Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - And,
perhaps, a twitch of the old stump inside... |
| And,
perhaps, a twitch of the old stump inside its
pinned-up sleeve
"I had no resources to fall back onAs far as
happiness went"I told my friend
Kamen that I used to draw, but I hadn't done it in
a long timeHe suggested I take it up again, and
when I asked why, he said because I needed hedges
against the nightI didn't understand what he
meant then, because I was lost and confused and in
painI understand it better nowPeople say night
falls, but down here it risesIt rises out of the
Gulf, after sunset's doneSeeing that happen
amazed me
I was also amazed at my own unplanned eloquence
My right arm was quiet throughoutMy right arm
was just a stump inside a pinned-up sleeve
"Could we have the lights all the way down?
Including mine, please?"
Alice was running the board men's gucci wallet herself, and wasted no
timeThe spotlight in which I had been standing
592
dimmed to a whisperThe auditorium was swallowed
in gloom
I said, "What I discovered, crossing the bridge
between my two lives, is that sometimes beauty
grows in spite of all expectationsBut that's not
a very original idea, is it? It's really just a
platitudesort of like a Florida sunset
Nevertheless, it happens to be the truth, and the
truth deserves to be spokenif you can say it
in a new wayI tried to put it in a picture
Alice, could we have the first slide, please?"
It shone out on the large screen to my right, nine
feet wide and seven feet high: a trio of gigantic
lush roses growing from a bed of dark pink shells
They were dark because they were below the house,
in the shadow of the houseThe cheap fake louis vuitton bags audience drew in
its breath, a sound like a brief but loud gust of
windI heard that and knew it wasn't just Wireman
and the folks at the Scoto who understood
They gasped the way people do when they have been
blindsided by something completely unexpected
Then they began to applaudIt went on for almost
a full minuteI stood there gripping the left
side of the podium, listening, dazed
593
The rest of the presentation took about twentyfive
minutes, but I remember very little of itI
was like a man conducting a slide-show in a dream
I kept expecting to wake up in my hospital bed,
hot and shot through with pain, roaring for
morphine
xii
That dreamlike feeling persisted through the postlecture
reception at the ScotoI had no sooner
finished my first glass of champagne (bigger tiffany's necklace than
a thimble, but not much) before a second was
thrust into my handI was toasted by people I
didn't knowThere were shouts of "Hear, hear!"
and one cry of "Maestro!" I looked around for my
new friends and didn't see them anywhere
Not that there was much time to lookThe
congratulations seemed endless, both on my talk
and on the slidesAt least I didn't have to deal
with any extended critiques of my technique,
because the actual paintings (plus a few sketches
in colored pencil for good measure) were
squirreled away in two of the large back rooms,
594
safely under lock and keyAnd the secret of
avoiding getting smashed at your reception if
you're a one-armed man, I was discovering, was to
constantly keep a bacon-wrapped shrimp in your
remaining paw
Mary Ire came by and handbag chanel asked if we were still on for
our interview"Although I don't know what else I
can tell youI think I said it all this evening
"Oh, we'll think of a few things," she said, and
damned if she didn't tip me a wink from behind her
nineteen-fifties-style cat's-eye glasses as she
handed her champagne flute back to one of the
circulating waiters
"You bet," I said, restraining an urge to tell her
that if she was going to speak French, she'd have
to wait until I was wearing my Manet beretShe
wafted off, kissing Dario on one cheek before
slipping out into the fragrant March night
Jack came over, snagging a couple of champagne
flutes on the wayJuanita, my housekeeper,
looking trim and chic in a little pink suit, was
with himShe took a skewered shrimp, but refused
595
the chanel replica handbags cheap champagn |
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