The Hair of Harold Roux Read Online Free PDF Page B

grades and taking advanced courses taught by university faculty. George looks at him now, his expression pure and serene.
    “Hello, Aaron,” Edward says, now that the business of the pickle and the bus have been dealt with.
    “Hi, Ed,” Aaron says.
    Edward turns to his father. “Billy Davis got his foot caught under the merry-go-round and nearly broke it, so they took it away.”
    “The foot?” George says, his eyes wide in mock wonder.
    Edward laughs. “No, the stupid merry-go-round.” Smiling, he shakes his head resignedly.
    “Well, that’s what you get for a vague antecedent,” George says.
    “All our antecedents are vague,” Helga says, “but we’re here.”
    In the fresh sunlight, mist steams from the gray clapboardsof the old house. Aaron watches this young family standing in its own place. With a surge of possibility he wonders if he might somehow write George’s dissertation for him. For a moment it seems perfectly possible: George will show him his notes, his drafts, tell him the central idea, and Aaron will sit down and write the damned thing. Sure.
    “I guess I’d better be going,” he says. In the back of his mind a wisp of memory bothers him, but he decides it is merely guilt because he isn’t working.
    “Oh, don’t go, Aaron! Helga says. There’s plenty more beer.”
    “It’ll keep,” he says. “Anyway, the motorcycle doesn’t run too good on beer. It thinks it does, but afterwards it has nightmares about running up the sides of trees.”
    “Stay a little longer. It’s only three-thirty or so.”
    Why does she want him to stay so badly? They have their perfect triangle. Why a fourth? He looks at George, whose humorous serenity concerning his loved child has changed. Darkness has crossed his face again, his mouth has fallen, his eyes stare at some non-place in the middle of the grass. As if she knows what to do in this case, Helga takes Edward, a hand lightly on his shoulder, into the house. George stares on, not seeming to notice their departure.
    “Hey,” Aaron says. He stands firmly on the sod, feeling strong, capable, even generous. A whisper in his innards scoffs at this self-estimation, but faintly. He examines his unhappy friend, daring to look for anything, however dark.
    “I think,” George says carefully, “that I may be going off my nut, and I don’t like it, Aaron.” His eyes are still unfocused. “I mean I can’t shake it. It’s like my head’s in a vice and all the assholes of the world are turning the goddam handle. We haven’t learned lesson number one. Maybe we don’t even know what it is. But we’re killing the world, Aaron. We know what we’re doing and we keep right on doing it. That’s psychotic, man, and I think I’ve caught it and what’s the use? How can you
not think
about something? Christ! Nerve gas, radioactive wastes that have to be keptrefrigerated for eight generations or else, not to mention being located in earthquake zones. Television fucking outright lies, brain rot, money worship, rivers in hell that catch on fire. Or forget all that, don’t think about it and just listen to our great leaders off the record talking about kikes and niggers, man, or go down to gasoline alley to get your oil changed and hear the same murderous arrogant shit. What the hell? And meanwhile it’s one holy war after another. And the whole stinking race is born of rape. Screw fuck bang jab nail hump shag score—we’ve got our metaphors, Aaron, don’t we? Oh Christ, I know you know all this and I’m sorry.”
    “So why bother finishing your dissertation?”
    “Oh, that. I don’t mean that. I don’t know, maybe so. But everything is dying so what does anything matter?”
    “I don’t know, George. I’ve never understood how we ever began to cope with the idea of death. No other animal seems to be cursed with that bit of knowledge.”
    “But, Aaron! We’re deliberately killing ourselves!”
    “I am the asphalt; let me