I just lay in bed and cried and cried."
"I think you had a wonderful mother. What's your father like?"
"He's like my grandfather. They're both double-barreled pricks. The best I can say for either of them is, most of the time now they let me alone. I just don't leave any room for criticism. My mother and I used to arm wrestle. Boy, she was tough. She'd never give me an inch. I had to beat her. We sure had fun."
"How long do you think before we get to the mountains?"
Rob switches on the DME to get a distance reading. "Ninety minutes. I hope you're not bored."
"Oh, I'm not!"
"I had a girl once, she was a lot like you. I'm really attracted to your physical type. But she got bored with me, I guess that's what it was, and we broke up. I don't have any real close friends. Nobody who'd wonder about me if they didn't hear from me for a few months. Well, where I grew up you didn't just go out and knock around with a bunch of kids. Parents were afraid of kidnappers. Do you have trouble making friends?"
"No, I still see the same guys I started kindergarten with. We've always known each other and probably always will."
"That's what I like about small towns— maybe I'll settle down in one. But I don't know—I get restless."
Shannon says, thinking she sees tears, "Is it your mother?"
"You can imagine that shook me up. I didn't talk to anybody for a year. I mean, I wouldn't talk. All I wanted to do was listen to music. It was all I could do. Symphonies. Oh, a lot of Beethoven. The sound way up. Blasting. I lost about thirty percent of my hearing."
"You must have been—really angry."
"Uh-huh. But I got over it." His eyes are puffy. He takes out a handkerchief. "Sinusitis," he explains, after blowing lustily. "Everybody from Chicago has bad sinuses, it's the weather. Anyway, we have to get over things, don't we? Except for—what happened, I haven't had it so bad. When I turned twenty-one, there was a lot of money. I can do anything I want to do. I'm a lucky guy." Yet he seems confounded, outwitted by a tricky fate that punishes by rewarding. He smiles gamely. "I guess I'm a little hard to understand."
"I don't know that much about you," Shannon says softly, sketching lightly with a forefinger on the back of his hand. Such big hands, but they seem too old to be a part of him: broken nails, an ugly blood blister under one of them. The skin nicked and rough. His hobby: stones, the hammer, the chisel. "I want to know more."
"There's not much left to tell," Rob says, and, as if made speechless by the bitter truth, doesn't try to talk at all for a while.
"I know I want to be an artist," Shannon ventures, thinking it might help to speak of her own deepest concerns. "But lately I've been thinking, maybe that's a selfish attitude. So I'm giving serious thought to the Peace Corps. It's a chance to, you know, broaden my horizons. I've been stuck in the middle of Kansas all my life. But by joining the Peace Corps, it would be like paying tribute to President Kennedy's memory—oh, I know how stupid that sounds, but it's what I feel."
Her fists are clenched; Robert studies her admiringly, and nods.
"What I can't forget," he says, "Is the look on Jackie's face. His blood on her clothes that she had to wear for hours."
"My mother says she didn't have to wear them if she didn't want to. But that's what my mother would say. The assassination just didn't seem to faze her. She has this fatalistic view of things. A church roof falls in on the congregation, a cyclone blows a town apart, oh well. It's almost as if she knows something real bad is going to happen to her, it'll be her turn some day . But I couldn't stop crying. Imagine, all that happening on television?"
"You know what? The world turned bad the day he was shot. And it's not going to get better for a long, long time. Think about all the stuff that's going on in Mississippi and Alabama. We're going to have another Civil War."
"Oh, God, I know," Shannon says, sniffing. "It's
"I think you had a wonderful mother. What's your father like?"
"He's like my grandfather. They're both double-barreled pricks. The best I can say for either of them is, most of the time now they let me alone. I just don't leave any room for criticism. My mother and I used to arm wrestle. Boy, she was tough. She'd never give me an inch. I had to beat her. We sure had fun."
"How long do you think before we get to the mountains?"
Rob switches on the DME to get a distance reading. "Ninety minutes. I hope you're not bored."
"Oh, I'm not!"
"I had a girl once, she was a lot like you. I'm really attracted to your physical type. But she got bored with me, I guess that's what it was, and we broke up. I don't have any real close friends. Nobody who'd wonder about me if they didn't hear from me for a few months. Well, where I grew up you didn't just go out and knock around with a bunch of kids. Parents were afraid of kidnappers. Do you have trouble making friends?"
"No, I still see the same guys I started kindergarten with. We've always known each other and probably always will."
"That's what I like about small towns— maybe I'll settle down in one. But I don't know—I get restless."
Shannon says, thinking she sees tears, "Is it your mother?"
"You can imagine that shook me up. I didn't talk to anybody for a year. I mean, I wouldn't talk. All I wanted to do was listen to music. It was all I could do. Symphonies. Oh, a lot of Beethoven. The sound way up. Blasting. I lost about thirty percent of my hearing."
"You must have been—really angry."
"Uh-huh. But I got over it." His eyes are puffy. He takes out a handkerchief. "Sinusitis," he explains, after blowing lustily. "Everybody from Chicago has bad sinuses, it's the weather. Anyway, we have to get over things, don't we? Except for—what happened, I haven't had it so bad. When I turned twenty-one, there was a lot of money. I can do anything I want to do. I'm a lucky guy." Yet he seems confounded, outwitted by a tricky fate that punishes by rewarding. He smiles gamely. "I guess I'm a little hard to understand."
"I don't know that much about you," Shannon says softly, sketching lightly with a forefinger on the back of his hand. Such big hands, but they seem too old to be a part of him: broken nails, an ugly blood blister under one of them. The skin nicked and rough. His hobby: stones, the hammer, the chisel. "I want to know more."
"There's not much left to tell," Rob says, and, as if made speechless by the bitter truth, doesn't try to talk at all for a while.
"I know I want to be an artist," Shannon ventures, thinking it might help to speak of her own deepest concerns. "But lately I've been thinking, maybe that's a selfish attitude. So I'm giving serious thought to the Peace Corps. It's a chance to, you know, broaden my horizons. I've been stuck in the middle of Kansas all my life. But by joining the Peace Corps, it would be like paying tribute to President Kennedy's memory—oh, I know how stupid that sounds, but it's what I feel."
Her fists are clenched; Robert studies her admiringly, and nods.
"What I can't forget," he says, "Is the look on Jackie's face. His blood on her clothes that she had to wear for hours."
"My mother says she didn't have to wear them if she didn't want to. But that's what my mother would say. The assassination just didn't seem to faze her. She has this fatalistic view of things. A church roof falls in on the congregation, a cyclone blows a town apart, oh well. It's almost as if she knows something real bad is going to happen to her, it'll be her turn some day . But I couldn't stop crying. Imagine, all that happening on television?"
"You know what? The world turned bad the day he was shot. And it's not going to get better for a long, long time. Think about all the stuff that's going on in Mississippi and Alabama. We're going to have another Civil War."
"Oh, God, I know," Shannon says, sniffing. "It's
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