Jonathan Carroll - After Silence

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AFTER SILENCE
by Jonathan Carroll
flyleaf:
_I hold a gun to my son's head. He weighs about one hundred thirty
pounds, the gun no more than two. Another way of thinking about it: My son
Lincoln's life weighs only as much as this pistol in my hand. Or the bullet
that will kill him? And after the shot will there be no weight?_
What vicious turn of fate has brought Max Fischer and his adopted son
Lincoln to this most shocking and elemental endgame?
For more than ten years Jonathan Carroll has enchanted readers with
tales of magic and wonder. His previous novel, _Outside the Dog Museum_, was
hailed as "eccentric, funny . . . inventive";[1] "refreshingly off kilter";[2]
"a smart, funny book that visits the depths of cynicism and dares to be
sincere."[3] Now, this gifted and award-winning storyteller claims his
rightful place in the literary mainstream with _After Silence_, a brilliantly
honest tale of right, wrong, and heartache.
In his late thirties, Max Fischer is a successful cartoonist living in
Los Angeles. Scarred by recent love affairs, he is cautious yet intrigued when
he meets Lily Aaron and her nine-year-old son Lincoln. Lily, the manager of an
offbeat restaurant, devotes her life to raising her sone alone. As Max spends
time with the Aarons, he falls irresistibly in love with them. The perfect
mate, the perfect child -- the perfect situation, since they seem to love him,
too, with equal intensity.
But as soon as Max moves in with the Aarons, he starts to uncover
disturbing secrets about Lily. He can find no trace of her ex-husband. Worse,
he discovers she has committed a crime so heinous that she has been running
from the truth for years.
It has been said that the heart does not know from logic. Should Max
right Lily's wrong -- sacrificing his adoptive family? Or should he look away
from the truth? Either choice is devastating.
Written with elan, and filled with keen insights about life, _After
Silence_ is a powerful story that travels down love's magnificent and deadly
road to the heart.
Jonathan Carroll is the author of seven novels and one short story
collection, including _The Land of Laughs_, _Sleeping in Flame_, and _Outside
the Dog Museum_. He makes his home in Vienna.
Jacket design by HONI WERNER
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 666 Fifth Avenue,
New York, New York 10103
DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are trademarks of
Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
BOOK DESIGN BY CLAIRE NAYLON VACCARO
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carroll, Jonathan, 1949-
After silence / Jonathan Carroll.
p. cm.
I. Title.
PS3553.A7646A69 1993 92-12698 813'.54 -- dc20 CIP
ISBN 0-385-41974-0
Copyright (c) 1992 by Jonathan Carroll
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America April 1993
13579 10 8642
First Edition in the United States of America
FOR
KAROLINE ZACH
GABRIELE FLOSSMANN
KATHLEEN WETS
GERT AHRER
_REAL_ GUARDIAN ANGELS
_Many thanks to_
MONICA SULLIVAN DAWSON, RN
_who was essential_
_in helping to bring this hook_
_to the finish line_
"Everything in the world gives us back our own features; night itself is
never dark enough to keep us from being reflected in it."
E. M. CIORAN, _A Short History of Decay_
PART ONE
A ROSE IN THE THROAT
"With you I am the woman everyone thinks I am."
-- _James Salter_
How much does a life weigh? Is it the product of our positive or
worthwhile acts, divided by the bad? Or is it only the human body itself, put
on a scale -- a two-hundred-pound life?
I hold a gun to my son's head. He weighs about one hundred and thirty
pounds, the gun no more than two. Another way of thinking about it: My son
Lincoln's life weighs only so much as this pistol in my hand. Or the bullet
that will kill him? And after the shot will there be no weight?
He is smiling. I am terrified. I'll pull the trigger and he will die,
yet he's smiling as if this fatal metal against his head is the finger of a
loved one.
