Page 165 - Rainbow County and Other Stories

Rainbow County 153

times: the wet-lipped kiss from that unshaved face in the dark
over his bed. It was all reduced to that: the memory of his father,
home from the late shift, leaning over to kiss him goodnight. As
if he were again half-asleep in his little boy’s sleep, Robert could
feel his father’s ghostly kiss on his face. He could not forget his
father’s love, but he could not forgive that one night of his father’s
drunkenness.
Robert realized that he had been losing everything despite his
desperate collecting of folders of stolen clippings and magazines
purloined from under the eyes of cheery dental receptionists. In
the glory days of the large magazines, he had tried to save the
images of the week by swallowing up the sleeves of his school
jacket whole issues of Look and Life. Finally, when he had been
caught with his single-edge razor blade in the Green County
Public Library, his mother had said, “I hope you’re satisfied. You
now owe me a hundred dollars more.” Her face looked screwed
with pain that he thought was no more than her embarrass ment
at his conviction. “Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. What do you expect
me to live on? When will you ever grow up and settle down?” Six
months later, she was dead and he had fled to San Francisco. He
was fed up to his eyeballs with personal relationships. He had a
need for a city of strangers.
Lloyd, like most barbers, could hold a one-sided conversation
with a corpse and was finishing up his long monologue when
Robert remembered where he was. “Old Sammy Davis, Jr.,” Lloyd
said, “only got one of his eyes put out. That’s because his folks
wanted him to dance. Be kind of hard to poke out both your eyes
and dance too. Might fall off the stage. But before long, you’ll
see, someone’ll show up and try it big as life on network TV.” He
handed Robert another magazine.
“And they’ll be tapping out something in code, those dancers
will.” Robert took the magazine and laid his line on Lloyd. “That
blind guy you say’ll be dancing on CBS will be tapping out in
code something everybody ought to hear. Something like SOS.”
Robert considered his words. “Just like SOS,” he repeated, and he
wanted to cry out, not for help, but for something else, “because
we’re all in danger and we have to save our souls.”

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
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