Let the Dark Flower Blossom (37 page)

I closed the book.

“Is it good?” I said.

He laughed.

“It's a mystery,” he said.

He raised his glass.

I raised my glass.

“
Be true
,” I said.

He drank.

He coughed.

He laughed.

He clapped his hands.

“
Be true
,” he said.

“It was a helluva rule for a liar,” he said.

The glass rolled on its side.

He picked up the fallen glass.

Looked down into it.

He looked at me.

“I'm dying,” he said.

“It's my heart,” he said.

“Don't kill off your protagonist,” I said.

He laughed.

He might not have said
heart
.

He might have said
ticker
.

I might not have said
protagonist
.

I might have said
main character
.

He was weary.

He was drunk.

He was. He might have been dying.

But then aren't we all?

I said, “Never talk about truth in a truthful way.”

He raised himself on his elbow—

And then fell back.

“There is no story,” I said.

“No girl, no book?” he said.

“No story?” he said.

“What the hell,” he said.

“No girl?” he said.

“No book?” he said.

He rested his head on the pillow.

He slipped off one shoe.

It fell to the floor.

He cradled his glass on his belly.

The glass slipped.

His eyes closed.

I noticed.

Just then.

The faint scent of licorice.

Like the story says.

And the hills were like white elephants.

The glass fell from his hand.

And rolled across the carpet.

I left the room.

I closed the door.

The next night I went to his lecture with Susu.

It was two days before her wedding.

And she found a dark spot on her white dress.

She took this as a portent.

I took her to see him.

He talked about television.

He told the old stories.

And he gave me Salt's book.

He took Susu by the arm and whispered—

I couldn't hear what he said.

Caught up in the clamor of Ro's readers.

She bent her face against his.

Her dark hair.

Her silly name.

She pushed her dark hair from her face.

Susu and I walked out into the night.

I looked at the book.

I asked her if she wanted it.

She said, “Oh god no.”

And laughed.

She opened the book.

“What did he say to you?” I asked her.

She tilted her head.

The summer night.

She said, “In the room the women come and go talking of Joe DiMaggio.”

“I don't know what it means,” she said.

“Do you?” she asked.

“Whatta riot,” she said.

“Whatta mystery,” she laughed.

And she took my arm.

She didn't want the book.

She was so tired of serious young men.

It is night. Beatrice and I had a quiet dinner. Of mushrooms, artichoke hearts, dried love apples, bread, pomegranate jam, and almond butter.

She rose and collected our plates.

“Why don't you go to Father's library?” she said.

“I'll bring you coffee,” she said.

“And you can finish the story,” she said.

“I'll bring you cake,” she said.

Beatrice said, “Don't tell me how the story ends.”

It is not a story.

It was never a story.

And I did not write it.

I did not write a book.

I did not begin.

Not until I knew that Roman was dead.

Not until Salt asked.

And then I began this story.

I thought Salt wanted a story. He wanted my typewriter. He wanted a machine and instead he got a ghost.

I wanted to believe in Salt.

I wanted to see for myself—

If Ben Salt could save us.

Because all the poetry in the world won't.

Salt has been here and gone.

He came to my archipelago.

He was here. He was real.

Or at least: real enough.

If he is a monster.

Then he is my monster.

Beatrice in the kitchen has fallen asleep at the table.

I find her.

With her head cradled upon her folded arms.

She wakes.

Her gray eyes open.

Like Pallas Athena.

Who was born of her father's wisdom.

Her dark hair is tousled, and her face is soft. She gives me her sleepy girlish ramble of words alluding to her dreams and eluding what monster chased her through them.

And I see only her father.

There is a saying that the hand of God is in every story.

It is just as likely that at night the great black cape of Mephistopheles shrouds the sky.

And that the descent to hell is the same from every place.

I will start here.

I will keep my vigil.

I will keep telling my story.

It is not a story.

It is a confession.

It is not a confession.

It is a thing.

Like a flower.

Or a bird.

Like a knife.

Like an ax.

Like snow.

Like a table.

Like a chair.

Or the girl tied to it.

Like a grave.

Or the girl buried in it.

I'll start again.

I met Prudence Goodman.

Who was good.

As her names implies.

Who painted abstracts in pink and blue.

And just when I thought—

That I could escape the past.

Pru took ill.

Or the illness took her.

It would not relent.

It bashed her. It beat her.

It knocked her down.

It had its way.

With her.

While I watched.

And could do nothing.

Pru grew ill.

(Oh
Shel
, Pru would say here.
Shut up already. Get to the good part. Tell them how you gave me the boot and then got all the loot. Tell them that part
, she would say.)

Pru began her last painting in dark green and brown.

Pru was dying.

Pru was painting a picture.

Of a girl in the woods.

Who fought and struggled.

And then stopped fighting and struggling.

And gave in.

The picture on the canvas began to take shape.

Each day as the canvas darkened.

As there was more of it—

There was less and less of her.

Pru never finished the painting.

The blackbirds lined up on the fence.

And the garden grew wild.

With no one to tend to it.

I did not pity her.

Because whether it was Mother who killed Father.

Or Father who killed Mother.

Is entirely irrelevant.

I was—I am—I cannot escape being their child.

When the time came—

I gave Pru the medicine.

The story.

She died.

I went on living—

With the image of her waiting on that bridge for me on her bicycle the night that we met: in her scarf and coat; waiting by the dark water.

Waiting for me to answer her question.

And when she asks me.

When she asks again.

What is the worst thing that you have ever done?

I will know what to say.

It is not a story.

And I will keep telling it.

One night in Little America.

Where boys rolled the universe into a ball and kicked it along those dark shady lanes.

One night in Little America.

Pru slipped a strap from her shoulder and kissed me by the scratching hands of lilacs.

One night.

Or maybe it was day.

In the full sun of summer.

Pru told me that she was dying.

And I did not believe her.

“Let anger be general,” she said.

I hate an abstract thing.

One night in Iowa.

Roman Stone died.

While watching a baseball game.

Roman Stone is dead.

But then you already know this.

It is not too late, I think.

Nor is it too early.

It is time to tell the story.

If it was. If it were.

A story.

I would tell it like this.

Pru died. She left me her soda pop loot.