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"Eight plus thirty-five makeseight plus... |
5th September 2010, 17:33 |
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"Eight plus thirty-five makeseight plus thirty-five makes three and carry one His stomach had become upset, and he could hardly eat any foodThere would be times when he woud lie sweating in his bed, completely conquered by despair and anxietyHe wondered that everyone did not know what he was doing
His love-making had sufferedHe had been just eighteen when he married a few weeks before, and in his inexperience he had been inept, incapable of controlling himselfHis love spasms had been quick and nervous; he had wept once or twice in his wife's arms at his failureHe had married so young because he was in love, but also because he had felt cocky and confidentPeople always told him that he looked old for his age, and he believed in gambling, in assuming burdens because he was confident of carrying themHe had bought the furniture women's rolex watch for the same reason and, in his anxiety over that, the demands of his marriage had been overwhelming, and his failure in one had fed on his anxiety in the other
After he replaced the money, his love-making became a little more accomplished but he always lacked a necessary confidence in it; unconsciously he had longed for the days before his marriage when he had necked with his wife for long passionate hoursStanley, however, showed very little of this; he never told his wife just how the furniture was bought, and in their coupling he would feign great passion until he began to believe it himselfHe had passed on from the garage to an accountant's office, where he worked as a clerk while he studied accounting in night schoolHe learned other ways of making money, and he conceived their child deliberatelyHe had new money gucci ladies watch worries, and more nights when he lay motionless and perspiring in his bed trying to see the ceiling in the darknessBut in the morning he would always be confident and the chances would seem worth the taking
"It takes a lot for a guy to do it," he said again to BrownThe memories were uncomfortable, and yet they furnished him a deep pride"If you want to get anywhere you got to know what the score is," he said
"Yeah, you got to know who to suck," Brown reminded him
"That's part of it," Stanley said coldlyBrown still had a few tools he could employ against him
Stanley gazed at the men sprawled on the beach, looking for a better answer to give BrownHe noticed Croft stalking along the edge of the beach, searching the jungle, and he watched him
"What's Croft up to?" he asked
"He probably saw something," Brown saidHe was getting to coco chanel earrings his feetAll about them the men in the platoon were beginning to stir like cattle turning their heads toward a new sound or smell
"Aaah, Croft is always looking for something," Stanley grunted
"There's something doing," Brown mumbled
Just then Croft fired a burst into the jungle and dropped to the groundThe sound of the shots was unexpectedly loud and the men in the platoon winced, fell prostrate again in the sandA Japanese rifle fired back, and the men began to fire indiscriminately into the jungleStanley found himself sweating so intensely that he could not focus the sights of his rifleHe lay there with his senses blurred, flinching unconsciously every time a bullet passedIt sounded like a bee humming past, and he thought with surprise, A guy can get hurtHe remembered immediately afterward the joke about that, and began to dolce and gabbana bags laugh weaklyBehind him, on the beach, he heard someone scream, and then the firing haltedThere was a long uneasy silence among the men, and Stanley watched the air rise shimmering off the sand
At last Croft got cautiously to his feet, and darted into the jungleAt its edge he motioned for the men nearest him to approach, and Stanley stared at the sand and hoped Croft would not notice himThere was a pause, a wait of several minutes, and then Croft and Wilson and Martinez appeared from the brush, and came strolling back toward the beach
"We got two of them," Croft said"I don't think they was any others or they'd have left their packs when they took off He spat onto the sand"Who got hit?" he asked
"Minetta did," Goldstein saidHe was leaning over him, holding a first-aid compress against Minetta's leg
"Let's see it," Croft large gucci bag said |
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Ah'm goin' to git him through the... |
4th September 2010, 16:42 |
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Ah'm goin' to git him through the heart
BAA-WOWWW!
