LEONARD KRIEGEL
77
Mene, MCIle, Tekel, Upharsill.
Long after the pre-fab is out of sight
FUCK screams into the lush roadside growth of flowers. Purple, red, and
white flowers mixing with a dense blue sky, all dripping with Pollack's
agony of hope.
I sit in air-conditioned comfort in the rented Lincoln Town Car.
Yosemite is behind me, lost in space ifnot in time. Condemned by envy,
California embodies America's growth.
It
may be sliding into the sea,
only it seems to me still the rich landlord of America's fat future.
DOll't Califorlliallate Colorado!
I remember.
"You should on ly be so lucky!" I say aloud. My wife looks up, then
frowns, as if driving is making me crazy.
But I am not crazy. I am simply driving north on Ninety-Nine on a
hot August afternoon in 1993, filled with admiration for California on
its way down. Harriet taps my shoulder, points
to
a not-yet graffitied
sign announcing the turn-ofT for San Francisco. Nodding, I roll my
window down before steering toward the exit. Even dying, California is
best understood in the open air.
Coming in
Partisan Review
• Joseph Brodsky on Thomas Hardy
• Fiction by Aharoll Appclfeld
• Susan Sontag on Danilo Kis
• Karen Wilkin:
At the Galleries
• The Rebirth oj Melallcholy
by George Konrad
• A Symposium :
Cllltllre alld ECOIlOIllY
ill Latill alld Spall ish A lIIerica
• Le
Vertige de Babel
by Pascal Bruckner
