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Authors: David Adams Richards
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steal her back from Sammy Patch—for she is asking you what to do with her life. She is asking you to let her love you. This is the question she is asking—what is she to do, with her life. For she is prepared to live her life with you. It is not easy for her to ask this. And she would have to break up with him, but she is prepared to do so now.
But the idea of an ecclesiastical abandon surfaced in him—and the idea that he did not need these temporal things overcame him. For it was what he wanted her to believe, even if he was uncertain.
He thought, What will I say, how can I say I want her with someone else? He even thought of the moment he came when masturbating. Still, in pretentious casualness, and suddenly misinformed about his own agony, he said: “Of course—I have decided to go into the seminary of the Holy Cross next summer.”
“You are—you will,” she whispered, tightening her grip on his hand.
Her face was completely open in its vulnerable gaze, saying, If I let go your hand I will let go forever. But he could not overcome the idea that he was wounding her with this, and that she had wounded him. This meanness of spirit he suddenly remembered in his father, and yet could not correct it in himself. It was not so terribly harsh, but it was terrible it was present.
“And you have a good life.” He smiled, but his lips trembled slightly. He would never understand why he spoke these words. But he was proof of Aristotle’s disagreement with Socrates about men who have knowledge saying inconsistent things.
It was as if something beyond him compelled him to say this, as if the words had been in his mouth for a hundred million years. Both of them were still children really, standing in the early morning air along the lost and broken highway. What was so distressing is when he remembered her soft skin when her skirt blew up, and the triangle of dark hair. It was a mystery, and there was nothing temporal in it but a wondrous spirit of life that beckoned to him. But there was this: if he let his guard down, would she want him the same way? That was the question he was too frightened to have answered. He was frightened to give himself over to her question, and let her then control what she said in return. In hindsight this was one of the most significant moments of his life, on a windswept lonely lane.
He was pleased she had looked hurt, for a second.
She let go of his hand, kindly, and left him there. She turned and walked along the far side of the lane, and disappeared toward her house, rushing in the morning air, her head down. He could not stand to watch her go. So he tried to call to her but no words came.
And so he looked at his small Timex watch that his aunt had bought him for his seventeenth birthday and hurried home as well.
He did not swear, smoke, or drink, and would look piously upon the world. But now his uncle’s former activities bothered him, and he took a moment to reprimand his uncle one evening. In fact, he had many of them written down.
“Do you know how many times you whipped me?” he said. “I was chased outside in my underwear in February and slept in the barn. I was kept from friends. I never had a party in my life. I don’t mind that—but there were other things. You tell me all the time how bad my mother was. And things I say which I know are true—and this is the most important thing: I know they are true—and I say them, and you tell me they aren’t true. You say I made things up, when I never—and it torments me. Then you just laugh. And then, why did you have to tell me about my father—this Roach who hurt my mother—he is nothing to me.”
The night was growing dark, and outside he heard the first robin of the spring twitter once in the trees. And so he spoke as if to the robin.
“Yes,” Jim said, almost peevishly, “I know. But I want you to know something. I paid for your dad’s funeral—I tried to put him to rest, and I didn’t have to!”
Alex
But the idea of an ecclesiastical abandon surfaced in him—and the idea that he did not need these temporal things overcame him. For it was what he wanted her to believe, even if he was uncertain.
He thought, What will I say, how can I say I want her with someone else? He even thought of the moment he came when masturbating. Still, in pretentious casualness, and suddenly misinformed about his own agony, he said: “Of course—I have decided to go into the seminary of the Holy Cross next summer.”
“You are—you will,” she whispered, tightening her grip on his hand.
Her face was completely open in its vulnerable gaze, saying, If I let go your hand I will let go forever. But he could not overcome the idea that he was wounding her with this, and that she had wounded him. This meanness of spirit he suddenly remembered in his father, and yet could not correct it in himself. It was not so terribly harsh, but it was terrible it was present.
“And you have a good life.” He smiled, but his lips trembled slightly. He would never understand why he spoke these words. But he was proof of Aristotle’s disagreement with Socrates about men who have knowledge saying inconsistent things.
It was as if something beyond him compelled him to say this, as if the words had been in his mouth for a hundred million years. Both of them were still children really, standing in the early morning air along the lost and broken highway. What was so distressing is when he remembered her soft skin when her skirt blew up, and the triangle of dark hair. It was a mystery, and there was nothing temporal in it but a wondrous spirit of life that beckoned to him. But there was this: if he let his guard down, would she want him the same way? That was the question he was too frightened to have answered. He was frightened to give himself over to her question, and let her then control what she said in return. In hindsight this was one of the most significant moments of his life, on a windswept lonely lane.
He was pleased she had looked hurt, for a second.
She let go of his hand, kindly, and left him there. She turned and walked along the far side of the lane, and disappeared toward her house, rushing in the morning air, her head down. He could not stand to watch her go. So he tried to call to her but no words came.
And so he looked at his small Timex watch that his aunt had bought him for his seventeenth birthday and hurried home as well.
He did not swear, smoke, or drink, and would look piously upon the world. But now his uncle’s former activities bothered him, and he took a moment to reprimand his uncle one evening. In fact, he had many of them written down.
“Do you know how many times you whipped me?” he said. “I was chased outside in my underwear in February and slept in the barn. I was kept from friends. I never had a party in my life. I don’t mind that—but there were other things. You tell me all the time how bad my mother was. And things I say which I know are true—and this is the most important thing: I know they are true—and I say them, and you tell me they aren’t true. You say I made things up, when I never—and it torments me. Then you just laugh. And then, why did you have to tell me about my father—this Roach who hurt my mother—he is nothing to me.”
The night was growing dark, and outside he heard the first robin of the spring twitter once in the trees. And so he spoke as if to the robin.
“Yes,” Jim said, almost peevishly, “I know. But I want you to know something. I paid for your dad’s funeral—I tried to put him to rest, and I didn’t have to!”
Alex
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