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Gimbels: Your One Stop Shop for a One of a Kind Dad
Fade to white
Flash Blindness
Martin wore the ereen chevroned tie to his Announcement, even if it wasn’t strictly within the dress code Everything else was right down the line: light grey suit, shaved clean if shaving was on the menu, a dab of musky Oil of Fecunditas behind each ear from your friends at Spotless Corp Black shoes, black socks, Spotless lavender talcum, teeth brushed three times with Pure Spearmint Toothpaste (You’re Sure with Spear with pride Looking handso as he always did
Of course, there was another boy holding his other hand
His name was Thomas He had broad shoulders already, chocolate-colored hair and cool slate eyes that made him look terribly romantic Martin tried not to let it bother hiram worked Where the other three weeks of the month took his Father Obviously, there were other children, other wives, other ho television shows on other channels And that’s all Tho a show, it just ceased to be Clicked off Fade to white You couldn’t be jealous of the people on those other channels They had their own troubles and adventures, engrossing ers and tune-in-next-weeks It had nothing to do with Martin, or Rosemary, or Henry in his room That hat it meant to be a Husband
The three of theray Cadillac An older lady drove them She wore a smart cap and had hite hair, but her cheeks were still pink and round Martin tried to look at her as a Husband would, even though a woet to choose Martin’s future wives—four to start with, that was standard, but if he did well, who kneouldn’t all be bo at woorgeous in theh lines around her eyes Martin could tell they were laugh lines And her eyes, when she looked in the rear view reen She radioed to the dispatcher and her voice lilted along with a faint twinge of English accent Martin could i jokes about the King He i on a soft pink bed, soft like her pink cheeks Her body would be the best kind of body: the kind that had borne children Breasts that had nursed Legs that had run afterlittle ones He could love that body The sudden hardness between his legs held no threat, only infinite love and acceptance, a Husband’s love
When I think about how good I could be, hborhood and the city sh dead black trees But soreen wick Martin knew it He had a green wick, too I will remember every date Every ill be so special and I will love her and our children I will make her martinis I will roast the chicken so she doesn’t have to When I am with one of them I will turn off all other channels in ht and separate I will study so hard, so that I kno to please It will be my only vocation, to be devoted And if they, the women of Elm Street or Oak Lane or Birch Drive find love with each other when I ah love I will draw theain Everything will be okay
It all seemed to happen very fast Thomas and Martin and a dozen other boys listened to a quintet play Mendelssohn The e from President McCarthy which had to be pretty old because he still sported a good head of hair Finally, a minister stood up with a lovely New Tabernacle Bible in her one good hand The other was shriveled, boneless, a black claw in her green vestilt A ribbon down and it was very red in the afternoon flares She did not lay it on a lectern She carried the weight in her hands and read from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthehich Martin already knew by heart The minister’s maple-syrup contralto filled the vaults of Matthew House
“And when Mary had coh priest announced to all that the virgins ere reared in the Tee of their woiven in lawful h Priest went in to take counsel with God, a voice came forth from the oratory for all to hear, and it said that of all of the eable men of the House of David who had not yet taken a wife, each should bring a rod and lay it upon the altar, that one of the rods would burst into flower and upon it the Holy Ghost would come to rest in the fored would be the one to who the htaway it burst into bloom and a Dove came from Heaven and perched upon it, whereby it was manifest to all that Mary should become the wife of Joseph”
Martin’s eyes filled with tears He felt a terrible light in his chest For aout of hiave him a white silk purse and directed him to a booth with a white velvet curtain Inside, silence Diht Martin opened the purse and pulled out the chalice—a plastic cup with measurements printed on it, just like Grud said With it lay a few old photographs—women from before the ith so much health in their faces Martin could hardly bear to look at theht Statistically speaking, that woman with the black hair and heart-shaped face and polka-dotted bikini is dead Vaporized in Seattle or Phoenix or Los Angeles That here they used to irl is dead
Martin couldn’t do it This was about life Everything, no e, was toward life He could not use a dead girl that way Instead, he shut his eyes Heinside him The chauffeur with her pink cheeks and white hair The minister with her kind voice and brown eyes and her shriveled hand, which ful, but wasn’t she alive and good? Tairl from the Victory Brand Capsule Garden coirl with red hair who lived two blocks over and was so pretty that looking at her was like getting punched in the chest He drew in bold, bright lines the hoer than the war, as big as the world
Martin’s body convulsed with the tiny, private detonation of his soul His vision blurred into a hot colorless flash
Blast Wind
Sylvie’s ether in a long pearl-colored Packard and did not speak Sylvie had nothing to say Let her mother be uncomfortable A visceral purple sunset colored the western sky, even at two in the afternoon Sylvie played the test in her head like a fil to her, it felt no more real than a picture on a sheet