Читать книгу Canoeing with Jose онлайн

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I threw his logic back at him. “You’re not crazy if you know you’re crazy. You don’t have to do that. You can forgive Joan.”

José paused, then admitted that he still loved Joan. But, he added, he would never be able to forgive her.

“You knew Joan had a thing with Sonic when you two were split up, and a couple nights ago you still loved her enough to marry her,” I said. “If you really loved her then, you would still love her now.”

José took this in silently. He wondered aloud if Joan might agree to give up “that little hasapa,” Lakota slang for a black baby. Then he asked to use my phone to call her.

Joan answered.

José said he loved her and needed to talk. He said he could forgive her, and wanted to try again. His apparent transformation from juvenile thug to mature young man was convincing. I drove off from Sibley Manor believing him, a state of delusion that would last until he appeared at my door a few nights later, out of breath and trembling.

He explained quickly that he had just sprinted across Interstate 94 from Frogtown, after “blasting that Sonic motherfucker with a sawed-off.” I would later learn that he had waited for Sonic outside Joan’s mother’s house, where she and the baby were staying. When Sonic appeared, José shot out the rear window of his Oldsmobile 98.