Some things in life never made sense to anyone. For example:
Who would ever believe that Clara would be the kind of a woman who would spend her Sunday afternoons hanging around the Henry Miller section of the Miami-Dade County library? I mean, maybe, just maybe, if she lived in Fort Jackson, Arkansas or Muncie, Indiana, things would be more clear, would make more sense, but here she was, living in downtown Miami, less than 10 minutes away from the world famous South Beach district and Ocean drive. She could have spent her Sundays sitting around the News Cafe or Mangos. She could have had tall Latin men running around and buying her chocolate Martinis. A woman who looked so good always heard the same lines. They would promise her a free trip to the islands, a fancy dinner and drinks in the VIP section of the latest and newest club on Washington Ave. I meant those kind of VIP tables cost at least $1,000. That did not include tip. But instead she just hung around the library, picking up an old copy of Black Spring and slowly reading through Chapter 14 over and over and over.
Maybe it had something to do with that guy. Not that guy but rather that Guy. He told her he was a writer. He told her that Philip Roth or that drunken Bukowski character inspired him. But most of all he told her (right before they kissed), that Henry Miller was by far his favorite writer. That she would never be able to understand him unless she read through Henry's pages.
The Tropic series was good stuff, he told her, but if you really want to get a taste of it, you had to read the Rosy Crucifixion.That is what he told her right before he took her for a walk on the beach only a few miles from where he lived.
On a Sunday afternoon, Clara sat around and wondered why he disappeared on her. Everything was going so smoothly for the past few months and suddenly he disappeared. She read over Chapter 14 once again and then closed her eyes.
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