Part of my head I didn’t know was shut down is coming on again, is coming alive again, I am letting myself imagine something I imagined many times before, I mean something I imagined after I found out you were on the way but before I ended up in this hospital. I imagined, I am imagining again, holding your hand, of course you’ll have to learn to walk first, you won’t be able to do this right away, I’m imagining holding your hand as we walk together down the dry bed of the Madera River, which is a wide river, you’ll see, with hardly any water in it. I can picture clearly in my so-called mind’s eye you and me walking together, our footsteps in the shallow sand, coming down one of the banks, down through a narrow opening in the brush, me behind you, me reaching forward over your head to push branches aside, until we reach the riverbed itself, marked with crisscrossing ribbons of tracks from bicycles and motorcycles and ATVs. I’ll hold your hand, we’ll walk and talk, father and son, you’ll have lots of questions, being a relatively new arrival, you’ll have questions about the dry bed of the Madera River, and I’ll answer them for you, Juan-George, it’ll be as simple as that, you and me, walking, talking, questions and answers. I’ll show you how and where the water cuts into the land, I’ll tell you about the seasons, about when the river is full, about the flowers and grasses and lizards and butterflies and birds, mating and growing, and dying and mating and growing again. Your grandfather used to take me down there, back when he was still going out, back when I was still a little boy. We held hands and we walked, I asked questions and he answered, for a long time I believed he knew all there was to know.
Everything repeats itself eventually, your grandfather used to say, the universe is a giant revolving door. Which reminds me of the bicycle crank, of the turning of the crank, feet on the pedals, the crank going round and round, like thoughts, as I’ve said before, and the wheels, for their part, going round and round too. Get a rock stuck in your tire and you’ll hear the tick-tick of it as long as those wheels keep turning. But there is the other motion, too, the bicycle moving forward, covering ground, as they say, the bicycle moving forward over new ground relentlessly, nothing ever repeating exactly the same way, everything always different. Until, of course, you reach the terminus. But my point is that the world isn’t either one way or the other, Juan-George, it’s both. The crank turns and the bicycle moves forward. Both.
When I picture myself holding your hand, I realize I’m picturing myself holding your grandfather’s hand. Only we’ve traded places, of course, I’m the big one now.
***
C: Oppen? Sweetheart?
O: Yes, amor.
C: You are alive, you are going to live.
O: Yes.
C: Why are you still talking?
... Gaal saw the people, he said to Zebul, Behold, there come people down from the top of the mountains. And Zebul said unto him, Thou seest the shadow of the mountains as if they were men...[Bible reading continues to end of tape.]
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For their keen eyes and wise words I’m indebted to Eric Bennett, Jack Livings, Brigid Hughes, John Woodward, and Katie Arnoldi. For ushering Oppen through the vicissitudes of rude commerce, Anna Stein and Lauren Wein. For artistic lodestar navigation, James Alan McPherson. For diverting lines, GM Quinte. For everything else and more, I am eternally grateful to Chrissy Levinson Wilson, without whose love and encouragement I surely would have sunk into the mire, never to be heard from again.
About the Author
Antoine Wilson is the author of the novel The Interloper and a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He is a contributing editor of A Public Space and lives and surfs in Los Angeles. Visit www.antoinewilson.com.
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