Fear in a Handful of Dust

5

Earle Dana watched himself on television, observing the performance critically.

He had switched off the lights in the apartment and he sat in the armchair facing the color set.

The interview had been taped yesterday morning. Certain things about the televised image disturbed him. The brown slacks and pale yellow turtleneck looked proper for the tone of casual informality he’d intended to set but the turtleneck betrayed his paunch. His pale hair, cropped close to the skull like fuzz on a tennis ball, gave him the look of a man of forty-five trying to emulate a collegian. I must take off weight and let the hair grow out a bit, he told himself.

The face was not quite as it looked in his shaving mirror each morning. He was distressed. The mouth had a way of folding primly at the conclusion of each statement. At other times as he listened to the interviewer’s questions the mouth seemed too small and as rigid as a coin slot. He had extraordinarily thin lips.

He did not listen to the dialogue; he remembered clearly what had been asked and answered; he had comported himself well. But television was not a vehicle for words. He watched the mobile face as though he were a patient being counseled: would I have confidence in this practitioner?

He decided that he probably would. But there was something about that mouth that troubled him.

When the program ended he switched on the light above his chair, extinguished the television set and walked back into the bathroom. He faced the mirror and spoke loudly to himself and watched his mouth move: he tried to do it without punctuating each phrase with that prim grimace.

Quickly he realized that it was going to be a very hard habit to break.

A shadow loomed behind him in the mirror.

My dear sweet God. Duggai!