[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
visited after dark without fear. The stillness, the calmness: marauders seldom
lurked there.
He took a bench and sat staring off across the cave of water. The pain was
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
persistent and he massaged the inner comers of his eyes with a gentle
fingertip.
There had been a woman he had met at a cocktail party. From Maine. He
hesitated to think of her in such simplified ways, but there was no denying
her sweetness and virginity.
Congregationalist, raised too well for life in this city, she had come here
from Maine to work in publishing, and the men had not been good to her.
Attracted by her well-scrubbed face and
her light, gentle manner, they had stepped out with her two, three, once even
four times. But she had been raised too well for life taken in late-night
sessions, and they had drifted back to their meat racks and their loneliness
mutually shared. One had even suggested she seduce a platonic friend of hers,
a gentle young man coming to grips with his sexuality, and then she would be
fit for a proper affair. She had asked him to leave. The following week he was
seeing the wife of a production assistant at the publishing house in which
they all labored, and the girl from Maine had signed up for tap dancing
lessons.
She had met Brubaker at the cocktail party and they had talked, leaning out
the thirty-
first floor window to escape the smoke and the chatter.
It became clear to him that she had decided he was the one. Reality and
upbringing waged their war in her, and she had decided to capitulate. He
walked her home and she said, Come in for a graham cracker. I have lots of
them. He said, What time is it? His watch said 12:07. I ll come up till
twelve-fifteen. She smiled shyly and said, I m being aggressive. It s not
easy for me. He said, I don t want to come up for very long. We might get
into trouble. He meant it. He liked her. But she was hurting. It s not a
kind of trouble you haven t been in before, she said. He smiled gently and
said, No, but it s a kind of trouble you ve never been in.
But he could not refuse her. And he was good with her, as good as he could be,
accepting the responsibility, hoping when she found the man she had been
saving herself for, he would be very very loving. At least, he knew, he had
put her out of reach of the kind of men who sought virgins. Neither the sort
who would marry only a virgin, nor the predators who went on safari for such
endangered species were human enough for her.
And when he left, the next morning, he had a headache. The same pinpoint of
anguish that now pulsed between and above his eyes as he sat in the park. He
had felt changed after leaving her, just as he did tonight. Was there a
diminishing taking place?
Why did imperfect people seek him out and need him?
He knew himself to be no wiser, no nobler, no kinder than most people were
capable of being, if given the chance. But he seemed to be a focal point for
those who were in need of kindness; gentle words, soft touches. It had always
been so for him. Yet he had no needs of his own.
Was it possible never to be touched, to give endlessly, no matter how much was
asked, and never to name one s own desire? It was like living behind a pane of
one-way glass;
seeing out, while no one could see in. Polyphemus, the one-eyed, trapped in
his cave, ready victim for all the storm-tossed Odysseus creatures who came to
him unbidden. And like
Polyphemus, denied half his sight; was he always to be a victim of the
storm-tossed? Was there a limit to how much he could give? All he knew of need
was what was demanded of him, blind in one eye to personal necessities.
The wind rose and shivered the tops of the trees.
It smelled very clean and fresh. As she had.
Out on the East River a dark shape slid smoothly across his line of sight and
he thought of some lonely scow carrying the castoff remnants of life downtide
to a nameless grave where blind fish and things with many legs sculled through
Page 149
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
the darkness, picking over the remains.
He rose from the bench and walked down through the park. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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visited after dark without fear. The stillness, the calmness: marauders seldom
lurked there.
He took a bench and sat staring off across the cave of water. The pain was
Page 148
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
persistent and he massaged the inner comers of his eyes with a gentle
fingertip.
There had been a woman he had met at a cocktail party. From Maine. He
hesitated to think of her in such simplified ways, but there was no denying
her sweetness and virginity.
Congregationalist, raised too well for life in this city, she had come here
from Maine to work in publishing, and the men had not been good to her.
Attracted by her well-scrubbed face and
her light, gentle manner, they had stepped out with her two, three, once even
four times. But she had been raised too well for life taken in late-night
sessions, and they had drifted back to their meat racks and their loneliness
mutually shared. One had even suggested she seduce a platonic friend of hers,
a gentle young man coming to grips with his sexuality, and then she would be
fit for a proper affair. She had asked him to leave. The following week he was
seeing the wife of a production assistant at the publishing house in which
they all labored, and the girl from Maine had signed up for tap dancing
lessons.
She had met Brubaker at the cocktail party and they had talked, leaning out
the thirty-
first floor window to escape the smoke and the chatter.
It became clear to him that she had decided he was the one. Reality and
upbringing waged their war in her, and she had decided to capitulate. He
walked her home and she said, Come in for a graham cracker. I have lots of
them. He said, What time is it? His watch said 12:07. I ll come up till
twelve-fifteen. She smiled shyly and said, I m being aggressive. It s not
easy for me. He said, I don t want to come up for very long. We might get
into trouble. He meant it. He liked her. But she was hurting. It s not a
kind of trouble you haven t been in before, she said. He smiled gently and
said, No, but it s a kind of trouble you ve never been in.
But he could not refuse her. And he was good with her, as good as he could be,
accepting the responsibility, hoping when she found the man she had been
saving herself for, he would be very very loving. At least, he knew, he had
put her out of reach of the kind of men who sought virgins. Neither the sort
who would marry only a virgin, nor the predators who went on safari for such
endangered species were human enough for her.
And when he left, the next morning, he had a headache. The same pinpoint of
anguish that now pulsed between and above his eyes as he sat in the park. He
had felt changed after leaving her, just as he did tonight. Was there a
diminishing taking place?
Why did imperfect people seek him out and need him?
He knew himself to be no wiser, no nobler, no kinder than most people were
capable of being, if given the chance. But he seemed to be a focal point for
those who were in need of kindness; gentle words, soft touches. It had always
been so for him. Yet he had no needs of his own.
Was it possible never to be touched, to give endlessly, no matter how much was
asked, and never to name one s own desire? It was like living behind a pane of
one-way glass;
seeing out, while no one could see in. Polyphemus, the one-eyed, trapped in
his cave, ready victim for all the storm-tossed Odysseus creatures who came to
him unbidden. And like
Polyphemus, denied half his sight; was he always to be a victim of the
storm-tossed? Was there a limit to how much he could give? All he knew of need
was what was demanded of him, blind in one eye to personal necessities.
The wind rose and shivered the tops of the trees.
It smelled very clean and fresh. As she had.
Out on the East River a dark shape slid smoothly across his line of sight and
he thought of some lonely scow carrying the castoff remnants of life downtide
to a nameless grave where blind fish and things with many legs sculled through
Page 149
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
the darkness, picking over the remains.
He rose from the bench and walked down through the park. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]