era any more. Most stopped singing. Others lost their minds.
He feels a marrow-chill, a lonely burst. Perhaps he should have accepted Phillipâs invitation, after all. Jane is a good-looking woman, well-disposed toward him. Maybe he could charm her into â¦
A twinge in the throat. His nose is bleeding, damn it. He doesnât have a Kleenex. He wipes the blood on his hand, scrabbles in his pocket for his keys. In the stairwell the neighbor kid is moving her bike. âMy daddyâs going to fix the spokes,â she says. The bike is too heavy for her; he helps her carry it to the next landing, all the while trying to stanch the stream from his nose. The child smiles at him, broadly. âThanks.â
âNo problem.â
âAre you okay?â
âFine.â This is still a world worth preserving, he thinks, though-as heâd like to say to the girl-we must never stop arguing with it for the general improvement of its behavior and health.
He bloodies two handkerchiefs, cleaning his face. His favorite shirtâs spotted red. Leftover chili. Itâs just as well he didnât ask Jane to come by.
âJazz Todayâ is featuring The Matterhorn Suite in Four Movements by the Louie Bellson Drum Explosion. A whip-crack of golden cornets, then softer, slower, the purr of the bass, the slide of the hi-hat, smooth as K-Y Jelly. He saw Louie Bellson once, in the village. Working hard at the Vanguard. The memory is so pleasant he laughs out loud.
Later, his head hurts so he kisses the drums goodbye and searches through his records for harpsichord tunes. Something sacred and soothing. Is anything more sacred than the lambent strains of a harpsichord? He used to have an Igor Kipnis collection â or did he give it to a friend? He used to buy music, prints for his walls. He used to see movies. He remembers the title of a particularly gripping film, The Onion Field , but the storyâs a blank to him now, the actors unknown. His life is getting leaner. The cupboard bare. When did this start? How did it happen? He feels vaguely upset about it, but not enough to change anything. At least not tonight.
Before returning to his letters he clears a little space on his desk, finds, by coincidence, an old Xerox of a cablegram heâd sent Brezhnev in â74, when Solzhenitsyn was arrested. He remembers, two years later on an exchange tour, smuggling a packet of erotic lithographs by a banned artist out of Moscow. He feels a breath of nostalgia, the flush of success, enough to get him through the evening. He certainly would like some harpsichord music, though. For company he punches Channel Five. A man in a bad toupee leaps into a car from the roof of a bank. He punches it off.
He believes he smells Vietnamese cooking through the floor. The apartment below? Who lives there now? Probably just an aftershock of the dayâs thoughts. When he thinks of the war now, it seems to him a faraway, dissonant chord.
Someone shouts in the street. The first snow falls. He doesnât sleep well. At midnight, heâs in the bathroom, throwing up his chili. In the toilet he sees a spot of blood. He lights a Camel, pours himself a Scotch.
______
He dreams of East Texas. His grandfather had a windmill that wouldnât move, even in a gale. The bolts were rusted fast. Heâd sit with the old man and his gimpy mule all day, watching the sun course through the sky. The ranchâs failure didnât much trouble the family. Or the mule. He admired his grandfather, immodestly: an eminently practical man with a natural gift for metaphor. âNowadays,â he said, âI donât worry about which way the wind blows.â
______
Four A.M. : the hour of shuttered storefronts, vacant fire escapes. Sweats and chills. From his window he sees teens on the street, siphoning gas from a parked VW van. Sees smoke by the river. Hears a man and a woman through the wall-perhaps the couple heâd seen
He feels a marrow-chill, a lonely burst. Perhaps he should have accepted Phillipâs invitation, after all. Jane is a good-looking woman, well-disposed toward him. Maybe he could charm her into â¦
A twinge in the throat. His nose is bleeding, damn it. He doesnât have a Kleenex. He wipes the blood on his hand, scrabbles in his pocket for his keys. In the stairwell the neighbor kid is moving her bike. âMy daddyâs going to fix the spokes,â she says. The bike is too heavy for her; he helps her carry it to the next landing, all the while trying to stanch the stream from his nose. The child smiles at him, broadly. âThanks.â
âNo problem.â
âAre you okay?â
âFine.â This is still a world worth preserving, he thinks, though-as heâd like to say to the girl-we must never stop arguing with it for the general improvement of its behavior and health.
He bloodies two handkerchiefs, cleaning his face. His favorite shirtâs spotted red. Leftover chili. Itâs just as well he didnât ask Jane to come by.
âJazz Todayâ is featuring The Matterhorn Suite in Four Movements by the Louie Bellson Drum Explosion. A whip-crack of golden cornets, then softer, slower, the purr of the bass, the slide of the hi-hat, smooth as K-Y Jelly. He saw Louie Bellson once, in the village. Working hard at the Vanguard. The memory is so pleasant he laughs out loud.
Later, his head hurts so he kisses the drums goodbye and searches through his records for harpsichord tunes. Something sacred and soothing. Is anything more sacred than the lambent strains of a harpsichord? He used to have an Igor Kipnis collection â or did he give it to a friend? He used to buy music, prints for his walls. He used to see movies. He remembers the title of a particularly gripping film, The Onion Field , but the storyâs a blank to him now, the actors unknown. His life is getting leaner. The cupboard bare. When did this start? How did it happen? He feels vaguely upset about it, but not enough to change anything. At least not tonight.
Before returning to his letters he clears a little space on his desk, finds, by coincidence, an old Xerox of a cablegram heâd sent Brezhnev in â74, when Solzhenitsyn was arrested. He remembers, two years later on an exchange tour, smuggling a packet of erotic lithographs by a banned artist out of Moscow. He feels a breath of nostalgia, the flush of success, enough to get him through the evening. He certainly would like some harpsichord music, though. For company he punches Channel Five. A man in a bad toupee leaps into a car from the roof of a bank. He punches it off.
He believes he smells Vietnamese cooking through the floor. The apartment below? Who lives there now? Probably just an aftershock of the dayâs thoughts. When he thinks of the war now, it seems to him a faraway, dissonant chord.
Someone shouts in the street. The first snow falls. He doesnât sleep well. At midnight, heâs in the bathroom, throwing up his chili. In the toilet he sees a spot of blood. He lights a Camel, pours himself a Scotch.
______
He dreams of East Texas. His grandfather had a windmill that wouldnât move, even in a gale. The bolts were rusted fast. Heâd sit with the old man and his gimpy mule all day, watching the sun course through the sky. The ranchâs failure didnât much trouble the family. Or the mule. He admired his grandfather, immodestly: an eminently practical man with a natural gift for metaphor. âNowadays,â he said, âI donât worry about which way the wind blows.â
______
Four A.M. : the hour of shuttered storefronts, vacant fire escapes. Sweats and chills. From his window he sees teens on the street, siphoning gas from a parked VW van. Sees smoke by the river. Hears a man and a woman through the wall-perhaps the couple heâd seen
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