Chapter 3 chapter 2

At that time, my mother lived with us.We finally got my mother here from the east and gave her a cool room at the back of the house. My wife and mother get along very well.The two of them knew how to talk to each other and find topics of mutual interest.Marianne and I don't talk about their topics. Whenever Marianne asks about such things as my early girlfriends or how I got along with my mother, I shrug my shoulders and try to avoid them.Marianne used to ask me such trivial things.When I was eight years old, I fell from a tree and broke an arm.That's what they were talking about. From the gleaming yellow tower where I worked, I used to gaze across the northeast sky, at the umber-colored hills and ridges.Maybe, it's 108 degrees Fahrenheit in the street, maybe 110 or 112.As far as I could see, there were miles and miles of box-like buildings of all shapes and sizes.That's where people fix their hearing aids or buy pool supplies, and I pass these self-replicating structures every day.I said to myself, I really like this place, the city is quiet and quiet, there are large open spaces between the commercial buildings, there are jogging trails in the park, surrounded by beautiful hills.On the streets of the residential area, oleander and palm trees are planted everywhere. The trunks of the trees are whitewashed with lime water, and they shine brightly in the sun.

We brought her from the East, and freed her from the daily din of violence, lamentation, little-reported atrocities, and redemption that should be enacted.Life in that city was very hard and the people there were very mean.But, to a traveler from Missouri who forgot his handbag in a taxi, the people of that city are surprisingly nice.We put her in a cool room where she watched TV. Marianne wanted me to tell her about the old streets, the fun places in the streets, the fights in the streets, the sex in the back alleys, the occasional petty theft.I told her about the stolen car, which wasn't too small of a deal.However, she would like to hear more.She felt that some sort of organized crime group might be operating nearby, and she would like to hear about the execution of one of the diehards—the bullet going through the back of the head, straight to the brain.She felt that my mother's presence might bring her some elemental interest that she could not get from the laconic Nick.But all my mother said was that I didn't work very hard at school, got mediocre grades, and fell out of a tree when I was eight.

Here, history doesn't get out of hand, and I like it that way.They isolate, imprison, accumulate, bronze, and consecrate visible history in museums, squares, and memorial parks.The rest is terrain, and all space, light, shadows, and unspeakable heat that hangs in the air. I drank soy milk and ran 1,500 meters.When I run, I clip something to the waistband of my sweatpants. The device weighs only 3.5 ounces and displays stride, distance, and calories burned.I keep my house keys in a pouch, fastened to my ankle with velcro.I don't like having my house keys dangling in my pocket while I'm running.Ankle bags fill that need, answering directly to personal concerns.It makes me think that there are people in the world who do product development, merchandising, gift assortment, and understand the nature of agonizingly small needs.

They also talked about my father.It was another topic of conversation between the two of them during the quiet hours after dinner.Marianne loves topics like this, trying to fill in the blanks and flesh out the details.I used to sit in the living room and hear their voices in fits and starts over the urgent, sexy throb of the dishwasher.I was often absent-minded, leafing through a magazine while hearing voices coming and going from behind me.Sometimes a few words drown out the beeping of the dishwasher and the TV.When my mother is in the room, her TV is always on. Traveling is an important part of my job.Leave the bronze-colored towers to reflect the surface of the shadow—reflecting in a way that resembles the way others do, the way few people do.It makes sense to do so, and in most cases it is imitation, for example, repeating the actions or expressions of the boss.Consider the situation of a young man or woman: A young woman imitates a gangster in a movie and speaks in a husky voice.I used to talk like this to create a certain comic effect, to get the job done on time.I tilted my mouth and spit out breathy words.A day or two later, when I passed the office, I heard one of my assistants speaking in such a voice.

I installed a TV and a humidifier in my mother's room, bringing in the dresser Marianne had used as a young girl.We emptied the dresser, cleaned it carefully, refinished the mirror surface, and put in a lot of hangers. Sometimes I pick up the phone in the middle of a meeting and pretend to arrange to have a co-worker maimed, an act that elicits malicious laughter from the rest of the room.I myself try to avoid laughing in a certain way, the Arthur Blessing way.Our CEO had a hearty laugh, nodding his head to mark the rhythm of the laugh.Leaving, flying away, and doing so freed me from the signals bouncing off every waxed surface.

He went out to buy cigarettes and never came back.That's what people used to hear about missing people.This is one last family secret.In this final rush of abandonment all family secrets come to a head.The brand of cigarettes my father smoked was Lucky Strike, and the packs were designed to be easy targets.But, maybe not, there is no circle or bullseye in the center of the pattern.The circle is not small, the edge of the red circle is white, there is a narrow brownish yellow outside, and finally a thin circle of black.So, if you don't expand your definition of bullseye, you don't expand your definition of target, you probably wouldn't call the Lucky Strike logo a target.But, I call it a target anyway, fuck the definition.

Marianne believes that this is an important consideration if the people living in my home are to feel comfortable.Mothers will feel persona non grata if you don't provide a sufficient number of hangers. The company I work for works with waste, deals with waste, buys and sells waste, researches global waste management issues.I went to the lowlands along the Texas coast and supervised the handling of hazardous waste there.Wearing lunar suits, they buried hazardous waste deep in the ground in salt beds.That place is what remains of the Mesozoic sea that dried up millions of years ago.In our industry, there is an almost religious belief that such rock deposits cannot leak radiation.Contaminated waste is buried deep with a sense of reverence and fear.We must have respect for what we discard.

