Joy Williams - State of Grace

“Miss, the movie’s over.”

And it is. Everything’s shut off. Kinugasa’s Crossways , I think it was, or more likely, something with Tom Mix. There was a chase and an open air setting. Something was resolved. I see the screen for the first time and am annoyed to note that things I believed to have been imperfections in the film were, in fact, freckles and streaks upon the screen.

“They’re closing up.”

He says. It’s true. They’re locking all the doors. Someone has pulled a sheet over the concessions. I’m sore all over. I have a cramp. And he must help me up the aisle for I’m hobbling. My leg is still asleep. They won’t be showing another picture for hours and there’s nothing to do except go off with Grady. He’s barefoot but his feet are remarkably clean. He takes me to his car which is moored directly beyond the door shimmering like a yacht in the heat. We drive to a liquor store. It’s almost night but everything is still hot to the touch. Grady takes off his sunglasses and exposes to me two dim rims around his eyes.

He leaves but returns immediately with a bottle of gin, a bag of ice cubes and two paper cups. We sit in the liquor store parking lot and drink. I request some bubbly water. It’s filling up. Men and women, single women, men and men. We’re all sitting in our allotted slots, watching each other and drinking. It’s very pleasant. Four carpenters drink pints of peppermint schnapps. A tanned lady, very pretty, an older lady, refined, drinks brandy. Potato chips fall out of her mouth. Someone kisses me. It’s an awkward moment, but we have another glass of gin. I can remember it all. Every detail. It gets dark. The sky was a patched-up tent. The lot is lit indirectly from the liquor store on one side and a nursery on the other. A green growing thing for everyone and something for every place, for sand, muck, marl and rocky soil. A sprinkler works its whippety way across the plants and dribbles water across the hood of our car. Beside us, a few children in the back of a truck protect their candy bars from the spray.

Yes, it’s very nice. There were three children. Three candy bars. I could tell by the wrappers that they were Zeros.

The last time my very best friend saw me, she said.

I’m fine I’m fine but where is the grapefruit you promised to send.

? and this was in a dream. Things that I have loved have vanished into acts I can only accept. Someone lays his tongue between my breasts. I am falling, falling, and kiss the belted hip of the man I love, but everything is controlled for I know how it goes. We are not to rely on what we can do to insure our acceptance with God. We are to accept God’s acceptance of us . There are boundaries within which the worst can work. And I’m working. Yes, I was made to work, if nothing else.

I’m in a controlled fall for how far can an orgasm take you? My chum on the airwaves said only to me,

“An orgasm and seventy-five cents will get you into the silent pictures …”

We return to the movies. The gin is all gone. Upon going back, we pass a pimpled boy, running. And then a gentleman in a white smock and elevator shoes. We piece it together, Grady and I. The gent’s a druggist, making a prescription. Everyone is yelling. The boy skids around a corner and a bar of soap falls out of his sock. The pursuers seem satisfied with this and turn back, although no one picks up the soap.

As Grady parks the car, I slip behind the pneumatic door of the movie theatre. Everything is holy and works upon the principle of exhaustion. In and out. Open and close. Win or lose. No one can gain from this experience . The door closes behind Grady too. We can’t see; the floor slopes. Once again I’m guided to my seat. I feel smug but nervous for I didn’t have to pay. I came in after the show had started. The cashier had turned her head. I never paid for anything.

And there on the screen is an empty beach. Blurred. High green water. Puddle of dark pine trees on the sand. There may even be some snow, strings of ice in the grasses. A crib is set up beneath one of the pines. Solidly constructed. Fine craftsmanship. Brahm’s First Piano Concerto is playing. The part that goes

da taa taatee ta

What a foundation that crib has! The legs are set in concrete that lies buried but may very well run the entire length of the coast. This was made to last! It’s very cold. Of course you cannot feel this, but you can tell simply by observing the elderly Dürer hare at the lower left, in the wind slough behind a dune. His eyes are frozen shut. There’s no one there. Everything is white, brown and green — indigestible colors. There’s nothing in the crib but surely with a little imagination, a baby could be placed there.

The film has been terribly preserved. It’s Delluc’s The Silence . And something’s wrong with the projector. At this rate it will be tomorrow before we get out of here. And how do we get out of here? Ingress or egress. Who’s to give permission? Ahhh, what I thought was the cause is instead the consequence. Here.

The sisters assemble themselves in the middle of the room, obliterating the Persian rug. I stay in my bunk even though I will be fined for this. Fifty cents for the first absence, one dollar thereafter. I owe the sisterhood a fortune. The girls would like to send this money to the Indians in the Everglades but they don’t. They bought a Waring blender. Before that it was a fake brass fixture for the jane. Sweet God, the “jane.” Some things I refuse to bear.

The girls link arms and start to chant

“Lean Mean Doreen

Our Jungle Queen”

It’s all a lie of course. Doreen’s a dish and brainless as a cracker box. She comes leaping out in a rattan bikini and does a few bumps and grinds. The skit is very flashy, very complex. Cords created every detail. It involves extensive props, including a rented leopard and a burning bush. Ha. Pardon. A gyneco-holy term. A smutty synergism. Rather it’s a burning hoop or something through which Doreen will emerge while the sisters wail

“She’ll eat up your heart

And that’s just the start

Doreen will make you burrrnn.”

I slip out of bed unnoticed and go down to the kitchen. The room is cool and empty. The floor’s waxed. The day’s recipes are taped to the butcher block table. There are some fresh greens there with dirt still on them. Very nice. And some red and green peppers. And a bull’s tongue, all black with trauma at the tip.

I go outside and ask directions to the hospital from a passerby. As the days go on, I am able to find shorter routes.

Good-by, good-by.

OH THAT MINE HEAD WERE WATERS AND MINE EYES A FOUNTAIN OF TEARS THAT MIGHT WEEP DAY AND NIGHT …

But the stupor was all that was mine. Only the stupor.

Now Daddy … always … told me that my ruinous life was quickly and immediately determined. He did not elaborate. Now I wouldn’t say that I agreed. I was a simple child! Daddy used to say, Beware the wrath of the Lamb but daddys say that, you know. It was just a little joke. But I was a simple child. I was always straightening my drawers, for instance. I was always arranging, arranging … Now it’s true I suffered from lack of sleep. I dreamed but did not sleep. Daddy was mistaken there. He saw me pretending, I suppose. They say all children maintain this, but I want to tell you, I never slept. I would be the last to say I saw it all, but never was I sleeping.

It’s true I often had fevers. Daddy told me I had fevers but he always brought me back to health. It was the house that did it. The house was always cold and I was chilled. The elements were always falling in the rooms. Or some of the rooms. The rooms I liked to play in. Snow, and in the summer it was rain that fell on me.