Death of a Ventriloquist

A Brief History of the Decline

28 A Brief History of the Decline 1. The Summation I began this trial with a list: leaf-spines, the quivering inside fox-sparrow wings, a little girl in a blue dress who rides her bicycle through a mist, roadside lupine, black-eyed susans, a bottle-nosed dolphin leaping and arcing in a boat’s wake. Ladies and gentlemen, the eyes pass off surfaces as attractive depth. They have us believing every other person on the street is the rarest Junonia or lightning whelk. As I’ve said, each and every glimpse contains some arsenic. I’ve told you the tragic tale of symphonies a writer had to hold in mind to keep his eyes from steak knives. I’ve cited azurite and banded jasper, the only objects known to slow their wants. Over and again, I’ve proved the eyes go where the gilt and curve direct. 29 2. After the Sentencing At first, they wandered, blind, and wondered at the paraffin, rosemary, leaf rot, and sweet almond oil, nosed as if for the first time. Sidewalks were gauntlets of fingers— all of them came to know each other anew. They heard the small hands of oak leaves. Fondled the dewed grass. Attended to. The tongue became a multi-purpose organ: taste, touch, and sight. Time was told by heat. 30 3. Overheard at a Local Tavern I’m telling you the sex was great. Better than ever. Like we figured out a new blind geometry. …. I don’t know, it’s just a talent I have—I use my hands to see. …. Listen, I thought you wanted to hear this. …. For weeks there was this hum to how she talked. …. Her note said, Everything has changed. I can’t read your face anymore. 31 4. Months Later, the Lawyer Returned So much night errantry. All is jagged-edged. Where are my Klieg lights, my spot-lamps, my gadabouts— tufthunters, louts. Re-dice: let me throw them again, this time back in. Let me tell it all again. Make me a honey drudger once more. I miss thinking I’ve seen the Nereids: Master’s Lovely Consort, Never-Wrong, Bounty-of-the-Deep. I can’t find the jar of sorrows even, the pocketful of god, the muse once found stuttering in folds of coast: granite and metamorphic quartz and mica. Now nothing can save me. Nothing can shame me. I’ve brewed oolong and umlaut to no avail. Railroad ties would make good tongues. I’d give all four senses, all this scratchiti, for one minute of the sweet deaths and quick tinctures of sight. ...