And, as far aselevation:no, not great, pretty subpar.
I felt weird, dual, not quite right.
In my mind was a dispute, like two women were up there competing for, so to say, a certain right, the right to guide the ship of speech.
It was likeshe(theelevated,more or less hoity-toity part, no offense) kept pushingme(who had actually oncelivedand all) out of the way, even as we, together, had to admit that she (theelevatedpart) could, really could, say, more precisely than I could, that which we felt might need expressing.
It seemed I’d somehow damaged myself on that stupid trip to Indiana.
Had become, it felt like, a bit of a freak.
A freak of sorts.
A hybrid.
Partelevated,part Jill “Doll” Blaine.
This had never happened before, not so extremely, and I have to say I didn’t much like it.
And tried again to fix it.
Dropping, I skimmed along the surface of a red-clay stream feeding the Canadian River that, flowing along there in the dark, was rippled by a wheat-stalk-flattening cross-breeze that set four wind-chimes to sounding from the front porch of acreepy hunter’s shack/shed I wouldn’t have set foot inside of if you gave me a million bucks, honestly.
Dang, it was so odd.
To find oneself in this new mixed mode.
What a riot.
Confounding yet intriguing.
Weird as all get-out.
I couldn’t seem to shake Jill “Doll” Blaine (all she’d seen, been, and done) and didn’t want to. But neither could Jill “Doll” Blaine shake me, theelevatedpart, and didn’t want to, for to be in touch even briefly withelevationis to know the bliss of being one with God.
In any event, I had to get back to it.
Here, now, was Texas, here the neighborhood of my charge.
Every room on the second floor of his house was lit, though only one of them was in use.
—
I landed softly, in a sitting position, on the base of the statue of the golden dog.
I couldn’t go in.
Just couldn’t somehow.
Needed a minute.
Up the driveway came a man of our ilk, short but densely muscled, shirtless, who looked as if he’d been rolling around in a vat of grease, whose wild white hair was sticking straight up.
Seen my wife? he said. I’m always about ten minutes behind her. Old lady in a rocking chair. Or young gal with her hair down all slutty, about to dash off into the rain. To meet her friends. Also sluts.
Afraid not, I said.
I mean to make it up to her good and proper, he said.
