WHAT DO I CARE FOR WHAT THEY SEE? -- performance selection
From Sometimes a Great Notion
Willard stepped back from the laundry window to leave and was stopped by his dim reflection in the glass: hardly there at all, a ridiculous little character with a receding chin and eyes swimming nearsightedly behind glasses out of style years ago, a cartoonist wash drawing of the capital H henpecked husband, a satirist's two-dimensional strawman designed to convey at first glance a two-dimensional personality that everyone knows everything about before it even opens its mouth.
Willard wasn't shocked by the image; he been aware of it for years. When he was younger he had scoffed to himself at all those people who treated him as though he really were this image he projected, "What do I care for what they see? They think they know the book by its cover, but the book knows what it is."
Now he knew better; if the book never opens up and comes out, it can be warped to fit the image others see.
He took a parting look at the reflection then moved on off toward the street light on the corner. This funny paper image is so complete and so consistent, he thought, it's a wonder the rain doesn't wash me away down the gutter like an old paper doll. Yet when he turned the corner and walked away from the light, his shadow stretched before him, black and solid. So he wasn't quite disengaged from this world. There was still something.
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