On either side of the track are men called checkers, watching to see that no one violates this rule. Almost always, especially in the case of a very skillful driver, the motion of the machine can be perceived only by watching the lowering forward edges of the tires settle into the dust and the back edges lift out of it. The checkers sit in directors’ chairs, getting up every few minutes to move them along the track.
Though the finish line is only a hundred yards away, by the time the afternoon is half over, the great machines are still clustered together midway down the track. Now, one by one the novices grow impatient, gun their engines with a happy racket, and let their machines wrest them from the still dust of their companions with a whip-like motion that leaves their heads crooked back and their locks of magnificently greasy hair flying straight out behind. In a moment they have flown across the finish line and are out of the race, and in the grayer dust beyond, away from the spectators, and away from the dark, glinting, plodding group of more patient motorcyclists, they assume an air of superiority, though in fact, now that no one is looking at them anymore, they feel ashamed that they have not been able to last the race out.
The finish is always a photo finish. The winner is often a veteran, not only of races for the slow but also of races for the swift. It seems simple to him, now, to build a powerful motor, gauge the condition and lie of the track, size up his competitors, and harden himself to win a race for the swift. Far more difficult to train himself to patience, steel his nerves to the pace of the slug, the snail, so slow that by comparison the crab moves as a galloping horse and the butterfly a bolt of lightning. To inure himself to look about at the visible world with a wonderful potential for speed between his legs, and yet to advance so slowly that any change in position is almost imperceptible, and the world, too, is unchanging but for the light cast by the traveling sun, which itself seems, by the end of the slow day, to have been shot from a swift bow.
AFFINITY
We feel an affinity with a certain thinker because we agree with him; or because he shows us what we were already thinking; or because he shows us in a more articulate form what we were already thinking; or because he shows us what we were on the point of thinking; or what we would sooner or later have thought; or what we would have thought much later if we hadn’t read it now; or what we would have been likely to think but never would have thought if we hadn’t read it now; or what we would have liked to think but never would have thought if we hadn’t read it now.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following publications, in which these stories first appeared: “Meat, My Husband” in TriQuarterly © 1993; “Jack in the Country” in Infolio (London) as “E.’s Mistake” © 1986, in Ottotole 1987; “Foucault and Pencil” in City Lights Review © 1987; “The Mice” in Conjunctions © 1995; “The Professor” in Harper’s © 1992; “The Cedar Trees” in Conjunctions © 1992; “The Cats in the Prison Recreation Hall” in Conjunctions © 1992; “Wife One in Country” in City Lights Review © 1987; “The Fish Tank” in Hodos © 1990; “The Center of the Story” in Grand Street © 1989; “Love” in Conjunctions © 1992; “Our Kindness” in New American Writing © 1992; “A Natural Disaster” in Conjunctions © 1992; “Odd Behavior” in Conjunctions © 1995; “St. Martin” in Grand Street © 1996; “Agreement” in Indiana Review © 1988; “In the Garment District” in New American Writing © 1992; “Disagreement” in Indiana Review © 1988; “The Actors” in Conjunctions © 1991; “What Was Interesting” in Parnassus © 1989; “In the Everglades” in SUN as “Tourist in the Everglades” © 1983; “The Family” in The World © 1996; “Trying to Learn” in Conjunctions © 1991; “To Reiterate” in Pequod © 1986; “Lord Royston’s Tour” in Conjunctions © 1990; “The Other” in Annandale © 1993; “A Friend of Mine” in Avec as “My Friend” © 1989; “This Condition” in Salt Hill Journal © 1997; “Go Away” in Conjunctions © 1989; “Pastor Elaine’s Newsletter” in Pequod as “Pastor Arlene’s Newsletter” © 1991; “A Second Chance” in New American Writing © 1992; “Fear” in Conjunctions © 1995; “Almost No Memory” in Conjunctions © 1988; “Mr. Knockly” in Living Hand © 1975; “How He Is Often Right” in Conjunctions © 1989; “The Rape of the Tanuk Women” in Conjunctions © 1992; “What I Feel” in Conjunctions © 1991; “Lost Things” in Conjunctions © 1995; “Glenn Gould” in Doubletake © 1997; “From Below, as a Neighbor” in Indiana Review © 1988; “The Great-grandmothers” in New American Writing © 1992; “The House Behind” in Antaeus © 1991; “The Outing” in Conjunctions © 1995; “A Position at the University” in The World © 1996; “Examples of Confusion” in Conjunctions as “Confusions” © 1988; “The Race of the Patient Motorcyclists” in Conjunctions © 1988; “Affinity” in The Quarterly © 1992. “The Thirteenth Woman,” “A Man in Our Town” (under the title “The Dog Man”), “Mr. Knockly,” and “Smoke” previously appeared in the collection The Thirteenth Woman and Other Stories, Living Hand Editions, 1976. “In the Everglades” previously appeared in the collection Story and Other Stories, The Figures, 1983. “Lord Royston’s Tour” was adapted from The Remains of Viscount Royston: A Memoir of His Life by the Rev. Henry Pepys, London, 1838.
The author would also like to thank the following for support during the period in which these stories were written: the Fund for Poetry, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation.