Jim Krusoe - Parsifal

In addition to the acorns, Conrad gave Parsifal two pens, a ballpoint with red ink for the debit part, and another ballpoint with black ink for the credit part. There was something elemental there, something irrefutable, Parsifal thought. So they spent the afternoon, Conrad buying acorns and Parsifal keeping track of them, and by the end Parsifal owed his father sixty-five cents and had a pretty good idea of the fundamentals of such bookkeeping, which eventually, in the years that followed, he used to run his fountain pen repair business.

At his trial, Parsifal’s case was also helped by the parents of one of the children who had been blinded in the fire. They appeared in court dressed in modest clothing — the mother in a blue dress with fringe on the bottom and the father in a green blazer and red tie — and they brought with them their daughter, Bronwyn, whose eyes were still covered by gauzy white bandages.

“We’re Christians and we believe it’s our duty to forgive — and besides,” they told the judge, “it wasn’t looking as if Bronwyn was on the way to turning into much of a reader.”

“Thank you,” Parsifal mouthed to them across the room.

“God bless you,” they mouthed back.

The rest of the morning Parsifal spent walking. His energy level remained high, thanks to whatever ingredients Misty had tucked inside that bar, and he knew he had five more left that were like it. He felt confident. He didn’t know if the smell of smoke was diminishing or if he was just getting used to it, but it wasn’t a concern at that moment.

So Parsifal had just walked into a small clearing, maybe thirty yards in diameter, with some berries and wild flowers still in bloom, when there was a terrific whooshing sound above him, and he looked up in time to see something very large strike the ground at the far side of the clearing. He ran to where it had hit, and there, nearly unrecognizable at the bottom of the crater it had made in the soft ground, was a 1957 Chevy Impala coupe, painted powder blue with a white top, the largest object he had ever seen fall from the sky. What did it mean, he wondered, that who or whatever was dropping these objects onto the earth would let go of a classic like that?

Clearly, far from dying down, as Parsifal had hoped, the intensity of the combat seemed to be increasing.

Another time, Parsifal was sitting around talking with his therapist, Joe, in his office. It was in the evening, well after Joe’s usual hours, because Parsifal had missed the previous three appointments for some reason or another, and Joe had left a message to say he was beginning to get worried and might have to report Parsifal to his probation officer if he missed any more. When Parsifal called him back, Joe said he was still at his office, just finishing up some paperwork, and he’d be there if Parsifal wanted to drop by right away. Joe said he was about to order some Chinese takeout, and added that if Parsifal wanted to split the meal with him they could talk together over supper. Joe told him that he was thinking of won ton soup, mu shu pork, kung pao chicken, and some special fried rice. How did that sound?

It sounded good, Parsifal told him, but he thought it might be a good idea to order some vegetables as well, and maybe some egg rolls and beans in garlic sauce wouldn’t hurt.

Joe agreed, and said that Parsifal should hurry. If the food arrived before Parsifal did, he would save a copy of the bill so they could split it.

Parsifal arrived just as the delivery person, a middle-aged man with a heavy mustache and an accent full of the scornful pauses an overeducated person in a foreign country will often interject, was leaving. Joe showed Parsifal the bill and they divided it, including the tip. The won ton was too salty and, Parsifal suspected, laden with MSG, but the mu shu pork was fragrant and tender, and the chicken was a revelation of dry spiciness combined with smoky chicken flavors. The rice and egg rolls were average, and the beans were overcooked.

“What can you expect from takeout?” Joe asked. “And besides, don’t you think you’re a little picky for someone who was raised on the floor of the forest eating God-knows-what?”

When they finished, they opened their fortunes. Joe’s was “You are a pleasant person and others find you easy to relate to.” Parsifal’s was “Darkness lies ahead.” They shoveled the dirty plates and containers into a trash bag that Joe put outside his office door.

“The cleaning person will dispose of it,” Joe said, as Parsifal settled into his usual chair and Joe took his.

“Say,” Joe began, apropos of nothing, “I don’t suppose you happen to have a picture of your mother in your wallet or anything like that, do you?”

“In fact, I do,” Parsifal answered. “I carry one of her and me that my father took. I must have been three or four years old, and Pearl would have been in her early twenties.” He fished around inside his wallet and handed the picture to Joe. In it, Pearl was wearing her short, lightweight, summer deer-hide skirt and a black Frederick’s of Hollywood bra. She was posed on a tree limb, maybe ten feet off the ground, so the picture angled upward, revealing her long, tanned legs. With one arm she was holding on to a vine, about to swing off into space, as with the other she grasped Parsifal’s waist to take him along with her.

“Wow,” Joe said. “What a babe your mother was. I’ll bet you had a few lustful thoughts along that line.”

“Probably,” Parsifal said. “But no more than average for a kid. After all, she was still my mom.”

“Hmm,” Joe said. “Do you mind if I make a copy of this for your file?” He walked over to the cheap copy machine in the corner of his office, took a pile of paper off the top, and put in a quarter.

“Go ahead,” Parsifal said.

The machine whined for a while and, after about a minute, a copy wriggled out.

“What about your dad?” Joe said. “Does it seem at all odd to you that you haven’t really made much of an effort to contact him since you left the forest and moved to the city where he’s supposed to work? Or, for that matter, wouldn’t you think that with all the publicity surrounding the Happy Bunny tragedy that he would have attempted to contact you?”

Parsifal thought about it. “When I first arrived here, mostly I was concerned with survival. Insofar as the preschool was concerned, I imagine he might well have been embarrassed.”

“Hmm,” Joe repeated. “And since then?”

“Well,” Parsifal answered, “I guess what with me starting my own pen repair business at your suggestion and all, my dad just hasn’t been a priority for me. By the way, I meant to tell you that the pen repair business is coming along pretty well, even though it’s still in the early stages.”

“Glad to hear it,” Joe replied. “But let this be a warning: It seems very likely to me that you are now in the process of beginning to confuse me with your father. This is called transference, and it’s a pretty common thing in the analyzing profession, something we analysts see every day. I’m not sure what you can do about it, but the main thing for you to remember is that if this transference between your father and me is ever actually completed, then our therapy will have to come to an end.”

“I don’t think there’s much danger of that,” Parsifal said. “For one thing, Conrad dressed very differently than you.”

“Yes,” Joe said, “I expect he did.”

Who was it that said our sole glory as humans is to leave behind a record of our crimes and desires?

Using a fountain pen to do it.

Climbing a small hill, Parsifal stops for a moment to catch his breath; he must have been almost running in the forest without even knowing it. Watch out , he tells himself. If you injure yourself in this wild spot, it might be curtains . Beneath him, he can’t see more than a hundred yards in any direction. The leaves of some of the trees are starting to turn various colors, and above him the sky is starting to assume its winter blue. The bird has returned (or never left), but is higher than ever.