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Show Acting Alone Page 66 lie male writers of his generation, or any other generation for that matter, were privy to the deep secrets of nuns' undies? Was it just for rare carrion like this that Sam was cultivating What'sername? If so, then why had he bothered to regale her with a couple of more or less passable examples of his patented Sambo Sermons on the subjects of medieval architecture and the state of agronomics in Nigeria? Had he effused orally for the traditional reason: that he was lonesome and nervous and meeting a new, threatening, interesting person and trying to throw her off guard with his ruined charm? Was it because her vague family resemblance to Shanny had more or less eroticized the nun in his eyes? It didn't matter. -None of it did. There was no access to the Bride 0' Christ. So he returned sadly home. Back on the highway it was as though he'd never stopped off at Saint Paphnutius to be spiritually renewed at all. The jolt of his tires across the cattleguard that announced the interstate caused his neat new blue duckie bandaid to be washed away in a fresh surge of face blood. And, as he bled, he stared out his window at the cheap orange and turquoise sunset over the popcorn fields, a succession of highbrow NPR affiliates fading in and out at the bottom of the FM band: Susan Stamberg interviewing Dave Brubeck or Joan Didion or somebody; Fannie Flagg on Earplay - all echoing |