Generation X

He wasn't crying. He was weeping and I could only place my chin on his heart and listen—listen while he blubbered that he didn't know what happened to his youth, to any of his ideas about people or niceness, and that he had become a slightly freaky robot. 'I can't even break into porno now because of my accident. Not and get top dollar.'

"And after a while we just laid there and breathed together. He started to talk to me, but his talk was like a roulette wheel that's almost slowed down to a full stop. 'You know, Baby Doll,' he said, 'sometimes you can be very stupid and swim a bit too far out into the ocean and not have enough energy to swim back to shore. Birds insult you at that point, when you're out there just floating. They only remind you of the land you'll never be able to reach again. But one of these days, I don't know when, one of those little hummingbirds is going to zip right in and make a dart for my blue little eyes, and when that happens—'

"But he never told me what he was going to do. It wasn't his intention; he passed out instead. It must have been midnight by then and I was left staring at his poor, battle-scarred body, under the birthday candle lighting. I tried to think of something, any thing, I could do for him, and I only came up with one idea. I put my chest on top of his, and kissed him on the forehead, grabbing onto his tattoos of trains and dice and gardenias and broken hearts for support. And I tried to empty the contents of my soul into his. I imagined my strength—my soul— was a white laser beam shooting from my heart into his, like those light pulses in glass wires that can pump a million books to the moon in one second. This beam was cutting through his chest like a beam cutting through a sheet of steel. Curtis could take or leave this strength that he so obviously lacked—but I just wanted it to be there for him as a reserve. I would give my life for that man, and all I was able to donate that night was whatever remained of my youth. No regrets.

Anyway, sometime that night, after the rains ended and while I was sleeping, Curtis disappeared from the room. And unless fate throws us together again, which I doubt quite strongly, I suspect that was it for us for this lifetime. He's out there right now, maybe even as we speak, getting pecked in the eyeball by a ruby-throated little gem. And you know what'll happen to him when he does get pecked? Call it a hunch, but when that happens, train cars will shunt in his mind. And the next time Sylvia comes knocking on his door, he'll walk over and he'll open-it. Call it a hunch."

None of us can talk, and it's obvious to us what Elvissa will re­member earth by. Fortunately, the phone rings in my bungalow and definitively cuts the moment, as only a phone ring can. Tobias takes that moment to excuse himself and head over to his car, and when I enter my bungalow to pick up the phone, I see him stooped down and looking at his eyes in his rented Nissan's rearview mirror. Right then I know that it's all over between him and Claire. Call it a hunch. I pick up the phone.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-23