cigarette still dangling. His eyes playing over us, convincing us without the least opposition. What you mean, Why? he was saying. How the fuck would I know? I sure as hell wasn’t staying around to find out.
We all finally let it go, the caged-up air—the surrogate terror in it, and even an inch of curious delight. Norman’s eyes glowed a little and he grinned the grin of the escaped hunter.
A cold glaze replaced his living eyes, and the ice of death came into his face. The cigarette should have dropped, but it was stuck to his bottom lip, even with his mouth hung open.
What’s happening? I, the rest of us, looked at Norman, then turned to look over our shoulders. There was a blond woman now standing just inside the bar’s entrance.
She began to walk toward us. I thought, Hey, now Nor-man’s slip-up is coming right straight out with the lying shit. But Norman looked ashen. I didn’t think a mere lie could do that. We were all starting to grin. I guess it had also occurred to the others too that what Norman had told us was a really well-told lie. And now, here was the chick in person to uncover the lie.
But before our smiles could tumble into place and replace our quizzical stares, Norman’s ashen silence transmitted a howl of deep fear to us all. Not lightweight bullshit. So when we looked at the woman striding straight toward us, unnoticed by the rest of the raucous barflies, what we saw made us all believers. Believers forever in all the unknown spaces of terror, the blankness between the stars.
The bitch still had a pair of scissors in her hand. And as she came toward us, she held them up and waved them slowly back and forth, like a wand. But they were covered, even dripping, with very fresh blood.
1981–82
(Originally published in Playboy, July 1983)
FROM WAR STORIES
B ack before the jogging thing got to be a “craze,” during the late ’60s or so, I used to go out every couple of days and run around the half-mile track at Wake-wake Park. In those days, and to my mind, the body was what the mind was, and so I was out all the time, flying around the track. Also, I’d take off at least once a week and go zooming around the lake itself, about three miles or so. It brought back my high school cross country days. The wind in your face, talking to yourself, and thinking great, out of breath, slightly agonized thoughts.
The funny part of this regimen was that at the time I weighed about 120 pounds, soaked in lead allegory. I ate no meat—the result of a bout with the Air Force in which I was served bleeding chicken on Sunday afternoons. From then on, I used to trade my chicken, a weekly affair, for salad or dessert or just straight-out gave it away. It carried over into real life, life after the error farce, so that now even in my thirtieth year, I still shudderingly refrained from eating meat.
So early mornings I’d dash around Wake-wake, named after Indians who’d been bested in a land deal. Its name seemed to be both a command and a solemn gathering.
I was also a member of a political action committee in Noah at the time. Noah, New Jersey, population 300,000, mostly colored. Quite a few Negroes, a few black people, plus significant numbers of Italians, Puerto Ricans, and Portuguese. I’m telling you this not only to help accurately portray my general state of mind, but to tell you that at least one day a week, usually Saturday, a whole bunch of us in the PAC would be running, staying in shape. A few of us believed that democracy for the assorted groups of colored, Negroes, and blacks could be won by refraining from eating meat and jogging, plus karate. An even smaller group of us thought that it might take more than that—maybe a little Malcolm, a little Che, a little Mao, some Ron Karenga, Carmichael, and pinches of some other folk, living and dead. Hey, there was even a smaller group that didn’t care at all. And you know, I later found out that there was a group larger than all of the above
We all finally let it go, the caged-up air—the surrogate terror in it, and even an inch of curious delight. Norman’s eyes glowed a little and he grinned the grin of the escaped hunter.
A cold glaze replaced his living eyes, and the ice of death came into his face. The cigarette should have dropped, but it was stuck to his bottom lip, even with his mouth hung open.
What’s happening? I, the rest of us, looked at Norman, then turned to look over our shoulders. There was a blond woman now standing just inside the bar’s entrance.
She began to walk toward us. I thought, Hey, now Nor-man’s slip-up is coming right straight out with the lying shit. But Norman looked ashen. I didn’t think a mere lie could do that. We were all starting to grin. I guess it had also occurred to the others too that what Norman had told us was a really well-told lie. And now, here was the chick in person to uncover the lie.
But before our smiles could tumble into place and replace our quizzical stares, Norman’s ashen silence transmitted a howl of deep fear to us all. Not lightweight bullshit. So when we looked at the woman striding straight toward us, unnoticed by the rest of the raucous barflies, what we saw made us all believers. Believers forever in all the unknown spaces of terror, the blankness between the stars.
The bitch still had a pair of scissors in her hand. And as she came toward us, she held them up and waved them slowly back and forth, like a wand. But they were covered, even dripping, with very fresh blood.
1981–82
(Originally published in Playboy, July 1983)
FROM WAR STORIES
B ack before the jogging thing got to be a “craze,” during the late ’60s or so, I used to go out every couple of days and run around the half-mile track at Wake-wake Park. In those days, and to my mind, the body was what the mind was, and so I was out all the time, flying around the track. Also, I’d take off at least once a week and go zooming around the lake itself, about three miles or so. It brought back my high school cross country days. The wind in your face, talking to yourself, and thinking great, out of breath, slightly agonized thoughts.
The funny part of this regimen was that at the time I weighed about 120 pounds, soaked in lead allegory. I ate no meat—the result of a bout with the Air Force in which I was served bleeding chicken on Sunday afternoons. From then on, I used to trade my chicken, a weekly affair, for salad or dessert or just straight-out gave it away. It carried over into real life, life after the error farce, so that now even in my thirtieth year, I still shudderingly refrained from eating meat.
So early mornings I’d dash around Wake-wake, named after Indians who’d been bested in a land deal. Its name seemed to be both a command and a solemn gathering.
I was also a member of a political action committee in Noah at the time. Noah, New Jersey, population 300,000, mostly colored. Quite a few Negroes, a few black people, plus significant numbers of Italians, Puerto Ricans, and Portuguese. I’m telling you this not only to help accurately portray my general state of mind, but to tell you that at least one day a week, usually Saturday, a whole bunch of us in the PAC would be running, staying in shape. A few of us believed that democracy for the assorted groups of colored, Negroes, and blacks could be won by refraining from eating meat and jogging, plus karate. An even smaller group of us thought that it might take more than that—maybe a little Malcolm, a little Che, a little Mao, some Ron Karenga, Carmichael, and pinches of some other folk, living and dead. Hey, there was even a smaller group that didn’t care at all. And you know, I later found out that there was a group larger than all of the above
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