collected percy lines

1. “Its all boring now. Just tell me – you know – there’s no stories,” Percy said, “Tell me that the sun goes around the earth because some guy fucked his sister and cut his father’s balls off. Just give me some hard and fast cause and effect. Don’t tell me ‘ohh we can’t quite say why the earth goes around the sun – or even if there is an earth or a sun – because we’re still trying to pin down the electron.’”

2. “You would be an amazing singer,” I said.

“Maybe.”

“No really, I bet you could sing like one of the French girls – like the ones that sing on the streets in Paris.”

“I’ve never been to Paris.”

“That doesn’t matter. Those jealous french would be watching you – and your hair,” I reached out to touch Maria’s hair and I could feel her lean slightly away, “– I mean I know it would be good. That’s the last I’ll say.”

I leaned shirtless on the wall and took a deep breath and she sat cross legged next to me with the sheets over her lap.

“You’re sweet,” she said.

I sat up cross legged to face her and she didn’t lean away. She was red in the face still and wearing the sweatshirt she’d come in with. I couldn’t touch her anymore. I could feel it. She was unreachable, decided already, but waiting, her eyes round and secretive.

I soften my voice and said “Will you sing for me?”

“To no music?”

“Your voice will be enough music. I will close my eyes.”

Her hands hold and support one another in her lap. She is like a Greek statue of a woman. She could make a man out of anyone. Yes she could make a man out of me, out of Sal, of Corin. Just seeing how she holds her back and avoids my eyes. Her eyes are secretive and she is still waiting.

“You could sing le vie en rose.”

“I don’t speak French.”

“That doesn’t matter. No one cares about what they mean, its just the sounds of the words.”

I regretted saying that. I regretted talking at all. I knew I’d sped up her decision. It could happen if I am too silent or it could happen if I talk. She could carry a great weight, I could tell by how she waits. She probably has already been forced to carry a great weight, I remembered her ushering her father home in the night. She raised her eyes, her hands still pushing her sweatshirt into her lap. She is a woman.

“I didn’t think we would–”

Me niether. I’d rather of held her. Of course I’d wanted it like hell.

“—but it was good. I had a good time.”

It was an unbelievable time. An ecstacy. I had been like a bull, a black bull catching the satin of the double breasted jacket and sinking its horn in and closing its eyes — like a baby pressing its teeth into its mother’s breast — and now I’ve been shot in the head and I’ve fallen over to bleed out in the dust with my horn still impaling the matador as the crowd gasps and the brothers cry and the father sinks to the ground and they all pull the body from the victory I’ve earned and I bleed out alone and no tears are shed because I am the killer and I drank all of the mother’s milk and I will be shot for it. She won’t sing, her eyes retreat more, more secretive, as though I don’t feel it. I reach out a hand as if I am stumbling bleeding towards her and her own hands push harder into her stomach.

“It was ecstacy.”

“Oh.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t need to lie, I can be okay if – you know I mean I just want you to enjoy your experience.”

“I had a good time.”

There was no path anymore. No amount of words or charm could make one. Not even Sal could talk a path into existence.

“You have a very beautiful voice. I hope you sing one day and I would be happy forever just to hear it.”

“You’re sweet.”

She gathered her things and left. I wrote a few drafts of a text to send to her and waited and then decided to send nothing.