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Whereas the Crells of North Carolina had only recently taken to air passage at all, and were in fact unfamiliar with most forms, and even the idea, of travel.
could feel the ache in Ford then, all the way to the bottom of him, pouring out of him but unrelieved. He touched Ford’s face, fingertips to cheeks, along his neck.
The two were one weight standing, one balance, and in due order, like blossoming, one face opened to the other.
Everything said, Go slow, you are in another kind of time.
“Something about where you came from. What you could do. So I remembered you.” Something about where you came from.
Christmas, and the singer, as far as Ford could tell, was aware of it, was in fact filling the spacious room and all its occupants with the certainty of it. Tidings of comfort and joy.
the interval wore all the trappings of eternity.
he understood that he might never have a wife. Further, he understood that without the wife, the whole studied and perfect life that his family —that he—had envisioned became suddenly at risk.
“Did you know he’s a bachelor?”
He felt himself elevated by all that motion into a state of grace, and while in it he moved through medicine as a dancer through music.
I’m just now getting around to facing facts.”
You need a little support before you take on the whole twenty-nine generations of McKinneys and Strachns.”
When he stood, he towered over his father, and the realization came to him that Father had more to fear, right now, than he did. He spoke as calmly as he could.
One way or the other, it’s going to be me who picks and me who decides.”
The parents remembered their own benevolence, which had seemed so automatic when the children needed everything, which was sometimes absent now that the children had grown.
“Savannah boys grow up to be Savannah men, don’t they? Something to do with evolution of a higher order of being.”
helplessly pressing as if trying to find some point of entrance into his flesh.
Wet lips in Dan’s wet hair. Naked, moist, collapsed, they lay quiet in the library amid the wreckage of their clothing.
“I used to dream about you at the river,” Dan said. “You lived under the water, and you took care of me.” “Me?” “I didn’t know it was you at the time. But it was.”
Dan said, “This is sort of funny, isn’t it?” “It’s right unusual, I guess. What did Ford’s parents say?” Dan lowered his voice. “They told us not to come at all. It really hurt his feelings.”
She found when she was near him that she had grown fond of him, and she touched the top of his head when she came back.
She kept her voice in a gentle range of tones, though as always, when she knelt near this particular spot, her head was full of screaming.
Ellen lowered her voice slightly. “I don’t exactly know what you mean. We all got used to you when you were new.” “Yes, ma’am.” Cherise swallowed.
Dan thought about leaving Ford. Not going anywhere, but leaving. Saying, I don’t want to see you anymore. We’ve taken this as far as we can, but I think it’s time to stop. Ford thought about leaving Dan. Going somewhere to get away from Dan, someplace like San Francisco or Sheridan, Wyoming. Saying, I don’t think we can work this out. I don’t think I’m sexual, really, I don’t think I know how to be.
What I need is a man who isn’t afraid to love me, and you’re afraid of me nearly all the time, in nearly every way that one man can fear another. He said, in his thoughts: You really aren’t as bright as I am and that’s a problem, and it isn’t going away; it’s a problem that will get bigger as time goes by, as you age and become uninteresting to me, except in the physical way, and I could possibly even tire of that. Tire of watching you take off your shirt, tire of the swell of your arms as you curl dumbbells in the bedroom. Tire
Why don’t I want you? And I have to close my mouth when we kiss. And I have to wonder whether you will want to make love tonight, or whether there will be a poison in your ass when I stick my cock inside, or whether the condom will be all right this time, or whether I will squeeze you too hard and you will start to bleed, and then I will have to feel bad because you are so delicate. You really aren’t as bright as I am and that’s a problem; you don’t see the world as clearly as I do, and sometimes your breath smells good to me and sometimes the exact same smell repulses me. And I could possibly
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Why do men stay together? It is easy to understand why they fuck, but why do they stay together, what is the answer? Why do they live in the same house, share meals together, argue about money and parents, why do they have pets, plant begonias, bring home birthday cakes? Where are the children, where is the sense of permanence, what is the tie that binds? Yet they slept peacefully, side by side, and the body of one became adjusted to the rhythm of the other, and the breathing of one slowed the breathing of the other, and they dreamed in tandem and shared fragments of each other’s dreams, and
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Frost formed along the telephone line all the way to Savannah.
If I’m not upset about it, why are they? You’re my grandson. If you don’t want to get married, you shouldn’t do it. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t get married. Not to your grandfather.”
Every day, Ford heard the echo of the conversation with his parents, like a song playing over and over in his head. Every day, he saw the change wrought in Dan by the fact of it.
