State of Grace Read Online Free Page B

gorgeous ladies. Noodle Man came back before leaving for Fez forever. Nine feet tall and one hundred and three pounds. He went into the Student Union and had a cup of tea. I missed seeing him, however. Oh yes, they love the returning, even though it breaks their hearts. The place is a tomb. The menagerie is buried everywhere. Even so, all the structures are in gay colors. You can see it glowing beneath the fresh cheap paint that the maintenance men have applied.
    Now I see an aerialist, walking his Doberman bitch. The bitch is in heat, flagging everything in sight. The aerialist is old, bald and handsome. Perhaps he is a juggler, he has a sequined groin. He passes very closely to the house. He has pierced ears but no earrings. The dog pulls him along enthusiastically. She’ll outlast him. I wonder what will become of her.
    There’s quite a mob in the streets now. Boys with bright bandanas like apaches. Girls in tennis skirts. The noon siren on the firehouse begins to blow. Everything is drenched insun. It’s like a festival! In the air are chemical experiments and kites and tennis balls. And in the middle of it all walks Father. He’s walking slowly, as though for amusement. I’m not startled for I knew he’d come. Redoubtable Father, it’s him all right. Ablepharous Daddy. There’s no need to ask anyone whether my recognition is true. I leave the porch and run up to my room, and come back down again with my camera. No more than half a minute has gone by. I’m not a year old now, no, I haven’t gained a day. I’m just a tiny thought now, rocking in his sperm and then I go back even further than that. I’m nothing but bloodless warmth like the hot yellow beak of a bird.
    He’s looking at the porch, at the still trembling swing. There’s a red claim check tied to his small and battered leather bag. His coat is rumpled. He turns his lidless eye on me.
    Le temps gagne sans tricher. C’est la loi
.
    I go to him once more, coyly as a bride.

6
     
    In by seven and out by eleven, as the laundress says, and we have to be out of here by noon or we’ll be charged for another day. From the window there is a view of the street. This is the parade route when there are parades, which there is about to be. It is not a fashionable place. It is lodging for those who seek relief and not amusement. It is a way station for those who haven’t traveled for quite some time. It’s in a different class entirely from the motels on the beaches with their Hawaiian bars and their swimming pools. Off to one side of the courtyard is a ping-pong table. Overthe door to the office is a sign, WE ENCOURAGE YOUR INSPECTION . Which is curious, for surely, many times over in America, there are those good people who check out before in, but they do not come here. This place is inhabited by men who lay tile, newspaper reporters nightly eating chicken and drinking wine on the tufted bedspread, the boys who bait the hooks on party boats. This is no place for gifted lovers like ourselves.
    All the lights are orange to keep away the insects. Father doesn’t unpack his suitcase. He draws things out of it secretively. I never had a secret of my own. They were all Father’s and he kept them for both of us.
    Where is Grady? I am not acquainted with him yet. He is down in Artifact I, on the campus, studying. Soon he will want to love me. His hands will grip my waist, his lips move across my stomach.…
    Pardon me, I am so inept at identity. Why is this girl here? Was she a foundling? Had she been ill? She sat on the edge of the bed. Father stood by the coin TV . Was he a visitor? Was she? The veins in her eye pits were white, her cuticles colorless. She’d been sick. Not blood enough to even hemorrhage. Presuppurative puberty. Spreading decline like a citrus tree. Would take years to run its course.
    And Father says, “You come on home where you belong and stop this crazy dreaming. You’re from me and of me.”
    “Yes, Daddy,” I say, “you know me