It is someone else's gun, and the deer dropsThe boy runs forward almost weepingWho shot him? That was mah deerI'll kill the one sonofabitch who shot him
Jesse Croft is laughing at himAh tole you, boy, to set where Ah put you
Ah tracked that deer
You scared that deer into meAh yeard ya footing it from a mile awayYou're a goddam liarThe boy throws himself at his father, and tries to strike him
Jesse Croft gives him a blow across the mouth, and he sits downYou ole sonofabitch, he screams, and flings himself at his father again
Jesse holds him off, laughingLittle ole wildcat, ain't ya? Well, you got to wait ten years 'fore you can gucci bangle watch whop your pa
That deer were mine
One that wins is the one that gits it
The tears freeze in the boy's eyes and witherHe is thinking that if he hadn't trembled he would have shot the deer first
"Yes, sir," Jesse Croft said, "they wa'n' a thing my Sam could stand to have ya beat him inWhen he was 'bout twelve, they was a fool kid down at Harper who used to give Sam a lickin' (Scratching the back of his gray scraggly hair, his hat in his hand "That kid would lick Sam every day, and Sam would go back and pick a fight the next dayAh'll tell ya, he ended up by whoppin' the -bleep- out of that kid
"And then when he was older, about seventeen maybe, he used to be bustin' horses down to the louis vuitton mahina fair in August, and he was known to be 'bout the best rider in the countyThen one time a fella all the way from Denison came down and beat him in a reg'lar competition with judges and allI 'member Sam was so mad he wouldn't talk to no one for two days
"He got good stock in him," Jesse Croft declared to his neighbors"We was one of the first folks to push in here, must be sixty years ago, and they was Crofts in Texas over a hunnerd years agoAh'd guess some of them had that same meanness that Sam's gotMaybe it was what made 'em push down here
Deer hunting and fighting and busting horses at the fair make up in hours a total of perhaps ten days a yearThere are the other things, the long chanel shopping bag flat sweeps of the terrain, the hills in the distance, the endless meals in the big kitchen with his parents and brothers and the ranch foremen
There are the conversations in the bunkhouseThe soft reflective voices
Ah tell ya that little gal is gonna remember me unless she was too goddam drunk
Ah jus' looked at that -bleep- after that, an' Ah said, Boy, you no-good black -bleep-, an' Ah jus' picked up that hatchet an' let him have it right across the headBut the sonofabitch didn't even bleed muchYou can kill an elephant about as fast as you can kill a -bleep- in the head
A whoor is no -bleep- good for a man, Ah gotta have it at least five six times 'fore Ah'm satisfied, and that ole business chloe black of stickin' it in once an' then reachin' for your hat jus' leaves me more fussed than it's worth
Ah been keepin' an eye on that south herd leader, the red one with the spot 'hind his ear, an' he's gonna be gittin' mean when the hot weather comes
The Education of Samuel Croft
And always, day after day, the dust of cattle through the long shimmering afternoons in the sunA man gets bored and it's uncomfortable falling asleep in a saddleThinking of town maybe(Bar and a whorehouse, dry goods
Sam, you gittin' itchy?
A lazy somnolent pulsing in his loinsThe sun refracts from the hide of his horse, bathes his thighs in a lazy heat
They're fixin' to start a National Guard outfit in chanel vintage jewelry Harp |
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Wilson remained on his knees, feeling the... |
3rd September 2010, 03:12 |
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Wilson remained on his knees, feeling the violence of it dumblyAlthough he had ducked back from the opening in the tent, his face was completely wetThere was no way to keep out the water which dripped quickly through every rip and seam of the tent fabric and blew in through the entrance like successive waves of surfThe rain trench had filled already, was flowing over onto their beddingGallagher gathered up their blankets, and the three men squatted under the flapping ponchos, trying to hold them down, and failing miserably in the attempt to keep their feet dryOutside the water had risen in great puddles which kept spreading and sending out tentacles like enormous amoeba absorbing the earth"Goddam, goddam," Wilson said
Goldstein and Ridges were completely wetWhen the rain had started, they had got out of their tent and pounded down all the stakesGoldstein had crammed the blankets into the rubber bag of his jungle pack, and he crouched on his knees now inside the tent, trying to hold it down in the wind"This is terrible," gucci pantheon he shoutedHis ugly dumpy face was covered with drops of water, and his straight sandy hair had plastered itself in a spiral about his head"Nuttin' to do but wait," he shouted backHis voice was lost in the wind, and Goldstein could hear nothing but "wait," which had a long wailing quality that pebbled his flesh with a sudden shudderThere seemed nothing in the universe but the gray violence roaring about themGoldstein felt his arm wrenched cruelly as the ridgepole lashed upward with an abrupt vicious snapHe was so wet that his green fatigues looked black
