Circles Where the Head Should Be

Lady on a Unicycle

8 Lady on a Unicycle Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it. —Newton’s First Law So Esse Pearl gets snowed in at the chichi condo of that married man she sees, and—you can filter this however you think fit— she’s upstairs, toweling off burst-bubble film, her chest chafed from his monogram, and he’s shut in the parlor, leafing through sheet music— but just the glockenspiel, he says, to swallow all the woodwinds in his head— when, glancing towards the porch to contemplate a scale, he sees a woman poised, it seems, above the fluff of shrubs before the sheer pink streetlights show her high boots turn a single wheel. Now here’s the kicker: he goes back to reading, forgets even to mention it until they take a holiday months later (months!), like it wasn’t worth writing home about—and that’s the kind of man he is, Esse Pearl says, a mess of grandioso themes the rest of us can’t hear; and (bless her heart) wrapped up in his wife’s terrycloth, she never knew what passed: a whistle-trill of spokes turned over salted asphalt, the easy lean achieved by holding on to nothing, the freedom of a body that can stop itself. ...