when she has called out to Jesus again. “This doesn’t mean that I like you. Let’s not be sentimental.” She smiles and pats him on the cheek. “But I sure did like our field trip.
Time for you to go home, honey.”
9
The next morning while he is making poached eggs for himself, his sister calls, as she always does on Sunday morning around ten o’clock. He knows Catherine’s calls from everyone else’s because she never speaks. She just listens while he talks. He does his best to fill his sister in on his life. The phone rings; he answers it. Silence from her. That’s their tradition.
“Hi, Catherine,” he says into the dead roar of long distance. He never asks her anything because there’s no point in asking; she can’t speak. How she can comprehend human speech but not be able to speak herself? A neurological mystery. In any case, every Sunday he has to concoct a newsy monologue for her. “So. I had a pretty good week. The classes are going well. Nothing to complain about there, really. It’s been raining. Friday night I went to a party and met this girl. Actually I’d met her before but we bumped into each other again outside the party, and we went in together. I took her home. And there was somebody else there, at this party, this guy named Coolberg . . . I don’t really know who he is, but he claims to know all about me. I t h e s ou l t h i e f
55
don’t know how he knows. Yesterday afternoon I played basketball with these guys who are usually at this park, and in the morning I worked in the People’s Kitchen and . . .
oh, I almost forgot to tell you. On Friday night I came home and there was a burglar in my apartment, but he was an okay guy and was stoned out of his mind and so I made coffee for him, and believe it or not, we almost became friends, maybe. So, anyway, yesterday I was working at the People’s Kitchen, the one I’ve told you about, and the burglar and his wife came in, Ben and Luceel—that’s their names. They introduced themselves. Funny coincidence. I don’t know, Sis, sometimes I think my life is full of these strange . . .
happenings, these weird events that just drop on me. They remind me of what Jung wrote about concerning coincidences. Carl Jung, the psychologist? He talked about how there are no real accidents. He could be right. And so anyway yesterday afternoon this girl I met on Friday—I called her, her name’s Theresa, and we went over to the art museum here in town and went into a room that was made of mirrors, floor to ceiling. It made me feel, I don’t know, sort of woozy, like I would pass out, like I’d disappear somehow. Then I took her back to her place. I have to study this afternoon, but tonight this girl, Theresa, and I are going out to Niagara Falls, with Coolberg, the one who says he knows me, to see the gods come out. Well, I mean, that’s what he calls it. I don’t really know what he means by that, but I guess I’ll find out . . .”
Just beyond his apartment window an old woman who is pushing a grocery cart stops and stands on the sidewalk, staring in toward him.
“What the gods are, I mean. I thought they were all gone.
Aren’t they?”
A thought: What if this is not his sister on the phone?
56
c h a r l e s b a x t e r
What if he’s talking and telling all this to someone else, not his sister at all, a terribly wrong number, someone who has happened to call him deliberately or by mistake, someone who doesn’t say “Hello” or identify himself when you answer?
But Nathaniel continues to narrate the story of his recent life, into what he thinks is his sister’s silence. After all, she needs his stories. She needs him to talk. The stories keep her alive, or so he believes.
10
On the way to Niagara Falls, at dusk, to see the gods come out, they cross Grand Island. Coolberg sits in the backseat, Theresa reclines on the passenger side, Nathaniel is hunched behind the wheel. They pass a little abandoned amusement park.
Time for you to go home, honey.”
9
The next morning while he is making poached eggs for himself, his sister calls, as she always does on Sunday morning around ten o’clock. He knows Catherine’s calls from everyone else’s because she never speaks. She just listens while he talks. He does his best to fill his sister in on his life. The phone rings; he answers it. Silence from her. That’s their tradition.
“Hi, Catherine,” he says into the dead roar of long distance. He never asks her anything because there’s no point in asking; she can’t speak. How she can comprehend human speech but not be able to speak herself? A neurological mystery. In any case, every Sunday he has to concoct a newsy monologue for her. “So. I had a pretty good week. The classes are going well. Nothing to complain about there, really. It’s been raining. Friday night I went to a party and met this girl. Actually I’d met her before but we bumped into each other again outside the party, and we went in together. I took her home. And there was somebody else there, at this party, this guy named Coolberg . . . I don’t really know who he is, but he claims to know all about me. I t h e s ou l t h i e f
55
don’t know how he knows. Yesterday afternoon I played basketball with these guys who are usually at this park, and in the morning I worked in the People’s Kitchen and . . .
oh, I almost forgot to tell you. On Friday night I came home and there was a burglar in my apartment, but he was an okay guy and was stoned out of his mind and so I made coffee for him, and believe it or not, we almost became friends, maybe. So, anyway, yesterday I was working at the People’s Kitchen, the one I’ve told you about, and the burglar and his wife came in, Ben and Luceel—that’s their names. They introduced themselves. Funny coincidence. I don’t know, Sis, sometimes I think my life is full of these strange . . .
happenings, these weird events that just drop on me. They remind me of what Jung wrote about concerning coincidences. Carl Jung, the psychologist? He talked about how there are no real accidents. He could be right. And so anyway yesterday afternoon this girl I met on Friday—I called her, her name’s Theresa, and we went over to the art museum here in town and went into a room that was made of mirrors, floor to ceiling. It made me feel, I don’t know, sort of woozy, like I would pass out, like I’d disappear somehow. Then I took her back to her place. I have to study this afternoon, but tonight this girl, Theresa, and I are going out to Niagara Falls, with Coolberg, the one who says he knows me, to see the gods come out. Well, I mean, that’s what he calls it. I don’t really know what he means by that, but I guess I’ll find out . . .”
Just beyond his apartment window an old woman who is pushing a grocery cart stops and stands on the sidewalk, staring in toward him.
“What the gods are, I mean. I thought they were all gone.
Aren’t they?”
A thought: What if this is not his sister on the phone?
56
c h a r l e s b a x t e r
What if he’s talking and telling all this to someone else, not his sister at all, a terribly wrong number, someone who has happened to call him deliberately or by mistake, someone who doesn’t say “Hello” or identify himself when you answer?
But Nathaniel continues to narrate the story of his recent life, into what he thinks is his sister’s silence. After all, she needs his stories. She needs him to talk. The stories keep her alive, or so he believes.
10
On the way to Niagara Falls, at dusk, to see the gods come out, they cross Grand Island. Coolberg sits in the backseat, Theresa reclines on the passenger side, Nathaniel is hunched behind the wheel. They pass a little abandoned amusement park.
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