FEASTING THE HEART by REYNOLDS PRICE

Author:REYNOLDS PRICE
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
Publisher: SCRIBNER
Published: 2000-11-19T05:00:00+00:00

1996

TIME-RIDDEN

My friends often remind me of my obsession with time—I’m always asking people’s ages, always celebrating anniversaries; I’m mercilessly prompt. Many Americans prefer not to notice the passage of years; but for someone who writes fiction as I do, time is my subject. Name five of your favorite novels—aren’t they mainly concerned with what time does to human beings? The subject pours into my work too—from direct observation of the lives of others and from my lifelong dread of detaining people, missing planes, missing rich encounters.

Of course I’m doomed to have as my friends many men and women who’re blithely cavalier with my time. If they’re twenty minutes late, they feel no need to phone; they’ll be there (little do they know that I’m on the verge of phoning the highway patrol to see if their flesh doesn’t litter an interstate). I’ve gone so far as to set out to find the delayed friend; and I’ve spent my adult life, circling the block before most appointments—marking time till my hostess can unroll her sausage curlers.

Otherwise I’m a man of few compulsions. I don’t wash my hands every minute; I don’t return to the house five times to be sure the oven’s turned off. My mania for punctuality, in fact, seldom applies to my own solitary activities. I don’t have to have my own solo lunch at precisely one o’clock or my two ounces of unblended Scotch on the tick of five. So how did I come by this mania where other humans are involved? There may be unconscious causes in my deep past. I was for instance an embryo who resisted delivery; I presented my ten-pound butt to the doctor and withstood his forceps for a whole long night.

But the first cause I’m sure about was my father’s inability to keep his word in matters of time; and before I was five, I’d begun to experience real fear of his tardiness. Since I adored my father through all the twenty-one years I knew him, I took the earliest opportunities to accompany him on his work. He was a traveling salesman of electrical appliances; and on occasional mornings before I entered school, he’d ask if I’d like to ride with him on his calls. Warned though I’d been, I invariably accepted with glee—only to confront, in a matter of moments, the inevitable quandary. Father would pull the black Pontiac up in front of a house, reach for his brochures, say “Darling, sit here just a minute. This lady needs a floor lamp.” I’d say “All right,” and his minute would begin its remorseless stretching.

He’d knock, a woman in a housedress or an old man in suspenders would answer, Father would offer his blazing smile, the door would shut behind him; and within three minutes, I’d know I was abandoned. Since abandonment is a child’s greatest dread—isn’t it also the dread of most adults?—I’d wait on in the hot or cold car, dully numbering my courses of action. After how many minutes

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