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Spader going on the subject of
the triumph of conservatism in our time, the heartbreak, the tragedy, the
dismantling of the Kennedy-Johnson vision, the loss of America's soul never get
him started!— Kelly was discreet answering The Senator's questions about his
old friend Spader, Kelly Kelleher was not one to gossip carelessly, nor was she
one to exploit another's misfortune for meretricious conversational purposes,
it was a principle of hers that you must never say anything about another
person you would not say in that person's presence.
    The
Senator several times turned the conversation back to Carl Spader, whom he had
not, he said, seen in years. In The Senator's voice there was a tone both
regretful and mildly censorious.
    Yes
of course he read Citizens' Inquiry— certainly.
    His
office in Washington had a subscription. Of course.
    He'd
asked Kelly what she did for the magazine and Kelly told him mentioning her
recent article "The Shame of Capital Punishment in America" and The
Senator said why yes, yes he'd read that article, he believed he had read it,
he'd been impressed.
    As,
on Buffy's great new bike, she'd felt his eyes follow her too.
    Politics, the negotiating of power. Eros, the negotiating of power.
    Gripping
her shoulders bare beneath the crocheted tunic with his strong fingers and
kissing her full on the mouth as the wind blew caressingly about them like a
palpable tactile substance wrapping them together, binding. He had kissed her
suddenly yet not unexpectedly. Hiking in the dunes behind the St. Johns' house,
the gulls flashing white overhead, their knifelike wings, deadly beaks, excited cries. The pounding splashing
surf. Beat beat beat of the surf. She'd heard it the night before sleepless hearing muffled sounds
of laughter, lovemaking from Buffy and Ray's room, underneath such human cries
the beat of the surf, the rising of the tide, the moon's tide, a tide in her
blood, the almost unbearable rush of the man's desire so it was understood
between them that he would kiss her again and Kelly's seemingly impulsive
decision to go with him to catch the ferry instead of spending the night of the
Fourth at Buffy's as planned was a public acknowledgment of this fact.
    She
was the one, the one he'd chosen. The one in the speeding
car. The passenger.
    Scorpio don't be shy, poor silly Scorpio your stars are WILDLY
romantic now. Demand YOUR wishes. YOUR desires for once.
    So
she did, she had and would. She was the one.

 

    Tasting still the
beery warmth and pressure of The Senator's
mouth on hers. The
forceful probing tongue.
    Even
as the nameless road flew out from under the Toyota she was
tasting it. Smiling wryly thinking how often in her life had kisses
tasted of beer, of wine, of alcohol, of tobacco, of hash. The
many probing tongues. Am I ready?
    She'd
been staring at the moon out of the jolting car. How queerly
flat-looking, how bright. Lit from within you'd think and not mere
reflected light you'd think but you'd be wrong for thinking, reasoning,
calculating out of your own brain is not enough: poor Scorpio.
    Of
course Kelly Kelleher did not believe in anything so idiotic as a horoscope, astrology. In her innermost heart though she was a
volunteer for the National Literacy Foundation of America she felt a certain
contempt for ignorant people, not just blacks of course (though all of her
students were black) but whites, whatever: men and women whom the ruthless
progress of civilization had left behind really, their limited intelligences
could not grasp certain facts of life really, no doubt as Artie Kelleher and
Ham Hunt and all of conservative America believed it was hopeless
thus save your own white skin but Kelly Kelleher angrily rejected such
selfishness, had she not committed in writing a shameful statement to her own
parents composed on her word processor at college and carefully revised and
signed with her baptismal name "Elizabeth Anne Keller" and mailed to
the Kelleher home in Gowanda Heights, New