Wasn’t I thoroughly trained to display such friendly kindness myself? Even if I did have to admit that I did it with nowhere near Jesse’s grace? I had decided it just didn’t come natural to me. It should have. I had the full complement of Appalachian genes, as far as I knew. I could walk the walk and, try though I might, I apparently couldn’t help talking the talk. But, to my shame (because that is part of the training), the truth was that a good bit of my friendly kindness was fake. Surrounded by what I presumed to be the real thing all day long every day, I just got more and more irritated and more and more and more aware of my own duplicity. The better I got at fooling the rest of West Virginia, the worse I felt, because nobody knew “the real me”...except me, of course. And I didn’t like myself much.
One of my reasons for leaving home had been to get away from the necessity (as I saw it) of maintaining a false front. Another was to get away from the constant reproach (as I saw it) of constantly encountering those more virtuous than I.
But good habits die hard. Here I was in New York City, and all I had to do was to throw around “pleases” left and right like a trail of bread crumbs, and my past (in the form of Jesse) had found me. Apparently it been here all the time waiting for me for me to turn up. It was enough to make me laugh. Jesse’s friendly kindness was as genuine as his (and my) accent. I knew what had brought me here, but what in the world had brought him?
Despite myself, I was becoming more and more curious about Jesse. The more curious I became, the more I fought it. I hadn’t come to New York City to reaffirm my lack of sophistication. I had come to hide it long enough to gain the real thing. Then I hoped to procede onward to Europe. New York was a way station on the way there, a jumping off point, perhaps a test to see if I was worthy of going on.
Ruefully, I wondered if Jesse had ever been to Europe. It turned out he had.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I saw your post on Craig’s list. This is a rewrite of the last paragraph of page 5. I do not mean to say there is anything intrinsically wrong with your version, just consider this one.
I fought becoming curiouser and curiouser about Jesse. I had not come to New York City to flaunt my lack of sophistication; I had come to hide my lack of it until I would acquire enough of it to become the definition of it. Then I would proceed on to the conquest of Europe. New York, simply a way station, a jumping off point, a testing ground for my worthiness.
Post a Comment