She backed up. She backed into her studio. Disoriented, looking for some surface to sit upon, she moved in reverse and fell back, settled, butt-first, on her palette. Surprising me as usual, Alabama laughed at this. She stared over one shoulder and down at her own still-perfect backside. “You know? Using a mirror, with linseed oil, I could daub color right off. Most palettes have the thumb hole, right, hon?” I told her I’d find out where and make the appointment and, if she let me, I’d come with her.

“But what are you saying about him, Hartley? Have you talked to him about this?”

I shook my head yes. “Only just now. He’d worked so long, he’s been having such a good time (or that’s what it looks like from out here) … I thought it could wait. If I’d known, you … I didn’t know. Maybe it was selfish of me not to corner him earlier. If only for some stranger’s sake.”

Then we stared at each other. We’d once watched a TV wildlife show. It ended with two big animals battering heads. They lock horns in the wilderness. They die out there—with only each other’s eyes as their own fond, sickening, final sight.

Promises, Promises

e had just some scribbled Chelsea address; I told the cabbie to slow down please; it must be around here; I saw a grove of sycamores and started laughing. “No,” she got it. “The seminal VD clinic. Where history was made. They’ve got more serious things to deal with now, huh? But, hey, they cured us before, right, son? Must’ve been a grammar school at one time, don’t you figure? I can hear the ole halls echoing now, ‘Row row row yer boat, life is but a dream … I mean, discharge.’”

“A dream of a discharge.”

“Ever the optimist, Hartley mine. You’re incurable, know that?”

“Nice work if you can get it. I do feel a bit rustier at it lately. But I’m fighting that.”

“Like your ancestor Colonel Increase?”

“You scare me sometimes. We’re all going to be all right, I just know it.”

“How do you put up with us, Hartley? You think you understand Humanity. You might. Unfortunately, it’s people that are the bitch. Certain ladies in Savannah still believe that folks from nice families are literally made of different flesh and bones. You think our circle is.”

“‘No shit?’—attributed to Alabama Byrnes, circa 1981.”

“You ever going to say my name again?”

“That is your name. We get to pick, remember? I chose not to be called ‘Dick,’ like Dad. But you went to a globe for yours. Look, the meter’s running, let’s get out and go on in. I’m here, I love you. One thing at a time, okay?”