Who am I? How can I do this to my own son? Listen --
Mileage meant cloud ears. If it had been a good day, full of long fares
and chatty customers, my father often treated me to a meal at Lee's, the
Chinese restaurant across the street from our house. Two dollars for the
works, including a dish of cloud ear mushrooms on rice. Mom and Dad hated the
place and would never go because everything there tasted "like grease
pudding." But he was nice enough to trade me the two bucks for a hug and a
kiss. I got the best of both deals because I loved hugging my father. Both of
my parents were great hug givers, as opposed to many parents who accept them
as either their due or a necessary evil of living with children.
I was lucky. My father taught me generosity, how to live with a calm
person when you are not, and ventriloquism. He delighted in the art of
throwing his voice, of putting words in someone else's mouth.
My mother was just like her maiden name, Ida Dax. Short, up front, no
nonsense. To her dismay, my father nicknamed her "Daisy" on one of their first
dates and refused to call her anything else. He said both she and her name
reminded him of Daisy Duck. You can imagine what he had to do to win her
offended, practical young heart after that. But he did, because in spite of
her seriousness, she loved to laugh and Stanley Fischer liked nothing more
than to make her laugh. Unfortunately, my father was also a man destined to be
a mediocre-to-rotten businessman. By the time I became fully aware of him, he
had bombed at a large number of jobs, so both he and my mother were satisfied
that he'd become the town's only (and thereby "successful") taxi owner. Mama,
although shorter-tempered and less forgiving than Dad, was luckily not one who
cared very much about wealth or material things. As long as bills were paid,
there was sufficient food and clothing for the family, and a little was left
over for each of our "vices" (my eating Chinese food, their buying a
television set or going to movies every weekend), then life was okay. I cannot
remember her ever badgering him for ending up where he did. In retrospect I
don't think she was proud of him, but she loved him and considered herself
wise for having chosen a man she liked talking to, one who smiled with genuine
delight on seeing her every night when he came home.
My childhood memories are rather vague, but that's probably because I
was safe and content much of the time. I remember sitting in Lee's Restaurant
and looking out the window at our house. I remember playing catch with a
Wiffle ball with Dad. When the white ball floated through the air toward me,
he made it talk. "Outta my Way! Here comes the Wiffler!"
My father always had time to play, my mother bought only the best
colored pencils and paper when she understood how important drawing was to me.
They loved me and wanted me to be whole. What more can we ask from another
human being?
When my brother Saul was born, I was already twelve years old and more
on my parents' side of the fence than his. As a result, he grew up with two
parents and an intermediary, rather than a full-fledged brother who gave him
noogies or made his life happily miserable. By the time I went to college,
Saul was only six and beginning elementary school. It was not until a decade
later when he was a teenager and I was working in New York that we developed
any kind of relationship.
A writer friend recently published an autobiographical novel that was
badly reviewed. She told me, "I'm not angry because it flopped: I'm angry
because I used up my childhood on that book."
The idea is amusing, but I find it hard to believe anyone could "use up"
their childhood on anything, no matter how old we get. Like some kind of
personal Mount Olympus, our youth is where the only gods we ever created live.
It is where our imagination and belief were strongest, where we were innocent
before turning gullible, then cynical. Whether we remember in detail or only
small bits, it is inexhaustible.
Luckily for my father, we lived in a town full of hills. Commuters
getting off the train in the evening would take a look at the two-hundred-step
staircase up to the town center and plod tiredly over to Dad's black four-door
Ford. He knew many of the people by name and, leaning over the top of the car,
would greet these rumpled men with a thump on the roof and a "Come on, Frank.
Last thing you need now is to climb those stairs."
I often rode with him and was assigned the job of jumping out when we'd
arrived and opening the back door for the customer. Sometimes they'd tip me a
dime or a quarter, but more than the tip, I enjoyed being there to hear what
was said during the ride to their homes. These were successful people, owners
of big houses with river views, two cars, sometimes even a tennis court or a
swimming pool. I knew their kids from school, but generally they were a
snobby, aloof bunch. In contrast, their parents, because they were either
tired and in the mood for comfortable small talk or just plain adrift in their
well-appointed lives, talked to my father about many surprising things. He was
a good listener and at times unusually perceptive. All the way across these
years I think, by their remembered silences and nodding heads, that he might
have helped some of them with what he said.
