Habeas Corpus, beginning
Posted on November 8, 2007
Filed Under writings, Habeas corpus |
So I confused you, my few and loyal readers, two days back by posting a passage from the middle of the novel I’m writing. I apologize. It is cruel and disorienting to make you jump into the action half way through.
And because I’ve had a busy day and haven’t finished the post I meant for tomorrow, I will instead entertain you with the intro to the book. How’s that for an idea - starting from the beginning.
For those of you who have been around for awhile this may read familiar. Parts of the lead-in were posted as a short story some time ago. It’s been reworked and absorbed into a larger text.
Feel free to read, enjoy or simply yawn and look away….
It’s a Green Mountain morning in October. Great drifts of scenic fog. The sun yet to rise over the dumpster, the parked cars, the leaves and litter blowing in restless tumbles down the slopes of the valley. I pack my small suitcase with the broken zipper, cramming it full of bulging woolens and scarves and a few hand knit sweaters I’ve had since I was sixteen. As if careful planning and an early start might offer any comfort against the cold hope that my father, before his passing, will say, just once, ‘I did it and I’m sorry.”
My old Honda starts with a shudder, the familiar whine of a Japanese car, a high pitched, tinny sound reminiscent of toy planes and Vespas. I wait for the engine to warm, rattling through the CD’s that Chad left in the glove box, searching for something appropriate, a score suitable for the epic and solitary drive. It’s a Fire and Rain moment. I need a little James Taylor, his familiar, mournful crooning.
It’s nowhere. Gone. Chad must have taken Sweet Baby James with him, leaving me only the rejects. There’s No Jacket Required. I can’t stand Phil Collins. I blame Phil for the D+ I earned in Cultural Anthropology. My mind, too busy retaining every word of Take Me Home (which I haven’t heard in-total since 1985), to absorb lectures on humanity.
I settle for old Radio Head, singing along with Thom Yorke, If I could be who you wanted, all the time…
There’s one more cigarette in the pack on the dashboard . It’ll be a good five hours before I arrive, enough time for the smell of cigarette smoke to dissipate. Mom, reproachful, worried, has just sent a study linking malignant breast tumors and smoking. It won’t do to have that conversation upon arrival. Not with the Dad dying the undignified death of terminal cancer.
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