Snippets
Here are some passages from STRIKE ZONE
She had been trying to stop crying practically since she started, but it had gotten completely out of hand anyway. Now she made a particularly bitter effort. Her silly moans would distinguish her in the eyes of these men as a mindless hysterical child. Her lack of control set her apart from them more completely than any other imaginable barrier. They were people who were able to smile and speak normally in the face of danger. She was somebody who fell apart and began to babble helplessly. And she had done so well at first! But really, she wanted to say to them, it’s not that I’m scared. I just didn’t get enough sleep last night and I think I’m catching a cold. [...] more...
His eyes would have been unsettling in any face, but sunk as they were in bony hollows, contrasting as they did with his fine white skin they were irresistible. It was impossible to meet them, and impossible to look anywhere else. [...] more...
But what else was there? She couldn’t think of a thing in the world she was good at besides making love. And typing. But typing wasn’t something she could put her heart and soul into. It wasn’t so much that she was good at typing, either. And, she was good at it. Her dexterous fingers moved flawlessly across a keyboard. It was more than that. She was good with words. Not with manipulating them. Or using them. She could not speak well extemporaneously, for example; she always felt as if she could never find the right word, and would muddle any public conversation; she was better in private, but not that much better. She could never have been a writer; she would have forever been stuck on the first sentence, never finding the right combination of words to please her. Yet, she had a talent with words. There was no doubt about it. It was a special talent, a talent she kept secret from everybody else. That is, no one knew about her special, secret talent but her, and she wanted to keep things that way. Her talent? She remembered words. That was her talent, her gift. If she heard a word uttered correctly once, she could spell it. If she heard a paragraph uttered once, she could type it. If she had ever typed a paragraph herself, she could re-type it later, perfectly. If she felt like repeating the words she had typed, she could do that, without hesitation or error. She would flutter her fingers in the air, as if she were typing on an imaginary keyboard, and the words would just appear before her mind’s eye, as if they were on a sheet of paper. So, this was not memory so much as re-reading a reconstructed image from her memory. But, the gift really wasn’t much of a talent. It helped her get straight A’s in high school; and, it helped her to type up transcripts, quickly and accurately. But, it never helped her to win an argument or get a job, since no one would ever have believed that she remembered words so well, even if she had told them about the gift. And, she would never have considered doing that, nor would she have considered demonstrating her gift to prove her talent, since doing so would have been the end of her secret. Besides that gift, she was aware of no real talents in her. There was nothing that she knew about herself which would give a clue to what she could be. The gift wouldn’t help her to be an artist. Repeating words? That’s not art. Perhaps it might help her to learn her lines, if she were an actress. But, she couldn’t act, so there was no use in that. She couldn’t be an executive, either. Executives dictate memos. They don’t memorize them. She thought she might not mind being a great nurse, somebody who established a clinic in the jungle and cured rare diseases, working night and day, and collapsing against tent poles after epidemics. But she knew very well that if she went into nurse’s training it would be just the same as typing to her, and she would end up working in a hospital, being efficient, and remembering every word the doctors told her. [...] more...
He held the gun naturally, as if it were so much a part of his habit it was like an extension of him. He held the gun the way a clerk might hold a pencil, the way workers hold their tools. He held it with respect, and she could see in the lines of his body that he knew in every inch of him what it was for. It was to kill with. [...] more...
She put on a concerned face, but underneath it she was cold and rebellious. She had loved him desperately, and he had clutched at her too tightly. He wanted to own her. Now she felt herself fighting away from him. Could this be softhearted Margaret, who secretly mocked this tragic, broken man? She scolded herself, forced herself to see his pain. The process was similar to the one she had used as a child to attain awe in church. “All right,” she said. “I’m sorry.” [...] more...
