University of Northern Iowa

The Domestic Cliche of LoveAuthor(s): Daniel HalpernSource: The North American Review, Vol. 259, No. 3 (Fall, 1974), p. 69Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25117608 .

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both hoped it would only clear up enough for the Snowball

dance. She listened to my opinions about things and acted

like maybe I wasn't such a big fool after all. And I began to

interpret her smile as a sign that she liked me, the meaning I had wanted to give it all along.

The only imperfection in that hour was that Vic did not come into the basement. We felt the weight of his absence.

Then he stood there among us in his good dry clothes as

if he had intended to come down all along but had to get cleaned up first. And he spoke to Betty just as easy and

friendly as if they had been neighboring for the last ten

years.

"Betty, you're gettin' fat," he said, "but you're still

beautiful. I'm glad you came."

"Well, Vic, I didn't know if we should." "Of course you should. That damn foolishness between

me and John Bob has gone on too long. I'd of ended it

years ago, but I guess I was too big a fool to figure out

how."

As far as I know it was the first time in ten years that

Vic Johnson had ever said his brother's name. I looked

around for bells and sirens or something, but all there was

to it was Betty hugging him. The three of them had coffee together and filled each

other in on the details of their lives. Vic said he would face his brother as soon as John Bob got back and see if they could settle the trouble between them. I listened to enough of it to hear that

Then I returned to trying to talk like a man with some

brains to Mary Beth, and trying to invite her to the dance. I didn't really figure the dance would be held anyhow, but I wanted to invite her and have her say "yes" on condition it was. But there wasn't any way with her little brothers and

everybody all around us. Then Vic did what I've always thought was a fine thing.

He said, "Well have to stay up all night and watch the chicken houses in shifts to be sure the power doesn't fail."

Of course, Mae and Betty and Mary Beth and I all offered to each stand a shift, but Vic said, "To be honest, I don't trust either youngster to watch alone. They're both tired and could go to sleep, and that's a lot of money out there. But they could watch it together for the first two hours. Mae's a light sleeper and can kind of half watch them from the living room, if that's okay, Betty?

"

It was okay with Betty, so Mary Beth and I moved into the upstairs dining room to watch the fight in the chicken houses.

We watched it for an hour and a half and went on

talking about all kinds of things. We talked about her and about me, and I felt like I knew her quite well, and I finally said before our watch ran out, "I wonder kind of if you'd like to go with me to the Snowball prom?if it's held."

And she smiled at me and said, "You must not like me

very well, if you're only going to ask me to something almost certain not to happen."

"Oh no," I floundered again, "I like you a lot. I would like to go anywhere with you."

"Well, I don't know if I would go anywhere with you, but I would go to a movie with you?if there isn't any dance." Q

K?the Agodoa

THE LUNCHEON

Somewhere between the quiche

Lorraine and the bits of mandarin

oranges dressed with macadamia

nuts and romaine, a wave of a hand

toward a rose rhododendron

necrossed in the air and hung

like a sculpture. The coffee

crackled into white cups. Each

blood-sucker nodded to another.

And someone asked: 'Have you seen

the other rooms?' I said: 'I saw

from the deck the china lake.'

The red-red lipstick smiled,

waiting. 'Reminds me,' said I,

'of the time I was talking to the king of Saudi Arabia.

I said to him, Saudia, I said...'

Daniel Halpern

THE DOMESTIC CLICHE OF LOVE

In the brown basement

of the Turkish restaurant

the acrobat is on his hands

on a chair,

the juggler with the dinner's

supply of plates in the air, the snake charmer

lip to tongue with his cobra.

You watch

feet in the air,

plates hand to hand

and the snake

complacent on the mouth

of another.

This is your life, here in the brown basement

of my city ?

my feet

in the air, plates at my fingertips the logical extension of the cobra's tongue that gives you that final kiss

goodnight.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW/FALL 1974 69

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