Saturday, May 1, 2010 - She immediately held out her hands like an... |
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She immediately held out her hands like an infant
who has been deprived of a toy"Smoke! Smoke!
SMOKE!" Wireman butted the cigarette on the heel
of his sandal and a moment later she quieted again,
the cigarette forgotten now that her nicotine
jones was satisfied
"Stay with her while I put the painting in the
front hall, would you?" Wireman asked"Wireman, I only meant-"
"I knowIt was a
stupid questionJust let me put this
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painting safe, okay? Then the next time Jack comes,
send him down hereWe'll wrap it nice and he can
take it to the ScotoBut I'm gonna scrawl NFS all
over the packing before it goes to SarasotaIf
you're giving it to me, this baby is mine
In the jungle to the south, the bird took up its
worried cry again: "Oh-oh! Oh-oh! Oh-oh!"
I wanted to say something else to him, explain to
him, but he was hurrying awayBesides, it had
been his question
iii
Jack Cantori took Wireman Looks West to the Scoto
the following day, and Dario called me as soon as
he had it out of the cardboard panelsHe claimed
to have never seen chanel jewelry anything like it, and said he
wanted to make it and the Girl and Ship paintings
the centerpieces of the showHe and Jimmy
believed the very fact that those works weren't
for sale would hype interestHe
asked me if I was getting ready for my lecture,
and I told him I was thinking about itHe told me
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that was good, because the event was already
stirring "uncommon interest," and the circulars
hadn't even gone out yet
"Plus of course we'll be sending JPEG images to
our e-listers," he said
"That's great," I said, but it didn't feel great
During those first ten days of March, a curious
lassitude stole over meIt didn't extend to work;
I painted another sunset and another Girl and Ship
Each morning I walked on the beach with my pouch
slung over my shoulder, prospecting for shells and
any other interesting litter that might have
washed upI found a great many beer and soda cans
(most worn as smooth and white as amnesia), a few
prophylactics, a child's plastic raygun, and one
bikini bottomI drank green
tea with Wireman under the striped vintage cartier watch umbrellaI
coaxed Elizabeth to eat tuna salad and macaroni
salad, heavy on the mayo; I chivvied her into
drinking Ensure "milkshakes" through a strawOne
day I sat on the boardwalk beside her wheelchair
and sanded the mystic rings of yellow callus on
her big old feet
542
What I did not do was make any notes for my
supposed "art lecture," and when Dario called to
say it had been switched to the Public Library
lecture space, which seated two hundred, I flatter
myself that my offhand reply gave no clue as to
how cold my blood ran
Two hundred people meant four hundred eyes, all
trained on me
What I also did not do was write any invitations,
make any move to reserve rooms for the nights of
April fifteenth and sixteenth at the Ritz-Carlton
in Sarasota, or reserve a Gulfstream to fly down a
gaggle of friends and relatives from Minnesota
The idea that any of them might want to see my
daubings began to seem nutty
The idea that Edgar Freemantle, who one year
previous had been fighting with the StPaul
Planning Committee about bedrock test chanel jewelry online drillings,
might be giving an art lecture to a bunch of
actual art patrons seemed absolutely insane
The paintings seemed real enough, though, and the
work wasGod, the work was wonderfulWhen I
stood before my easel in Little Pink at sunset,
stripped to my gym shorts and listening to The
543
Bone, watching Girl and Ship No7 emerge from the
white with eerie speed (like something sliding out
of a fogbank), I felt totally awake and alive, a
man in exactly the right place at exactly the
right time, a ball that was a perfect fit for its
socketThe ghost-ship had turned a little more;
its name appeared to be the PerseOn a whim, I
Googled this word, and found exactly one hit -
probably a world's recordPerse was a private
school in England, where the alumni were called
Old PerseansThere was no mention of a School
Ship, three-masted or otherwise
In this latest version, the girl in the rowboat
was wearing a green dress with straps that crossed
over her bare back, and all around her, floating
on the sullen water, were rosesIt was a
disturbing louis vuitton hangbags picture
Walking on the beach, eating my lunch and drinking
a beer, with Wireman or on my own, I was happy
When I was painting pictures I was happyWhen I was painting I felt filled up
and fully realized in some basic way I had never
understood before coming to Duma KeyBut when I
thought about the show at the Scoto and all the
544
stuff that went into making an exhibition of new
work successful, my mind went into lockdownIt
was more than stage fright; this felt like
outright panic
I forgot things - like opening any e-mails from
Dario, Jimmy, or Alice Aucoin at the ScotoIf
Jack asked me if I was excited about "doing my
thing" at the Selby Library's Geldbart Auditorium,
I'd tell him ohyeah, then ask him to gas up the
Chevy in Osprey, and forget what he'd asked me
When Wireman asked if I'd talked to Alice Aucoin
yet about how the various groupings were to be
hung, I'd suggest we volley some tennis balls,
because Elizabeth seemed to enjoy watching
Then, about a week before the scheduled lecture,
Wireman said he wanted to show me something prada knock offs he'd
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