The Way We Go

We’re standing in front of this collage of cool images hanging on the wall. We look at the people in it, and I tell her their names while she tries to repeat them.
Nelson Mandela. Charlie Chaplin. Frank Zappa. Alain Delon. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec — that one gets us laughing for a while.

Then we get to Monty Python, and I start to walk in a slow, lurching, awkward way — half bent over, arms dangling like marionettes, jerky, unbalanced steps.

“And him?” she asks. “How does he go?” “Muhammad Ali,” I say, stretching out my arm, fist clenched, jumping like in a boxing ring. “Like this.”

“And him?”
“Leo Tolstoy,” I say, lifting my elbow as if resting it on the back of a chair and walking proudly. “Like this.”

“And him?”
“A matador,” I say. “Yes, good question — what is a matador? Someone who fights bulls.” I lift my hands to my head, index fingers out, and make clumsy bull movements.

“And him?”
“John Cleese,” I say, eyes peering as if from behind a screen.

“And him?”
“Albert Einstein.”

“How does he go?”
“He doesn’t go too much,” I say. “He’s mostly thinking.”