Killing Commendatore: A novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

image came to me, I couldn’t stop. I sighed, and pulled into the parking lot of a drive-in restaurant. I rolled down the driver’s-side window, took a deep breath of the damp air outside, and slowly got my heart rate back to normal. I stepped out of the car. With my knit cap on but no umbrella I made my way through the fine drizzle and went inside the restaurant. I sat down in a booth in the back.
    The restaurant was nearly empty. A waitress came over and I ordered coffee and a ham-and-cheese sandwich. As I drank the coffee I closed my eyes and calmed down. I tried my best to erase the image of my wife and another man in bed. But the vision wouldn’t leave me.
    I went to the restroom, gave my hands a good scrub, and checked myself in the mirror over the sink. My eyes looked smaller than usual, and bloodshot, like a woodland animal slowly fading away from famine, gaunt and afraid. I wiped my hands and face with a thick handkerchief, then studied myself in the full-length mirror on the wall. What I saw there was an exhausted thirty-six-year-old man in a shabby, paint-spattered sweater.
    As I gazed at my reflection I wondered, Where am I headed? Before that, though, the question was Where have I come to? Where is this place? No, before that even I needed to ask, Who the hell am I?
    As I stared at myself in the mirror, I thought about what it would be like to paint my own portrait. Say I were to try, what sort of self would I end up painting? Would I be able to find even a shred of affection for myself? Would I be able to discover even one thing shining within me?
    These questions unanswered, I returned to my seat. When I finished my coffee the waitress came over and refilled my cup. I asked her for a paper bag and put the untouched sandwich in it. I should be hungry later on. But right now I didn’t want to eat anything.
    I left the drive-in, and drove down the road until I saw the sign for the entrance to the Kan-Etsu Expressway. I decided to get on the highway and head north. I had no idea what lay north, but somehow I got the sense that heading north was better than going south. I wanted to go somewhere cold and clean. More important than north or south, however, was getting away from this city.
    I opened the glove compartment and found five or six CDs inside. One of them was a performance of Mendelssohn’s Octet by I Musici. My wife liked to listen to it when we went on drives. An unusual setup with a double string quartet, but a beautiful melody. Mendelssohn was only sixteen when he composed the piece. My wife told me this. A child prodigy.
    What were you doing when you were sixteen?
    I called up the past. When I was sixteen I was crazy over a girl in my class.
    Did you go out with her?
    No, I barely said a word to her. I just looked at her from a distance. I wasn’t brave enough to speak up. When I went home I used to sketch her. I did quite a few drawings.
    So you’ve done the same thing from way back when, my wife said, laughing.
    True, I’ve done the same thing from way back when.
    True, I’ve done the same thing from way back when , I said, mentally repeating the words I’d spoken to her.
    I took the Sheryl Crow CD out of the player and slipped in an MJQ album. Pyramid. I listened to Milt Jackson’s pleasant, bluesy solo as I headed down the highway toward the north. I’d make the occasional stop at a service area, take a long piss, and drink a couple of cups of hot black coffee, but other than that I drove all night. I drove in the slow lane, only speeding up to pass trucks. I didn’t feel sleepy, strangely enough. It felt like I’d never be sleepy again in my whole life. And just before dawn I reached the Japan Sea coast.
----
    —
    In Niigata I turned right and drove north along the coast, from Yamagata to Akita Prefecture, then through Aomori into Hokkaido. I didn’t take any highways, and drove leisurely down back roads. In all senses of the word I was in no hurry. When night came I’d check in to