One day, trying to find their way on
a road just outside the desert, he catches a glimpse
of something in the mirror. It's his red tail snaking
and waving in the blue wind. It comes from under and
behind his backrest, but that's not so weird, any .
. .
 . . . more. The tail's sharp point is like a cartoon arrow, glowing with knowledge,
pointing at her in accusation. He looks at her and then gives her a mega-acid
smile. It's one of his moments of perfect vision.
She realizes what's going on and says, "Sorry Adam." It's
an admission that she's been skipping around with some
other guy. She's stabbing him in the back and he decides
to get even. He tells her so.
They drive on as before. She might be
thinking that Adam wants to do something to the other
guy because she isn't worried. Then he stops the car,
asks her if she wants to see a magic trick. His games
are strange, but fun to follow.
Adam gets out, runs around to the trunk and opens
it. She follows him to see what's going on. He has
the parts to a bic lighter in his hands and suddenly
he throws a flash of smoke at her that lights up both
their faces, even in this daylight. Then he takes the
knife from the trunk.
It's hard to chase her on the sand, but he catches
up and knocks her to the ground. They fall softly.
They roll on the dunes. The road is far away and the
car can't be seen.
Between the sky and sand, Adam gets lost in his thoughts
of pairs and symmetry. Through his eyes he sees her
and her two eyes just as she is seeing him and his
two eyes through hers. Legs on legs and hands on hands
and lips on lips. As reflections of each other, neither
can tell who starts what and who continues it, who
gets or who gives. Kiss, kiss; sigh, sigh--the fundamental
things apply.
And time goes by.
Adam closes the trunk and gets in the car. He leaves
her on the dunes, where nothing is found, stabbed twice
in the back.
Two years later--I remember this because I know him
by now--he's really into driving around. It's what
he does instead of anything else.
He says he's going out to look for adventures and
wastes gallons and gallons of gas until he sees something
worth stopping for. He sneaks into a construction site
and, from a surveying rig, steals a mirror that only
reflects the eye of the beholder. Adam says he's found
Beauty. Or he takes me to a playground lost in overgrown
weeds inside the loop of a freeway on-ramp. Or he leaves
town to mail an empty envelope with postage due. In
the midst of this driving around, he manages to crash
his car three times in three days.
Nothing really bad. All he has to do is take the dents
out of the right door and fender, where he gets hit
by cars on Saturday and Monday, and clean up the blood
from the guy he ran over on Sunday.
I don't see him for a week after that. When I do,
I ask him what's up. He says, "I'm painting me."
Adam's shown me the self-portraits. One with a tail,
one with feathery wings. Both with the same smile and
devious eyebrows. They are perfect.
* * * * *
An apparently straight time line is actually a wave
pattern. Each antinode in the wave is marked by an
event repetition of the antinode before last. The second
happening is not an exact duplicate of the first. It
is a pulse bounced back, a ghost repetition, an echo. |
