The Great Leader by Jim Harrison Read Free Book Online

get some gossip about him this morning, though.”
    â€œIt’s not true!” Sunderson barked, reddening. He had been thinking about something the great luminaire Sir Francis Bacon said but it had slipped away. He couldn’t help but presume that Dwight understood the conflict between religion and sex and had simply decided to meld the two.
    â€œI’d trust him with a whole squad of naked cheerleaders,” Marion said. He was expertly chopping a handful of garlic. Marion tended to be obsessive about recipes and a current favorite of a year’s duration was a side dish of pasta, minced garlic, olive oil, parsley, and a type of parmesan that he ordered from Zingerman’s way down in Ann Arbor. Sunderson figured that since Marion had quit drinking he had spent as much money on fine food as he himself spent on books.
    â€œI don’t care what consenting adults do at retirement parties.” Mona patted him on the head, then slid her apple tart into the oven. She walked into the living room and then through the door into his studio. He imagined her pulling a book from the case above his desk and gazing through the slot into her own bedroom. He tried not to give a shit but was unsuccessful. Roxie had showed him some extraordinary filth on the computer and he had wondered at the time about the possible ill effects of the populace viewing this sexual mayhem. Mona likely had a wider knowledge of weird sex than he did. His wife Diane had said that the computer would be the death of the erotic imagination of our time. He was exempt from the funeral, watching Mona stretch when she came out of his study. Her nubbin belly button suggested to him the fact of human continuity. We begin in one place with sore belly buttons and end in another, in his case about fifty miles east of his birthplace.
    Dinner was fine indeed though Sunderson drank too much of his cheapish red wine and since Mona and Marion were abstaining his wavelength differed from theirs. He asked them to define “spiritual” but they both ignored him as if he were proposing an inane parlor game. Mona and Marion were talking about torture, which had been much in the news of late but this was dropped when Marion began exclaiming about the deliciousness of the apple tart.
    â€œYou’ll find a husband, that’s for sure,” Marion said with a mouthful of tart.
    â€œIt’s more likely that I’ll be looking for a wife,” Mona said blithely.
    Marion was a little embarrassed but Sunderson didn’t catch on completely being sunk in the idea that he might have been able to keep his wife if he had been spiritual.
    â€œWhy would you want a wife?” Sunderson asked stupidly.
    Mona’s voice became cool and level. “When I was twelve and living in Escanaba with my aunt while mother was in beautician school in Lansing my two cousins would make me blow them while they watched porn films. Girls seem nicer.”
    Sunderson squeezed his eyes tightly shut at the sheer muddiness of human behavior while Marion became angry.
    â€œYou should have told someone!” he almost shouted.
    â€œWho? Hey, you guys, I didn’t mean to upset you. These things happen.”
    The room fell silent as if each of them were sorting through possible things to say.
    â€œI’m getting over it and everything else through witchcraft. I’ve cursed both of their lives and it’s working. One spit on a cop and lost quite a few teeth.” Now Mona was smiling and got up to clear the table. Marion ran dish water and Sunderson folded his arms on the table, cradled his head, and fell asleep.
    Later, he wasn’t sure how long, he heard their laughing voices and then felt Marion lift up the kitchen chair he was sleeping on and carry it into the living room where he was helped onto the sofa. Up until the age of thirty when he finished college at night school Marion had been a block mason and was still massively strong with the