Weight

The boys upstairs are restless. There's a bang, another bang. Someone must be throwing a hard rubber ball for Bo, the Boston Terrier. Except I don't hear the scrabbling of claws. Who knows? Maybe the boys are throwing rocks at each other. Could it be a bowling ball? Now there is a long roll after each bang.

The boys are in their mid-twenties. They like to roar around in their jeeps and their trucks. They shop at 7-Eleven because -- hey -- it's across the street. One of them is the landlord's son. He buys a book every three or four months. It could be that he likes to read, but is very slow at it, choosing to relish each page instead of rushing through it. It could be his father told him to do it, as if a four dollar book will carry the store to the next quarter.

The boys live in the moment, as if the present had no weight.

We'll try the myth series reading group again on Sunday. The reading assignment was Jeanette Winterson's Weight. It's a book the boys will never read, but I wish I could slip copies under their pillows. What would they think of Atlas in the garden? What would they think of destiny and choice, the unbearable weight of the present?

I'm not sure they would think much about it at all.

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