Once while home on vacation from college, I was with him when he took a
woman named Sally O'Hara from the station. She had a notorious husband who
slept with just about any woman in town with a pulse. Unfortunately, Mrs.
O'Hara was one of those people who would tell anyone within hearing distance
about their problems. That day was no different, but she also said something
that stuck in my mind and later shaped my success.
"Stanley, I've decided what I need most in life is a detective of the
soul."My father, who was used to backseat philosophers, knew how to play the
straight man.
"Tell me about it, Sally. Maybe I'll get Max here to go into the
business."
"It's simple. All you've got to do is track down the people who know the
_big_ answers, Max. Find the man who can tell us why we're here. There's gotta
be someone out there who can. Or the person who can tell me why my husband
would rather spend the evening with Barbara Bertrand than me."
I was already doing cartoons for the college newspaper, often using a
geometric form I'd created named "Paper Clip" to make zingy comments and
complaints about life on campus. They were mildly successful and funny, and
the editors allowed me to draw whatever I wanted. But when I returned from
that vacation, I gradually began to turn "Paper Clip" into a whole new world.
Before, it had simply been a geometric figure standing in the middle of
a drawing with perhaps an object or two nearby that related to the caption.
Now that strange character continued on one side of the frame while a new one,
a man, appeared on the other. In between them was a large drawing, very
realistically rendered. It looked like they were both staring at this
"photograph" and commenting on it. The first cartoon with this new format was
of the figures looking at a very large hand applying mascara to the lashes of
a giant eye. The caption read, "Why do women always open their mouths when
they're putting on mascara?" We don't know which one of them is saying it, and
there is no response.
I refined as I went along. The photograph part of the cartoon grew more
and more realistic, but also more obscure. Sometimes it took a while for the
viewer to even comprehend what was shown there. For example, a cigarette butt
stuck into a partially eaten doughnut, but I'd gone in so close that seconds
went by before you'd figured out what they were. Apparently that became part
of the fun of the new "Paper Clip" -- people would first decipher the
snapshot, then go on to the caption.
Sometimes the two figures would be placed on the same side of the
picture, sometimes behind it with only their heads showing, sometimes moving
in or out of the frame. They dangled from strings like grade school angels, or
sat in seats with their backs to us and looked at the photograph as if it were
a movie. They rowed by the picture, jogged across the top and bottom, shot
arrows at each other across its face. But always the same format -- the two
dissimilar figures, the ever more realistic but mysterious photo "between"
them. I thought of Mrs. O'Hara and her "detective of the soul" often because
after drawing the new strip some months, I realized what I was trying to do
was address some of the cosmic, albeit small, questions she'd wanted her
detective to answer. Not that _I_ had solutions, but it was clear from the
reactions and letters I was receiving that my work was on target more often
than not.
That is who I am. Yes, "Paper Clip" took me right into adulthood, slight
celebrity status, and a comfortable life. As a cartoonist, you learn to cut to
the bone of language. If three words say it better or funnier than four,
great, use three. It would be easy to indulge myself here and ramble on about
my various years, but there is really only one important time and that began
the day I met Lily and Lincoln Aaron. So I will stop now and fast-forward the
story of my life twice: Once to my thirty-eighth year then to my forty-fifth.
Picture a man walking toward the door of the Los Angeles County Museum.
He has thick black hair cut short, wears trendy eyeglasses with blue frames,
is dressed in weekend clothes -- khaki pants, old gray sweater, expensive
running shoes. Comfortable and colorless, it is his uniform when he works at
home. You think you might have seen him before. You have, because there have
been some magazine articles about him. But it is his work that has made him
known, not his face or personality. He thinks he has the face of a high school
science teacher or a knowledgeable stereo salesman.
It was three weeks after his, _my_ thirty-eighth birthday. I had a great
job, some money, no girlfriend but that didn't bother me so much. In
retrospect it was a time in my life when I was calm and on top of things. I
would like to have been married and had children to take to the museum, I
would like to have had "Paper Clip" syndicated in more newspapers than it was.
