We walk in and get a table in the corner. Just above our heads, shafts of
sunlight, heavy with silvery motes, cascade over us like a transparent roof.
We eat and talk happily and Steve asks me about Europe and what it was
like.
While the old man slept, I stared out the window. I took photographs
of the cubicle, of the old man sleeping, of the oscilating fan... of the
civic posters hectoring the populace to improve their public behavior.
Eden is an old person, telling the same stories, over and over, again
and again, and there are no healthy young men left in the small town, all
have gone to Vietnam or college. Joe Munday is a different story, a
Bohemian poet from Alabama with white socks and a beard--new, bright,
young male eyes for Ramona to study her likeness in. He is both
uncertainty and change.
Richard Conch. The kind of name that spelled Idiot. In meeting people
he could never begin with a blank slate-- in meeting people he was already
fighting his name that hung on his face like a piece of goat cheese.
"She's an enchantress," Noah sighed. He'd played footsies with Louise-she
of the jetty skin and mask-like smile-while Dolores and the Englishman
argued the pros and cons of legalizing hemp.
I always carry dimes for times exactly like these. And no junkie on
Ninth Street was more desperate than I as I stuck my hand in my bag for
another one.
