Read Online The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel by Amy Hempel and Rick Moody - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Amy Hempel and Rick Moody
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lost.
“His problem is the past,” Grey said about his father. “He says only do things you have done before and liked. Whereas me, what’s coming is the thing I’m looking out for.”
I thought the present was the safer bet. We can only die in the future, I thought; right now we are always alive.
Grey trusted water. He continued to trust it after the flood. He believed it would save him, and he counted on this for the Fire Dive.
I saw him do it once, which is all the times he did it.
When the swimming pool was filtered and rechlorinated, he carried a can of gasoline to the high board. He wore a sweatshirt with a hood and matching drawstring pants. He dove into the water with the top and bottoms on, then pulled himself out by the ladder on the side. It was night, and I had my camera ready.
He sprinkled his wet clothes with gasoline as though he were watering plants. He said wet cloth would pull the fuel away from his skin.
He said to imagine this: that the moment he hit the water aflame, when he made this dive on the next Pool Night, that’s when he would have a cannon go off!
Then he struck a lighter and he lit himself up good.
I got it all on film—the human torch, the flaming spiral twists that he scripted in the air, the hiss of reclaimed life when the water took him in.
It only lasted seconds. It seemed an extravagant risk, and that is how I put it.
He said, “I made those seconds live.”
I took one more picture that night. It was after Grey had walked me home. He found a box of photograph corners, the black stick-on kind that frame the picture on the page. He opened up our album, pasted four of them in place.
It was Grey who took the picture; the picture he took was of me. It was candid—I wasn’t posed—and the instant, the Polaroid, is what he used. When the blank square of film emerged from the camera, he tore it off and slipped it in the corners on the page, and then he closed the album cover before the image could develop.
That picture is something I lost in the fire.
One thing smoke does is lower your voice. It did not sound like me, thanking the firefighters. I said thanks, but I did not feel grateful. I stood aside and watched, breathing the tarry air. I watched myself lose all that I was losing, and I knew why Dr. Winton had stayed inside his house.
I know about this now.
I know that homes burn and that you should think what to save before they start to. Not because, in the heat of it, everything looks as valuable as everything else. But because nothing looks worth the bother, not even your life.
Three Popes Walk into a Bar
Sydney Lawton Square is a park for a transient population; there are no benches. You can walk it end to end in minutes. The architect for the Gateway Condominiums squeezed it in between the barbecue place and the parking garage. You would put quotes around this “park” the way you might send traffic fines to the Hall of “Justice.” But this feeble attempt at nature is walking distance from the club—so that’s where I meet Wesley, at the Fountain of Four Seasons.
The fountain yields dead earthworms, not coins; the worms outnumber pull-tabs, cigarettes, and leaves. At the nearby north entrance to the square there is a faded brick arch with a bronzelike plaque that says HISTORICAL SITE . All of it is contrived to suggest that something was once there, but none of it tells you what.
Wesley calls out “Ahoy,” so I know he has made up his mind.
“You think it’s a crime to change your mind?” he says. “Just because you are able to do a thing doesn’t mean that’s what you have to do, does it? Because I could but I don’t want to,” he says as we walk the tarmac path.
He is talking about performing. He’s still funny, and he wants to stop.
“I could keep on,” he says, “and you know what I’d have to show for it? Ten percent liver function and a felony in my bed.”
“I think what counts is timing,” I say. “As long as you
“His problem is the past,” Grey said about his father. “He says only do things you have done before and liked. Whereas me, what’s coming is the thing I’m looking out for.”
I thought the present was the safer bet. We can only die in the future, I thought; right now we are always alive.
Grey trusted water. He continued to trust it after the flood. He believed it would save him, and he counted on this for the Fire Dive.
I saw him do it once, which is all the times he did it.
When the swimming pool was filtered and rechlorinated, he carried a can of gasoline to the high board. He wore a sweatshirt with a hood and matching drawstring pants. He dove into the water with the top and bottoms on, then pulled himself out by the ladder on the side. It was night, and I had my camera ready.
He sprinkled his wet clothes with gasoline as though he were watering plants. He said wet cloth would pull the fuel away from his skin.
He said to imagine this: that the moment he hit the water aflame, when he made this dive on the next Pool Night, that’s when he would have a cannon go off!
Then he struck a lighter and he lit himself up good.
I got it all on film—the human torch, the flaming spiral twists that he scripted in the air, the hiss of reclaimed life when the water took him in.
It only lasted seconds. It seemed an extravagant risk, and that is how I put it.
He said, “I made those seconds live.”
I took one more picture that night. It was after Grey had walked me home. He found a box of photograph corners, the black stick-on kind that frame the picture on the page. He opened up our album, pasted four of them in place.
It was Grey who took the picture; the picture he took was of me. It was candid—I wasn’t posed—and the instant, the Polaroid, is what he used. When the blank square of film emerged from the camera, he tore it off and slipped it in the corners on the page, and then he closed the album cover before the image could develop.
That picture is something I lost in the fire.
One thing smoke does is lower your voice. It did not sound like me, thanking the firefighters. I said thanks, but I did not feel grateful. I stood aside and watched, breathing the tarry air. I watched myself lose all that I was losing, and I knew why Dr. Winton had stayed inside his house.
I know about this now.
I know that homes burn and that you should think what to save before they start to. Not because, in the heat of it, everything looks as valuable as everything else. But because nothing looks worth the bother, not even your life.
Three Popes Walk into a Bar
Sydney Lawton Square is a park for a transient population; there are no benches. You can walk it end to end in minutes. The architect for the Gateway Condominiums squeezed it in between the barbecue place and the parking garage. You would put quotes around this “park” the way you might send traffic fines to the Hall of “Justice.” But this feeble attempt at nature is walking distance from the club—so that’s where I meet Wesley, at the Fountain of Four Seasons.
The fountain yields dead earthworms, not coins; the worms outnumber pull-tabs, cigarettes, and leaves. At the nearby north entrance to the square there is a faded brick arch with a bronzelike plaque that says HISTORICAL SITE . All of it is contrived to suggest that something was once there, but none of it tells you what.
Wesley calls out “Ahoy,” so I know he has made up his mind.
“You think it’s a crime to change your mind?” he says. “Just because you are able to do a thing doesn’t mean that’s what you have to do, does it? Because I could but I don’t want to,” he says as we walk the tarmac path.
He is talking about performing. He’s still funny, and he wants to stop.
“I could keep on,” he says, “and you know what I’d have to show for it? Ten percent liver function and a felony in my bed.”
“I think what counts is timing,” I say. “As long as you
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