But it was certainly possible for both to happen. In retrospect it was a time
when the only things I desired from life were not only possible but quite
probable.
I saw the Aarons almost as soon as I entered the building. Because her
back was to me, my first impression was that the two were brother and sister.
Both short, both in jeans and T-shirts. Maybe five foot two or three, Lily was
taller than the boy but not by much. Her hair was swept up in a girl's
ponytail. They were arguing. She was louder.than she knew because her voice,
very feminine and adult, carried clear across the lobby to where I was.
"No. First the museum, then lunch."
"But I'm _hungry_."
"That's too bad. You had your chance before."
Although she turned then and I saw she was attractive, I already had an
unpleasant image of her: one of those pretentious, superficial women who drag
their kids around to "cul-chah" and force their noses into it like a puppy's
into its own shit. I turned away and walked into the exhibition.
I have a nasty, sometimes gothic imagination. Perhaps those are a couple
of the requirements needed to be a cartoonist. Whatever, that imagination
carried a picture of bitch mother and hungry child around the museum with me
that afternoon. I couldn't shake the whine in the boy's voice or the woman's
closed eyes when she loudly told him tough luck. Why not just buy him a hot
dog, let him wolf it down in five minutes as kids invariably do, and then go
to the show? I was no expert, but had had a few girlfriends with children and
I'd gotten along pretty well with them. In several cases, better than with
their mamas. In my experience, you played a kid like a fish once you have it
hooked. Let it run with the line a ways, then reel it slowly back in. You know
you've got control; the trick is to finesse the fish into thinking it does.
I had been looking forward to this show for a long time. The title was
"Xanadu" and the subject was visionary cities. There were works by artists,
architects, designers . . . There were even some by cartoonists like Dave
McKean, Massimo Iosa Ghini, and me. I'd been invited to the opening a couple
of nights before, but at openings you don't get to look at the work. People
push you out into a crowd of beaming piranhas and oglers trying to play it
cool but also show off their new dresses, or cut or deal, or sidle up to a
movie star. I liked to amble, take notes, and not talk to anyone.
"Hey, Max Fischer! 'Paper Clip,' right?"
Blank-faced, I turned toward the voice. A young couple stood there
smiling.
"Hi. How are you?"
"Fine. I don't want to bother you, Max. Only wanted to tell you how much
we love your strip. Read every one of them. And we saw your piece here.
Terrific! Right, honey?" He looked at his wife, who nodded vigorously.
"Well, thank you very much. That's kind of you."
"It's nothing. Thanks for all you've given _us_!" Both gave shy waves
and walked off.
How nice. I stood there watching them disappear into the crowd. "Paper
Clip" came so easily that part of me was always vaguely ashamed at my good
fortune. Other people worked so hard at what they did but received so little
in return. Not to mention those born damned, afflicted, handicapped. Why had
my bread fallen butter side up so many years?
Thinking about this when I should've been smiling over the compliment, I
came out of my haze on hearing a child's voice say, "You know what really
scares me, Mom? Thin statues."
I took a pen out of my pocket and wrote "thin statues" on the palm of my
hand, knowing I'd have to use the phrase somewhere in the strip in the future.
What would his mom reply to it?
"I know exactly what you mean."
That was enough to make me turn around. Bitch mother and her hungry boy.
She saw I was looking at them and directed her next sentence at me.
"Thin statues and thin people. Never trust a thin person. They're either
vain or on the run."
"I never thought of it that way."
She scratched her head. "Because this isn't a thin _society_. We put
such a premium on it because we've been told to, but then we turn around and
enjoy our fat: fat homes, fat meals, fat wardrobes. What kind of car do you
buy when you're rich? Rolls-Royce. A small house? Nope. No matter how little
money you have, the point is to buy as big as you can afford. Why's that?
