people who can’t do an)’thing who would have been farmers.rnThey’d be surviving. They can’t anymore: They’re living inrnslums, in trailer parks.rn”T/yey send a yellow bus to our doors and we gladly shove ourrnchildren aboard. For many years, day in and day out, the GreatrnSociety whispers into each sweet perfect little childly ear . . .rnThe Great Societ)’ begins at five years old. And nohce howrnschools in no wa resemble home. There are no gramniies orrndads, babies or dogs hanging around to lend or need a hand.”rnHer sympathies are with the quiet boy in the back of thernroom, the mousy girl who gets straight G’s. Her imagination isrnrural, which is to sav slic understands how right it is for farniboysrnto trade shotguns in the halls, or girls to skip class to catch polliwogs.rn”Schools are treacherous places to us old Yankees,” shernsays.rnHer solution? “We need to blow up the schools and throw allrnthe T”s into Boston Harbor. Wc do not want anybody in thernschools when we blow them up. hi fact, it would be rather nicernif 80 percent of the population supported the effort. A great circlernof people all holding hands will surround each brick fluorescent-rnlit school building. Songs of libertv will be sung. Flagsrnwill be waved. A cute 99-year-old retired schoolteacher will tossrnthe first sHck of dynamite.”rnThat is classic Chute: insurrection with a heart, reoluhonrnwith wit. The miliha of love.rnCarolyn understands that her bridge to the land of well-fedrnsheep, of the New Yorker and the grant pasture, is foreverrnburned. A decade ago, she was hailed as one of the freshestrnvoices in American fiction. The Beans of Egypt, Maine soldrn350,000 copies. Today, she imagines an interviewer asking,rn”Arc you going to give up writing if no one buys your books anymore?”rnTo which she replies, “I will slowly starve and I will getrnvery thin and weak and the power company will shut off myrnlights and Fll get weaker and weaker and weaker and die with arnpencil in my hand in the dark. Unless I go to jail for having unregisteredrnguns. There they will feed me and provide lights.rnBut no pencil.”rnShe is “feather-dusting” her next novel, the militia epic ThernSchool on Heart’s Content Road. This sounds like her big novel,rnher Grapes of Wrath, but is a blackout ever lifted? “Oncernyou’re gone, you can’t come back,” as a ragged fellow sang,rnthough if Garolyn were willing to rat on her friends and writernbooks justifying her perfidy she might eventually win the EliarnKazan Prize at the National Book Awards. But old Yankees dornnot squeal.rnI ask her if she expects to die a marfyr’s death. After all, in herrnfirst novel, Beal Bean is killed by police as he sprays gunfire intornthe windows of the new house yuppies are building across thernway; in her latest, Robert Drummond . . . well, let’s just sayrnSnow Man 2 is improbable. But a miliha of love is no place forrnvainglorious fools who daydream of going out in a hail of bullets.rnShe is, in the end, domestic, in the best sense: “I don’t wannarndie in an old folks’ home. This is the death we always picture:rnthe ideal death. We’re sitting here some evening, byrncandlelight, Michael and I, enjoying a nice evening chatting.rnThe dogs are sitting in their chairs, and a meteorrnthe same size as the house lands on thernhouse, squashes it, and that way they can’t everrnfind out what a dirfy housekeeper I am.”rnTo which Michael softly adds, “We lookrnfor that meteor eer)’ night.'”rnThe Defensernby Richard Moorern”Poor boy,” she laughed, “you’re mad!’rnI’d only glimpsed what shinedrnthrough endless folds of sanity,rna glance she hadrnbefore her mindrngot there with yards of drapery.rnThe moon hung wrapped in cloudrnover our heads fliat night.rnIt seemed to sav, “Hidden, I die.”rnThe very shroud,rnpregnant with light,rnglowed, filled the whole luminous sky.rnBut mist-thick thoughts could mock.rnWliom did they make their minion —rnwho there under their drab regimernof stock phrase, stockrnfear, stock opinion,rndictating what she dared to dream?rnAh, maybe if s the airrnhere: dry, cold. One needs crustrnto keep a tender life unbornrnas seeds have layerrnon layer of liuskrnand toss in the wind, are not torn.rnYes, it was madness. I,rnmoonstruck, loose in the night—rnI only wished pain, labor, birth,rnwished her to lie,rnlike the moon white,rnnaked on black and fertile earth.rn1950-1993rnNOVEMBER 1999/25rnrnrn