![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glebRichard Brautigan
THE WORLD WAR I LOS ANGELES AIRPLANE
He was found lying dead near the television set on the front room floor of a small rented house in Los Angeles. My wife had gone to the store to get some ice cream. It was an early-in-the-night-just-a-few-blocks-away store. We were in an icecream mood. The telephone rang. It was her brother to say that her father had died that afternoon. He was seventy. I waited for her to come home with the ice cream. I tried to think of the best way to tell her that her father was dead with the least amount of pain but you cannot camouflage death with words. Always at the end of the words somebody is dead.
She was very happy when she came back from the store.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Your brother just called from Los Angeles,” I said.
“What happened?” she said.
“Your father died this afternoon.”
That was in 1960 and now it’s just a few weeks away from 1970. He has been dead for almost ten years and I’ve done a lot of thinking about what his death means to all of us.
1. He was born from German blood and raised on a farm in South Dakota. His grandfather was a terrible tyrant who completely destroyed his three grown sons by treating them exactly the way he treated them when they were children. They never grew up in his eyes and they never grew up in their own eyes. He made sure of that. They never left the farm. They of course got married but he handled all of their domestic matters except for the siring of his grandchildren. He never allowed them to discipline their own children. He took care of that for them. Her father thought of his father as another brother who was always trying to escape the never- relenting wrath of their grandfather.
2. He was smart, so he became a schoolteacher when he was eighteen and he left the farm which was an act of revolu tion against his grandfather who from that day forth con
sidered him dead. He didn’t want to end up like his father, hiding behind the barn. He taught school for three years in the Midwest and then he worked as an automobile salesman in the pioneer days of car selling.
3. There was an early marriage followed by an early divorce with feelings afterward that left the marriage hanging like a skeleton in her family’s closet because he tried to keep it a secret. He probably had been very much in love.
4. There was a horrible automobile accident just before the First World War in which everybody was killed except him. It was one of those automobile accidents that leave deep spiritual scars like historical landmarks on the family and friends of the dead.
5. When America went into the First World War in 1917, he decided that he wanted to be a pilot, though he was in his late twenties. He was told that it would be impossible because he was too old but he projected so much energy into his desire to fly that he was accepted for pilot training and went to Florida and became a pilot.
In 1918 he went to France and flew a De Havilland and bombed a railroad station in France and one day he was flying over the German lines when little clouds began appearing around him and he thought that they were beautiful and flew for a long time before he realized that they were German antiaircraft guns trying to shoot him down.
Another time he was flying over France and a rainbow appeared behind the tail of his plane and every turn that the plane made, the rainbow also made the same turn and it followed after him through the skies of France for part of an afternoon in 1918.
6. When the war was over he got out a captain and he was travelling on a train through Texas when the middle-aged man sitting next to him and with whom he had been talking for about three hundred miles said, “If I was a young man like you and had a little extra cash, I’d go up to Idaho and start a bank. There’s a good future in Idaho banking.”
7. That’s what her father did.
8. He went to Idaho and started a bank which soon led to three more banks and a large ranch. It was by now 1926 and everything was going all right.
9. He married a schoolteacher who was sixteen years his junior and for their honeymoon they took a train to Philadelphia and spent a week there.
10. When the stock market crashed in 1929 he was hit hard by it and had to give up his banks and a grocery store that he had picked up along the way, but he still had the ranch, though he had to put a mortgage on it.
11. He decided to go into sheep raising in 1931 and got a big flock and was very good to his sheepherders. He was so good to them that it was a subject of gossip in his part of Idaho. The sheep got some kind of horrible sheep disease and all died.
12. He got another big flock of sheep in 1933 and added more fuel to the gossip by continuing to be so good to his men. The sheep got some kind of horrible sheep disease and all died in 1934.
13. He gave his men a big bonus and went out of the sheep business.
14. He had just enough money left over after selling the ranch to pay off all his debts and buy a brand-new Chevrolet which he put his family into and he drove off to California to start all over again.
