He was riding home on a bus from his job as a linoleum salesman in a department store. The day marked the end of his seventh year of marriage to Madelaine, who had the car, and who, in fact, owned it. He carried red roses in a long green box under his arm. The bus was crowded, but no women were standing, so Lowell’s conscience was unencumbered. He sat back in his seat and crackled his knuckles absently, and thought pleasant things about his wife. He was a tall, straight man, with a thin, sandy mustache and a longing to be a British colonel. At a distance, it appeared that his longing had been answered in every respect save for a uniform. He seemed distinguished and purposeful. But his eyes were those of a wistful panhandler, lost, baffled, inordinately agreeable. He was intelligent and healthy, but decent to a point that crippled him as master of his home or an accumulator of wealth. Madelaine had once characterized him as standing on the edge of the mainstream of life, smiling and saying, “Pardon me,”
What do You think about Look At The Birdie (2009)?
