The date is written on the back, August 1963. The year Kennedy was shot in the head. She’s sitting on a seawall, a beach seemingly near some summer resort, smiling slightly uncomfortably. She’s wearing a short, Jean Seburgstyle hairdo (no matter what anybody says, it reminds me of Auschwitz), wearing a long-edged gingham one-piece dress. She looks clumsy, beautiful. It’s a beauty that could pierce the most delicate regions of the heart of the viewer.
Her thin lips pressed together, her tiny, upturned nose looking like a dainty insect’s antenna, her bangs looking as if she’d cut them herself, dangling carelessly across her wide forehead, her slightly bulging cheeks, upon which tiny pockmarks, remnants of pimples can be seen.
When she was fourteen years old, that was the time in her twenty-one-year lifetime when she was the happiest. And then she disappeared so suddenly, is all I can think. For what purpose, what reason such a thing could be possible, I have no idea. Nobody does.
* * *
She said once, seriously (I’m not joking), “I entered college to have a heavenly revelation.”
This was before four a.m., both of us naked in bed. I asked her what kind of heavenly revelation she was expecting.
“How should I know?” she said, but added a moment later, “Maybe something like angels’ feathers falling from the sky.”
I tried to imagine the spectacle of angels’ feathers falling onto the university’s courtyard, and from afar it looked much like tissue paper.
* * *
Nobody knows why she killed herself. I have a suspicion that maybe she herself may not have known.
27
I was having a bad dream.
I was a big black bird, flying west across the jungle. I had a deep wound, the black blood clinging to my wings. In the west I could see an ominous black cloud beginning to stretch out, and from there I could smell rain.
It was a long time since I’d had a dream. It had been so long that it took me a while to realize it was a dream.
I got out of bed, washed the horrible sweat off my body, and then had toast and apple juice for breakfast. Thanks to the cigarettes and the beer, my throat felt like it was full of old mothballs. After washing and putting away the dishes, I put on an olive green cotton jacket, a shirt I’d ironed as best I could, chose a black tie, and with the tie still in my hand I sat in the air conditioned parlor.
The television news announcer proudly declared that it was likely to be the hottest day of the summer. I turned off the television and went into my older brother’s room, picked a few books from his enormous pile of books, then took them back to the parlor where I plopped onto the sofa and stared at the words printed within.
Two years before, my brother left his roomful of books and his girlfriend and took off to America without so much as a word. Sometimes she and I ate together. She told me I was just like him.
“In what way?” I asked, surprised.
“In every way,” she said.
I probably was just like him. It was probably due to the ten-plus years of our polishing those shoes, I think.
The hour hand pointed to twelve, and after milling about and thinking about the heat outside I fastened my tie and put on my suit jacket.
I had lots of time to kill. I drove around town for a bit. The town was almost miserably long and narrow, starting at the sea and climbing into the mountains. River, tennis court, golf course, rows of estates lined up, walls and more walls, some nice little restaurants, boutiques, an old library, fields of primrose, the park with the monkey pen, the town was the same as ever. After driving around for a while on the road that wound its way into the mountains, I drove along the river towards the ocean, then parked my car at the mouth of the river and dipped my legs in the water to cool them off. There were two well-tanned girls on the tennis court, hitting the ball back and forth, wearing their white hats and sunglasses. The rays of the sun bringing the
Her thin lips pressed together, her tiny, upturned nose looking like a dainty insect’s antenna, her bangs looking as if she’d cut them herself, dangling carelessly across her wide forehead, her slightly bulging cheeks, upon which tiny pockmarks, remnants of pimples can be seen.
When she was fourteen years old, that was the time in her twenty-one-year lifetime when she was the happiest. And then she disappeared so suddenly, is all I can think. For what purpose, what reason such a thing could be possible, I have no idea. Nobody does.
* * *
She said once, seriously (I’m not joking), “I entered college to have a heavenly revelation.”
This was before four a.m., both of us naked in bed. I asked her what kind of heavenly revelation she was expecting.
“How should I know?” she said, but added a moment later, “Maybe something like angels’ feathers falling from the sky.”
I tried to imagine the spectacle of angels’ feathers falling onto the university’s courtyard, and from afar it looked much like tissue paper.
* * *
Nobody knows why she killed herself. I have a suspicion that maybe she herself may not have known.
27
I was having a bad dream.
I was a big black bird, flying west across the jungle. I had a deep wound, the black blood clinging to my wings. In the west I could see an ominous black cloud beginning to stretch out, and from there I could smell rain.
It was a long time since I’d had a dream. It had been so long that it took me a while to realize it was a dream.
I got out of bed, washed the horrible sweat off my body, and then had toast and apple juice for breakfast. Thanks to the cigarettes and the beer, my throat felt like it was full of old mothballs. After washing and putting away the dishes, I put on an olive green cotton jacket, a shirt I’d ironed as best I could, chose a black tie, and with the tie still in my hand I sat in the air conditioned parlor.
The television news announcer proudly declared that it was likely to be the hottest day of the summer. I turned off the television and went into my older brother’s room, picked a few books from his enormous pile of books, then took them back to the parlor where I plopped onto the sofa and stared at the words printed within.
Two years before, my brother left his roomful of books and his girlfriend and took off to America without so much as a word. Sometimes she and I ate together. She told me I was just like him.
“In what way?” I asked, surprised.
“In every way,” she said.
I probably was just like him. It was probably due to the ten-plus years of our polishing those shoes, I think.
The hour hand pointed to twelve, and after milling about and thinking about the heat outside I fastened my tie and put on my suit jacket.
I had lots of time to kill. I drove around town for a bit. The town was almost miserably long and narrow, starting at the sea and climbing into the mountains. River, tennis court, golf course, rows of estates lined up, walls and more walls, some nice little restaurants, boutiques, an old library, fields of primrose, the park with the monkey pen, the town was the same as ever. After driving around for a while on the road that wound its way into the mountains, I drove along the river towards the ocean, then parked my car at the mouth of the river and dipped my legs in the water to cool them off. There were two well-tanned girls on the tennis court, hitting the ball back and forth, wearing their white hats and sunglasses. The rays of the sun bringing the
Similar Books
