william stafford
Nov. 16th, 2012 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mercifulserpent"Not in the Headlines"
It's not the kind of thing that ought to happen; so
I'm not going to tell you about it. You wouldn't be
happy about the world, and you couldn't change anything
after all this time anyway. The girl herself moved
away, and the guys--Raymond, Oscar and Fred, all
friends of mine before it happened--they went on and
became a banker, a war hero, and a lawyer. You couldn't
tell them from other people just like them. That was the thing.
But what happened--not at the time, but after--
was that the girl's guardians didn't complain, and the girl,
being retarded a little and not knowing enough anyway,
she just went on, maybe even feeling OK, and possibly--
this is the awful part--maybe even liking it.
Where the guardians lived, and where it all happened,
was a big house on Main Street back in some trees.
I was there; so at night it comes back, the tree shadows,
the bright rooms and the party in the downstairs with
the foster parents gone and Fred turning up the Victrola.
They got around in a circle, sort of leaving me out as
usual, being a Momma's boy but partly tolerated and not
even knowing if I wanted to belong to the group, their
church, their neighborhood, their country club.
Later when people found out, the guys knew it must
have been me, the Momma's boy. Have you thought about
the role of being the one who holds back and then tells?
It all helped me know my place, a dissenter, a doubter
of all commitments to party, gang, nation, never a hero,
and then later on their war--not for me.
When I pass through that town these days, covering my
territory for whatever company it is at the time, I
read about Oscar and Fred and Raymond, their success
and their children, their wives. The girl, I don't know,
and where or anything. And why did I tell you even this
much? It won't as I say help you guide your actions
or become a banker or a war hero or a good citizen,
and it sure won't help you know how to like the world.
It's not the kind of thing that ought to happen; so
I'm not going to tell you about it. You wouldn't be
happy about the world, and you couldn't change anything
after all this time anyway. The girl herself moved
away, and the guys--Raymond, Oscar and Fred, all
friends of mine before it happened--they went on and
became a banker, a war hero, and a lawyer. You couldn't
tell them from other people just like them. That was the thing.
But what happened--not at the time, but after--
was that the girl's guardians didn't complain, and the girl,
being retarded a little and not knowing enough anyway,
she just went on, maybe even feeling OK, and possibly--
this is the awful part--maybe even liking it.
Where the guardians lived, and where it all happened,
was a big house on Main Street back in some trees.
I was there; so at night it comes back, the tree shadows,
the bright rooms and the party in the downstairs with
the foster parents gone and Fred turning up the Victrola.
They got around in a circle, sort of leaving me out as
usual, being a Momma's boy but partly tolerated and not
even knowing if I wanted to belong to the group, their
church, their neighborhood, their country club.
Later when people found out, the guys knew it must
have been me, the Momma's boy. Have you thought about
the role of being the one who holds back and then tells?
It all helped me know my place, a dissenter, a doubter
of all commitments to party, gang, nation, never a hero,
and then later on their war--not for me.
When I pass through that town these days, covering my
territory for whatever company it is at the time, I
read about Oscar and Fred and Raymond, their success
and their children, their wives. The girl, I don't know,
and where or anything. And why did I tell you even this
much? It won't as I say help you guide your actions
or become a banker or a war hero or a good citizen,
and it sure won't help you know how to like the world.
