State of Grace Read Online Free PDF Page B

of earnest infidelity, after scooting my body under the chassis of strangers, under the cologne, the Camel and Lavoris flavor of their case, I have been restored to the death that is all mine, to Daddy in this place. After all those strangers …
    All those men. Bloodless little charmer aren’t you, they’d say. Yes, I’m deep as the Styx. Think you’re for special occasions don’t you, they’d go on. By any means deliver me from special occasions. I must say they never took me to a place like Fred’s. The bedposts did not have the taste of Pine-Sol. Nonetheless, how did it go? they’d ask. They’d kiss with all embellishments. I thought for a moment you’d chipped my tooth, I said, but I was mistaken. It was fortifying, thank you. It was peachy. Never did they offer compensation as far as I could see. Now once a boy had given me a silk tassel of his hair. It was blue. I counted the strands. Thirty-one. I wanted no mistake. The next time there were twenty-nine. I showed the curl to Daddy. He lost it though he wasn’t angry. He simply lost it. The wind swept it onto the rocks. You mustn’t mention this to anyone, the blue-haired boy had said. I’ll send you a can of syrup from the store, he had said. You can make all the Coca-Cola you want. We didn’t do anything but play but you mustn’t mention any of it …
    The men were never so poetic. Never a hank of hair. Just a piece of their bone. Oh, later they offered food, it’s true. They were always starving afterward. Steak! they’d cry. Oh, steak and beer and hash-brown potatoes! One mentioned blintzes but he didn’t mean it. You’d think a man who mentioned blintzes would be an honorable person but he was simply idealistic. Besides his ideas of a gracious life, he had in his pocket the broken part to a piece of his wife’s washing machine. Bolts Breach Blintzes. One of Life’s Drab Laws. If I treated you supper, he was reduced to say, I’d have to break a fifty-dollar bill to buy the speed nut for thewasher. And when a bill is broken it’s shot as far as I’m concerned. Same time tomorrow?? At the sign of the sleepy bear with his nightshirt and candle?? I’m so afraid not, I’d said. Tomorrow it’s my turn to close the windows and take in the flag in case of possible showers.
    But this was the exception. Oh meat! my night companions would shout. Onions and gravy! A man must satisfy stomach and sex and for the time being the last is a happy fellow. So gracious. The time being what, I’d said. You’re peculiar, they’d tell me gravely, but you’re not as bad as some. My wife irons my underwear, for instance, but she’d be the last to know what’s in there. What about the soul, I’d say then. I want satisfaction for my soul. The what?, they’d say. What a live one. Come off of it, you’re peculiar, but I’ll try to be of assistance, you just tell me where it is. We have to get into a state of grace, I’d speak not quite hysterically but with a nervous edge, I’d speak honestly for I was not selfish. I wanted to arrive there. What matter did it make who the driver was or what the vehicle. Why sure, they’d say, having their little joke, it’s just west of Corpus Christi, but you’re confused, you’re a mixed-up girl not knowing her geography, it’s right here inside you and we’ve been through there before. They’d push their hands inside my panties. They’d put their own scrubbed knuckles on top. And what’s a funny girl like you doing asking for more.…
    Father, I am far from home.
    “Your mother …,” Daddy is saying.
    My voice rattles. I begin again. “We haven’t spoken of Mother for eleven years.”
    “But, darling, she’s beside us. She ages with us. Can’t you bring her to mind?”
    My clothes will never dry. How can we leave this place? If we should open the door, we would simply find this room again. A bed and a man in black brushing a young girl’s hair. And in that room there’d be no door. Just a bed and a