Funny, about Harry and
religion.
When God hadn't a friend in the world, back there in
the Sixties, he couldn't
let go of Him, and now when the preachers are all
praying through bullhorns
he can't get it up for Him. He is like a friend
you've had so long
you've forgotten what you liked about Him. You'd
think that after
that heart scare, but in a way the closer you get the
less you think about
it, like you're in His hand already. Like you're
out on the [basketball]
court instead of on the bench swallowing down
butterflies and trying to
remember the plays....
Sometimes Harry envies Mim
and the glamorous
dangerous life he guesses she's lived, he's glad for
her, even if it flipped
her off the handlebars, but the fast lane gets to be
a rut, and he doesn't
regret the life he led, though Brewer is a dull
enough town, not New York
New York or Chicago my kind of town the way Sinatra
grinds it out.
What he enjoyed most, it turns out in retrospect,
and he didn't know it
at the time, was standing around in the [auto]
showroom, behind the dusty
big window with the banners, bouncing on the balls
of his feet to keep
up his leg muscles, waiting for a customer, shooting
the bull with Charlie
or whoever, earning his paycheck, filling his slot
in the big picture,
doing his bit, getting a little recognition.
That's all we want from
each other, recognition. Your assigned place
in the rat race.
In the Army too, you had it: your number, your bunk,
your assigned duties,
your place in line, your pass on Saturday night,
four beers and fuck a
whore in a ranch house....There's more to being
human than having your
own way. Fact is, it has come to Rabbit this
late in life, you don't
have a way, except what people tell you. Your
mother first, and poor
Pop, then the Lutheran minister,...then all those
school teachers...trying
to give you and angle to work from, and now all
these talk-show hosts.
Your life derives, and has to give.
---John Updike, Rabbit
at Rest (1990).
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