With a broken-down oven, in a hotel kitchen, on an uninhabited island
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I stopped going to church the night Diane Pearson announced God filled her cavities. That same night, in the spring of 1973, the police arrested my sister, Sheila.
“Darn,” said the eye man. “Darn.” He ran a hand through his long black hair and shook his head. “OK,” he finally said. “OK, OK, OK. Here it is, right? Here it is: I can’t make eyes that will help her son see. No, I can’t do that. But I will make him eyes that will help everyone else see.”
I stood up and reeled. Blood washed from my brain. My vision began to shrink, and the people in the room seemed separated from me by some fold in the air.
I meet with Mikhail Bazankov, a Russian novelist, who tells me the dissolution of the Soviet Union has been a mixed blessing for writers. With the Russian economy in shambles, he explains, it’s difficult to get books published and distributed.
It was during the Christmas season that reports started to circulate about a cross that was appearing in the bathroom of a mobile home owned by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Harley.