Average hospitable ideaRash wanted to speak but didn’t know what to say. His discomfort tickled me. He was shy but not because of the size of my nipples or the sighs I lied with on the screen. He wanted to make conversation, to carve out a place where he and I could communicate — one way or another. His wants were commonplace and predictable, like the plot of children’s cartoons on PBS. The story was safe, nonviolent, and fully dressed. Three weeks earlier my sometime producer, John Toland, had sent me to a hip-hop party at a music producer’s home in Laurel Canyon. When I walked through the open front door I found myself in an audience of about thirty people. Everyone was black except for little naked white Jolie on her knees giving up-and-comer Fat Phil Harmonik a very energetic blow job. The animal waited there for a while, its black eye staring dumbly into the car. Jean and Emily and the boy in the backseat spoke in the reverent tones of witnesses. Jean was the only one afraid.“Emily wanted to open the window and stroke its nose,” she told me. “The boy in the backseat, well, he got out of the car on the opposite side, and walked slowly around the back of the car to where the antelope was standing. He came up behind it, real slow. The antelope knew he was there, andput out his back leg. Not a kick — just slowly put out his leg, I swear to God, like a hand. And this boy, he held on to the hoof. First he just had one hand on it, as if they were greeting each other. Then he wrapped his other hand around the ankle. He just held the leg for a long time, started petting it, until Emily went out of the car and stroked the antelope’s nose. And the antelope — the pronghorn — let it all happen, back leg out, nose down. And I just watched and watched, afraid that as soon as I opened the window, he’d dart off. Eventually I did open the window, and I was right. The antelope shook free of the boy and ran off into the desert. And the boy — I can’t believe he was your friend — he kept saying on the ride back how the antelope must not have liked something about me. Emily was fine, and he was fine. But something about me scared the animal off. And the boy kept saying we shouldn’t tell anybody about this, like it was a secret between us. I think both Emily and I had a little crush on him. He was young — I didn’t remember he wasthat young— but he was a beautiful, white-haired, serious boy. And so, yeah, we agreed that we wouldn’t tell anyone, that we would keep the antelope — the pronghorn — a secret.” The baby loves to look at photos of babies. And at drawings of babies. And although she doesn’t play with other babies often, she observes them on the street with an especial interest, with much more interest than she gives to a similarly aloof adult. Albeit with less attention than she would give to a dog. It’s a very particular kind of interest, a mirror interest, I am guessing. She doesn’t know yet that she is going to get bigger. She doesn’t yet know that she will become one of us. We are of the large species; she is of the small species. Frightened cries woke Duncan before the dawn bell. Men were rolling out of their pallets, gathering at the far end of the sleeping platform. As Duncan sat up from his pallet, two men darted to the necessary bench and vomited down the holes. He pushed his way through the crowd, then wished he hadn’t. Devon would not take his Sally to the fair. His lifeless eyes gazed up at the roof. The sky is calm along the Eyjafj?ll Range, the gusty region where sheep are blown up onto cliffs and end up starving or having to be shot. I can’t help it, but sometimes I remind myself of a sheep that’s been blown onto a cliff and doesn’t know whether it should let itself fall or wait for someone to be so kind as to come and put a bullet through it. “We used it all, Dr.-” “McCallum!” came the Dutchman’s angry shout. While he was listening, his heart went on beating faster and faster, and in the end he couldn’t stand it any more. He rushed noiselessly to the door and pressed his ear against it, but he still couldn’t understand anything. Finally his nerves snapped and he threw the door open. average hospitable idea Who is the corpse in the coffin, young master? After a moment a frail woman’s voice asked, “Who’s out there?” She who comes to betray at the start of summer: a two-year-old whirlwind who spoke in tongues “The right men?” Tanaqua asked. “I crewed my grandfather’s ketch as a boy,” Duncan said, “in and out of the western isles of Scotland. If we were anchored he would dive off and swim right under the keel each morning. The first time it happened I thought he had drowned for certain. I was leaning over the rail, desperately calling his name, when the old fool put his wet hand on my neck. Scared the hell out of me. He had climbed up the other side and was standing behind me the whole time I was calling him.” “Why grandfather?” Tanaqua asked him. “Why let yourself become a slave?”. |