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“I feared being close. My family suggested a healer, but I was too proud. Zo, one day Jackrabbit and I took out the green boat and spent all afternoon and evening on the bay. It was fine–the wind, the salt, the water. I felt loosened. I had not taken a day free in months. I know Jackrabbit sensed my mood, for person could easily catch changes. Doors opening, doors closing. Everyone had eaten. We scraped leftovers and Jackrabbit came along to my space … . How easy and insinuating person could be. Without deciding to, still addressing Jackrabbit in my mind as if person were half a child, we ended up coupling that night. After, I felt for the old knot, and it was melted. Only the feeling I’d been a great fool. I’d scorned what was easy, the affection of my own family, for what I couldn’t have. Since then I have tried to be simpler, better … . It wasn’t that Jackrabbit worked healer’s entrance, but person loosened the knot that pride kept tight. Once loosened, I couldn’t wait to bind myself again. Even I had that much sense.” White Oak smiled and sat down. Her gaze rested on the wall.
“Person’s way of insinuating into other people’s beds was not always productive,” a young person said, standing on one foot. “Jackrabbit came to me once after a dance and then never again. I felt I was an apple person had taken a bite of and spat out.”
“Person was so curious, began far more friendships than could be maintained,” Bolivar said dryly, without raising his head.
“How can you carry on about a small thing?” Co
Bee spoke in his deep, gentle, careless‑sounding voice. “We recall what we can. Good and ill, doings and undoings. We want to hold person entire in our minds before we begin slowly to forget.”
A short brown man rose. “Last year I studied History of Jazz at Oxford. Even there in Mississippi, they had a painting of Jackrabbit’s traveling from village to village. That’s from my home, I told them, and felt proud.”
Luciente rose, swaying. Words came in gouts. “Was good to be with Jackrabbit. I was selfish, selfish over that good. Now it’s gone. Person is gone!”
“How did it move, Luciente? Speak of Jackrabbit,” Erzulia commanded in a high, carrying voice.
“Person made me able to be … careless. Silly.”
“Was that good or bad, Luciente?”
“At first I feared maybe bad. I cramped at forgetting meetings, experiments, issues. Gradually I felt that loosening gave me energy. Jackrabbit was water, I could float. Jackrabbit was wine, making me tipsy and glad of the moment. We were always laughing. We never stopped flirting. Person was full of grace. Person made me want to know things that on my own I would never have grazed. Now, nothing …” Luciente stopped, choking into tears. She remained standing, her hands inscribing shapes on the air, but she could not sort words. Otter sat her down gently.
After a space of minutes of soft crying and shifting about, a child rose. “Jackrabbit worked with me a whole lot, teaching me how to handle a boat and swim. Person didn’t always suck patience, but person laughed a lot–not at me. Person made … even picking the Swallowtail caterpillars off the carrots fun. Person made them put out their horns … . I’ll miss Jackrabbit a lot!”
Another child stood. “Person was teaching me holi work. Now nobody will have–will ever–grasp, believe in me when I can’t do what I mean. Person made me feel my–the pictures I saw in my head were good even when they came out–so stupid!” Abruptly the child sat, red in the face.
Magdalena of the children’s house came forward on bare feet, small as a child and black as the blackest cat. “We think old people have a special ki
A big man, grizzled and bald, stood. “Blackfish of Provincetown, I taught Jackrabbit. There’s no keener–or more dubious–pleasure than having a student you know will surpass you. I can’t stay, I have to go back on the dipper tonight, we’re in the middle of harvest. But what a waste! Person did nothing of what person could have. Nothing. We’re all poorer.”
A person in a mottled green and brown jumpsuit rose and spoke loudly. “I want to tell you how Jackrabbit died. Then I must leave too. I wish I could stay the night … . The fighting’s been fierce. They have new flying cyborgs, can go rocket speeds and cruise at twenty kilometers … . We suffer heavy losses … .” The person in green and brown paused to look around as if to recover a lost intent. “At now, you all grasp from the last grandcil more of us are going to have to fight for a while … . Jackrabbit was no born fighter. Person would have been happier staying home. But fought well. Jackrabbit was wounded ru
Erzulia rapped out, “Play it now.”
Minor scufflings with equipment. Then Jackrabbit’s unmistakable voice spoke in brief, broken sentences, half swamped in crackling and background noise. “Luciente: weep and work. Was good. You have to help people prepare … . Bolivar: break open. Go to Diana for help. Finish our holi with browns, reds, greens. Glim into uprush. Earth itself moving. Armies of trees. See? Armies of trees … . Bee: bring Luciente through. Never got to mother. Mother for me … . Corolla: regret what will never fuse now … . Orion: have faith in visions and patience with matter–” The voice choked in midsentence. Only crackling followed.
The person in uniform continued apologetically: “Jackrabbit meant to give more messages, but couldn’t. We could tell person intended to speak to more of you … . At first we were trying to save per. We should have grasped at once the wounds were too severe. Otherwise we’d have started cording sooner. We wasted time while we didn’t want to admit Jackrabbit was dying. Our tardiness robbed many of you of a message.”
Bee said, “You did well. We’d rather have had Jackrabbit than any message.”
The person in uniform bowed slightly and walked out. A voice began to sing:
“The tree quivers
wetly
in no wind.
I cone upon you.
How the light breaks
like arrows
through my eyelids.”
Co
Others were speaking their remembrances, recounting an episode, embarrassed or nostalgic. Otter said, “I remember stiffing it all night when a hurricane was coming, to bring in the harvest, to batten things down. How Jackrabbit kept us singing and made everything fu