The bottom of the ocean would look like this, he told himselfThere were subterranean storms that he had read about, and this must be like themApart from his awe, and his concern that the tent should remain up, Goldstein was watching the storm with a fascinated interestProbably the world had been something like this when it first began to cool, he thought, and felt a deep excitement as if he were witnessing creationIt was silly to think about the tent in the same moment, but bag chloe paddington he could not help himselfHe was convinced that it would remain standing; the stakes were three feet deep, and the soil was the clay type that could take extreme stressesIf he had only known a storm like this was coming, he could have built a shelter that would last through anything, and he could lie underneath it, completely dry without the slightest worryGoldstein was annoyed at RidgesHe should have told him what kind of storms there were; he was a veteran and he should have been preparedAlready Goldstein was planning the next tent he would buildHis shoes had filled with water and he worked his toes to warm his feetSqueegee action, he thought; probably the man who invented the squeegee had an experience like mine
Ridges was watching the typhoon with panic and acceptanceMighty sponges o' God swelling, he said to himselfThe foliage of the jungle was churning turbulently, and the leaden-green sky painted it with greens so varied and brilliant that Ridges thought it looked like the Garden of EdenHe felt the throbbing of the big chanel jungle as a part of himself, the earth, which had turned to a golden mud, seemed alive to himHe kept looking at the fantastic green of the jungle and then at the orange-brown earth, febrile and pulsing as though the rain were cutting wounds into itRidges flinched before the power of it
The Lord giveth and He taketh away, Ridges thought solemnlyStorms were a basic part of his life; he had come to fear them, to bear with them, and finally to expect themHe saw his father's reddened wrinkled face with the sad quiet blue eyes"I'll tell you, Ossie," his father had said, "a man works and he toils, he puts in his good sweat tryin' to pull out a livin' from the land, and when all his work is done, if the good Lord sees it fitten, it's taken away in a storm Perhaps that was the deepest truth in Ridges's nature; it seemed to him that all his life, he and his father had struggled with barren land and insects and blights, had worked their fields with one aging mule, and often as not, their work had been ruined in one black night
He had balenciaga london helped Goldstein pound in the stakes because you helped your neighbor when he asked for it, and Ridges had decided the man you bunked with, even if he was a stranger, was still your neighbor; but secretly he had felt that their attempts to secure the tent would be uselessGod's ways were God's ways, he told himself, and a man did not try to brook themIf the storm was meant to blow away their tent, it would do it even if they had a plow to hold it downNow, because he did not know it was not raining in Mississippi, he prayed that the storm should not destroy his father's cropsThey jus' been planted, LordPlease don' wash them awayAnd even in his praying Ridges had no hope; he prayed to show that he was respectful
The wind tore through the bivouac area like a great scythe, slashing the palm fronds from the coconut trees, blasting the rain before itAs they looked, they saw a tent jerk upward from its mooring, and then stream away in the wind, flapping like a terrified bird"I wonder what's happening up at the front," Goldstein christian dior saddle bag shoute |
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Jack looked nervously toward where the sunken... |
2nd September 2010, 01:07 |
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Jack looked nervously toward where the sunken path
- which really did look as if it had been big
enough to accommodate a cart or even a truck, once
upon a time - dropped down and out of sight"Will
it be back?"
956
"It doesn't matter, muchacho," Wireman saidThat picnic basket, on the other hand,
needs to be carried
"Just looking at it made me feel like I was losing
my mind," Jack said"Do you understand that,
Edgar?"
"Of courseLibbit had a very powerful imagination,
back in the day
"What happened to it, then?"
"She forgot how to use itAnd I think that kind of forgetting is easy
Which is even more horrible
Jack bent down, picked up the basket, then looked
at Wireman"What's hermes tas in here? Gold bars?"
Wireman grabbed the bag of food and smiled
serenely"I packed a few extras
We worked our way up the overgrown driveway,
keeping an eye out for the lawn jockeyAt the top of the porch steps, Jack set
the picnic basket down with a little sigh of
reliefFrom behind us came a flurry and flutter
of wings
957
We turned and saw a heron alight on the driveway
It could have been the same one that had been
giving me the cold-eye from El Palacio's tennis
courtCertainly the gaze was the same: blue and
sharp and without an ounce of pity
"Is that real?" Wireman asked"What do you think,
Edgar?"