15. He was forty-four, had a twenty-eight-year-old wife and an infant daughter.
16. He didn’t know anyone in California and it was the Depression.
17. His wife worked for a while in a prune shed and he parked cars at a lot in Hollywood.
18. He got a job as a bookkeeper for a small construction company.
19. His wife gave birth to a son.
20. In 1940 he went briefly into California real estate, but then decided not to pursue it any further and went back to work for the construction company as a bookkeeper.
21. His wife got,a job as a checker in a grocery store where she worked for eight years and then an assistant manager quit and opened his own store and she went to work
for him and she still works there.
22. She has worked twenty-three years now as a grocery checker for the same store.
23. She was very pretty until she was forty.
24. The construction company laid him off. They said he was too old to take care of the books. “It’s time for you to go out to pasture,” they joked. He was fifty-nine.
25. They rented the same house they lived in for twenty-five years, though they could have bought it at one time with no down payment and monthly payments of fifty dollars.
26. When his daughter was going to high school he was working there as the school janitor. She saw him in the halls. His working as a janitor was a subject that was very seldom discussed at home.
27. Her mother would make lunches for both of them.
28. He retired when he was sixty-five and became a very careful sweet wine alcoholic. He liked to drink whiskey but they couldn’t afford to keep him in it. He stayed in the house most of the time and started drinking about ten o'clock, a few hours after his wife had gone off to work at the grocery store.
29. He would get quietly drunk during the course of the day. He always kept his wine bottles hidden in a kitchen cabinet and would secretly drink from them, though he was
alone.
He very seldom made any bad scenes and the house was always clean when his wife got home from work. He did though after a while take on that meticulous manner of walking that alcoholics have when they are trying very carefully to act as if they aren’t drunk.
30. He used sweet .wine in place of life because he didn’t have any more life to use.
31. He watched afternoon television.
32. Once he had been followed by a rainbow across the skies of France while flying a World War I airplane carrying bombs and machine guns.
33. “Your father died this afternoon.”
THE WORLD WAR I LOS ANGELES AIRPLANE
He was found lying dead near the television set on the front room floor of a small rented house in Los Angeles. My wife had gone to the store to get some ice cream. It was an early-in-the-night-just-a-few-blocks-away store. We were in an icecream mood. The telephone rang. It was her brother to say that her father had died that afternoon. He was seventy. I waited for her to come home with the ice cream. I tried to think of the best way to tell her that her father was dead with the least amount of pain but you cannot camouflage death with words. Always at the end of the words somebody is dead.
She was very happy when she came back from the store.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Your brother just called from Los Angeles,” I said.
“What happened?” she said.
“Your father died this afternoon.”
That was in 1960 and now it’s just a few weeks away from 1970. He has been dead for almost ten years and I’ve done a lot of thinking about what his death means to all of us.
1. He was born from German blood and raised on a farm in South Dakota. His grandfather was a terrible tyrant who completely destroyed his three grown sons by treating them exactly the way he treated them when they were children. They never grew up in his eyes and they never grew up in their own eyes. He made sure of that. They never left the farm. They of course got married but he handled all of their domestic matters except for the siring of his grandchildren. He never allowed them to discipline their own children. He took care of that for them. Her father thought of his father as another brother who was always trying to escape the never- relenting wrath of their grandfather.
2. He was smart, so he became a schoolteacher when he was eighteen and he left the farm which was an act of revolu tion against his grandfather who from that day forth con
sidered him dead. He didn’t want to end up like his father, hiding behind the barn. He taught school for three years in the Midwest and then he worked as an automobile salesman in the pioneer days of car selling.
3. There was an early marriage followed by an early divorce with feelings afterward that left the marriage hanging like a skeleton in her family’s closet because he tried to keep it a secret. He probably had been very much in love.
4. There was a horrible automobile accident just before the First World War in which everybody was killed except him. It was one of those automobile accidents that leave deep spiritual scars like historical landmarks on the family and friends of the dead.
