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Letter to the MidwestAuthor(s): Daniel HalpernSource: The North American Review, Vol. 262, No. 4 (Winter, 1977), p. 51Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25117957 .
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The Talking Mute
I waited till I was sure that was it. Then: "That goofball kid said all that, huh?"
Jeff blinked up into the drizzle. I knew we were getting gradually drenched, but going in before I'd found out whatever
I had to find out seemed more absurd than standing out in the
rain.
We looked at each other, our faces all wet. "You made
every word ofthat up," I said softly. "The whole thing. All that
stuff."
Jeff smiled and then got his straight face back. "Yeah. I
did."
I shook my head and looked at what he'd said in a new way.
"Why?" He thought about it. "It's not all that often a person gets the
chance to say something and be positive that the person listen
ing is really listening. It was a real opportunity." I heard the drizzle landing on my hair and shoulders and
felt deep inside myself and dense there and far from feeling it,
the drizzle.
"We're getting pretty wet," Jeff said softly. We went in. Nobody said anything, then I drove him home.
,, 6.
kJome people can travel around everywhere all by them
selves. I need somebody, to talk to, in case something comes
up. The radio in my car's busted, so after I dropped Jeff off I
went home and got my cat and we were on our way. I had to stop at the signal down the street. The drizzle fell as lightly as it
could.
"So the postmaster says he doesn't care what the hell
holiday it is," I told my cat. "Somebody's got to run Specials, he says. Easter, Halloween, goddamn Doomsday."
The signal turned green and we headed off down toward the
Coast Highway. "I gave the old Post Office one last look, turned, looked the
postmaster in the eye, and said, declared, clear as a bell, T
quit.' "
By the time I turned onto the Highway my cat was curled up
sound asleep in the back seat. I figured the kid, the mute,
would still be headed south. I knew I'd find him again, and I could already see myself pulling over, and his silent face,
streaked like a window with rain, lighting up. D
DANIEL HALPERN
LETTER TO THE MIDWEST
You would notice the humor: storks
at work in the fields collecting seeds,
the pointing tips of djellabas that stick up at odd angles
?
closer to God, perhaps. The palms are dramatic,
waving wildly in wind. At their centers
the rust colored fronds remain still.
You, of course, see the irony in this.
The rain stops and starts all day,
the horns left over from the Europeans'
New Year still sound in every street.
It's exotic all right.
It makes me gloomy and I imagine
snow fields without storks, corn instead of kif,
and little children off to school,
their hair lighter than snow,
speaking English, their mothers' kisses
still blossoming on their rosy cheeks.
But it is dusk here, veiled figures go by outside my window,
the lights across the Straits begin to appear.
The bats have begun to feed, and the starlings,
in a frenzy, circle, and float home.
THE NORTH AMERICAN RE VIEW/WINTER 1977 51
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