"It's real," I said
"How do you know?"
I could have pointed out that the heron omega automatic seamaster was
casting a shadow, but for all I knew, the lawn
jockey had been casting one, as well; I had been
too amazed to noticeCome on, let's
go insideAnd don't bother knockingThis isn't a
social call
xiii
"Uh, this could be a problem," Jack said
The veranda was deeply shadowed by mats of hanging
Spanish Moss, but once our eyes had adjusted to
the gloom, we could see a thick and rusty chain
encircling the double doorsNot one but two
958
padlocks hung down from itThe chain had been run
through hooks on either jamb
Wireman stepped forward for a closer look"You
know," he said, "Jack and I might be able to snap
one or both of those hooks right offThey've seen
better days
"Better chanel classic bags years," Jack said
"Maybe," I said, "but the doors themselves are
almost certainly locked, and if you go rattling
chains and snapping hooks, you're going to disturb
the neighbors
"Neighbors?" Wireman asked
I pointed straight upWireman and Jack followed
my finger and saw what I already had: a large
colony of brown bats sleeping in what looked like
a vast hanging cloud of cobwebI glanced down and
saw the porch was not just coated but plated with
guanoIt made me very glad I was wearing a hat
When I looked up again, Jack Cantori was at the
foot of the steps"No way, baby," he said"Call
me a chicken, call me a candy-ass, call me any
name in the book, I'm not going thereWith
Wireman omega watch orange it's snakesOnce-" He
looked like he had more to say, maybe a lot, but
959
didn't know how to say itHe took another step
back, insteadI had a moment to contemplate the
eccentricity of fear: what the weird jockey hadn't
been able to accomplish (close, but that only
counts in horseshoes), a colony of sleeping brown
bats had
Wireman said, "They can carry rabies, muchacho -
did you know that?"
I nodded"I think we should look for the
tradesman's entrance
xiv
We made our way slowly along the side of the house,
Jack in the lead and carrying the red picnic
basketHis shirt was dark with sweat, but he no
longer showed the slightest sign of nauseaHe
should have; probably we all should prada logos h |
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iii
I woke with most of my body on the floor but... |
1st September 2010, 02:14 |
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iii
I woke with most of my body on the floor but one
leg - my left - still propped on the bed and fast
asleepOutside, the wind and surf continued to
880
roarInside, my heart was pounding almost as hard
as the waves breaking on the beachI could still
see Tessie going down - drowning while those soft
and implacable hands clasped her calvesIt was
perfectly clear, a hellish painting inside my head
But it wasn't the dream of the little girls
fleeing the frog-thing that was making my heart
pound, not the dream that caused me to wake up on
the floor with my mouth tasting like copper and
every nerve seeming to burnIt was, rather, the
way you wake from a bad dream realizing that you
forgot something important: to turn off the stove,
for instance, and now the house is filled with the
smell of gas
I pulled my foot off the bed and it hit the floor
in a burst of pins and needlesI rubbed it,
grimacingAt first it was like big chanel rubbing a block of
wood, but then that numb sensation started to
leaveThe sensation that I'd forgotten something
vital did not
But what? I had some hopes that our expedition to
the south end of the Key might put an end to the
whole nasty, festering businessThe biggest
hurdle, after all, was belief itself, and as long
881
as we didn't backslide in the bright Florida
sunshine tomorrow, we were over that oneIt was
possible we might see upside-down birds, or that a
gigantic hop-frog monstrosity like the one in my
dream might try to bar our way, but I had an idea
those were essentially wraiths - excellent for
dealing with six-year-old girls, not so good
against grown men, especially when armed with
silver-tipped harpoons
And, of course, I would have my pad and pencils
I thought -bleep- was now afraid of me and my
newfound talentAlone, still not recovered from
my near-death experience (still suicidal, in fact),
I might dior saddle bags have been an asset instead of a problem
Because in spite of all his big talk, that Edgar
Freemantle really hadn't had another life; that
Edgar had just switched the backdrop of his
invalid's existence from pines to palmsBut once
I had friends againsaw what was all around me
and reached out to it
Then I'd become dangerousI don't know exactly
what she had in mind - other than regaining her
place in the world, that is - but she must have
thought that when it came to mischief-making, the
882
potential for a talented one-armed artist was
greatI could have sent poison paintings all over
the globe, by God! But now I had turned in her
hand, just as Libbit hadNow I was something
first to be stopped, then discarded
"You're a little late for that, -bleep-," I
whispered
So why did I still smell gas?
