in her lap. She removed his helmet and covered his bare head with her hands as if to keep it warm, or perhaps summon one last surge of force, or even the memory of force.
I glanced at the tall trees above us, tried to guess which ones would be the next to fall, and wondered if the forest felt relieved that Billy was gone nowâif those trees would be free now to just rot, once they fell.
We rode past the swansâ pond. It was a cold night and earlier in the day Amy had lit a few fires around the edge. The fires were beautiful in the falling snow, though diminished and not putting out much heat. The swans had moved in as close to the small ragged orange fires as they could get without leaving the pond. Their beauty was of no help to them, it seemed; they were cold.
They watched us, silent as ever, as we passed, the swans graceful and perfect in the firelight, and I rolled my window down, thinking that as we passed some of them would cry out at Billyâs death. But then I remembered it was only for their own death that they sang, and only that once.
The Prisoners
A RTIE AND DAVE work together. They are going fishing with Daveâs younger brother, Wilson, who has his own company, even though he is only twenty-eight. He sells and installs cellular car phones and electronic car locks and things like that.
The three men live in Houston. Wilson is single. Artie and Dave are not; they are in their late thirties. Artie is still in his first marriage, though perhaps not for long. Dave is into his second marriage, but itâs going well. They both have children: Artie, two young sons, whom he is not that wild about, and Dave, two daughtersâone with his ex-wife and one with his new wife.
Dave is wild about both of his daughters, hates to be gone from either of them for more than a few hours, and each time he sees them it is like swimming to the surface from a great depth; when he does not see them, he feels as if his lungs are about to burst.
Daveâs first wife had left him when they had been living in Orange, New Jerseyâhad moved to Texas with her boyfriend and received custody of their daughter two years agoâand so Dave followed her down to Texas and got a job there, and was able to see his daughter on Wednesday evenings, plus every other weekend.
It was in Houston that Dave met and married his new wife, Nancy, and had the new baby, who to him is just as precious as the first. Because Dave owes his ex-wife $896.12 each month in child support, Dave and Nancy and the baby live in a small apartment in a not-very-safe neighborhood. They canât go for walks at night and, afraid of drive-by shootings, they sleep with lightweight bulletproof flak jackets, with the baby in between them. Daveâs learning to be a real estate appraiser, and in his work he has seen how easily bullets can penetrate thin hollow plasterboard walls. He appraised an apartment in Phoenix into which a pistol had been fired, and he was amazed to see that the bullet had traveled through six walls before going through a refrigerator door.
Nancy took six weeks off from her job when the baby was born but has now been back at work for a couple of months. Thereâs a woman they pay over in Bellaireâa forty-minute drive in good traffic, an hour in bad trafficâto watch the baby each day. Under the terms of her maternity leave, Nancy could have taken off eight weeks, but sheâs heard that her boss rewards employees who come back to work early.
Dave has not been at his job as long as Artie has, but heâs better at it, more confident with both people and numbers, and so already heâs a little higher in the company than Artie. The boss likes Dave, and likes the way the work isnât the most important thing in the world to Dave. The boss knows that Daveâs daughters are what matter to him, and that because of this he doesnât have to worry about his loyalty: knows Daveâs not going anywhere. And
Alexei Panshin, Cory Panshin