It’s a book about Jonathan Swift, about how he developed Meniere’s syndrome and his life was ruined by dizziness and deafness. In his bitterness, he wrote the dark satires
The book falls open to a page where someone has written: “They would have you kill all of God’s children to save theirs.” It’s signed
Your wife, she wedges this new book inside the last book, and closes her eyes again. Carrying her armload of books, she reaches out to touch another book. Misty walks her fingers from spine to spine. Her eyes closed, she steps forward—into a soft wall and the smell of talcum powder. When she looks, there’s dark red lipstick in a white powdered face. A green cap across a forehead, above it a head of curly gray hair. Printed on the cap, it says, “Call 1-800-555-1785 for
“Excuse me,” a voice says, and it’s Mrs. Terrymore, the librarian. She’s standing there, arms folded.
And Misty takes a step back.
The dark red lipstick says, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t destroy the books by piling them together that way.”
Poor Misty, she says she’s sorry. Always the outsider, she goes to put them on a table.
And Mrs. Terrymore, with her hands open, clutching, she says, “Please, let me reshelve them. Please.”
Misty says, not yet. She says she’d like to check them out, and while the two women wrestle over the armload, one book slips out and slams flat on the floor. Loud as a slap across your face. It flaps open to where you can read: “Do not paint them their pictures.”
And Mrs. Terrymore says, “I’m afraid those are reference books.”
And Misty says, No they’re not. Not all of them. You can read the words: “If you’ve found this, you can still save yourself.”
Through her black-wire glasses, the librarian sees this and says, “Always more damage. Every year.” She looks at a tall clock in a dark walnut case, and she says, “Well, if you don’t mind, we’ve closed early today.” She checks her wristwatch against the tall clock, saying, “We closed ten minutes ago.”
Tabbi’s already checked out her books. She’s standing by the front door, waiting, and calls, “Hurry, Mom. You have to be at work.”
And with one hand, the librarian fishes in the pocket of her tweed jacket and brings out a big pink gum eraser.
THE STAINED-GLASS windows of the island church, little white trash Misty Marie Kleinman, she could draw them before she could read or write. Before she’d ever seen stained glass. She’d never been inside a church, any church. Godless little Misty Kleinman, she could draw the tombstones in the village cemetery out on Waytansea Point, drawing the dates and epitaphs before she knew they were numbers and words.
Now, sitting here in church services, it’s hard for her to remember what she first imagined and what she saw for real after she’d arrived. The purple altar cloth. The thick wood beams black with varnish.
It’s all what she imagined as a kid. But that’s impossible.
Grace beside her in the pew, praying. Tabbi on the far side of Grace, both of them kneeling. Their hands folded.
Grace’s voice, her eyes closed and her lips muttering into her hands, she says, “Please let my daughter-in- law return to the artwork she loves. Please don’t let her squander the glorious talent God has given her . . .”
Every old island family around them, muttering in prayer.
Behind them, a voice is whispering, “. . . please, Lord, give Peter’s wife what she needs to start her work . . .”
Another voice, Old Lady Petersen, is praying, “. . . may Misty save us before the outsiders get any worse . . .”
Even Tabbi, your own daughter, is whispering, “God, make my mom get her act together and get started on her art . . .”
All the Waytansea Island waxworks are kneeling around Misty. The Tuppers and Burtons and Niemans, they’re all eyes-closed, knotting their fingers together and asking God to make her paint. All of them thinking she has some secret talent to save them.
And Misty, your poor wife, the only sane person here, she just wants to—well, all she wants is a drink.
A couple drinks. A couple aspirin. And repeat.
She wants to yell for everybody to just shut up with their goddamn prayers.
If you’ve reached middle age and you see how you’re never going to be the big famous artist you dreamed of becoming and paint something that will touch and inspire people, really touch and move them and change their lives. You just don’t have the talent. You don’t have the brains or inspiration. You don’t have any of what it takes to create a masterpiece. If you see how your whole portfolio of work is just grand stony houses and big pillowy flower gardens—the naked dreams of a little girl in Tecumseh Lake, Georgia—if you see how anything you could paint would just be adding more mediocre shit to a world already crammed with mediocre shit. If you realize you’re forty-one years old and you’ve reached the end of your God-given potential, well, cheers.
Here’s mud in your eye. Bottoms up.
Here’s as smart as you’re ever going to get.
If you realize there’s no way you can give your child a better standard of living—hell, you can’t even give your child the quality of life that your trailer park mom gave you—and this means no college for her, no art school, no dreams, nothing except for waiting tables like her mom . . .
Well, it’s down the hatch.
This is every day in the life of Misty Marie Wilmot, queen of the slaves.
Maura Kincaid?
Constance Burton?
The Waytansea school of painters. They were different, born different. Those artists who made it look so easy. The point is some people have talent, but most people don’t. Most people, we’re going to top out with no glory, no perks. Folks like poor Misty Marie, they’re limited, borderline dummies, but nothing enough to get a handicapped parking space. Or get any kind of Special Olympic Games. They just pay the bulk of taxes but get no special menu at the steak house. No oversized bathroom stall. No special seat at the front of the bus. No political lobby.
No, your wife’s job will be to applaud other people.
In art school, one girl Misty knew, she ran a kitchen blender full of wet concrete until the motor burned out in a cloud of bitter smoke. This was her statement about life as a housewife. Right now, that girl is probably living in a loft eating organic yogurt. She’s rich and can cross her legs at the knee.
Another girl Misty knew in art school, she performed a three-act play with puppets in her own mouth. These were little costumes you could slip over your tongue. You’d hold the extra costumes inside your cheek, the same as the wings to a stage. Between scene changes, you’d just close your lips as a curtain. Your teeth, the footlights and proscenium arch. You’d slip your tongue into the next costume. After doing a three-act play, she’d have stretch marks all around her mouth. Her orbicularis oris stretched all out of shape.
One night in a gallery, doing a tiny version of
Peter with his praise for all of Misty’s pretty houses, he was so wrong. Peter who said she should hide away on the island, paint only what she loved, his advice was so fucked.
Your advice, your praise was so very, very fucked.
According to you, Maura Kincaid washed fish in a cannery for twenty years. She potty-trained her kids,
