32
Alice’s granny and poppa were looking at a puzzle in the funny papers, a block of wavy, unfocused multicolored lines. They would bring the page close to their faces, then push it slowly back.
“I see it,” her poppa said.
“I see it, too,” her granny said. “Why don’t you try it, Alice?”
Alice studied it, crossing her eyes even. She wanted to be the kind of person who could see things that weren’t initially or even necessarily there, wanted the surprise of seeing the other something that was in everything, its hidden nimbus, its romance. “I don’t see anything,” she said. She felt hot with disappointment, as though in this simple optic failure she had failed the challenge of life.
“You don’t see the kayak?” her poppa asked.
“Kayak!” Alice said. “All it is is a kayak?”
“When I was a girl, it was Jesus opening his eyes,” her granny admitted. “These big heavy-lidded eyes, and they’d just slide slowly open and bore right into you.”
“Didn’t have to explain, just proclaim,” her poppa said. “That’s the way it was in those days.”
“Why bother, if it’s only a kayak!”
“Don’t get so upset, honey. Go get Corvus. See if she can spot the kayak.”
“She’s sleeping,” Alice said.
“That young woman sleeps too much,” her granny said. “I wish there was something we could do for her.”
“A locked heart is difficult to unlock,” her poppa said. “We’re giving her shelter for the moment, that’s the important thing. Shelter is what she needs right now.”
He cleared the table of the Sunday papers, and put out the supper things. They were having tortilla soup and coffee cake tonight. They had their favorites frequently.
“Do you know they’re raising pigs now for their organs alone?” her poppa said. “No more bacon or those barbecued ears that Fury likes. They’ll be too valuable for that.”
“I think Fury buries them directly, to tell you the truth,” her granny said.
“Seeing animals as food is so primitive,” Alice said.
“That’s what they’re saying. This is more civilized. Pigs will be bred for hearts and valves adequate for transplanting into needy humankind.”
“That is so wicked,” Alice said.
“If you needed a kidney,” her poppa asked, “would you accept one from a guinea pig just to tide you over?”
“Certainly not,” she said.
“A guinea pig kidney wouldn’t do Alice any good,” her granny protested. “It would be far too small.” She was more down to earth than her poppa, who sometimes just liked to stir things up.
“Animal donors are the future,” he said. “I can see the first pig on the cover of Time. The pig prior to the selfless donation of his heart to the president.”
“Time, that rag,” her granny said. “Well, I think it’s unfortunate. What will happen to children’s books? What will become of the classics? Remember your favorite, Alice? It was Charlotte’s Web.”
“ ‘No one was with her when she died,’ ” Alice said, her mouth full of coffee cake.
“What’s that?” her granny inquired.
Alice swallowed. “No one was with Charlotte when she died. That’s how it ends.”
“It couldn’t have ended like that, I’m sure,” her granny said, troubled. “That must be the next-to-the-last chapter.”
“What interests me about this xenograft craze,” her poppa persisted, “is that it shows people have found it’s enough for them to live in this world. They just want to keep on living. That’s where knowledge and the march of science has brought us. Right back to square one.” He coughed and tapped his chest with his fist, a piece of cake having gone down the wrong way.
“What is ‘xeno’?” Alice asked. “Was that the name of the pig?”
“Xeno, from the Greek. It means ‘stranger.’ Know your roots and prefixes, and you’ll find the world more accessible, Alice.”
“There’s a lot I don’t want to know,” she argued. “There’s a superfluity of knowledge. Most of it is useless. I choose not to know.” She blushed. When she had said something similar to this to Sherwin, he’d said, “You want to turn from civilization into a starlit darkness, don’t you, darling?”
“Don’t you worry about that C in school,” her poppa said. “There’s always next year. And I don’t want you worrying about that kayak either.”
Alice, blushing, ate her soup. A.k.a. Xeno, fiercely ate.
“I prefer news to knowledge,” her granny said. “I suppose because I’m getting along.”
“Talking about the news—” her poppa began.
“You know what this lady said to me at Green Palms?” Alice said. “She said, ‘Talking about tossing puppies back and forth,’ as though I’d been talking about tossing puppies back and forth.”
Her granny and poppa looked at her. Fury was looking at the wand on the window blind tremble so slightly. He didn’t know why it did that.
“What did she say next?” her granny said.
“She didn’t say anything next.”
“The reason people in those places seldom show resentment or complain about their situation,” her poppa said, “is because of a lack of continuity in their thinking.”
“Talking about the news,” her granny said, “did you hear about the woman in Detroit? Wanted a baby, stole one. Nothing unusual about that. Thing was, it was her girlfriend’s baby and the girlfriend hadn’t had it yet. Two girlfriends sitting around one night drinking wine and worse, and this woman gets it in her head that she wants that girlfriend’s baby and she just carves it right out of her, just scoops it right out like you would a melon, with some implement she found in the kitchen.”
“The Motor City,” her poppa said.
“It’s not called that anymore,” her granny said. “Anyway, woman went back to her own place with the baby, but she got arrested shortly thereafter. It was discovered that the idea hadn’t popped into her head suddenly at all, it was premeditated. She had a complete layette she’d purchased days before. Baby in question found to be perfectly fine.”
“I have something to contribute,” Alice’s poppa said. “Did you hear about the old gentleman who shot his wife and their aviary of cockatoos, then entertained some recovering addict who was trying to get her life back together by going door to door selling some sort of cleaner?”
“What kind of addict?” her granny said.
“Smack, I believe.”
“What do you mean, entertained?” Alice asked.
“Provided her with a cup of tea. He was just about to do himself in when the addict knocked on the door to relate her tale of self-improvement. His name is … I can’t remember his name. Eighty-six years of age.”
“Poor soul,” her granny said.
“Wife was ailing. Old gentleman was ailing. He was afraid that they’d deteriorate completely and their feathered companions would end up at the dump.”
“That’s where they would’ve ended up, too, if proper arrangements hadn’t been made beforehand. Course, that’s where they’ll end up now anyway.” Her granny cut them all another sliver of cake. “I bet that addict hustled right back to the needle after that experience.”
“Shot all his loved ones with a rifle right here, in our community. Then did you hear about the two hunters who shot a man crawling down one of our mountains? They thought he was a game animal and just blew him away at dusk, thought he was something else entirely. A case of mistaken identity. They said that dusk confused them.”
“It makes you feel we’re all living in some darkened dream,” her granny said.