certain kinds of people 301 It magnifies certain...
certain kinds of people
301
It magnifies certain kinds of peopleHe didn't answer immediately,
so I pointed at his face"That eye of yours is
watering again
He took out the handkerchief and wiped it
"Want to tell me what happened to you?" I asked
"Why you can't read? Why it weirds you out to even
look at pictures too long?"
For a long time he said nothingThe shells under
Big Pink had a lot to sayWith one wave they said
the fruitWith the next they said the gunBack
and forth like thatThe fruit, the gun, the gun,
the fruitAnd if you want to draw
me, sure
"How much of my mind can you read, Wireman?"
"Not much," he tiffany co jewelry said"You caught a break there,
muchacho
"Could you still read it if we were off Duma Key?
If we were in a Tampa coffee shop, for instance?"
"Oh, I might get a tickle"Especially
after spending over a year here, soaking up the
302
"Will you go to the gallery with me? The Scoto?"
"Amigo, I wouldn't miss it for all the tea in
China
iv
That night a squall blew in off the water and it
rained hard for two hoursLightning flashed and
waves pounded the pilings under the houseBig
Pink groaned but stood firmI discovered an
interesting thing: when the Gulf got a little
crazy and those waves really poured in, the chanel classic bag shells
shut upThe waves lifted them too high for
conversation
I went upstairs at the boom-and-flash height of
the festivities, and - feeling a little like Dr
Frankenstein animating his monster in the castle
tower - drew Wireman, using a plain old Venus
Black pencilUntil the very end, that wasThen I
used red and orange for the fruit in the bowlIn
the background I sketched a doorway, and in the
doorway I put Reba, standing there and watchingI
supposed Kamen would have said Reba was my
representative in the world of the pictureMaybe
303
sí, maybe noThe last thing I did was pick up the
Venus Sky to color in her stupid fake chanel bag eyesAnother Freemantle masterpiece is born
I sat looking at it while the diminishing thunder
rolled away and the lightning flashed a few
goodbye stutters over the GulfThere was Wireman,
sitting at a tableSitting there, I had no doubt,
at the end of his other lifeOn the table was a
bowl of fruit and the pistol he kept either for
target practice (back then his eyes had been fine)
or for home protection or bothI had sketched the
pistol and then scribbled it in, giving it a
sinister, slightly blobby lookThat other house
was emptySomewhere in that other house a clock
was tickingSomewhere in that other house coco chanel jewelry a
refrigerator was whiningThe air was heavy with
the scent of flowersThe scent was terribleThe
sounds were worseThe march of the clockThe
relentless whine of the refrigerator as it went on
making ice in a wifeless, childless worldSoon
the man at the table would close his eyes, stretch
out his hand, and pick a piece of fruit from the
bowlIf it was an orange, he'd go to bedIf it
was an apple, he would apply the muzzle of the gun
304
to his right temple, pull the trigger, and air out
his aching brains
It had been an apple
v
Jack showed up the next day with a borrowed van
and plenty of soft cloth in which to wrap women's rolex watch my
canvase