She sat herself calmly on a wooden chair there, and pulled me down beside her, and held my eyes forwhat seemed like a minute or two but was probably only a systole. She then asked if I was sorry for what I had done, and I said I was, which was true but also, by that point, a thoroughgoing lie. She smiled at this, the lie I think, and leaned in close enough that I could smell the soap and mall-bought eau de toilette in her hair. Her eyes met mine at a distance of two or three inches and allowed me to focus on what I hoped or even believed might be her intention. This accomplished, she reached back and pulled the hair off her neck and whispered, in a voice too womanly for either one of us, “Then blow it dry.”
Pistol
That was my second erotic experience in the rural parts, that I know of, and the only reason I do not count it superior to the first is that it involved no direct dealings with pain and so can hardly be considered representative. I felt little beyond a sudden rush of warmth, and a dizziness that increased the more I stared into those eyes, and blew into that hair, and asked myself whether I would vomit before or after I had kissed that self-satisfied pout. I harbored some further concern that a vomit might propel a further round of alcohol into her hair, and so undo not just the pout but also what delicate ministrations had lately been done in the bathroom, yet I cannot locate any real guilt in the thought. My attention was applied, as it has been ever since, to the aesthetics of the problem: even then I understood that a vomit might rob the scene of its crystalline charm, or else overdo it, and so I resolved to attempt the kiss prior to any discharge, rather than after, which to this day I contend was the proper approach. Sadly, I was unable to test out the theory: word began to go around that a young man, “bullshit” over some perceived slight by a girl on the premises, or possibly out in the ditch, had squired a pistol to the party and was wholly prepared to use it.
This is what I meant, mostly, by the “analogy” business above.
Said development prompted nearly everyone present to make for the relative safety of home, yet a few stayed behind, out ofcuriosity, or gamesmanship, or because they felt safer in the firehouse than they did in the dark of the countryside, all of which I can understand. Later I heard, though the tale may be apocryphal, that these stragglers found themselves obliged to listen while the young man waved his gun around and sang forth his complaint, and that by the time the police arrived he had convinced them all of his need for immediate incarceration, yes, but also of the undeniable righteousness at work, somewhere,
somewhere
, in his decision to come to the party with a gun.
I do not claim to have any such righteousness at work on my behalf, only that I wish to be heard, and that I will take such measures as are necessary to secure myself a pulpit. I am unable, of course, to track down and shoot any member of my congregation who attempts to run off, but this should not be taken to mean that the runner will be safe, for ignorance and loss will attend such a creature always, and cowardice will be its constant shadow, and disdain will be its eternal reward from those who have made no retreat into that demimonde wherein a page or two glanced over is sufficient basis for the lie that the whole has been endured. Were I not word but true flesh I would hunt these carpetbaggers to the ends of the earth, and show them what mercy as they have thought to show me, and water all the dried-up creek beds of my childhood with their blood, and fertilize all the half-starved crops with their innards, and winter-proof every farmhouse window with their skin, and make hippie dreamcatchers out of their bones and sinew, and throw those chunks of them without obvious use (their brains) into the nearest ditch not occupied just then by a pair of country lovers unable to afford, or by their supposed
Pistol
That was my second erotic experience in the rural parts, that I know of, and the only reason I do not count it superior to the first is that it involved no direct dealings with pain and so can hardly be considered representative. I felt little beyond a sudden rush of warmth, and a dizziness that increased the more I stared into those eyes, and blew into that hair, and asked myself whether I would vomit before or after I had kissed that self-satisfied pout. I harbored some further concern that a vomit might propel a further round of alcohol into her hair, and so undo not just the pout but also what delicate ministrations had lately been done in the bathroom, yet I cannot locate any real guilt in the thought. My attention was applied, as it has been ever since, to the aesthetics of the problem: even then I understood that a vomit might rob the scene of its crystalline charm, or else overdo it, and so I resolved to attempt the kiss prior to any discharge, rather than after, which to this day I contend was the proper approach. Sadly, I was unable to test out the theory: word began to go around that a young man, “bullshit” over some perceived slight by a girl on the premises, or possibly out in the ditch, had squired a pistol to the party and was wholly prepared to use it.
This is what I meant, mostly, by the “analogy” business above.
Said development prompted nearly everyone present to make for the relative safety of home, yet a few stayed behind, out ofcuriosity, or gamesmanship, or because they felt safer in the firehouse than they did in the dark of the countryside, all of which I can understand. Later I heard, though the tale may be apocryphal, that these stragglers found themselves obliged to listen while the young man waved his gun around and sang forth his complaint, and that by the time the police arrived he had convinced them all of his need for immediate incarceration, yes, but also of the undeniable righteousness at work, somewhere,
somewhere
, in his decision to come to the party with a gun.
I do not claim to have any such righteousness at work on my behalf, only that I wish to be heard, and that I will take such measures as are necessary to secure myself a pulpit. I am unable, of course, to track down and shoot any member of my congregation who attempts to run off, but this should not be taken to mean that the runner will be safe, for ignorance and loss will attend such a creature always, and cowardice will be its constant shadow, and disdain will be its eternal reward from those who have made no retreat into that demimonde wherein a page or two glanced over is sufficient basis for the lie that the whole has been endured. Were I not word but true flesh I would hunt these carpetbaggers to the ends of the earth, and show them what mercy as they have thought to show me, and water all the dried-up creek beds of my childhood with their blood, and fertilize all the half-starved crops with their innards, and winter-proof every farmhouse window with their skin, and make hippie dreamcatchers out of their bones and sinew, and throw those chunks of them without obvious use (their brains) into the nearest ditch not occupied just then by a pair of country lovers unable to afford, or by their supposed
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