We Become Like Theaters

Richard Brautigan's most successful novel was Trout Fishing in America, but I think The Abortion has some of his best prose.

The excerpt below is one of my favorites:

She had put a pot of coffee on before she had gotten into the tub and I was standing there watching it perk and watching her bathe at the same time through the open door of the bathroom.

She had her hair piled and pinned on top of her head. It looked beautiful resting on the calm of her neck.

We were both tired, but not as nervous as we could have been facing the prospects of the day, because we had gone into a gentle form of shock that makes it easier to do one little thing after another, fragile step by fragile step, until you've done the big difficult thing waiting at the end, no matter what it is.

I think we have the power to transform our lives into brand-new instantaneous rituals that we calmly act out when something hard comes up that we must do.

We become like theaters.

I was taking turns watching the coffee perk and watching Vida at her bath. It was going to be a long day but fortunately we would get there only moment by moment.

"Is the coffee done yet?" Vida said.

I smelled the coffee fumes that were rising like weather from the spout. They were dark and heavy with coffee. Vida had taught me how to smell coffee. That was the way she made it.

I had always been an instant man, but she had taught me how to make real coffee and it was a good thing to learn. Where had I been all those years, think­ing in terms of coffee as dust?

I thought about making coffee for a little while as I watched it perk. It's strange how the simple things in life go on while we become difficult.

"Honey, did you hear me?" Vida said. "The coffee. Stop daydreaming and get on the coffee, dear. Is it done?"

'I was thinking about something else," I said.