self-enlightenment.
Some days, after many hours of stories, the son became so real in Bev’s mind that when he came home to the apartment, he half expected the boy to pounce on him before he put his key in the door. But when the lock turned his son vanished, for Elsa would be there, and she was not particularly interested in children, real or not. She was a typist who changed jobs incessantly. Groomed—Mod with exquisite tawdriness, she’d fashioned for Bev the image of a modern woman living the ideal career life. Her salary only fluctuated by pennies from firm to firm, but her importance and value as a knower-of-ropes swelled. She believed herself indispensable, but she heartlessly left employers hanging in their times of worst need to go on to something better.
Beverly adored her.
She was a natural blond with birdlike legs and, true, no chin, but great blue snapping eyes. She smoked exotically, rolling smoke off her tongue, and often told Bev that two weeks from now he might not be seeing her again. Then she would soften toward him. The possibilities she gave up to be with him impressed Bev so much, every time, that it ceased to bother him that Elsa only showed him off to her family in Saint Cloud at the height of summer, when they admired his perfect tan.
The boy, though, who was everywhere in his life and yet nowhere, fit less easily into Bev’s fantasy of how he lived. The boy made him ache in hidden, surprising places sometimes at night when he lay next to Elsa, his knuckles resting lightly against her emphatic spine. That was the limit of touching she would tolerate in slumber. She even took her sleeping breath with a certain rigid meanness, holding it stubbornly and releasing it with small explosive sighs. Bev hardly noticed, though, for beside her his mind raced through the ceilings and walls.
One night he saw himself traveling. He was driving his sober green car westward, past the boundaries of his salesman’s territory, then over the state line and on across to the casual and lonely fields, the rich, dry violet hills of the reservation. Then he was home where his son really lived. Wu came to, the door. He habitually blotted away her face and body, so that in his thoughts she was a doll of flour sacking with a curly black mop on her head. She was simply glad that he had come at last to take the son she had such trouble providing for off her hands.
She was glad–add Henry junior would be wafted into a new and better metropolitan existence.
This scenario became so real through the quiet hours he lay beside Elsa that Bev even convinced himself that his wife would take to Henry junior, in spite of the way she shuddered at children in the streets and whispered
“Monkeys!” And then, by the time the next workday was half over, he’d arranged for a vacation and made an appointment to have a once-over done on his car.
Of course, Lulu was not made of flour sacking and yarn. Beverly had realized that in the immediacy of her arms. She grabbed him for a hug when he got out of his car, and, tired by the long trip, his head whirled for a moment in a haze of yellow spots.
When she released him, the boys sauntered up, poker-faced and mildly suspicious, to stand in a group around him and await their introductions. There seemed to be so many that at first he was speechless. Each of them was Henry junior in a different daydream, at a different age, and so alike were their flat expressions he couldn’t even pick out the one whose picture sold the record number of home workbooks in the Upper Midwestern Regional Division.
Henry junior, of course, was perfectly recognizable after Lulu introduced him. After all, he did look exactly like the picture in Bev’s wallet. He put his hand out and shook manfully like his older brothers, which pleased Bev, although he had trouble containing a moment of confusion at the utter indifference in the boy’s eyes. He had to remember the boy was meeting him for the first time. In a
Some days, after many hours of stories, the son became so real in Bev’s mind that when he came home to the apartment, he half expected the boy to pounce on him before he put his key in the door. But when the lock turned his son vanished, for Elsa would be there, and she was not particularly interested in children, real or not. She was a typist who changed jobs incessantly. Groomed—Mod with exquisite tawdriness, she’d fashioned for Bev the image of a modern woman living the ideal career life. Her salary only fluctuated by pennies from firm to firm, but her importance and value as a knower-of-ropes swelled. She believed herself indispensable, but she heartlessly left employers hanging in their times of worst need to go on to something better.
Beverly adored her.
She was a natural blond with birdlike legs and, true, no chin, but great blue snapping eyes. She smoked exotically, rolling smoke off her tongue, and often told Bev that two weeks from now he might not be seeing her again. Then she would soften toward him. The possibilities she gave up to be with him impressed Bev so much, every time, that it ceased to bother him that Elsa only showed him off to her family in Saint Cloud at the height of summer, when they admired his perfect tan.
The boy, though, who was everywhere in his life and yet nowhere, fit less easily into Bev’s fantasy of how he lived. The boy made him ache in hidden, surprising places sometimes at night when he lay next to Elsa, his knuckles resting lightly against her emphatic spine. That was the limit of touching she would tolerate in slumber. She even took her sleeping breath with a certain rigid meanness, holding it stubbornly and releasing it with small explosive sighs. Bev hardly noticed, though, for beside her his mind raced through the ceilings and walls.
One night he saw himself traveling. He was driving his sober green car westward, past the boundaries of his salesman’s territory, then over the state line and on across to the casual and lonely fields, the rich, dry violet hills of the reservation. Then he was home where his son really lived. Wu came to, the door. He habitually blotted away her face and body, so that in his thoughts she was a doll of flour sacking with a curly black mop on her head. She was simply glad that he had come at last to take the son she had such trouble providing for off her hands.
She was glad–add Henry junior would be wafted into a new and better metropolitan existence.
This scenario became so real through the quiet hours he lay beside Elsa that Bev even convinced himself that his wife would take to Henry junior, in spite of the way she shuddered at children in the streets and whispered
“Monkeys!” And then, by the time the next workday was half over, he’d arranged for a vacation and made an appointment to have a once-over done on his car.
Of course, Lulu was not made of flour sacking and yarn. Beverly had realized that in the immediacy of her arms. She grabbed him for a hug when he got out of his car, and, tired by the long trip, his head whirled for a moment in a haze of yellow spots.
When she released him, the boys sauntered up, poker-faced and mildly suspicious, to stand in a group around him and await their introductions. There seemed to be so many that at first he was speechless. Each of them was Henry junior in a different daydream, at a different age, and so alike were their flat expressions he couldn’t even pick out the one whose picture sold the record number of home workbooks in the Upper Midwestern Regional Division.
Henry junior, of course, was perfectly recognizable after Lulu introduced him. After all, he did look exactly like the picture in Bev’s wallet. He put his hand out and shook manfully like his older brothers, which pleased Bev, although he had trouble containing a moment of confusion at the utter indifference in the boy’s eyes. He had to remember the boy was meeting him for the first time. In a
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