Free Ray by Barry Hannah

dreaming of this. I’m dreaming of the day when the Big C will be blown away. I’m dreaming of a world where men and women have stopped the war and where we will stroll as naked excellent couples under the eye of the sweet Lord again. I’m dreaming of the children whom I have hurt from being hurt and the hurt they learn, the cynicism, the precocious wit, the poo-poo, the slanted mouth, the supercilious eyebrow.
    Then I wake up and I’m smiling. Westy asks me what’s wrong.
    â€œChrist, darling, I just had a good dream, is all.”
    â€œI’ll bet it was some patient you screwed. You rotten bastard.”
    She hits me over the head with a pillow.
    Violence.
    Some days even a cup of coffee is violence.
    When I can find my peace, I take a ladder to the hot attic and get out the whole plays of Shakespeare.
    Okay, old boy. Let’s hear it again. Sweat’s popping out of my eyes, forehead.
    Let’s hear it again. Between the lines I’m looking for the cure for cancer.

XXXIV
    L ET’S get hot and cold, because, darling new thing, we’re going through the weeds and the woods and just the sliver of the moon comes in through the dead branches, and the running rabbits and squirrels are underneath and above. Henry David Thoreau is out there thinking, loping around. Louis Pasteur is out there racing with the bacteria.
    We went to the planetarium in Jackson, Mississippi, my hometown. Elizabeth, Ray, Lee, and Teddy. Elizabeth is on the couch with her crocheting. Lee is reading her new bible, Proverbs. It’s raining out. We’ve cut the yard in the front, and the train whistle is hooting.
    â€œA gentle answer quiets anger, but a harsh one stirs it up.”
    â€œIt is foolish to ignore what your father taught you. It is wise to accept correction.”
    They say, “Dad, take it easy. Quit going so fast.”
    My daughter has a secret friend named Fred, and my son Teddy has a secret friend named Jim.
    We all sleep together in the big wooden four-poster where I grew up, tiny innocent arms and legs and imaginary friends on top.
    Ike, Ken, Carol, and Ginger are at my ex-brother-in-law’s place, and I join them to fish at the wide kidney-shaped lake at the bottom of their rolling lawn. Dr. John and Dr. Ray trade a few compliments. John would give you the shirt off his back. It’s a shame my sister, Dot, isn’t with him anymore. There were differences. His wife, Mindy, is sweet and has Buffy and Moffit. I forgot to mention my beautiful nieces, Hannah Lynn and Maribeth. Everybody’s around and we are flying kites over the tall oaks, the Black Angus cattle are roaming comfortably in the taller weeds, and the geese control their placid squadrons.
    Ike is a playwright and Ginger has just come back from Europe with her Gitanes, one of the essential deeds of young females. Looking back at the house, it’s a low wooden castle.

XXXV
    T HEY asked me where I wanted to go to graduate school and I said Tulane, for medicine. Finished in three years. Or maybe it was four.

XXXVI
    O NE of the great bad strokes I did was marry the prettiest girl on campus. I was so horny and everything else was pretty nothing except red bricks and Baptists, a few queers in the drama and English departments. I got thrown out of my room by a senior who thought he could box. I knew nothing about boxing. This was supposed to be my roommate. He was a blond, acned guy, and he was punching me. So I said, “Stop.”
    He quit, though he was still shifting, bouncing.
    â€œMy name’s Wild Man Thomas,” he said.

XXXVII
    I T’S quiet, utterly quiet, except for the air conditioner going in my room. The companionship is with the air alone. I am asking forgiveness for all my sins, on my knees. I got to get my mind in a higher sphere.

XXXVIII
    I WAS treating a large old woman who spat in my face. I fell backward into the heater, face-forward. This is to prove that I’m not always the