Peter's father died after Misty went back to college.
And Angel says, “Can you get me a sample of his handwriting?”
Misty keeps sketching the doodles, and she says, “I don't know.”
Just for the record, being smeared with shit and naked in the wilderness, spattered with pink vomit, this does not necessarily make you a real artist.
And neither do hallucinations. Out on Waytansea Point, with the cramps and the sweat rolling out of her hair and down the sides of her face, Misty started seeing things. With the hotel napkins she was trying to clean herself up. She rinsed her mouth with wine. Waved away the cloud of flies. The vomit still burned in her nose. It's 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 dollars?”
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.”
July 15
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
