This morning Weesie greeted me with an extra warm smile and a hug. I was aware for the first time that the dress she wore clung to her figure. It was made of a very soft material, very feminine, which women seldom wear. To my genuine surprise she said, as she pulled away from me- “I don’t want you to answer me immediately. Tomorrow or the next day will do. What I would like to know is what you think about God. Do you believe there is one? Do you like him? Don’t tell me what they told you in church– I know all that crap– Tell me what you yourself honestly think. Do that for me, won’t you?”
The hot sultry air, the way her dress clung to her body, the taste of her lips, all combined to give her words anther connotation. It was the most unusual question, in any event, and especially from a girl her age. It was the first time the subject had come up since those days when Stanley and I talked on his doorstep in the evenings.
From Henry Miller’s “Book Of Friends”, published in 1976, where he recounts his teenage adventures growing up in Brooklyn. I’ve been reading the book and something about these paragraphs just made me stop. It is amazing to me how he can say so much, so simply, in so few words.
