tenant left, full of dried red chilies, they look like a jar full of the skins of some strange insect, I've always wanted to throw them out but thought I might need them, someday, like now, when I'm trying to make chili. I take one out, crush it in my hand, wonder how many to use, taste a piece of it about the size of a speck of dandruff, my tongue burns suddenly, and with pleasure. I'll use two, I think, and 1 crush them and put them in the frying pan, all day this arduous, tiring, dealing with sensual stimuli, strangers, desires, has left me numb, feeling suffocated by it all, as though the world had turned into the Muzak in the supermarket and I was wandering around in it, the super-market, trying to figure out what to get for dinner. Which is exactly where I was before I got here, making dinner.”
“I've got all these books with me so I read on the bus, look at the people, get that sense that it doesn't quite make a sense, of all the possible things that could be, or ways, I mean the people, they seem so interested in being human, the man in front of me is about forty, I didn't see him come on, just the back of his head, hair cut so. A hat is an innate idea? What are hats doing in the universe anyway?, overcoat cut just so, if one were to describe him from the back in terms that everyone would understand but would remain meaningless outside a human context, he looks stuffy, and he has just farted and I am revolted. Perhaps I am unfair, but I imagine his imagination of himself to be completely absent of astonishment. And this horrifies me.”
Displaying 1 of 1 review