-------------- Original message --------------
> Excellent, Fred. This one, "Walter Hyatt": easier to "get" bcuz has only one
> character; more message-"sneaky" bcuz WH's not dissing anyone (cf Detweiler's
> Sao Paulo colleague re the "breeding rabbits" and Detweiler's own "off the tit"
> street suspects) and bcuz we're carried along on WH's enjoying (probably
> enforced) leisure life, p'raps in a post-prison-for-CEO's environment.
>
> Are the parachuters connected to WH through his corporation or the government?
> Nice touch, if so.
>
> You showed Detweiler becoming conscious in last statement: "First chance they
> get, they shoot or get shot - as if they were in fact very wise and knew the
> life of the poor is a single evening." I debated whether that sounded too much
> like the poet or whether I can imagine Detweiler waking up at the last. A
> beautiful sentence, no matter what.
>
> Nice understated political portraiture, Fred.
>
> Keep em coming,
>
> Judy
> ----- Original Message -----
>
Thank you, Judy - really gratifying and perceptive comparison. The image at the end of WH isn't real. Walter's comfortable but utterly dead-end situation (he uses the word "heaven" twice, so something must be wrong) kicks over into surralism, allegory, possibly hallucination. Consciously the man appears to feel no guilt; whatever he did to land him in minimum security, he seems to have had a "golden parachute." Unconsciously, something else may be happening, and it too may involve parachutes. I wanted the image of someone, probably captain and co-pilot, abandoning a plane the way one can abandon ship, and the way WH abandoned, say, his corporation, its pensioners. My original version, I've decided, was too unclear and elliptical. Here's revised ending.
Sometimes a hatch opens and one
or two step out with
parachutes (which have barely enough time
to open), chevroned jackets somewhat
sweaty but we take them in,
feed them, even invite them to play a hole
as the plane flames down upon the city.
|