Can You See the Wind? by Beverly Gologorsky

Author:Beverly Gologorsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: family fiction;political movements;political fiction;politics;Black Liberation;family drama;60s;1960s;civil rights movement;women's rights;women's movement;feminist movement;civil rights;Black Panther Party;Black Panthers;Anti-Vietnam War;Vietnam War;anti-war;feminism;New York books;New York City;New York;NYC;Bronx;working;class;family;women's fiction;gifts for women;fiction;novels;fiction books;women;women gifts;realistic fiction books;books fiction;romance;chick lit;drama;friendship
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2022-01-06T14:16:23+00:00

Probably September

Remember City Island, Josie? Remember Fourth of July? How disorganized and hot it was on that pier? Multiply that by a zillion, and you still won’t have a sense of any night here. Think about being always on guard for what may or may not come. Then imagine the nights filled with deafening, ear-piercing noise followed by throat wrenching, gut ripping screams—how else to know we’re alive?—and you get a taste of it here, but just a baby spoonful. It’s a circus, a freak show. Anything can happen and it does. Ignited by flares, we’re silhouettes in a shooting gallery, and only God and Ho Chi Minh know how many eyes are peering from all the tangled growth. The grim reaper’s our partner. He can’t be outsmarted, no sir. Just hold on to faint hope his decision about you hasn’t been made yet. However, enough booze and even death takes a vacation.

Everyone’s stoned out of his mind, and thank God for that. Shucking off the sons of bitches ants in a hash haze saves sanity. The heat is unbearable with clothing on, but who wants to expose flesh to those mother-sucking mosquitoes? You want to know what we put up with? It’s more than the VC, because Charlie’s invisible during the day and hidden at night, and unless you’re paranoid enough to take out some farmer working his rice field, it’s the jungle itself. Man, how do these people exist here?

And it’s frustrating trying to describe a day in the life, like painting a picture without paint. So why bother? I mean, what’s in it for me if anyone gets the scene? Even people’s letters sometimes give me a headache. Johnny’s salute—here’s to you, kid—while he’s at home drinking scotch and watching the Yankees does less than zip for me. And my friend Gretta is still writing to that guy, Richie, who made his car keys dance on the bar, but who is he? Her sweet, silky, sexy words, meant to be affectionate, provide a brief moment of porn. Thing is, I can’t respond in kind, not yet, maybe never, and in truth I don’t worry about it. And your letters, Josie, I grant you they’re easier on the eye than the shit in Stars and Stripes. Still, the stuff you relate . . . I mean . . . women fighting macho men—how could that possibly matter to me here? And the millions of people you claim are hoofing it against the war, how does that affect the carnage? None of it adds up to one body saved. None of it cools the landscape, fumigates the ants, or blocks incoming. And I don’t care anymore if it’s Johnson, Nixon, or King Tut as president, because no one knows how to end the siege even if they wanted to, which they don’t. Otherwise they’d sign any damn peace treaty tonight instead of pussyfooting around. Can you believe it? Blood and guts and bodies all over the fucking place and they argue words? Send them over here so we can shoot the lot of them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.