Nevertheless, I had found what I was...
Nevertheless, I had found what I was looking
forI turned the picture over
again, closed my eyes, and pretended I was
touching their Kodachrome images with my right
handAlthough pretending wasn't what it felt like;
I suppose I don't have to tell you that by now
After some passage of time - I don't know exactly
how long - I returned the picture to its plastic
sleeve and submerged her wallet beneath the
tissues and cosmetics to approximately the same
depth at which I had found itThen I put her
purse back on the coffee table and went into my
bedroom to get Reba the Anger-Management DollI
limped upstairs to Little Pink with her clamped
between my stump and my sideI think I remember
saying "I'm going to make you into Monica Seles"
when I set Reba down in front of the window, but
it could as easily have been Monica Goldstein;
when it comes to memory, we all stack the deck
The gospel according to Wireman
165
I'm clearer than I want to be about most of what
happened on Duma, but that particular afternoon
seems very vague to meI know that I fell into a
frenzy of drawing, and that the maddening itch in
my nonexistent right arm disappeared completely
while I was working; I do not know but am almost
sure that the reddish haze which always hung over
my vision in those days, growing thicker when I
was prada knock offs tired, disappeared for awhile
I don't know how long I was in that stateI think
quite awhileLong enough so I was both exhausted
and famished when I was finished
I went back downstairs and gobbled lunchmeat by
the fridge's frosty glowI didn't want to make an
actual sandwich, because I didn't want Ilse to
know I'd felt well enough to eatLet her go on
thinking our problems had been caused by bad
mayonnaiseThat way we wouldn't have to spend
time hunting for other explanations
None of the other explanations I could think of
were rational
After eating half a package of sliced salami and
swilling a pint or so of sweet tea, I went into my
bedroom, lay down, and fell into a sodden sleep
Sometimes it seems to me that my clearest memories
of Duma Key are of orange evening skies that bleed
at the bottom and fade away at the top, green to
blackWhen I woke up that evening, another day
was going down in gloryI thudded into the big
main room on my crutch, stiff and wincing (the
first ten minutes were always the worst)The door
to Ilse's room was standing open and her bed was
empty
For a moment there was no answerThen she called
back from upstairs"Daddy? Holy crow, did you do
this? When did you do this?"
All thought of aches and pains left meI got up
to Little Pink as fast as I could, trying to
remember what I'd daytona rolex drawnWhatever it was, I hadn't
made any effort to put it out of sightSuppose it
was something really awful? Suppose I'd gotten the
bright idea of doing a crucifixion caricature,
with The Gospel Hummingbird riding the cross?
167
Ilse was standing in front of my easel, and I
couldn't see what was thereHer body was blocking
it outEven if she'd been standing to one side,
the only light in the room was coming from that
bloody sunset; the pad would have been nothing but
a black rectangle against the glare
I flicked on the lights, praying I hadn't done
something to distress the daughter who had come
all this way to make sure I was okayFrom her
voice, I hadn't been able to tell"Ilse?"
She turned to me, her face bemused rather than
angry"When did you do this one?"
"Well"Stand aside a little, would
you?"
"Is your memory playing tricks again? It is, isn't
it?"
"No," I said It was the beach
outside the window, I could tell that much but no
more"As soon as I see it, I'm sure I'llstep
aside, honey, you make a better door than a
window
"Even though I am a pain, right?" She laughed
Rarely had the sound of laughter so relieved me
Whatever she'd found on the easel, it hadn't made
168
her mad, and my stomach dropped back where it
belongedIf she wasn't angry, the risk that I
might get angry and spoil what had, rolex air king automatic watch on measure,
been a pretty damned good visit went down
She stepped to the left, and I saw what I'd drawn
while in my dazed, pre-nap stateTechnically, it
was probably the best thing I'd done since my
first tentative pen-and-inks on Lake Phalen, but I
thought it was no wonder she was puzzled
It was the section of beach I could see through
Little Pink's nearly wall-length windowThe
casual scribble of light on the water, achieved
with a shade the Venus Company called Chrome,
marked the time as early morningA little girl in
a tennis dress stood at the center of the picture
Her back was turned, but her red hair was a dead
giveaway: she was Reba, my little love, that
girlfriend from my other lifeThe figure was
poorly executed, but you somehow knew that was on
purpose, that she wasn't a real little girl at all,
only a dream figure in a dream landscape
All around her feet, lying in the sand, were
bright green tennis balls
169
Others floated shoreward on the mild waves
"When did you do it?" Ilse was still smiling -
almost laughing"And what the heck does it mean?"
"Do you like it?" I askedBecause I didn't like
itThe tennis balls were the wrong color because
I hadn't had the right shade of green, but that
wasn't why; I hated it because it felt all wrong
It felt like heartbreak
"I love it!" she said, and then replica chanel cc earrings did laugh"C'mon,
when did you do it? Give
"While you were sleepingI went to lie down, but
I felt queasy again, so I thought I better stay
vertical for awhileI decided to draw a little,
see if things would settleI didn't realize I had
that thing in my hand until I got up here I
pointed to Reba, sitting propped against the
window with her stuffed legs sticking out
"That's the doll you're supposed to yell at when
you forget things, right?"
"Something like thatAnyway, I drew the picture
It took maybe an hourBy the time I was finished,
I felt better Although I remembered very little
about making the drawing, I remembered enough to
170
know this story was a lie"Then I lay down and
took a nap
"Can I have it?"
I felt a surge of dismay, but couldn't think of a
way to say no that wouldn't hurt her feelings or
sound crazy"If you really want itIt's not much,
thoughWouldn't you rather have one of
Freemantle's Famous Sunsets? Or the mailbox with
the rocking horse! I could-"
"This is the one I want," she said"It's funny
and sweet and even a littleYou look at her one way and you say, 'A
doll' You look another way and say, 'No, a little
girl - after all, isn't she standing up?' It's
amazing how much you've learned to do with colored
pencils She nodded decisively"This is the one
I wantOnly you have to name coco chanel black wallet it