one he had kept. It was unskillfully executed, but there was an
unexpected juxtaposition there that lit UP his dials. This painting
had some of the same quality, but it was even better. Much better.
As he was reaching for it, wanting to pick it up right now, this
second, wanting to tuck it under his arm and proclaim his
intentions, a voice spoke up behind him: 'Aren't you Richard
Kinnell?'
He jumped, then turned. The fat woman was standing directly
behind him, blotting out most of the immediate landscape. She had
put on fresh lipstick before approaching, and now her mouth had
been transformed into a bleeding grin.
'Yes, I am,' he said, smiling back.
Her eyes dropped to the picture. 'I should have known you'd go
right to that,' she said, simpering. 'It's so You.'
'It is, isn't it?' he said, and smiled his best celebrity smile. 'How
much would you need for it?'
'Forty-five dollars,' she said. 'I'll be honest with you, I started it at
seventy, but nobody likes it, so now it's marked down. If you come
back tomorrow, you can probably have it for thirty.' The simper
had grown to frightening proportions. Kinnell could see little gray
spit-buds in the dimples at the comers of her stretched mouth.
'I don't think I want to take that chance,' he said. 'I'll write you a
check right now.'
The simper continued to stretch; the woman now looked like some
grotesque John Waters parody. Divine does Shirley Temple. 'I'm
really not supposed to take checks, but all right,' she said, her tone
that of a teenage girl finally consenting to have sex with her
boyfriend. 'Only while you have your pen out, could you write an
autograph for my daughter? Her name is Michela?'
'What a beautiful name,' Kinnell said automatically. He took the
picture and followed the fat woman back to the card table. On the
TV next to it, the lustful young people had been temporarily
displaced by an elderly woman gobbling bran flakes.
' Michela reads all your books,' the fat woman said. 'Where in the
world do you get all those crazy ideas?'
'I don't know,' Kinnell said, smiling more widely than ever. 'They
just come to me. Isn't that amazing?. '
The yard sale minder's name was Judy Diment, and she lived in the
house next door. When Kinnell asked her if she knew who the
artist happened to be, she said she certainly did; Bobby Hastings
had done it, and Bobby Hastings was the reason she was selling off
the Hastings' things. 'That's the only painting he didn't bum,' she
said. 'Poor Iris! She's the one I really feel sorry for. I don't think
George cared much, really. And I know he didn't understand why
she wants to sell the house.' She rolled her eyes in her large,
sweaty face - the old can-you-imagine-that look. She took
Kinnell's check when he tore it off, then gave him the pad where
she had written down all the items she'd sold and the prices she'd
obtained for them. 'Just make it out to Michela,' she said. 'Pretty
