Hank swats, too late, at a mosquito biting his thigh. Robert sits in his car with the radio on; he’d leave except that Shane and Mike came with him. When he thinks nobody is paying attention Robert gets out and puts the baseball bat back into his trunk.
“Business partner, M?” Kelly approaches the Minotaur with her hands in the pockets of the army coat.
“I can’t believe you’re gonna fall for this, Kelly,” Adrienne says.
An explanation is needed.
“You’re about to fuck up,” Shane says. “Have you forgotten what this evil bastard did?”
But standing there in his torn pajamas, his dirty shirt, his heavy shoes, the Minotaur in all of his bullishness seems something other than evil now, seems vulnerable, seems pitifully human.
An explanation is wanted by all.
“You’ve got to tell me, M.”
He paws at the dirt with his shoe, looks away, looks back.
“That’s it,” Shane says. “I tried to help. But some people are bound and determined to kill themselves.”
“I’m going to bed,” Hank says. He leaves.
“Kelly?” Margaret asks. “What do you want to do?”
There are some seventy-five ways to knot a piece of string. The Minotaur saw them all illustrated on a poster a long time ago. Tendon. Ligament. Muscle. Vein. Memory is a silly and wonderful thing.
“Corn dogs,” the Minotaur says.
“Hmm?”
“Trailer,” he says.
“You riding with us, Mike?” Shane asks. They drive away in Robert’s car.
Kelly looks out toward the road.
“That?” she asks.
“Unnha,” the Minotaur answers.
“Corn dogs?”
“Uhmn.”
Adrienne leaves. Margaret finally goes, alone. Sweeny moves deeper into his house. Lights come on in the Crewses’ trailer. Water runs; something sizzles in a frying pan. There, in the horseshoe drive, Kelly, gullible and mortal Kelly, awaits an explanation from a bedraggled immortal. The Minotaur accepts this temporary blessing for all it is worth. There are few things that he knows, these among them: that it is inevitable, even necessary, for a creature half man and half bull to walk the face of the earth; that in the numbing span of eternity even the most monstrous among us needs love; that the minutiae of life sometimes defer to folly; that even in the most tedious unending life there comes, occasionally, hope. One simply has to wait and be ready.
EPILOGUE
The Minotaur dreams the brevity of hearts in a labyrinth of days Dreams a flock of grackles taking flight over afield of narcissus The birds rise in unison, their wing beats sudden as a rainstorm
The Minotaur dreams the second hand spinning madly Dreams The porcelain vault of a mouth crumbling, the Father Figure Parchment drapes the butcher block
Dreams the Minotaur of the stockpot and mother tongue Milk tooth and tonsil. He who comes before the ink stone and nib God of the six lucrative days, of clattering hooves. Reprise
The Minotaur dreams the brevity of hearts in a labyrinth of days Dreams a flock of grackles settling in afield of narcissus The birds descend in unison, their wing beats cease
The Minotaur: Takes a Cigarette Break Page 26