I once saw a man standing in front of a mirrored pillar combing his hair, running his hands through his head, on Via di Spica in Milan.I saw his demeanor, his eyes, his slightly freckled skin.In that half second, I thought of many things I had seen in a long time. Those Jesuits taught me that things should be examined for secondary meanings, for deeper connections.Do they take waste into account?We are waste managers, waste giants, dealing with waste across the globe.Today, waste has a sacred air, an untouchable aspect.The plutonium waste is held in white containers with yellow warning labels.Handle with care.Even the most inconspicuous household waste is closely watched.People now look at their waste differently, with a global perspective on each bottle, each squashed carton.

My son once thought he could blow up a plane in the sky just by thinking about it.At thirteen he believed that the boundaries between himself and the world around him were so thin and permeable that he could influence the course of events.A plane in flight was an act of provocation so intense that he could not turn a blind eye.He often watched the plane ascend after taking off from the airport.The plane was full of people, and he saw an element of disaster in the fact itself.He was very sensitive to most accompanying stimuli and thought he could feel the burst of desire expressed by objects.All he had to do was to allow powerful images to enter his mind, and the plane would burn and disintegrate.His sister used to say to him, go ahead, blow it up and let me see how you get a plane with 200 people on it out of the sky.He was terrified to hear someone say that.And, she's also scared because she's not entirely sure if he can do it.Teenagers have a special knack for imagining the end of the world as an accessory to their own discontent.But as Jeff got older, he lost that interest and belief.He has lost this gift of paradox: he sees himself as separate and solitary, yet at the same time intimately connected, connected with something far away.

At home, we separate our waste collection – glass, tins, paper products.Then, we separate tinted glass from clear glass, and iron from aluminum.Only on Tuesdays do we collect the plastic containers and put the lids somewhere else.We then collect the newspapers, including the colored inserts within them, but be careful not to bundle them—the temptation to do so is always there. It is said that corporations are supposed to free us from our egos.We design these organized entities to be responsive to the market, and to face the world straightforwardly.However, things tend to drift inwards in hazy ways.Gossip, rumors of promotions, special personalities, it's just natural, right?All these human errors take up space in the soul of the company.Yet the world remains, always somehow healing itself.You feel that you are surrounded by touchpoints, networks of connections that nurture and give you a sense of order and obligation.It's there, in the warble of telephones, in fax machines and copiers, in the vast logic stored in computers.Bemoan the technology you want to use.It expands your self-esteem and connects the two: you in your well-pressed suit on the one hand, and things slipping through the world that you don't feel.

Marianne drove with a pencil in her hand, and I never asked her why she did that.I feel like the two of us have changed the way we communicate now, which is very different from when the kids were kids.At that time, the two lively children grew up day by day. At first, they were not good at expressing, being noisy, spilling milk when feeding, and then babbling and starting to go to school.Sometimes they ate at the table, their little faces as childish as if they had been drawn with pastel.At that time, we had a lot to talk about.Today, they are grown up and have learned to use the computer and use the rotating media shelf.One is about to have a baby, and the other (who is my son) has stickers on the bumper of his car that say "driving fast doesn't work".Instead of talking about Lainey and Jeff dominating our married life, our concerns were when our grandchildren would be born. Wearing a cordless phone on my head, I ran along the drain, listening to Sophie singing.I follow palm-lined alleys and weave through winding streets, admiring the citrus trees and stuccoed homes that line the roads.This is the street of Westward Dreams, something my father might have led us to see half a century ago.It was a time when people were fleeing their ill-fated past, the gray streets, the crowded apartments, the smell of cabbage in the hallways. Lainee, who runs a business, is a hard worker, and a master bargain, we call her the peddler's daughter.She lives in Tucson with her husband, Dex.They make ethnic jewelry, things like bracelets, necklaces, and sell them through store channels.They meet with merchants and participate in various festivals and cultural events.The news of her pregnancy has us all heartened.She sent pictures of her body changing, and we used to drive up to her to see her growing body. I rearranged the books on the shelves and stood in the room looking at them with admiration.Later, I put on my ankle bag and head out for a run. The bigger her belly, the happier we feel.We left Interstate 10 and followed an overwhelming line of traffic, down a narrow road, to the side street where her house was.She appeared at the door, forming a solemn silhouette.At this time, we really realize how happy we are inside. The reason I call the Lucky Strike logo a target is because I think they were waiting for my father when he went out to buy cigarettes that day.They grabbed him, stuffed him in a car, and pulled him somewhere near the bay.There the river empties into the sea, and the lagoon lies silent in the darkness.There are wetlands, inlets, and sandy spits off the coast.Later, they shot him, and the bullet entered the back of the head, damaging the brain.Besides, if the logo on Lucky Strike cigarettes isn't a target, why do they call it Lucky Strike?Admittedly, the term Lucky Strike smacks of a gold rush.However, the Lucky Strike logo uses the word strike, which not only refers to the act of discovering some kind of precious metal buried in the ground, but also refers to a penetrating attack fired from a weapon.Isn't there a connection between the brand's name and the concentric circles on the pack?This means that they have been thinking about the target.