to realize my life was meant for other times.”
“But it’s the future I want to know,” said Joel.
Randolph shook his head, and his sleepy sky-blue eyes, contemplating Joel, were sober, serious. “Have you never heard what the wise men say: all of the future exists in the past.”
“At least may I ask a question?” and Joel did not wait for any judgment: “There are just two things I’d like to know, one is: when am I going to see my dad?” And the quietness of the dim parlor seemed to echo when? when?
Gently releasing the hand, Randolph, a set smile stiffening his face, rose and strolled to a window, his loose kimono swaying about him; he folded his arms like a Chinaman into the butterfly sleeves, and stood very still. “When you are quite settled,” he said. “And the other?”
Eyes closed: a dizzy well of stars. Open: a bent tilted room where twin kimonoed figures with curly yellow hair glided back and forth across the lopsided floor. “I saw that Lady, and she was real, wasn’t she?” but this was not the question he’d intended.
Randolph opened the window. The rain had stopped, and cicadas were screaming in the wet summer dark. “A matter of viewpoint, I suppose,” he said, and yawned. “I know her fairly well, and to me she is a ghost.” The night wind blew in from the garden, flourishing the drapes like faded gold flags.
FIVE
Wednesday, after breakfast, Joel shut himself in his room, and went about the hard task of thinking up letters. It was a hot dull morning, and the Landing, though now and again Randolph’s sick cough rattled behind closed doors, seemed, as usual, too quiet, too still. A fat horsefly dived toward the Red Chief tablet where Joel’s scrawl wobbled loosely over the paper: at school this haphazard style had earned him an F in penmanship. He twitched, twirled his pencil, paused twice to make water in the china slopjar so artistically festooned with pink-bottomed cupids clutching watercolor bouquets of ivy and violet; eventually, then, the first letter, addressed to his good friend Sammy Silverstein, read, when finished, as follows:
“You would like the house I am living in Sammy as it is a swell house and you would like my dad as he knows all about airplanes like you do. He doesn’t look much like your dad though. He doesn’t wear specs or smoke cigars, but is tall like Mr Mystery (if Mr Mystery comes to the Nemo this summer write and tell all about it) and smokes a pipe and is very young. He gave me a .22 and when winter comes we will hunt possum and eat possum stew. I wish you could come and visit me as we would have a real good time. One thing we could do is get drunk with my cousin Randolf. We drink alcohol bevrages (sp?) and he is a lot of fun. Its sure not like New Orleans, Sammy. Out here a person old as us is a grown up person. You owe me 20¢. I will forget this det if you will write all news every week. Hello to the gang, remember to write your friend . . .” and with masterly care he signed his name in a new manner: J.H.K. Sansom. Several times he read it aloud; it had a distinguished, adult sound, a name he could readily imagine prefixed by such proud titles as General, Judge, Governor, Doctor. Doctor J.H.K. Sansom, the celebrated operating specialist; Governor J.H.K. Sansom, the people’s choice (“Hello, warden, this is the Governor, just called to say I’ve given Zoo Fever a reprieve”). And then of course the world and all its folks would love him, and Sammy, well, Sammy could sell this old letter for thousands of dollars.
But searching for i’s not dotted, t’s uncrossed, it came to him that almost all he’d written were lies, big lies poured over the paper like a thick syrup. There was no accounting for them. These things he’d said, they should be true, and they weren’t. At home, Ellen was forever airing unwelcome advice, but now he wished he could close his eyes, open them, and see her standing there. She would know what to do.
His
“But it’s the future I want to know,” said Joel.
Randolph shook his head, and his sleepy sky-blue eyes, contemplating Joel, were sober, serious. “Have you never heard what the wise men say: all of the future exists in the past.”
“At least may I ask a question?” and Joel did not wait for any judgment: “There are just two things I’d like to know, one is: when am I going to see my dad?” And the quietness of the dim parlor seemed to echo when? when?
Gently releasing the hand, Randolph, a set smile stiffening his face, rose and strolled to a window, his loose kimono swaying about him; he folded his arms like a Chinaman into the butterfly sleeves, and stood very still. “When you are quite settled,” he said. “And the other?”
Eyes closed: a dizzy well of stars. Open: a bent tilted room where twin kimonoed figures with curly yellow hair glided back and forth across the lopsided floor. “I saw that Lady, and she was real, wasn’t she?” but this was not the question he’d intended.
Randolph opened the window. The rain had stopped, and cicadas were screaming in the wet summer dark. “A matter of viewpoint, I suppose,” he said, and yawned. “I know her fairly well, and to me she is a ghost.” The night wind blew in from the garden, flourishing the drapes like faded gold flags.
FIVE
Wednesday, after breakfast, Joel shut himself in his room, and went about the hard task of thinking up letters. It was a hot dull morning, and the Landing, though now and again Randolph’s sick cough rattled behind closed doors, seemed, as usual, too quiet, too still. A fat horsefly dived toward the Red Chief tablet where Joel’s scrawl wobbled loosely over the paper: at school this haphazard style had earned him an F in penmanship. He twitched, twirled his pencil, paused twice to make water in the china slopjar so artistically festooned with pink-bottomed cupids clutching watercolor bouquets of ivy and violet; eventually, then, the first letter, addressed to his good friend Sammy Silverstein, read, when finished, as follows:
“You would like the house I am living in Sammy as it is a swell house and you would like my dad as he knows all about airplanes like you do. He doesn’t look much like your dad though. He doesn’t wear specs or smoke cigars, but is tall like Mr Mystery (if Mr Mystery comes to the Nemo this summer write and tell all about it) and smokes a pipe and is very young. He gave me a .22 and when winter comes we will hunt possum and eat possum stew. I wish you could come and visit me as we would have a real good time. One thing we could do is get drunk with my cousin Randolf. We drink alcohol bevrages (sp?) and he is a lot of fun. Its sure not like New Orleans, Sammy. Out here a person old as us is a grown up person. You owe me 20¢. I will forget this det if you will write all news every week. Hello to the gang, remember to write your friend . . .” and with masterly care he signed his name in a new manner: J.H.K. Sansom. Several times he read it aloud; it had a distinguished, adult sound, a name he could readily imagine prefixed by such proud titles as General, Judge, Governor, Doctor. Doctor J.H.K. Sansom, the celebrated operating specialist; Governor J.H.K. Sansom, the people’s choice (“Hello, warden, this is the Governor, just called to say I’ve given Zoo Fever a reprieve”). And then of course the world and all its folks would love him, and Sammy, well, Sammy could sell this old letter for thousands of dollars.
But searching for i’s not dotted, t’s uncrossed, it came to him that almost all he’d written were lies, big lies poured over the paper like a thick syrup. There was no accounting for them. These things he’d said, they should be true, and they weren’t. At home, Ellen was forever airing unwelcome advice, but now he wished he could close his eyes, open them, and see her standing there. She would know what to do.
His
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