5. When America went into the First World War in 1917, he decided that he wanted to be a pilot, though he was in his late twenties. He was told that it would be impossible because he was too old but he projected so much energy into his desire to fly that he was accepted for pilot training and went to Florida and became a pilot.
In 1918 he went to France and flew a De Havilland and bombed a railroad station in France and one day he was flying over the German lines when little clouds began appearing around him and he thought that they were beautiful and flew for a long time before he realized that they were German antiaircraft guns trying to shoot him down.
Another time he was flying over France and a rainbow appeared behind the tail of his plane and every turn that the plane made, the rainbow also made the same turn and it followed after him through the skies of France for part of an afternoon in 1918.
6. When the war was over he got out a captain and he was travelling on a train through Texas when the middle-aged man sitting next to him and with whom he had been talking for about three hundred miles said, “If I was a young man like you and had a little extra cash, I’d go up to Idaho and start a bank. There’s a good future in Idaho banking.”
7. That’s what her father did.
8. He went to Idaho and started a bank which soon led to three more banks and a large ranch. It was by now 1926 and everything was going all right.
9. He married a schoolteacher who was sixteen years his junior and for their honeymoon they took a train to Philadelphia and spent a week there.
10. When the stock market crashed in 1929 he was hit hard by it and had to give up his banks and a grocery store that he had picked up along the way, but he still had the ranch, though he had to put a mortgage on it.
11. He decided to go into sheep raising in 1931 and got a big flock and was very good to his sheepherders. He was so good to them that it was a subject of gossip in his part of Idaho. The sheep got some kind of horrible sheep disease and all died.
12. He got another big flock of sheep in 1933 and added more fuel to the gossip by continuing to be so good to his men. The sheep got some kind of horrible sheep disease and all died in 1934.
13. He gave his men a big bonus and went out of the sheep business.
14. He had just enough money left over after selling the ranch to pay off all his debts and buy a brand-new Chevrolet which he put his family into and he drove off to California to start all over again.
15. He was forty-four, had a twenty-eight-year-old wife and an infant daughter.
16. He didn’t know anyone in California and it was the Depression.
17. His wife worked for a while in a prune shed and he parked cars at a lot in Hollywood.
18. He got a job as a bookkeeper for a small construction company.
19. His wife gave birth to a son.
20. In 1940 he went briefly into California real estate, but then decided not to pursue it any further and went back to work for the construction company as a bookkeeper.
21. His wife got,a job as a checker in a grocery store where she worked for eight years and then an assistant manager quit and opened his own store and she went to work
for him and she still works there.
22. She has worked twenty-three years now as a grocery checker for the same store.
23. She was very pretty until she was forty.
24. The construction company laid him off. They said he was too old to take care of the books. “It’s time for you to go out to pasture,” they joked. He was fifty-nine.
25. They rented the same house they lived in for twenty-five years, though they could have bought it at one time with no down payment and monthly payments of fifty dollars.
26. When his daughter was going to high school he was working there as the school janitor. She saw him in the halls. His working as a janitor was a subject that was very seldom discussed at home.
27. Her mother would make lunches for both of them.
28. He retired when he was sixty-five and became a very careful sweet wine alcoholic. He liked to drink whiskey but they couldn’t afford to keep him in it. He stayed in the house most of the time and started drinking about ten o'clock, a few hours after his wife had gone off to work at the grocery store.
29. He would get quietly drunk during the course of the day. He always kept his wine bottles hidden in a kitchen cabinet and would secretly drink from them, though he was
alone.
He very seldom made any bad scenes and the house was always clean when his wife got home from work. He did though after a while take on that meticulous manner of walking that alcoholics have when they are trying very carefully to act as if they aren’t drunk.
30. He used sweet .wine in place of life because he didn’t have any more life to use.
31. He watched afternoon television.
32. Once he had been followed by a rainbow across the skies of France while flying a World War I airplane carrying bombs and machine guns.
33. “Your father died this afternoon.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2016-01-10 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-10 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-10 08:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-10 09:25 am (UTC)просто повернул