Free The Collected Stories of Lorrie Moore by Lorrie Moore Page A

in hooded yellow slickers were holding up signs that read "Honk for Peace." Ira fell upon his horn, first bouncing his hand there, then just leaning his whole arm into it. Other cars began to do the same, and soon no one was going anywhere—a congregation of mourning doves! but honking like geese in a wild chorus of futility, windshield wipers clearing their fan-shaped spaces on the drizzled night glass. No car went anywhere for the change of two lights. For all its stupidity and solipsism and self-consciously scenic civic grief, it was something like a gorgeous moment.
     
    despite bekka's reading difficulties, despite her witless naming of the cats, Ira knew that his daughter was highly intelligent. He knew it from the time she spent lying around the house, bored and sighing, saying, "Dad? When will childhood be over?" This was a sign of genius! As were other things. Her complete imperviousness to the adult male voice, for instance. Her scrutiny of all food. With interest and hesitancy, she studied the antiwar signs that bestrewed the neighborhood lawns. "'War Is Not the Path to Peace,'" she read slowly aloud. Then added, "Well—duh."
    "'War Is Not the Answer,'" she read on another. "Well, that doesn't make sense," she said to Ira. "War
is
the answer. It's the answer to the question 'What's George Bush going to start real soon?'"
    The times Bekka stayed at his house, she woke up in the morning and told him her dreams. "I had a dream last night that I was walking with two of my friends and we met a wolf. But I made a deal with the wolf. I said, 'Don't eat me. These other two have more meat on them.' And the wolf said, 'O.K.,' and we shook on it and I got away." Or, "I had a strange dream last night that I was a bad little fairy."
    She was in contact with her turmoil and with her ability to survive. How could that be anything less than emotional brilliance?
    One morning she said, "I had a really scary dream. There was this tornado with a face inside? And I married it." Ira smiled. "It may sound funny to you, Dad, but it was really scary."
    He stole a look at her school writing journal once and found this poem:
Time moving
Time standing still.
What is the difference?
Time standing still is the difference.
    He had no idea what it meant, but he knew that it was awesome. He had given her the middle name Clio, after the Muse of history, so of course she would know very well that time standing still
was
the difference. He personally felt that he was watching history from the dimmest of backwaters—a land of beer and golf, the horizon peacefully fish-gray. With the windows covered in plastic sheeting, he felt as if he were inside a plastic container, like a leftover, peering into the tallow fog of the world.
Time moving. Time standing still
.
     
    the major bombing started on the first day of spring. "It's happening," Ira said into Mike's answering machine. "The whole thing is starting now."
    Zora called and asked him to the movies. "Sure," Ira said mechanically. "I'd love to."
    "Well, we were thinking of this Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, but Bruno would also be willing to see the Mel Gibson one." We. He was dating a tenth grader now. Even in tenth grade he hadn't done that. Well, he'd see what he'd missed.
    They picked him up at six-forty, and, as Bruno made no move to cede the front seat, Ira sat in the back of Zora's Honda, his long legs wedged together at a diagonal, like a lady riding sidesaddle. Zora drove carefully, not like a mad hellcat at all, as for some reason he had thought she would. As a result, they were late for the Mel Gibson movie and had to make do with the Schwarzenegger. Ira thrust money at the ticket-seller—"Three, please"—and they all wordlessly went in, their computerized stubs in hand. "So you like Arnold Schwarzenegger?" Ira said to Bruno as they headed down the red-carpeted corridor.
    "Not really," Bruno muttered. Bruno sat between Zora and Ira, and together they passed a small container of popcorn