The world went not to the meek but to the heart-wrung, the starving, the passionate. The rest barely counted as living. The world went to men like Buzz.
It had been a long time since I’d seen straight through a man. I had spent my days caring for my little boy, and for my husband, and for my house; it was simpler not to notice other people. Other people hide themselves, after all; they work so hard to do it. But a writer once said that pain reveals things. I think that was true of Buzz, when the light came in and I glimpsed the suffering that had brought him to this.
I watched a car’s headlights reach through the window and draw a line across the poor man’s broken nose. It stilled me, and for a moment I believed him. There was the proof of the suffering he was willing to endure. There it was, smashed into his face so he could never for an instant forget it.
“You won’t be abandoned, I promise you that. I’ve thought it all over.”
“I’m sure you have.”
“I can take care of you, Pearlie,” he told me.
I threw Lyle more ice and he caught it, taking it out into the hall where he could fracture it in privacy. “I can’t listen to this.”
“I can help you if you help me.”
He said it very plainly then. For a long time, in that living room, he explained what he had in mind, and I said nothing at all as he described how he would give me his fortune if I would help him. You could say he was bargaining for my husband. “I can take care of you. Think of Sonny, and sending him to college. Life isn’t set, life isn’t done. Think of what you want.”
I said he couldn’t be serious, and he said nothing.
“Help you how?” I took him by the arm but couldn’t look at his face. Instead my eyes searched the room, that old living room of mine, that old witness to the events of my life. The wind blew around the house, and there, through the bottom of the door, a little sand began to make its way in. Off somewhere, a car radio started playing “Kiss of Fire.”
“There is someone in the way,” he said, smiling a little.
I would have lived in the Outside Lands forever, clipping my newspaper by the ocean, vines creeping over the house as in a fairy tale—Sleeping Duty—aunts numbing me from time to time with gifts and stories, kissing my husband every night before I went to bed; I would have borne it. But he came to my house, like a wave at high tide, and ruined the little castle I had built. I could not believe what I was hearing; I knew it was bad for all of us, and what he told me felt like an unearned punishment. Like an electrocution.
“Don’t ever come back here,” I said.
After he left, I closed and locked the door, then every window in the house, as if somehow he’d break in during the night and I’d awaken and find him standing in my living room. “Think about it, please call me,” he said at the door before I closed it on him, “EXbrook 2-8600.” I can still remember the exchange. I sat on the couch with Lyle beside me. Together, we watched the bars of light that moved along the floor as one car after another made its way down our quiet street. We listened to the neighbors calling to one another from house to house, talking about the Rosenberg or the Sheng cases, the conversation drifting until they said good night. After long periods of silence, we could hear the growl of the Pacific. Lyle did not move from my side. My husband did not call. And Buzz did not return.
I drank the rest of the whiskey—half a bottle at least—and then, after the streets were cleared and the cool of the ocean took over the night again, after I went to look at Sonny sleeping with one leg thrown out over the covers, eyelashes matted from a passing nightmare, mouth slightly open like a girl waiting for a kiss, I drunkenly stumbled into my bedroom, weeping, and caught sight of the wastepaper basket.
There, in a mound, lay the clippings: the news I had censored for the sake of Holland’s transposed
It had been a long time since I’d seen straight through a man. I had spent my days caring for my little boy, and for my husband, and for my house; it was simpler not to notice other people. Other people hide themselves, after all; they work so hard to do it. But a writer once said that pain reveals things. I think that was true of Buzz, when the light came in and I glimpsed the suffering that had brought him to this.
I watched a car’s headlights reach through the window and draw a line across the poor man’s broken nose. It stilled me, and for a moment I believed him. There was the proof of the suffering he was willing to endure. There it was, smashed into his face so he could never for an instant forget it.
“You won’t be abandoned, I promise you that. I’ve thought it all over.”
“I’m sure you have.”
“I can take care of you, Pearlie,” he told me.
I threw Lyle more ice and he caught it, taking it out into the hall where he could fracture it in privacy. “I can’t listen to this.”
“I can help you if you help me.”
He said it very plainly then. For a long time, in that living room, he explained what he had in mind, and I said nothing at all as he described how he would give me his fortune if I would help him. You could say he was bargaining for my husband. “I can take care of you. Think of Sonny, and sending him to college. Life isn’t set, life isn’t done. Think of what you want.”
I said he couldn’t be serious, and he said nothing.
“Help you how?” I took him by the arm but couldn’t look at his face. Instead my eyes searched the room, that old living room of mine, that old witness to the events of my life. The wind blew around the house, and there, through the bottom of the door, a little sand began to make its way in. Off somewhere, a car radio started playing “Kiss of Fire.”
“There is someone in the way,” he said, smiling a little.
I would have lived in the Outside Lands forever, clipping my newspaper by the ocean, vines creeping over the house as in a fairy tale—Sleeping Duty—aunts numbing me from time to time with gifts and stories, kissing my husband every night before I went to bed; I would have borne it. But he came to my house, like a wave at high tide, and ruined the little castle I had built. I could not believe what I was hearing; I knew it was bad for all of us, and what he told me felt like an unearned punishment. Like an electrocution.
“Don’t ever come back here,” I said.
After he left, I closed and locked the door, then every window in the house, as if somehow he’d break in during the night and I’d awaken and find him standing in my living room. “Think about it, please call me,” he said at the door before I closed it on him, “EXbrook 2-8600.” I can still remember the exchange. I sat on the couch with Lyle beside me. Together, we watched the bars of light that moved along the floor as one car after another made its way down our quiet street. We listened to the neighbors calling to one another from house to house, talking about the Rosenberg or the Sheng cases, the conversation drifting until they said good night. After long periods of silence, we could hear the growl of the Pacific. Lyle did not move from my side. My husband did not call. And Buzz did not return.
I drank the rest of the whiskey—half a bottle at least—and then, after the streets were cleared and the cool of the ocean took over the night again, after I went to look at Sonny sleeping with one leg thrown out over the covers, eyelashes matted from a passing nightmare, mouth slightly open like a girl waiting for a kiss, I drunkenly stumbled into my bedroom, weeping, and caught sight of the wastepaper basket.
There, in a mound, lay the clippings: the news I had censored for the sake of Holland’s transposed
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