Cover

By the same Author

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

FICTION

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
Pastoralia
The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
In Persuasion Nation
Tenth of December
Fox 8
Lincoln in the Bardo
Liberation Day

NON-FICTION

The Braindead Megaphone
Congratulations, by the Way
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

Dedication

FOR PAULA

Liberation Day

LIBERATION DAY

It is third day of Interim.

A rather long Interim, for us.

All day we wonder: When will Mr. U. return? To Podium? Are the Untermeyers (Mr. U., Mrs. U., adult son Mike) pleased? If so, why? If not, why not? When next will we be asked to Speak? Of what, in what flavor?

We wonder avidly. Though not aloud. For there may be Penalty. One may be unPinioned before the eyes of the upset others and brought to a rather Penalty Area. (Here at the Untermeyers’, a shed in the yard.) In Penalty, one sits in the dark among shovels. One may talk. But cannot Speak. How could one? To enjoy the particular exhilaration of Speaking, one must be Pinioned. To the Speaking Wall.

Otherwise, one speaks like this.

As I am speaking to you now.

Plain, uninspired, nothing of beauty about it.

Hearing Mr. U. coming down the hall, we wonder: Might tonight be Company?

But no. Soon, we find, it is mere Rehearsal. Mr. U.’s intention: to jam.

“Ted, where are you, what are you doing?” Mrs. U. inquires in the angry voice from elsewhere in the house.

“In the Listening Room,” he says. “Jamming.”

“Oh, for Lord’s sake,” she says.

It is a special feeling one gets when Mr. U. has sent your Pulse but it has not fully arrived. Like a pre-dreaming or déjà vu is how Craig and Lauren and I have described it on those rare occasions when, risking Penalty, we have spoken among ourselves. Once the Pulse is fully upon you, here will come your words, not intended by, but nevertheless flowing through, you, built, as it were, upon the foundation that is you, supercharged by the Pulse, molded to the chosen Topic, such that, if Mr. U. has dialed in, say, Nautical, whoever he has chosen to go first will suddenly begin Speaking of things Nautical in his or her own flavor, but far more compellingly than he or she could if unPinioned. Mr. U., jamming, may choose to have all of us Speak of Nautical simultaneously; in a whisper or quite loud; may Pan right to left (from Craig to Lauren to me, per our current Arrangement), each of us, in turn, putting his or her own spin on Nautical.