The road. The caravan. People taking pictures of the caravan with little pronghorn cameras. Flashes of light.
My leg is black, said the Dead Father.
But funing, said Thomas, gratulate yourself.
You carved me very ly, said the Dead Father. I admit it.
Oh it was a grand fire, said Thomas, very persuasive.
The Wend try is bumpy to a fault, said the Dead Father. I am glad we are out of it.
Jumble-gut lahomas agreed.
Those that are the fathers of themselves miss something, said the Dead Father. Fathers, to be precise.
Fatherhood as a substructure of the war of all against all, said Thomas, we could discuss that.
I speak to that, said Julie.
Me too, said Emma, for I know nothing about it, and am thus presuppositionless.
A state of grace, philosophically, the Dead Father observed.
Julie began.
The father is a motherfucker, she said.
By definition, said Thomas.
The vagina, she said, is not where its at.
We agree, said Thomas, weve heard that.
Moving north, one finds a little button.
Nods of prehension.
Now it does no good to mash down oton. Its not aor button, its not a doorbell. The button should not be mashed down on. It should be --
She stopped for a word.
Celebrated, suggested Thomas.
Titivated, suggested Emma.
No mashing down! Julie said fiercely.
Nods of accord.
The phallus, she tinued, is o useless for the purpose. Rolling pins should never be employed. Streams of blue blood --
What has this to do with fatherhood? asked the Dead Father.
I talk about what I want to talk about, said Julie, this is a digression.
Indeed.
The fucked mother ceives, Julie said. The whelpling is, after agonies I shall not describe, whelped. Then the dialogue begins. The father speaks to it. The "it" in a paroxysm of not uanding. The "it" whirling as in a trifuge. Looking for something to tie to. Like a boat in a storm. What is there? The father.
Where is the mother? asked Emma.
The mother hath not the postlike quality of the father. She is more like a grime.
A grime?
Overall presence distributed in discrete small black particles all over everything, said Julie.
Post and grime, said the Dead Father. You do have a dismal view of things.
Where did I learn it? For the mind of me to have formulated these formulations, must they not have a grounding iernal reality? I am not just idly --
Are you about to cry? asked the Dead Father.
No, said Julie, I never cry. Except when I realize what I have done.
Who speaks for the father? asked the Dead Father. Who in Gods name --
The family unit produces zombies, psychotics, and s, Thomas said. In excess of what is needed.
Eighteen pert at the last sus, Julie added.
I am not saying that it is your fault, he said to the Dead Father.
Edmund would be an example, Emma suggested. Though lovable.
I think not, said Thomas, he is an alkie, is all.
What is he doing now?
Thomas looked up the road.
Sug on his flask, he said, I have flang three of them into the brush but he alroduces another.
duct a shakedown, suggested the Dead Father. Stand by your bunks and open your footlockers.
Prefer not to, said Thomas.
Fifty-year-old boys, Julie said, thats ahing.
Are you blaming me? asked the Dead Father.
They exist, said Julie, grinning in thei