The paintings - especially the most dangerous ones,
the Girl and Ship series - were safely under lock
and key, and off-island, chanel 2.55 just as Elizabeth had
wishedAccording to Pam, nobody in our circle of
family and friends had taken sketches except for
Bozie, Tom, and Xander KamenIt was too late for
Tom and Kamen, and I'd have given a great deal to
change that, but Bozie had promised to burn his,
so that was all rightEven Jack was covered,
because he'd owned up to his little act of
thieveryIt had been smart of Wireman to ask him,
I thoughtI was only surprised he hadn't asked if
I'd given Jack some artwork myse -
My breath turned to glass in my throatNow I knew
what I'd forgottenNow, in this deep crease of
the night with the wind roaring outsideI'd been
883
so fixated on the goddam show that I'd never
thought much about who I might have given work to
before the show
Can I have it?
My memory, still apt to be so balky, sometimes
surprised me with bursts of Technicolor brillianceI saw Ilse standing barefoot
in Little Pink, dressed in shorts and a dior rasta bag shell top
She was standing by my easelI had to ask her to
move so I could see the picture she was so taken
withThe picture I didn't even remember doing
Can I have it?
When she stood aside, I saw a little girl in a
tennis dressHer back was turned, but she was the
focus of the pictureThe red hair marked her as
Reba, my little love, that girlfriend from my
other lifeYet she was also Ilse - Rowboat Ilse -
and Elizabeth's big sister Adriana as well, for
that was Adie's tennis dress, the one with the
fine blue loops along the hem(I couldn't know
this, but I did; it was news that had come
whispering up from Elizabeth's pictures - pictures
done when she was still known as Libbit
Can I have it? This is the one I want
884
Or the one something wanted her to want
I tried Ilse, Pam had saidI wasn't sure I'd
reach her, but she just got in
All around the doll-girl's feet were tennis balls
Others floated shoreward on the mild fendi b bag wav |
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And her reach was long
My phone began to ringI... |
30th August 2010, 14:50 |
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And her reach was long
My phone began to ringI went back in, still
feeling like two Edgars, one earthbound, the other
floating above the earthbound Edgar's head, and
picked it up
"Edgar? What's this -bleep- about not releasing the
paintings to-"
"Not now, Dario," I said I broke the
connection and called PamNow that I wasn't
thinking about it, the numbers came with no
problem whatsoever; that marvelous muscle memory
thing took over completelyIt occurred to me that
human beings might be better off if that was the
only kind of memory they hadI don't know what she'd taken, but
it was already workingWe talked for twenty
minutesShe wept through most of the conversation,
908
and was intermittently accusatory, but when I made
no effort to defend myself, her quilted white bag anger collapsed
into grief and bewildermentI got the salient
points, or so I thought thenThere was one very
salient point that we both were missing, but as a
wise man once said, "You can't hit em if you can't
see em," and the police representative who called
Pam didn't think to tell her what Mary Ire had
brought to our daughter's Providence apartment
Besides the gun, that was
"The police say she must have driven, and almost
nonstop," Pam said dully"She never could have
gotten a gun like that on an airplaneWhy did she
do it? Was it another fucking painting?"
