The Last of the Wise Lovers Read Free Page B

a few broad hints about what was waiting for me.  When we got
to an intersection, she looked at me in the yellow light as if she was seeing
for the first time the made-up face, the tousled hair, and the fake boobs that
were slung unevenly across the front of my chest.
     "What could you have possibly wanted
there, after you'd promised me... ?" she said.  Another time, from
within the darkness of the highway, she let fall, as if continuing a sentence
she'd begun in her head, "You realize that the next car, if there'll be a
next car, will be off limits for you." I didn't say anything.  I just
kept going over and over in my head the message I'd been asked to deliver.
 I felt like a suffering martyr, like a hero who'd been temporarily
wronged.
       When we got home, Mom paid the
driver, went inside, kicked off her shoes and plopped down in the kitchen,
flexing her toes irritably.  I tore off the remainder of my costume, put
on a pair of jeans and collapsed into the chair opposite her.
    "I couldn't say anything the whole way,"
I said with an expression worthy of the moment in which my capacity for
restraint would be revealed, "because of the taxi driver.  But what
happened was no accident."
       She looked at me without speaking.
       "Someone smashed the window, got
into the back seat and said something very strange about the 7th of
September."
       She impatiently let out some air.
 "Instead of fantasizing, perhaps you'd care to tell me what you were
doing there."
       And here I should tell you something
that you may or may not know: they don't really believe me at home, mostly
because of this stage I went through once, where I would make up all sorts of
stories, like that Dad was Mom's second husband and that my real Dad was a
champion skier living in France; or that the old Fairmont was just a temporary
replacement for our Lincoln Continental, which was in the garage being equipped
with anti-attack defense devices.  But those days were long gone.  I'd
grown up since then.  Nevertheless, no one ever forgot.  Mom found a
way "to see the matter in a positive light" (she's sure that my
tendency to stretch the truth means I'll someday be a great writer).  Dad,
on the other hand, turns this searing gaze on me every time I tell a story, so
that even when I'm telling the truth I check the details twice to make sure
that I'm not making a mistake, or exaggerating. 
       Therefore, I tried to be very
precise.  When I got to the part about the guy who broke the window in the
Lincoln Tunnel, Mom nodded her head and said with a tense look on her face,
"Maybe I made a mistake when you were twelve and I forgave your lies.
 Your father said that they were a sign of a weak character, and he was
right.  Today we're reaping the benefits."
       "I'm not lying...”
       "Two men, a blue Chevrolet, a
broken window.  All just to justify an accident that you had in a place
you'd promised not to drive to. . "
       "Hear me out to the end...”
       "Only if you'll tell me the
truth.  Who did you hit?  How did the window get broken?"
       "I've told you the truth."
       She
got up and went out of the kitchen.  What if I've dreamt it all, I
thought, what if I've been in an accident and I've got a concussion and I'm
imagining the broken window, the Chevrolet, the guy in the back seat and his
promise to hurt Mom and to "finish off" somebody on the 7th of
September if Mom doesn't stop some mysterious thing that she's been doing?
       From downstairs in the basement came
the hollow sound of the dryer.  I followed it.  I found her filling
up a Waldbaum's paper shopping bag with bits of torn paper and trash.  I
sat on the top stair and leaned my head against the wall.  It was already
three in the morning and an atmosphere of forgiveness was beginning to settle
on everything.
    "Go wash up and get some sleep," she
said in a tone that now sounded soft and motherly.
       "I want you to hear what I have
to say," I heard my