Panorama City Read Online Free Page A

of his truck window, from atop the pancake cushion and the wooden beads. Then the flatbed with the makeshift coffin headed onto the road, leaving behind two black gouges across our little patch of wilderness. People got into their vehicles and followed it into town, they made a parade into Madera. You can tell your children someday that when your grandfather died there was a parade, it was on the news.
    Â 
    There was a service the next day, someone had arranged a service at a church even though we had never gone to church. Only a few people showed up to that, some of them must have been regular churchgoers, I didn’t recognize them. And then Carmen, your mother, your future mother, walked in. I hardly knew her, I mean we had been introduced, Rowdy and Manuel had introduced us, they were painters from Fresno, they had introduced me to your mother, in a manner of speaking, I can’t get into it right now, she is staring daggers at me. I hadn’t seen her since. She came straight down the pew to me but didn’t sit down. She had seen the unburial on television, she said, she had recognized my name. She handed me a bouquet of flowers, she kissed me on the cheek, she said she was sorry to have heard about my loss, and sorry too that she couldn’t stay for the service. Everyone in the church gave her stern looks, she wore clothing that revealed her figure, she wore short skirts and low-cut shirts, people looked down on her for that, which was ridiculous because she had a right to show off her assets, her later words, let them say what they wanted. Officer Mary and I sat in the pews, the pastor gave his sermon, it concerned the well-being of your grandfather’s soul, which I did not understand, which I did not comprehend, your grandfather had never mentioned anything about having a soul. But it seemed important and it was outside the areas of my expertise, which at the time were very small areas and very few, so I listened and kneeled and bowed my head when everyone else did, I mouthed the words like I used to back in school. After the service your grandfather was put into the ground for the second time, in a manner consistent with the general practices outlined in the law, he was put into the ground next to some people called Brown and next to some other people called Kutchinski, miles away from Ajax and Atlas and our piece of wilderness. The burial attracted less of a crowd than the unburial.
    Â 
    Afterward, Mary and I walked to the sandwich place for lunch, it was a strange walk, I mean everything inside my head was strange, I couldn’t absorb what had just happened, everything felt temporary, like I was holding my breath while getting a shot, everything felt tight and suspended, I kept waiting for the moment to be over. But outside my head, too, things were strange, I mean even taking into account my mental state, things had changed around town. Everyone knew about my so-called mistake. Bad newshas wings, your grandfather’s words. Nobody waved from across the street, nobody said, Hello, Mayor. No, the people who saw me, all my friends, they didn’t know what to say, they didn’t say anything. I had always been a target, it came with being tall, it came with being friends with everybody, it came with being called Mayor when technically I wasn’t. Ever since I was a boy, my friends had found ways to trick me one way or another, always in the spirit of goodwill, it was fine with me, it had become fine with me, because I had discovered something early on, while still in grade school. Greg Yerkovich had tricked me into eating a clod of dirt, he had pulled what he called a truffle out of his lunch box, he had asked if anyone wanted it. We didn’t have much money for food and I was on my way to being six and a half feet tall, so I was always hungry, and besides, I was always looking for, I am always looking for new experiences. It was shortly after biting into that dirt clod that I