Because deep in our hearts, we love fat. People come into the restaurant where
I work and pretend to like nouvelle cuisine, but they don't. You can see when
they look at the bill that they feel cheated having to pay so much for such
small servings. That's all nouvelle cuisine is anyway -- a clever new way of
cheating a customer out of their money's worth. Give 'em a couple of spears of
asparagus, artistically arranged, and you can charge more than if you gave
them five. Jesus Christ, I talk too much.
"I'm Lily Aaron, and this is my son Lincoln."
"Max Fischer."
As we were shaking hands, the man who'd complimented me a few minutes
before returned, holding a catalogue of the show.
"I'm sorry to bother you again, but would you mind signing this? I
should've asked before, but I felt kind of funny invading your privacy. Is it
okay?" Assuming Lily Aaron was with me, he looked from one to the other, as if
asking both of us for permission.
Now, bitch mother or not, there is nothing nicer than being publicly
recognized right in front of a pretty woman.
"Sure it's okay. What's your name?"
"Newell Kujbishev."
Listen to our silence after he said that.
"Excuse me?"
"Newell Kujbishev."
I looked helplessly at Lily. She smiled and grew a look on her face that
said, "Get out of this one gracefully, big boy."
"I'm afraid you'll have to spell that, Newell."
He did while I slowly took his dictation. Then we shook hands and he
walked away. "There goes a man who should be required to wear a name tag at
all times."
"Your work is in this show?"
"Yes. I draw the comic strip Paper Clip.'"
"I don't know it."
"That's okay."
"Have you heard of the restaurant Crowds and Power on Fairfax?"
"I'm afraid not."
She nodded. "Then we're even. That's where I work."
"Oh."
"Mom, are we going in or what?"
"Yes, sweetie, right now. But would you show us your piece, Max? I'd
like to start that way. Okay, Lincoln? You don't mind, do you?"
The boy shrugged but then, as we moved from the spot, tore off and
disappeared around a corner. This didn't seem to faze his mother. He reemerged
a couple of minutes later to announce he had found my picture and would lead
us there. It was an endearing gesture, pure jealous child. He didn't know what
to make of me or his mother's interest, so he'd steal my thunder by finding my
work and, in announcing its place in the museum, make it his own. We followed
him, chatting as we went.
"Lincoln loves to draw, but mostly battles. Catapults flinging boiling
oil, warriors. Every picture has hundreds of arrows flying about. I only wish
they weren't always so aggressive. That's why we came today: I'm hoping he'll
be inspired by this and start drawing Xanadus, instead of soldiers with
cannonball holes in their stomachs."
"But kids like violence. It comes with their territory, don't you think?
Isn't it better if he works it out by drawing, rather than if he were to conk
someone?"
She shook her head. "Nonsense. That's only the easy way out. Reality is,
my kid likes to draw pictures of people getting shot. All the rest is
psycho-fluff."
Stung, I averted my eyes. It took a split second to realize she had
stopped. "Listen, don't have thin skin. Life's too short and interesting.
Don't think what I said was an insult. It wasn't. I'll tell you when I'm
insulting you. I'm also wrong a lot and you're allowed to tell me that. A fair
trade. I guess that's your picture?"
Before I could catch all these balls she was throwing at me, we came
across her son, arms crossed and stern-faced, standing in front of my drawing.
His back was to it.
"What do you think, Lincoln?"
"Pretty good. You're sure you did it, you're telling the truth? Swear to
God?" He wore a crisp white T-shirt. Without asking permission from either him
or his mother, I took out a black marking pen, pulled him to me, and began
drawing on the front of his shirt. He gave a small peep of protest, which I
ignored, and I kept going. His mother remained silent.
"What's your favorite part of my picture?"
"I don't know. I can't _see_ it from here!" He twisted and fidgeted but
not too much. It was plain he loved what was going on. Under my hands he felt
like a puppy getting its tummy scratched.
"Doesn't matter. Use your memory. Can't you remember things?" I kept
drawing. The pungent smell of felt-tip ink was everywhere.
"Yes, I can remember! Better than you, probably! I like the part where
those big buildings are shaking hands."
