life of the artist [21]

129 KATE GREENSTREET LIFE OF THE ARTIST [21] She took the car? Maybe. Men go to sea. It comes into every serious and beautiful life, she said. A moment when the person is listening, trying to bring in a signal. I’d think I heard it, night after night . . . but it was never there on the tapes. Doleful is the word that keeps coming to mind. The family is sleeping. A rock or believed to be a rock or ball of something, fallen from the sky. What’s allowed? Really. What’s allowed now? He says he understands me. It’s like a game. Why did he have a red hammer? That’s a good question. I remember we were crossing a desert. I remember that no one could say what they felt. I thought he was different 130 and better than everyone else. I felt he could see me. Everything was there to teach us. I’m gonna say it amounted to this: it was raining. She had four kids already. I don’t know—did they have kids together then, too? And they were doing music, living that life. She seems to have so much enjoyment in the music. The way she looks over at him. More than he looks at her. We were crossing . . . which war was it? Then he was born again. Wanted to give away the little they had, disappeared before a gig in Wisconsin. Just a marionette or—what do they call it?—a dummy. Back in the suitcase. You’re the brother? I see her problem and I can’t solve it. I don’t have to write it down. I remember. ...