Lorrie Moore - The Collected Stories of Lorrie Moore

He started up again, slowly; it was raining now, and, at a shimmeringly lit intersection of two gas stations, one Quik-Trip, and a KFC, half a dozen young people in hooded yellow slickers were holding up signs that read "Honk for Peace." Ira fell upon his horn, first bouncing his hand there, then just leaning his whole arm into it. Other cars began to do the same, and soon no one was going anywhere — a congregation of mourning doves! but honking like geese in a wild chorus of futility, windshield wipers clearing their fan-shaped spaces on the drizzled night glass. No car went anywhere for the change of two lights. For all its stupidity and solipsism and self-consciously scenic civic grief, it was something like a gorgeous moment.

despite bekka's reading difficulties, despite her witless naming of the cats, Ira knew that his daughter was highly intelligent. He knew it from the time she spent lying around the house, bored and sighing, saying, "Dad? When will childhood be over?" This was a sign of genius! As were other things. Her complete imperviousness to the adult male voice, for instance. Her scrutiny of all food. With interest and hesitancy, she studied the antiwar signs that bestrewed the neighborhood lawns. "'War Is Not the Path to Peace,'" she read slowly aloud. Then added, "Well — duh."

"'War Is Not the Answer,'" she read on another. "Well, that doesn't make sense," she said to Ira. "War is the answer. It's the answer to the question 'What's George Bush going to start real soon?'"

The times Bekka stayed at his house, she woke up in the morning and told him her dreams. "I had a dream last night that I was walking with two of my friends and we met a wolf. But I made a deal with the wolf. I said, 'Don't eat me. These other two have more meat on them.' And the wolf said, 'O.K.,' and we shook on it and I got away." Or, "I had a strange dream last night that I was a bad little fairy."

She was in contact with her turmoil and with her ability to survive. How could that be anything less than emotional brilliance?

One morning she said, "I had a really scary dream. There was this tornado with a face inside? And I married it." Ira smiled. "It may sound funny to you, Dad, but it was really scary."

He stole a look at her school writing journal once and found this poem:

Time moving

Time standing still.

What is the difference?

Time standing still is the difference.

He had no idea what it meant, but he knew that it was awesome. He had given her the middle name Clio, after the Muse of history, so of course she would know very well that time standing still was the difference. He personally felt that he was watching history from the dimmest of backwaters — a land of beer and golf, the horizon peacefully fish-gray. With the windows covered in plastic sheeting, he felt as if he were inside a plastic container, like a leftover, peering into the tallow fog of the world. Time moving. Time standing still .

the major bombing started on the first day of spring. "It's happening," Ira said into Mike's answering machine. "The whole thing is starting now."

Zora called and asked him to the movies. "Sure," Ira said mechanically. "I'd love to."

"Well, we were thinking of this Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, but Bruno would also be willing to see the Mel Gibson one." We. He was dating a tenth grader now. Even in tenth grade he hadn't done that. Well, he'd see what he'd missed.

They picked him up at six-forty, and, as Bruno made no move to cede the front seat, Ira sat in the back of Zora's Honda, his long legs wedged together at a diagonal, like a lady riding sidesaddle. Zora drove carefully, not like a mad hellcat at all, as for some reason he had thought she would. As a result, they were late for the Mel Gibson movie and had to make do with the Schwarzenegger. Ira thrust money at the ticket-seller—"Three, please" — and they all wordlessly went in, their computerized stubs in hand. "So you like Arnold Schwarzenegger?" Ira said to Bruno as they headed down the red-carpeted corridor.

"Not really," Bruno muttered. Bruno sat between Zora and Ira, and together they passed a small container of popcorn back and forth. Ira jumped up twice to refill it out in the lobby, a kind of relief for him from Arnold, whose line readings were less brutish than they used to be but not less brutish enough. Afterward, heading out into the parking lot, Bruno and Zora re-enacted body-bouncing scenes from the film. When they reached the car, Ira was again relegated to the back seat. "Shall we go to dinner?" he called up to the front.

Both Zora and Bruno were silent.

"Shall we?" he tried again, cheerfully.

"Would you like to, Bruno?" Zora asked. "Are you hungry?"

"I don't know," Bruno said, peering gloomily out the window.

"Did you like the movie?" Ira asked.

Bruno shrugged. "I don't know."

They went to a barbecue place and got ribs and chicken. "Let me pay for this," Ira said, though Zora hadn't offered.

"Oh, O.K.," she said.

Afterward, Zora dropped Ira at the curb, where he stood for a minute, waving, in front of his house. He watched them roll down to the end of the block and disappear around the corner. He went inside and made himself a drink with cranberry juice and rum. He turned on the TV news and watched the bombing. Night bombing, so you could not really see.

a few mornings later was the first day of a new month. The illusion of time flying, he knew, was to make people think that life could have more in it than it actually could. Time flying could make human lives seem victorious over time itself. Time flew so fast that in ways it failed to make an impact. People's lives fell between its stabbing powers like insects between raindrops. "We cheat the power of time with our very brevity!" he said aloud to Bekka, feeling confident that she would understand, but she just kept petting the cats. The house had already begun to fill with the acrid-honey smell of cat pee, though neither he nor Bekka seemed to mind. Spring! One more month and it would be May, his least favorite. Why not a month named Can? Or Must! Well, maybe not Must. Zora phoned him early, with a dour tone. "I don't know. I think we should break up," she said.

"You do?"

"Yes, I don't see that this is going anywhere. Things aren't really moving forward in any way that I can understand. And I don't think we should waste each other's time."

"Really?" Ira was dumbfounded.

"It may be fine for some, but dinner, a movie, and sex is not my idea of a relationship."

"Maybe we could eliminate the movie?" he asked desperately.

"We're adults—"

"True. I mean, we are?"

"— and what is the point of continuing, if there are clear obstacles or any unclear idea of where this is headed? It becomes difficult to maintain faith. We've hardly begun seeing each other, I realize, but already I just don't envision us as a couple."

"I'm sorry to hear you say that." He was now sitting down in his kitchen. He could feel himself trying not to cry.

"Let's just move on," she said with gentle firmness.

"Really? Is that honestly what you think? I feel terrible."

"April Fool's!" she cried out into the phone.

His heart rose to his throat then sank to his colon then bobbed back up close to the surface of his rib cage where his right hand was clutching at it. Were there paddles nearby that could be applied to his chest?

"I beg your pardon?" he asked faintly.

"April Fool's," she said again, laughing. "It's April Fool's Day."

"I guess," he said, gasping a little, "I guess that's the kind of joke that gets better the longer you think about it."

he had never been involved with the mentally ill before, but now more than ever he was convinced that there should be strong international laws against their being too physically attractive. The public's safety was at risk!