Report from the Interior (26 page)

couldn’t control his laughter. We went up to the platform, said our good-byes. They were going to go to the movies, I think. I got on the bus and suffered through a ride with a bunch of giggling high school girls who talked of nothing but their grades. During the trip I read an essay by Henry Miller: Letter to All Surrealists Everywhere.

It is morning. It has taken me many hours to write you this one-paragraph letter. I am tired beyond belief, but I had to finish. The birds are going wild, an early morning song, ecstatic and abundant. I’m sure it will be a beautiful day. I’ll sleep through it like a child. I wanted to write you a long letter in order to hold your attention for as long as possible. I have written with love and fatigue. I miss you very much. Will you write to me soon?

Love,

Paul

ALBUM

There was no problem in believing that the man in the moon was an actual man.

At the same time, it seemed perfectly credible that a cow could jump over the moon. And that a dish could run away with a spoon.

When someone tried to explain to you that the earth was a sphere, a planet orbiting the sun with eight other planets in something called a solar system, you couldn’t grasp what the older boy was saying.

Stars, on the other hand, were inexplicable.

… you are convinced they are real, that these raggedly drawn black-and-white figures are no less alive than you are.

… squirrels were the animals you admired most—their speed! their death-defying jumps through the branches of the oaks overhead!

… every year for the twenty-six and a half years that remained of his life, your father spent his summers cultivating tomatoes …

… low-budget Westerns from the thirties and forties, Hopalong Cassidy, Gabby Hayes, Buster Crabbe … clunky old shoot-’em-ups in which the heroes wore white hats and the villains had black mustaches …