anything for me. In fact he reminded me of Ned in that way, except that I hadn’t met Ned yet.
But despite his limitations Louie was kind of a cosmopolitan cat, who had no trouble stepping out of his turf in the Tenderloin. If I tried to lose myself in the Haight, he’d come find me. Once I went all the way to LA and he found me. And I by then knew there were ways I didn’t like to be hurt.
When it came to the point, the answer was simple. I just hadn’t known that I already knew. Louie made it easy for me, because when I touched the bayonet against his rib cage, he really didn’t think I’d do it, didn’t know I would until, for him, it was too late.
I’d learned the essence from my brother, long ago when I was small. You don’t have to worry about resistance. Just keep pushing, and it goes right in.
I’ll kill you if you tell, I said to Laurel, as we were coming out of Ned’s cave that time, but I didn’t mean it in an ugly or threatening way—it was more as if I’d said to her, I love you.
And Laurel seemed to take it as I’d meant it. As she came up blinking into the stark daylight, she swept back her hair and lifted her chin and gave me her most winsome smile. She said, “But you just told me I can never die.”
I don’t know fear, but I began to feel … uneasy. A new sensation, or one I’d not felt for a very long time. As if something were watching me, like prey.
I began to need the rifle with me always. Or as close to me as was feasible, which was often not quite close enough for comfort. Aside from the Pauley-related issues with this particular weapon, it was chancier now to travel with any sort of gun. Since the towers had come down in New York, there was endless trouble and shit about terrorism, and that not only in the east.
As if they really knew what terror was.
I couldn’t take the rifle into work, of course, but I did have it stashed in the trunk of my car, whenever I left the trailer park. At night I took it into my bed and caressed it there, receiving the cold bright taste of metal on my tongue.
I missed the knives I used to own, the steel blade and the stone one. A gun, by comparison, lacked intimacy. But I had lost the knives I once had claimed, cast them away, despite their numinosity. Where did they go?
Sometimes by night there came the wash and clatter of helicopter blades, circling over the rim where the town met the desert. In the silence after the chopper was gone, I felt the pressure of regard more keenly. Even through the trailer’s flimsy roof. The eye of some invisible raptor high above.
I couldn’t touch Laurel when she came back from her excursion with Ned. I couldn’t reach her in any way. She had been raped before, one time or several. I knew it, though I’m not sure how I knew. Her eyes were blank. She lay curled in a ball. She didn’t want me or anyone else to lay a finger on her.
D—— knew. D—— witnessed the depth to which she was cast down, and I think that may have been part of the reason he asked both of us to go to the canyon that night—not only because he knew what we could do. He wanted to give her something to get her over it, get her past the harm that he had caused her.
But I had already done my part, to help her rise above it. My part, which was probably also his. Where else after all could the voice have come from? The One voice that spoke to me louder now and at greater length and in more detail than was usual. That told me what I must convey to Laurel.
How nothing of such mortal nature could touch either one of us anymore—not where we lived forever. Because we were One with the mask of D—— we had only to know our immortality. Zoë —the great wheel of our exit and return. All of these powers were already ours, if we but knew it. We had only to seal our knowledge with a sacrifice.
Now when I went out through the tear in the fence it was always too bright, no matter how far I walked toward the distance, like a spider
But despite his limitations Louie was kind of a cosmopolitan cat, who had no trouble stepping out of his turf in the Tenderloin. If I tried to lose myself in the Haight, he’d come find me. Once I went all the way to LA and he found me. And I by then knew there were ways I didn’t like to be hurt.
When it came to the point, the answer was simple. I just hadn’t known that I already knew. Louie made it easy for me, because when I touched the bayonet against his rib cage, he really didn’t think I’d do it, didn’t know I would until, for him, it was too late.
I’d learned the essence from my brother, long ago when I was small. You don’t have to worry about resistance. Just keep pushing, and it goes right in.
I’ll kill you if you tell, I said to Laurel, as we were coming out of Ned’s cave that time, but I didn’t mean it in an ugly or threatening way—it was more as if I’d said to her, I love you.
And Laurel seemed to take it as I’d meant it. As she came up blinking into the stark daylight, she swept back her hair and lifted her chin and gave me her most winsome smile. She said, “But you just told me I can never die.”
I don’t know fear, but I began to feel … uneasy. A new sensation, or one I’d not felt for a very long time. As if something were watching me, like prey.
I began to need the rifle with me always. Or as close to me as was feasible, which was often not quite close enough for comfort. Aside from the Pauley-related issues with this particular weapon, it was chancier now to travel with any sort of gun. Since the towers had come down in New York, there was endless trouble and shit about terrorism, and that not only in the east.
As if they really knew what terror was.
I couldn’t take the rifle into work, of course, but I did have it stashed in the trunk of my car, whenever I left the trailer park. At night I took it into my bed and caressed it there, receiving the cold bright taste of metal on my tongue.
I missed the knives I used to own, the steel blade and the stone one. A gun, by comparison, lacked intimacy. But I had lost the knives I once had claimed, cast them away, despite their numinosity. Where did they go?
Sometimes by night there came the wash and clatter of helicopter blades, circling over the rim where the town met the desert. In the silence after the chopper was gone, I felt the pressure of regard more keenly. Even through the trailer’s flimsy roof. The eye of some invisible raptor high above.
I couldn’t touch Laurel when she came back from her excursion with Ned. I couldn’t reach her in any way. She had been raped before, one time or several. I knew it, though I’m not sure how I knew. Her eyes were blank. She lay curled in a ball. She didn’t want me or anyone else to lay a finger on her.
D—— knew. D—— witnessed the depth to which she was cast down, and I think that may have been part of the reason he asked both of us to go to the canyon that night—not only because he knew what we could do. He wanted to give her something to get her over it, get her past the harm that he had caused her.
But I had already done my part, to help her rise above it. My part, which was probably also his. Where else after all could the voice have come from? The One voice that spoke to me louder now and at greater length and in more detail than was usual. That told me what I must convey to Laurel.
How nothing of such mortal nature could touch either one of us anymore—not where we lived forever. Because we were One with the mask of D—— we had only to know our immortality. Zoë —the great wheel of our exit and return. All of these powers were already ours, if we but knew it. We had only to seal our knowledge with a sacrifice.
Now when I went out through the tear in the fence it was always too bright, no matter how far I walked toward the distance, like a spider
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