to remember and when he looked up again he found that the strangers had disappeared.
Here is the endpaper from a library book that Mrs. Jarrett carelessly left on the dining room table. It is covered with an intricate multicolored design that caught his eye at once; one edge is a little crooked where he hurriedly snipped it out of the binding with kitchen shears. Will she notice? He paces his studio with it, his crocheted slippers snagging on splinters in the floorboards. The paper crackles in his fingers. With his eyes he traces maroons and blues and browns, a watery yellow, a touch of orange, all flooded with a slow radiance that is soaking into him. Flames and pinnacles and jagged leaves and white rapids swerving around a spear-shaped rock. Feathers of some rich and exotic bird. He sees the bird climbing toward the sun; he watches sunlight coat the wings and gild the head. Downstairs, voices drone on and a radio plays and a clock strikes. Upstairs, Jeremy feels a shimmering joy lighting every crevice of his mind, and he smiles and opens up to it and melts away, leaving no trace.
Now Jeremy sat in his mother’s rocking chair, rocking gently in a corner of the dining room. The back of the chair was covered with some sort of quilted material ruffled around the edges, and the ruffle kept making a scrunching sound against his shoulders. To his left was a floor lamp with a pleated shade, a picture of Mount Vernon Place engraved on its ridges. It shed the only light in the room. The rest of the boarders sat in darkness, with their faces flickering blue from the television set in the opposite corner. A very old set, a solid piece of furniture with a tiny screen. On it, a hero in a Stetson hat inched his way from window to window and peered outfrom behind a cocked revolver. “You can tell there’s enemies outside,” said Mr. Somerset, “else they wouldn’t bother showing you the birdsongs and frog croaks. Want to make a bet on it?”
Mr. Somerset sat at the table with the remains of his supper, a picked-over plate and a shot glass oily from the bourbon it had held. Beside him was Miss Vinton, her neck ropy from craning nearsightedly toward the set; the new boarder, casting glances at her bedroom door from time to time in case her child awoke; Howard, dressed to go out, resting on the small of his back. Mrs. Jarrett was in the other rocker. Her hands worked rapidly in the darkness—knitting, probably, but Jeremy seemed unable to look to either side tonight and he only had an impression of empty movement, as if she were spinning something webbed and soft out of the darkness itself. He was conscious of particles of dark floating between people, some deep substance in which they all swam, intent upon keeping their heads free, their chins straining upward.
A branch crackled outdoors and the hero raised his gun. Every muscle snapped to attention. His face tightened, his eyes swept the sunlit forest. Some people are aware of everything that is going on everywhere at every moment in their lives.
On Jeremy’s lap was a clutter of papers in a khaki-colored file—the reason his lamp was on. He was going to try to make some money. The file contained boxtops, coupons, occupant ads, soup can labels, pages torn from magazines, blanks from the grocery store bulletin board. “Can you name our new hybrid rose? Prizes! Prizes! Just tell us why you prefer our brand of bleach. Nothing to buy. Are you already a winner?” Jeremy was almost always a winner. It was one of his peculiarities—a talent you were either born with or you weren’t, his mother used to say, and wasn’t it lucky he had found something he could do at home this way? Yet he hadnever
felt
lucky, and he never seemed to win what they really needed. Always tenth prize: a hair dryer, a comb-and-brush set, a movie camera guaranteed to do justice to his speediest action shots. The basement was stocked with a year’s supply of cat food. (Jeremy had no cats.) He was the owner
Here is the endpaper from a library book that Mrs. Jarrett carelessly left on the dining room table. It is covered with an intricate multicolored design that caught his eye at once; one edge is a little crooked where he hurriedly snipped it out of the binding with kitchen shears. Will she notice? He paces his studio with it, his crocheted slippers snagging on splinters in the floorboards. The paper crackles in his fingers. With his eyes he traces maroons and blues and browns, a watery yellow, a touch of orange, all flooded with a slow radiance that is soaking into him. Flames and pinnacles and jagged leaves and white rapids swerving around a spear-shaped rock. Feathers of some rich and exotic bird. He sees the bird climbing toward the sun; he watches sunlight coat the wings and gild the head. Downstairs, voices drone on and a radio plays and a clock strikes. Upstairs, Jeremy feels a shimmering joy lighting every crevice of his mind, and he smiles and opens up to it and melts away, leaving no trace.
Now Jeremy sat in his mother’s rocking chair, rocking gently in a corner of the dining room. The back of the chair was covered with some sort of quilted material ruffled around the edges, and the ruffle kept making a scrunching sound against his shoulders. To his left was a floor lamp with a pleated shade, a picture of Mount Vernon Place engraved on its ridges. It shed the only light in the room. The rest of the boarders sat in darkness, with their faces flickering blue from the television set in the opposite corner. A very old set, a solid piece of furniture with a tiny screen. On it, a hero in a Stetson hat inched his way from window to window and peered outfrom behind a cocked revolver. “You can tell there’s enemies outside,” said Mr. Somerset, “else they wouldn’t bother showing you the birdsongs and frog croaks. Want to make a bet on it?”
Mr. Somerset sat at the table with the remains of his supper, a picked-over plate and a shot glass oily from the bourbon it had held. Beside him was Miss Vinton, her neck ropy from craning nearsightedly toward the set; the new boarder, casting glances at her bedroom door from time to time in case her child awoke; Howard, dressed to go out, resting on the small of his back. Mrs. Jarrett was in the other rocker. Her hands worked rapidly in the darkness—knitting, probably, but Jeremy seemed unable to look to either side tonight and he only had an impression of empty movement, as if she were spinning something webbed and soft out of the darkness itself. He was conscious of particles of dark floating between people, some deep substance in which they all swam, intent upon keeping their heads free, their chins straining upward.
A branch crackled outdoors and the hero raised his gun. Every muscle snapped to attention. His face tightened, his eyes swept the sunlit forest. Some people are aware of everything that is going on everywhere at every moment in their lives.
On Jeremy’s lap was a clutter of papers in a khaki-colored file—the reason his lamp was on. He was going to try to make some money. The file contained boxtops, coupons, occupant ads, soup can labels, pages torn from magazines, blanks from the grocery store bulletin board. “Can you name our new hybrid rose? Prizes! Prizes! Just tell us why you prefer our brand of bleach. Nothing to buy. Are you already a winner?” Jeremy was almost always a winner. It was one of his peculiarities—a talent you were either born with or you weren’t, his mother used to say, and wasn’t it lucky he had found something he could do at home this way? Yet he hadnever
felt
lucky, and he never seemed to win what they really needed. Always tenth prize: a hair dryer, a comb-and-brush set, a movie camera guaranteed to do justice to his speediest action shots. The basement was stocked with a year’s supply of cat food. (Jeremy had no cats.) He was the owner
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