stupid, too stupid to tell Angel, but the shadows at the edge of the forest moved.
The metal face was there in the trees. The figure took a step forward and the terrible weight of its bronze foot sunk into the soft edge of the meadow.
If you go to art school, you know a bad hallucination. You know what a flashback is. You’ve done plenty of chemicals that can stay in your fatty tissues, ready to flood your bloodstream with bad dreams in broad daylight.
The figure took another step, and its foot sunk into the ground. The sun made its arms bright green in places, dull brown in other places. The top of its head and its shoulders were heaped white with bird shit. The muscles in each bronze thigh stood up, tensed in high relief as each leg lifted, and the figure stepped forward. With each step, the bronze leaf shifted between its thighs.
Now, looking at the watercolor picture sitting on top of Angel’s camera bag, it’s more than embarrassing. Apollo, the god of love. Misty sick and drunk. The naked soul of a horny middle-aged artist.
The figure coming another step closer. A stupid hallucination. Food poisoning. It naked. Misty naked. Both of them filthy in the circle of trees around the meadow. To clear her head, to make it go away, Misty started sketching. To concentrate. It was a drawing of nothing. Her eyes closed, and Misty put the pencil to the pad of watercolor paper and felt it scratching there, laying down straight lines, rubbing with the side of her thumb to create shaded contour.
Automatic writing.
When her pencil stopped, Misty was done. The figure was gone. Her stomach felt better. The mess had dried enough she could brush the worst of it away and bury the napkins, her ruined underwear, and her crumpled drawings. Tabbi and Grace arrived. They’d found their missing teacup or cream pitcher or whatever. By then the wine was gone. Misty was dressed and smelling a little better.
Tabbi said, “Look. For my birthday,” and held out her hand to show a ring shining on one finger. A square green stone, cut to sparkle. “It’s a peridot,” Tabbi said, and she held it above her head, making it catch the sunset.
Misty fell asleep in the car, wondering where the money came from, Grace driving them back along Division Avenue to the village.
It wasn’t until later that Misty looked at the sketch pad. She was as surprised as anybody. After that, Misty just added a few colors, watercolors. It’s amazing what the subconscious mind will create. Something from her growing up, some picture from art history lessons.
The predictable dreams of poor Misty Kleinman.
Angel says something.
Misty says, “Pardon?”
And Angel says, “What will you take for this?”
He means money. A price. Misty says, “Fifty?” Misty says, “Fifty
This picture Misty drew with her eyes closed, naked and scared, drunk and sick to her stomach, it’s the first piece of art she’s ever sold. It’s the best thing Misty has ever done.
Angel opens his wallet and takes out two twenties and a ten. He says, “Now what else can you tell me about Peter’s father?”
For the record, walking out of the meadow, there were two deep holes next to the path. The holes were a couple of feet apart, too big to be footprints, too far apart to be a person. A trail of holes went back into the forest, too big, too far apart to be anybody walking. Misty doesn’t tell Angel that. He’d think she was crazy. Crazy, like her husband.
Like you, dear sweet Peter.
Now, all that’s left of her food poisoning is a pounding headache.
Angel holds the picture close to his nose and sniffs. He scrunches his nose and sniffs it again, then slips the picture into a pocket on the side of his camera bag. He catches her watching and says, “Oh, don’t mind me. I thought for a second I smelled shit.”
IF THE FIRST MAN who looks at your boobs in four years turns out to be a cop, take a drink. If it turns out he already knows what you look like naked, take another drink.
Make that drink a double.
Some guy sits at table eight in the Wood and Gold Room, just some your-aged guy. He’s beefy with stooped shoulders. His shirt fits okay, a little tight across his gut, a white poly-cotton balloon that bumps over his belt a little. His hair, he’s balding at the temples, and his recessions trail back into long triangles of scalp above each eye. Each triangle is sunburned bright red, making long pointed devil’s horns that poke up from the top of his face. He’s got a little spiral notebook open on the table, and he’s writing in it while he watches Misty. He’s wearing a striped tie and a navy blue sport coat.
Misty takes him a glass of water, her hand shaking so hard you can hear the ice rattle. Just so you know, her headache is going on its third day. Her headache, it’s the feeling of maggots rooting into the big soft pile of her brain. Worms boring. Beetles tunneling.
The guy at table eight says, “You don’t get a lot of men in here, do you?”
His aftershave has the smell of cloves. He’s the man from the ferry, the guy with the dog who thought Misty was dead. The cop. Detective Clark Stilton. The hate crimes guy.
Misty shrugs and gives him a menu. Misty rolls her eyes at the room around them, the gold paint and wood paneling, and says, “Where’s your dog?” Misty says, “Can I get you anything to drink?”
And he says, “I need to see your husband.” He says, “You’re Mrs. Wilmot, aren’t you?”
The name on her name tag, pinned to her pink plastic uniform—Misty Marie Wilmot.
Her headache, it’s the feeling of a hammer tap, tap, tapping a long nail into the back of your head, a conceptual art piece, tapping harder and harder in one spot until you forget everything else in the world.
Detective Stilton sets his pen down on his notebook and offers his hand to shake, and he smiles. He says, “The truth is, I
Misty shakes his hand and says, “Would you like some coffee?”
And he says, “Please.”
Her headache is a beach ball, pumped full of too much air. More air is being forced in, but it’s not air. It’s blood.
Just for the record, Misty’s already told the detective that Peter’s in the hospital.
You’re in a hospital.
On the ferry the other evening, she told Detective Stilton how you were crazy, and you left your family in debt. How you dropped out of every school and stuck jewelry through your body. You sat in the car parked in your garage with the engine running. Your graffiti, all your ranting and sealing up people’s laundry rooms and kitchens, it was all just another symptom of your craziness. The vandalism. It’s unfortunate, Misty told the detective, but she’s been screwed on this as bad as anybody.
This is around three o’clock, the lull between lunch and dinner.
Misty says, “Yeah. Sure, go see my husband.” Misty says, “Did you want coffee?”
The detective, he looks at his pad while he writes and asks, “Did you know if your husband was part of any neo-Nazi organization? Any radical hate groups?”
And Misty says, “Was he?” Misty says, “The roast beef is good here.”
Just for the record, it’s kinda cute. Both of them holding pads, their pens ready to write. It’s a duel. A shoot-out.
If he’s seen Peter’s writing, this guy knows what Peter thought of her naked. Her dead fish breasts. Her legs crawling with veins. Her hands smelling like rubber gloves. Misty Wilmot, queen of the maids. What you thought of your wife.
Detective Stilton writes, saying, “So you and your husband weren’t very close?”
And Misty says, “Yeah, well, I thought we were.” She says, “But go figure.”
He writes, saying, “Are you aware if Peter’s a member of the Ku Klux Klan?”
And Misty says, “The chicken and dumplings is pretty good.”
