A few days ago, I read this wonderful short piece by Lawrence Raab in a book entitled “The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators, and Waiting Rooms” (p. 260).<\/i><\/p>\n
Because so much consequential thinking <\/p>\n
happens in the rain. A steady mist<\/p>\n
to recall departures, a bitter downpour<\/p>\n
for betrayal. As if the first thing<\/p>\n
a man wants to do when he learns his wife <\/p>\n
is sleeping with his best friend, and has been<\/p>\n
for years, the very first thing<\/p>\n
is not<\/i> to make a drink, and drink it, <\/p>\n
and make another, but to walk outside<\/p>\n
into bad wheather. It’s true<\/p>\n
that the way we look doesn’t always <\/p>\n
reveal our feelings. Which is a problem<\/p>\n
for the movies. And why somebody has to smash<\/p>\n
a mirror, for example, to show he’s angry<\/p>\n
and full of self-hate, whereas actual people<\/p>\n
rarely do this. And rareley sit on benches <\/p>\n
in the pouring rain to weep. Is he wondering <\/p>\n
why he didn’t see it long ago? Is he wondering<\/p>\n
if in fact he did, and lied to himself? <\/p>\n
And perhaps she also saw the ways<\/p>\n
he’d allowed himself to be deceived. In this city<\/p>\n
it will rain all night. So the three of them<\/p>\n
return to their houses, and the wife <\/p>\n
and her lover go upstairs to bed<\/p>\n
while the husband takes a small black pistol<\/p>\n
from the drawer, turns it over in his hands, <\/p>\n
then puts it back. Thus demonstrating<\/p>\n
his inability to respond to passion<\/p>\n
with passion. But we don’t want him<\/p>\n
to shoot his wife, or his friend, or himself. <\/p>\n
And we’ve begun to suspect<\/p>\n
that none of this is going to work out, <\/p>\n
that we’ll leave the theater feeling <\/p>\n
vaguely cheated, just as the movie, <\/p>\n
turning away from the husband’s sorrow, <\/p>\n
leaves him to be a man who must continue, <\/p>\n
day after day, to walk outside into the rains, <\/p>\n
outside and back again, since now there can be <\/p>\n
nowhere in this world for him to rest.<\/p>\n
(First published in The Paris Review<\/i>, 164, 2002)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"