"Okay, I'm putting that in right now." I stopped a moment and turned to
Lily. "Are you angry?"
"Not a bit."
So I let fly. Dancing clocks, birds in top hats, buildings shaking
hands. It took a few minutes to complete but both of us had such fun (Lincoln
squirming and giggling, me drawing fast) that it seemed no time at all. Sure I
was showing off, but come on, it's allowed when you're making a child laugh.
When I was finished, Lincoln pulled the shirt off and held it up in
front to see what I'd done. His smile was as wide as a plate. "You're crazy!"
"Think so?"
"Ma, did you _see_ this?"
"It's great. Now you've got to take good care of it because Max is
famous. You've probably got the only shirt like that in the world."
He looked up at me with big eyes. "Is that true? The only one?"
"I've never decorated a shirt before, so yeah, it's true."
"Cool!"
There were features on both their faces that gave away the fact they
were related: thin well-formed noses, long mouths that went straight across
with no lift or curl at either corner. When they weren't smiling, although
both smiled often, you couldn't read what they were thinking by their
expressions.
Lincoln was nine but small for his age and it bothered him. "Were you
small when you were my nine, Max?"
"I don't remember, but I'll tell you this -- the toughest guy in my town
was short and nobody messed with him. _Nobody_. Bobby Hanley."
"What would he do if you did?"
"Pull your ear off." I turned to Lily. "That's true. I once saw Bobby
Hanley, who really was the toughest kid in town, almost pull someone's ear off
at a basketball game."
"He sounds like a peach."
Lily wore a man's white dress shirt and a long blue linen skirt that
came to the top of her ankles. Intricate, beautifully woven leather sandals
and toenails that were painted red.
"How come you do your toes but not your fingers?"
"Toenails are funny; painted fingernails are sexy. I don't want anyone
getting the wrong idea."
She was full of opinions, and she was glad to tell them to you at the
drop of a hat. At first I thought she was pompous and/or a tad screwy because
some of her beliefs were unrepentantly black and white, others absurd. All
television was bad. Travel was confusing rather than broadening. Gorbachev was
a sneak. She believed one should spray house plants with water whenever it
rained because they "knew" it was raining outside and longed to be there. She
was reading a famous composer's biography but, as with all biographies,
preferred reading it last volume to first because it gave her a better picture
of the artist.
"It's like that in life -- first you meet a person as they are now, then
only after you're _interested_ in them do you want to know more about their
past or their childhood. True?"
Seeing an exhibit with a new person is like doing your homework and
listening to the radio at the same time. You want to look, but you also want
to make an impression. And remember the child who likes you but is suspiciqus
at the same time. The only work Lincoln liked was a loony 3-D city street by
Red Grooms. The rest of the time the boy kept wandering away for long
stretches, or asking his mother if they could leave now.
Contrary to the first impression, I liked the way Lily Aaron handled her
son. She paid real attention to the boy, listened carefully to what he said,
spoke to him with no condescension in her voice. If one were to hear only that
voice, it would sound like she was talking with a friend, someone she cared
for but in no way felt superior to.
She was great, but was she married? Committed? I hinted left, right, and
center. I prompted unsubtly but none of it got me the answer I sought: Yes, I
am married. No, I'm alone now.
"And what does your husband do?" We were sitting in front of a bank of
video screens watching Lincoln walk back and forth from one to the other,
checking the different action on each. The same film ran on all the screens,
only at different speeds: construction workers putting up a skyscraper.
Lily turned and served me a look that had a lot of topspin on it. "You
asked that question like you're committing a crime. You're allowed to ask. I'm
not married anymore. Lincoln's father hasn't been around for a long time.
Rick. Rick Aaron. Rick the Prick." Having said that, she smiled cheerfully.
"When it comes to that man, I have no dignity. Only old words apply to him --
'rake' or 'scoundrel.' 'Shithead' does very nicely too."
I laughed. She did too.
"I think we have to leave soon, Max. I can tell when Lincoln is getting
grouchy."
