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The Law Of Relation

(Part Two)

They are lovers. He told me last night at 3 a.m., after we had taken several long walks, talking and coming to no resolution. After weeks of fighting, absolutely at cross-purposes, as though we were speaking entirely different languages.

Walking

Clea took my hand and we swung arms like little kids. At college, I would never hold hands walking down the street. But here, I didn’t care who saw me or what they thought.

Lakestone, Minnesota

My heart bristled a little around the edges at the mention of Anna, but it was more like the wings of a bird, hit and dead on the highway, whose feathers flutter a moment from the movement of a passing Chevy.

Bobby D And The Boys

Robert DeNiro is getting into character. He’s been talking to his agent about doing some kind of working-class movie, something set in the steel mills of Gary, Indiana, or the factories of New Jersey.

Sam

There was a scarecrow named Sam. He lived in a field of corn, with no shelter from the sun and snow. He wore an old felt hat — gray — and a faded black suit jacket.

Company

The Heavenly Smile Studio

Eddie thought. “And does The Man With No Head ever go to the photographer?” “Yes.” “And when the photographer asks him to smile?” “He spreads his arms.”

Earned Wisdom

A not so dirty book, the alchemy of experience, Spanish lessons

Falling Water

I sense that my preacher friend isn’t playing with a full deck. I suspect he views certain people as angels and remembers them as colors.

The Wizard

I knew old Wiggins years before he scandalized the area newspapers, because he was part of my childhood, like the pine tree with the tire swing and the forbidden, ancient barn I explored in secret.