"Of course it was," I saidI
never thought of thatI never thought of herIt was Illy's fucking boyfriend I was
worried about
Speaking very calmly, my ex-wife - that's what she
surely was now - said: "You mens gucci watches did thisI should have realized Mary Ire would
buy at least one painting, and that she'd probably
want a canvas from the Girl and Ship series - the
most toxic of allNor would she have wanted the
909
Scoto to store it, not when she lived right up the
road in TampaFor all I knew, she might have had
it in the trunk of her beat-up Mercedes when she
dropped me at the hospitalFrom there she could
have gone right to her place on Davis Islands to
get her home protection automaticHell, it would
have been on her way north
That part I should have at least guessedI had
met her, after all, and I knew what she thought of
my work
"Pam, something very bad is happening on this
islandI-"
"Do you think I care about that, Edgar? Or about
why that woman did it? You got our dior saddle bag daughter killed
I don't ever want to talk to you again, I don't
want to see you again, and I'd rather poke out my
eyes than ever have to look at another picture of
yoursYou should have died when that crane hit
you There was an awful thoughtfulness in her
voice"That would have been a happy ending
There was a moment of silence, then once more the
hum of an open lineI considered throwing the
whole works across the room and against the wall,
but the Edgar floating over my head said noThe
910
Edgar floating over my head said that would
perhaps give -bleep- too much pleasureSo I hung it
up gently instead, and then for a minute I just
stood there swaying on my feet, alive while my
nineteen-year-old daughter was dead, not shot
after all but drowned in her own gucci boston bag bathtub by a mad
art critic
Then, slowly, I walked back out through the doorThere seemed no reason to lock it
nowThere was a broom meant for sweeping sand off
the walk leaning against the side of the houseI
looked at it and my right arm began to itchI
lifted my right hand and held it in front of my
eyesIt wasn't there, but when I opened it and
closed it, I could feel it flexI could also feel
a couple of long nails biting into my palmThe
others felt short and raggedThey must have
broken offSomewhere - perhaps on the carpet
upstairs in Little Pink - were a couple of ghost
fingernails
"Go away," I told it"I don't want you anymore,
go away and be deadLike the arm to which it
had once been attached, the hand itched and
throbbed and ached and refused to leave ceramic chanel me |
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Because, speaking of hot
Once Mary Ire's... |
29th August 2010, 01:57 |
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Because, speaking of hot
Once Mary Ire's interview was published, I became
a local celebrityWhy not? Artist was good,
especially in the Sarasota areaArtist Who Used
to Build Banks and Then Turned His Back on Mammon
was betterOne-Armed Artist of Blazing Talent was
the absolute Golden MotherfuckerDario and Jimmy
647
scheduled a number of follow-up interviews,
including one with Channel 6I emerged from their
Sarasota studio with a blinding headache and a
complimentary CHANNEL 6 SUNCOAST WEATHER-WATCHER
bumper sticker, which I ended up plastering on one
of the MEAN DOGS sawhorses
I also took over the Florida end of the traveland-
hospitality arrangementsWireman was by then
too busy trying to get Elizabeth to ingest
anything but cigarette smokeI found big black bag myself
consulting with Pam every two or three days about
the guest-list from Minnesota and travel
arrangements from other parts of the countryI thought she was making an effort
to sound cheerful, but I could have been wrongMy
attempts to find out how her love-life was
progressing were kindly but firmly blocked
Melinda called - to ask for my hat-size, of all
thingsWhen I asked why, she wouldn't tell
Fifteen minutes after she hung up, I realized: she
and her French ami really were buying me a fucking
beret
An AP reporter from Tampa came to Sarasota - he
wanted to come to Duma, but I didn't like the idea
648
of a reporter tramping around in Big Pink,
listening to what I now thought of as my shells
He interviewed me at the Scoto instead, while a
photographer took miu miu coffer pictures of three carefully
selected paintings: Roses Grow from Shells, Sunset
with Sophora, and Duma RoadI was wearing a Casey
Key Fish House tee-shirt, and a photo of me -
baseball cap on backwards and one short sleeve
empty except for a nub of stump - ran nationwide
After that, my telephone rang off the hookAngel
Slobotnik called and talked for twenty minutesAt
one point, he said he always knew I had it in meHis reply was "Bullshit, boss,"
and we laughed like maniacsKathi Green called; I
heard all about her new boyfriend (not so good)
and her new self-help program (wonderful)I told
her about how Kamen had shown up at the lecture
and saved my assBy the end of that call she was
crying and saying she'd never had such a gutty,
come-from-behind patientThen she purse logo said when she
saw me she was going to tell me to drop and give
her fifty sit-upsThat sounded like the old Kathi
To top it all off, Todd Jamieson, the doctor who
had probably saved me from a decade or two as a
649
human rutabaga, sent me a bottle of champagne with
a card reading, Cannot wait to see your work
If Wireman had bet me on whether or not I'd get
bored and pick up a brush again before the show,
he would have lostWhen I wasn't getting ready
for my big moment, I was walking, reading, or
sleepingI mentioned this to him on one of the
rare afternoons when we were together at the end
of El Palacio's boardwalk, drinking green tea
under the striped umbrellaThis was less than a
week before the show
"I'm glad," he said simply
"What about you, Wireman? How are omega automatic seamaster you doing?"
