Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet (shoe dog free ebook .txt) 📕

not the exploitative union of the World Trade Organization, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade—

—Tariffs? asked the wifebeater. —What the hell is he talking about?

—or the so-called North American Free Trade Agreement, but of people, of people and their directly elected representatives, a democratic global union that controls the spread of weapons and the distribution of wealth with the goal of establishing—eventually, that is, for the struggle will be long—

—Long! I can dig it, said the camo man.

—This a party or not? asked the wifebeater.

—the goal of establishing—at long last—universal world peace.

—Peace, man, peace! crowed Larry, making the two-fingered sign to a terminal spatter of applause.

—Thank you, said Oppenheimer weakly. He took a gulp from his glass and stepped down onto the tatami, where he was instantly engulfed.

Five percent of people killed in wars at the end of the nineteenth century were civilians. In World War One this percentage rose to fifteen, and by World War Two it was sixty-five.

This was nothing compared to the wars of the 1990s. By that time the percentage would grow to ninety.

When she emerged from the bathroom Ben took her arm and Larry and Tamika converged on them, camouflage man in tow. He smelled like an armpit.

—Hey, guys. You meet Clint? asked Larry.

—Pleasure, said Ann, but Ben was impatient.

—What is this all about? he asked Larry. —You’re telling me you really believe these guys are risen from the dead?

—I’m with Larry, said Tamika. —I definitely think it was reincarnation.

—They came back, nodded Larry. —In a reborn form. I think they, like, grew up this way, you know? Like somehow the souls died at that moment, right? When the first bomb went off the souls of these guys died. How I see it is, they died that very second and like migrated through the air. If I close my eyes I can literally see these souls, like, flying over the desert in New Mexico. Invisible.

—They migrated through the air?

—Transmigration of souls, heard of it? Not risen from the dead like ghosts, risen from the dead like in the Hindu religion, you know? Like because they’d done bad things. Know what karma is, Ben?

—Yeah, Larry, said Ben. —I know what karma is.

—Karma, repeated Clint, head bobbing, and then turned to grab Larry’s arm. —Where’d you get the Humboldt, man? That stuff’s been scarce around here for months.

—It’s not Humboldt, said Larry, —it’s Mendocino.

—Get outta here, said Clint vaguely, and turned away, reaching for the hand of the bald woman in the tie-dye skirt, who was approaching at a rapid clip.

—My point though, said Ben, —is you actually think these people are physicists from World War Two?

—Shit yeah, said Larry.

—Don’t you? put in Tamika.

—I do, said Ann, —but Ben, you know, sometimes he can be a little suspicious of them. He’s just very protective. He doesn’t want me to be taken in.

—Negative energy, said the bald woman, and shook her head in warning.

—That’s me, said Ben.

—Hi, said the woman to Ann, —I’m Leslie. I’m a survivor.

—You’re kidding, said Szilard. —Hiroshima or Nagasaki? You don’t look a day over fifty.

—Cancer, said Leslie, frowning. —And I’m forty-two.

—I’m so sorry, said Ann.

She elbowed Szilard in the ribs. He squawked.

—Anyway Ben, said Larry, —my point is, these guys are totally real. You believe it too. You don’t fool me, buddy. It’s just your rational mind won’t let you buy into it. Your rational mind’s stopping you.

—That darn rational mind, said Ben.

—Just let yourself feel, said Tamika. —I know I do. I used to be so repressed? You’re not gonna believe this but I was brought up Orthodox.

—Greek? asked Szilard curiously.

—Jew.

—She used to be totally repressed, nodded Larry.

—But not anymore.

A Grateful Dead song was playing, Ann didn’t know the Grateful Dead from a hole in the wall but people in the room were twirling and dancing. There comes a redeemer and he, too, fades away.

She felt exhausted, seeing Tamika lean on Larry’s arm and smile, watching Szilard, bored and restless, looking around the room for someone new to talk to, Fermi slumped against the wall, paging through a book. She was tired enough to disengage from Ben’s hand on her waist and walk away from them all, wishing herself away, wishing herself into another place, where she had been before, before Eugene fired the shot that bounced off the wall, before she found any of them, before this had happened, when things were easy. She thought of the leisure she used to have, the nice slow movement from one hour to the next, the space around her then, around her arms, her own house and its peacefulness, the comfort of passiveness that now, later, she relished.

—I’m over it, but the memories, right? Like I was sitting on Phil’s side, this was Berkeley I think? said a man who stood over the punch bowl talking to Clint as Ann made her way past them to the kitchen. —And this space invader chick with this frizzy red hair sits down and asks me if she can score a dose. And that redheaded chick was the woman I married.

—I know he’s dead, but I don’t feel like he’s gone. I mean, do you think Jerry’s God? asked a blond woman on the other side of the punchbowl.

—Course she left me six weeks after the ceremony.

—Believe me, said Oppenheimer, coming in from the kitchen and forced up against her by the crowd behind him, —I didn’t want to be up there. They grabbed me and pulled me up. You think I don’t know how simplistic it sounds? I wasn’t ready to make a public statement. But Szilard says I have to practice.

—I think there is a God, said Clint, nodding slowly as they passed him on their way out. —But I don’t think it’s Jerry.

—I’m tired, she said.

—I am too.

They pushed their way through the guests, standing lining the walls, sitting cross-legged on the floor and on the furniture, conversing in tightly packed groups. Two women in a row lunged for Oppenheimer but he and