Robert Pirsig - Lila. An Inquiry Into Morals

DO A LITTLE DANCE…

MAKE A LITTLE LOVE…

GET DOWN TONIGHT…

GET DOWN TONIGHT…

GET DOWN TONIGHT!

GET DOWN TONIGHT!

He wondered if he had the nerve to go up and talk to her.

BABY!!

He sure as hell had the desire.

He took his time and finished his ale. The relaxation from the alcohol and tension from what was coming just exactly balanced each other in an equilibrium that resembled stone sobriety but was not. He watched her for a long time and she knew that he was watching her and he knew that she knew he was watching her, and he knew that she knew that he knew; in a kind of regression of images that you get when two mirrors face each other and the images go on and on and on in some kind of infinity.

Then he picked up his can and headed toward the spot next to her at the bar.

At the bar-rail the smell of her perfume penetrated through the tobacco and liquor smells.

After a while she turned and stared into him. The face was mask-like from the cosmetics, but a faint smile showed pleasure, as though she had been waiting for this a long time.

She said, Where have I seen you before?

A cliché, he thought, but there was a protocol to this sort of thing. Yeah, Where have I seen you before? He tried to think of the protocol. He was rusty. The protocol was you’re supposed to talk about the places you might have seen her in and who you know there, and this is supposed to lead to further subjects in a progression of intimacy, and he was trying to think of some places to talk about when he looked at her, and my God, it was her, the one on the streetcar and she’s asking, Where have I seen you before? and that was what started the illumination.

It was stronger toward the center of her face but it didn’t come from her face. It was as though her face were on the center of a screen and the light came from behind the screen.

My God, it was really her, after all these years.

Are you on a boat? she said.

He said he was.

Are you with Richard Rigel?

You know him? he asked.

I know a lot of people, she said.

The bartender brought the ales he ordered, and he paid for them.

Are you crewing for Richard?

No. My boat’s rafted against his. Everything’s crowded with all these boats coming down at the same time.

Where have you been all this time ? he wanted to say, but she wouldn’t know what he was talking about. Why did you go away in the crowd that time? Were you laughing at me then too? Something about boats. He was supposed to say something about boats.

We came down the canals together from Oswego, he said.

Then why didn’t I see you there? Lila said.

You did see me there before, he thought, but now the illumination had disappeared and her voice wasn’t the way he had always thought it would be and so now this was just another stranger like all the others.

She said, I saw Richard in Rome and Amsterdam but I didn’t see you.

I didn’t go into town with him. I stayed on my boat.

Are you all alone?

Yes.

She looked at him with a kind of question in her eye and then said, Invite me to your table.

Then she said loudly enough so that the others could hear, I can’t stand the trash at this bar! But the two she intended it for just looked at each other knowingly and didn’t look over at her at all.

Rigel was gone from the table when they got there but Capella gave Lila a big hello and she flashed a big smile on him.

How are you, Bill? she said.

Capella said OK.

Where’s Richard? she asked.

He went to play pool, Capella said.

She looked at Phædrus and said, Richard’s an old friend.

There was a pause when he didn’t answer this.

Then she asked how far he was going.

Phædrus said he wasn’t sure yet.

Lila said she was going south for the winter.

She asked him where he was from and Phædrus told her the Midwest. She didn’t have much interest in that.

He told her about seeing someone like her before in the Midwest but she said she’d never been there. Lots of people look like me, she said.

After a while Capella left for the bar. Phædrus was alone with her, facing up to a kind of emptiness. Something needed to be said but he didn’t know what to say. He could see it was beginning to bother her too. He wasn’t her type, she was beginning to see that, but the ale was helping. It obliterated the differences. Enough ale and everything got reduced to pure biology, where it belonged.

After a while Lila asked him to dance. He said he didn’t and so they just sat there. But then the tall Canadian and his girlfriend got on the floor and started to dance again. They were good. They really moved together but when Phædrus looked over at Lila he saw the same look she had when she first came in.

Her face had that explosive look again. That son-of-a-bitch! she said. He came with me. He invited me on this trip! And now he’s with her. God, that just kills me.

Then the music started again and the disco lights rotated and Lila looked at him in a curious way. It was just a glance, and the disco light moved on but in just that moment he noticed what a beautiful pale blue her eyes were. They didn’t seem to match the way she talked or the way the rest of her looked either. Strange. Out of memory. They were like the eyes of some child.

The ale cans were empty and he offered to get some more but she said, C’mon, let’s dance.

I’m no good, he said.

That doesn’t matter,' she said. Just do anything you feel like, she said. I’ll go along.

He did, and she did go along and he was surprised. They got into a sort of a whirl thing. Going round and round with the disco lights and they began to get into it more and more.

You’re better than you think, she said, and it was true: he was.

GET DOWN TONIGHT…

GET DOWN TONIGHT

He was aware that people were watching them, but all he could see was Lila and the lights whirling around and around.

Around and around. And around and around — red and blue and pink and orange and gold. They were all over the room and they moved across the ceiling and sometimes they shined on her face and sometimes they shined in his eyes — red and pink and gold.

DO A LITTLE DANCE…

MAKE A LITTLE LOVE…

GET DOWN TONIGHT…

GET DOWN TONIGHT

The hesitation was gone and the ale and the music and the perfume from Lila took over and her pale blue eyes were watching him with that strange look of are you the one? and his mind kept saying to her yes, I am the one and this answer extended slowly into his arms and hands where he held her and then into her body and she could feel it and she began to quiet down from her anger and he began to quiet down from his awkwardness.

DO A LITTLE DANCE…

MAKE A LITTLE LOVE…

GET DOWN TONIGHT…

GET DOWN TONIGHT…

Once the Canadian dancer came over and wanted to cut in. Lila told him to get lost and he could tell from a change in her body how good she felt about that. After that they both knew that something had been settled, for tonight at least, and beyond that was too far to think about.

He could hardly remember how he got back to this boat with her. What came through in memory was the beat of the music and that pale, blue-eyed questioning look, and then here on the bunk the way she embraced him, clinging with all her might, like a drowning person holding on for dear life.