At the funeral of his father, to which he was late, he had to have them open the coffin at the cemetery so he could see him. He had never seen a dead man before. He said to his father, “Hey, bud,” a thing his father had said to him, which he had never himself said. He held his hand. He kissed him on the cold meat of his forehead. No one at the cemetery saw this. In the heat they were now concentrating on trying to leave. Deer flies and sportcoats and good cars and some women who had liked his handsome father were by the cars, ready to leave. He could have joined his father in the expensive box that was designed to turn his father into slime and for which he felt most sorry for his father, and they would not have seen this either.
At the funeral of his mother, he was not late, and he did not have to have the coffin opened because it had not yet been closed. He said, “Hey, Mom.” He did not touch her. If he did, he cannot remember, but he can remember thinking he was probably not going to want to, and he does not remember any change of emotion when he saw her, so his memory that he did not touch her is probably correct.
Inside the funeral home at his father’s affair, where he discovered his father already removed to the cemetery, was a vulgar employee whom he should have assaulted but did not. The man said, “Y’all come back now, y’heah?” and got away with it.
He walked out into the heat then, and saw Forrest for the first time. Forrest slapped at a prickly pear cactus with the flat of his saber, and the man might have thought of his father’s mother slapping his father with the flat of her carving knife, but he did not. It was too hot to think. He then saw Sally at the grave and did not remember her. She introduced herself, and he said, “Oh, yes. Of course.”
Gizmo
THE WOMAN WITH TAUT vanilla flesh sits on the black chair and regards the courthouse lawn. I don’t see them, she says.
— Who?
— The redhorse suckers.
— Why should you?
— They went out this window.
— Oh.
She watches the square. Something odd catches her eye in the shadows. She looks at the black men, who see her. She looks back to the odd thing, under a store awning.
— There are two men watching this window.
— The sages?
— No. These are criminals of some sort. White. Looking at us with a gizmo.
— What kind of gizmo?
— High-tech gizmo.
— I am not worried about no high-tech gizmo.
— Well, these are pretty low-tech-looking boys wielding the gizmo, if that makes any difference.
— Might. Just might.
Scientists
— I CAINT QUITE TELL if she can see him or not, Hod. I know he can.
— Whyont you run Forrest now?
— Shit, Hod, em nappy pappys already actin spooked. I run him right through them last time, they so whooped by it one of em says he smellin bream beddin!
— Naw.
— Swear to God.
— Well, all right. We got what we want anyway. If she can see him too, that a extra. Mr. Turner gone be very pleased with his field hands, I’d say. The New Southerner to order! Man who caint remember who he is, one; caint forget who he supposed to be, two; can see Forrest and be spooked by it and have half a idea what the hell it is, three: that was our orders. And to boot, to judge from the looks a her, he aint queer—
— That’s a miracle, way it going.
— Theys more wrong in the world than being queer, Rape.
— They is? Like what? You hidin something from me, Hod?
— No. It aint nothing but a thang. Now see can she really see him. Put him on Talk. I bleve we in position for a bonus, Rape, Mr. Turner find out we got him a mating pair. Don’t run him through them old men no more. No telling what this does to people.
— Fuck people up when they see it, I’d say.
— Yeah, but I mean when they don’t.
— Make em smell bream when they don’t. That much we know.
— Yeah, Rape. We a couple reglar scientists.
Dandy
THE WOMAN WHO NO longer is Sally, if she ever was, pays oblique attention to the two men under the awning who are pointing something around the square. Those are as solid a pair of ne’er-do-wells ever scuffed shoes, she says to the man.
— I’m tired.
— I’m tired too, love. But it’s Ted Bundy and Lee Harvey Oswald down there aiming a ray gun at this window or I’m a coot on duck day.
And then she sees Forrest — of this, from her expression, there is no doubt in the minds of those who witness her seeing him.
Forrest appears unmounted, natty in shirt garters and whipcord trousers, not his riding attire, and wearing silver spurs. He takes a position near a granite pedestal bearing a likeness of himself. He disregards it. He says, in a voice surprisingly high and piercing, “I jingle when I walk in these things. They become me, if I am a dandy, and I become a dandy when I walk. That is why I ride fist skull stomp gouge and resent the everliving shit out of appointed leaders who dick around with cigars and bury boys. The bones of boys, mark me, will mark us forever. I am fire.”
Forrest turns to fire, his mouth a monalisa. His spurs melt into the ground like mercury.
God damn, the woman says.
Obsession
IT OCCURRED TO MRS. Hollingsworth that she should do something with herself other than make this preposterous grocery list that was getting preposterouser with every item she added. It was taking on a powerful vigor of its own. The Bundy and Oswald figures, for example, had appeared on the list without her direct intention, it seemed. This equipment they had she could not properly identify except to know that it made holograms and was more technical than she was and appeared way more technical than this Bundy and Oswald who were charged with operating it. It was one thing to have a preposterous grocery list, she thought, and another to have a list you did not control.
So to do something other than the list she went out in the country for a drive and saw some cows and two white doves in a very green field. Then she went back home and organized the floor of her closet, matching shoes to boxes and noting that she had three expensive leather train bags and had not been on a train for twenty-five years. She did not in fact think a train bag was necessarily intended to go on a train. Then she sat back down at her kitchen table to resume the list. It was becoming obsessive, she told herself. She then told herself it was probably the absence, not the presence, of some good salubrious obsessions in a life that made it unsatisfying. What else did she have, really? In the end, a list like this one was better on the antibourgeois scale than one you actually went to the store with, wasn’t it? That, going to the store, would result in tuna casserole and a marriage with Joy of Cooking in its background, which was precisely what she had and was precisely what had inspired her to sit down in this fugue about Forrest in the first place. So she listed on.
Spot
ONLY BOY BACK AIR with Bobby Lee what could I hear fight ate lemons, believed in Jesus, and got hisself shot by his own men. And I am walkin round on spurs made from melted thimbles. We are in a spot.
The fair ladies of Memphis have done made me a pair of silver spurs and now caint sew. When they get what men back they gone get back from this fight, it aint gone matter. The woman is gone pay for this for the rest of her everliving life. She gone put up with shanks and heroes what wasn’t there and the luckiest of fools what was. It aint gone make for no high cotton.