"Not great, but I will survive - Gloria Gaynor,
1978It's sadness, mostly"I'm going
to lose herI kidded myself that maybe she was
coming back, butI'm going to lose herIt's
not like Julia and Esmeralda, thank God, but it
still weighs on me I laid my hand over his"For her and
for you He looked out at the waves"Sometimes I
think she won't die at allI think the Walrus and the Carpenter will
come for her, insteadThat they'll just lead her
away like they did those trusting OystersLead
her away down the beachDo you remember what the
Walrus says?"
I shook my head
"'It seems a shame to play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far, And made them
trot so quick'" He swiped an arm across his face
"Look at me, muchacho, crying just like the chanel j12 white watch Walr |
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I'm feeling around in the dark,... |
28th August 2010, 23:16 |
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I'm feeling around in the dark, for
Chrissake
"Yeah? Which arm you doing it with?"
That stopped me for a moment, but we had come too
far and shared too much for lies, even when the
truth was nuts
"All right," he saidI wish I
knew what was going on, that's allBecause
something is
"Maybe something isHow is she now?"
"SleepingAnd I'm interrupting you
"No," I said, and tossed the brush aside"I think
this is done, and I think I'm also done for awhile
643
Just walking and shelling for me between now and
the show
"Noble aspirations, but I don't think you can do
itNot a workaholic like you
"I think you're wrongWon't be the first timeAre you
going to come down and visit with us tomorrow? I
want you to see it if she lights gucci bookbag up againAnd maybe we could hit a few tennis
balls
"Wireman, there's one other thingDid Elizabeth
ever paint?"
He laughed"Who knows? I asked her once and she
said she could hardly draw stick figuresShe said
her interest in the arts wasn't much different
from the interest some wealthy alumni have in
football and basketballShe joked about it, said-
"
"If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic
supporterHow'd you know?"
"It's an old one," I said
644
I hung up and stood where I was, watching the long
light of evening fire up a Gulf sunset I had no
urge to paintThey were the same words she'd used
with Gene HadlockAnd I had no doubt that if I
asked others, I'd hear the same anecdote once or
twice or a dozen times: She said chanel white bag I can't even draw
stick figures, she said if you can't be an athlete,
be an athletic supporterAnd why? Because an
honest woman may occasionally goof the truth, but
a good liar never varies her story
I hadn't asked him about the red picnic basket,
but I told myself that was all right; if it was in
the attic of El Palacio, it would still be there
the next day, and the day after thatI told
myself there was timeOf course, that's what we
always tell ourselves, isn't it? We can't imagine
time running out, and God punishes us for what we
can't imagine
I looked at Girl and Ship No8 with something
approaching distaste and threw the cover-sheet
over itI never added the red picnic hamper to
the bowsprit; I never put a brush to borse fendi that
particular painting again - the final mad
descendent of my first sketch in Big Pink, the one
645
I'd named Hello8 may have been the best
thing I ever did, but in a strange way, I almost
forgot itUntil the show, that wasAfter that I
could never forget it
vi
The picnic basket
That damned red picnic basket full of her drawings
Even now, four years later, I find myself playing
the what-if game, wondering how much would have
changed if I'd pushed everything else aside and
gone hunting for itIt was found - by Jack
Cantori - but by then it was too late
And maybe - I can't say for sure - it wouldn't
have changed anything, because some force was at
work, both on Duma Key and inside Edgar Freemantle
Can I say that force brought omega seamaster fake me there? NoCan I
say it didn't? No, I can't say that, eitherBut
by the time March became April, it had begun to
gain strength and ever so stealthily extend its
reach
646
Elizabeth's damned picnic basket
vii
Wireman's hope that Elizabeth was coming around
began to seem unjustifiedShe remained a
muttering lump in her wheelchair, every now and
then stirring enough to cry out for a cigarette in
the cracked voice of an aging parrotHe hired
Annmarie Whistler away from Bay Area Private
Nursing to come in and help him four days a week
The extra help might have eased Wireman's workload,
but it did little to comfort him; he was heartsore
But that was something I only glimpsed from the
corner of my eye as April rolled in, sunny and chanel pearls |
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