"Would you like to have lunch together?"
"That's a thought. Wait a minute." She got up and went over to the boy.
Squatting next to him, she spoke in a low whispery voice. He stood still,
looking straight ahead at the television monitors. Sometimes life narrows to
one laser-thin word: yes or no. I watched closely. What if he said no? She was
so pretty --
"Okay. But only if we go to Crowds!"
She looked over her shoulder at me and raised an eyebrow. "That's where
I work. He loves to eat there because everyone is his friend. Do you mind?"
Outside I walked with them to their car, an old but beautifully kept
Volkswagen Bug. I'd just noticed the black leather seats when inside rose a
figure that took up the entire back seat.
"Is that a dog or a Bulgarian?"
"That's Cobb. He's a greyhound."
Lily unlocked the door and the giant dog slowly leaned his thin head
out. His face was graying and he had the calm faded brown eyes of an old boy.
He looked at me philosophically and then stuck his long tongue out for no
apparent reason.
"He likes you. That's his way of blowing you a kiss."
"Really? Can I pet him?"
"No. He doesn't like to be touched. Only Lincoln gets away with it. But
if he likes you he blows you kisses, like that last one."
"Oh." Can you be interested in a woman while thinking she's nuts at the
same time? I guess so.
The dog yawned and his tongue came out even further. It looked like a
thick pink belt unraveling.
"How old is he?"
"About ten. He used to be a champion racer, but when greyhounds get too
old to run it's not uncommon for their owners to put them down because they're
too expensive to care for. That's how we got Cobb. They were going to kill
him. Kill him or use him for blood."
"Excuse me?"
"Greyhounds have the richest, best blood of any dog. Veterinarians
prefer to use it for transfusions into other dogs, so some people breed them
just to take their blood out."
"Is that true?" I looked at the old giant and felt instant pity.
Lily leaned forward and, puckering her lips a few inches from Cobb's
black nose, kissed the air between them. The dog looked solemnly at her. "That
is the sad truth. You know now how to get to the restaurant?"
"Yes. I'll meet you there." I patted the roof of her car as she slid in.
Behind me there was a loud squeal of brakes, then the brute metal crunch of a
car accident. I'd barely turned to see where it was when Lily banged the door
back open into my side.
"Look out! Where is it?"
"There. Nobody's hurt. Just looks like it's a fender bender."
"You don't know. Lincoln, stay here. Do not move!" She leapt out of the
VW and raced across the parking lot.
"But nothing happened." I said out loud to myself.
Lincoln spoke from inside the car. "I know. She always does this.
Whenever someone's hurt or there's an accident, she goes and helps. You can't
stop her. She always does it."
"Okay, then I guess I'd better go see if I can help too. You stay here,
Lincoln. We'll be right back."
"Don't worry. I've done this a million times. She's always helping
_somebody_ out." He put his small arm around the dog, who, at that moment,
looked like a Supreme Court justice.
Across the parking lot a small group of people had gathered around a
black Jaguar XKE convertible and a small pickup truck that were bashed
together. The driver of the XKE, a thirtyish pregnant woman, was glaring
daggers at the truck driver, a young Oriental man in a straw hat. The back of
his pickup was filled with gardening tools. From her frown and his "I'm sorry"
smile, it was clear the accident had been his fault. Lily stood next to the
woman and looked at her worriedly.
"Are you sure you're okay? Sure you don't want me to call an ambulance?"
"No, thank you. Maybe a cop, though. Look at my car, will you? Damnit!
That's going to be at least five thousand dollars to fix. I don't even know if
摘要：

AFTERSILENCEbyJonathanCarrollflyleaf:_Iholdaguntomyson'shead.Heweighsaboutonehundredthirtypounds,thegunnomorethantwo.Anotherwayofthinkingaboutit:MysonLincoln'slifeweighsonlyasmuchasthispistolinmyhand.Orthebulletthatwillkillhim?Andaftertheshotwilltherebenoweight?_WhatviciousturnoffatehasbroughtMaxFis...

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