First it looks religious, with some long, flowing nuns holding papier-maché figures high in the air, but by the time they round the corner Padgett can see—yes—some of them are men, and the figures are, those she can recognize, politicians, some local, and pop music stars, some dead. Next some women in kimonos, if they’re women, powdered white and twirling parasols and throwing the pink petals of cherry blossoms like a wrong drawing of snow. Cars honk, and Martin’s dog barks, you can hear it, excited and enthused like he’s made his fortune. Piñatas, women in sombreros singing a song to them, rows of Chinese children in some uniform banging on glockenspiels either in chaos or according to some blueprint—it just sounds like a bell explosion—Padgett can’t fathom. They’re in the thick of it now, hula hoops and fiery juggling, clowns tossing candy, people in squared-off suits with buckets full of brochures for real estate and summer camps, propositions that should pass or be repealed, judges who should be recalled or reelected, and an all-tuba marching band, all with thick fake hairy beards and hairy hats in parody, or tribute, to some cultural something she can’t identify, or any of it. At this late hour, where can they be going? It will be dark by the time they reach, what else is down there, the zoo? Everyone is delighted and rapt even when the clouds let loose a little and it rains, just a little, on everything. The petals on the concrete lose their pink for violet, like cleaning a palette. Padgett and Martin lock eyes for a little of it, and then he’s gone, his big dog too, up to his apartment maybe, if he still lives there, or just tagging along with the cavalcade for the reason of why not, he’s a single man in a free country, the parade’s for him if he wants it. The children are looking at the raining sky, the adults, both couples here at the exit, at the departing spectacle, feeling ordinary, just human, in comparison. Nobody wants it, all of it, to end.

“So,” one of them says, finally. “Shall we go get a drink?”

Author’s Note

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Lines from the Adrienne Rich poem “What Kind of Times Are These” appear courtesy of her estate. Lyrics from the Stars song “Turn It Up” appear courtesy of Stars, with particular thanks to Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell.

The author is also grateful to Daisy Fried’s poem “Thrash,” Harry Mathews’s novel Cigarettes, Theodore Roethke’s book Straw for the Fire, Andrew Alan Johnson’s study Ghosts of the New City, David Weatherly’s indescribable Strange Intruders, and James Simpson’s translation of Reynard the Fox. A tip of the hat, too, to the films Rebecca and My Darling Clementine, and to the pop album from which the novel gets its secret structure.