My legs were just legs
again, not cement, and... My legs were just legs
again, not cement, and now that I felt capable of
running away, I no longer wanted or needed toIt
was possible they'd hate my pictures, but that was
all right because I didn't hate themLet them
have their little laugh, their little boo-and-hiss,
their little gasp of distaste (or their little
yawn), if that was what they wanted to do; when it
was over, I could go back and paint more
And if they loved them? Same deal
"But if she meant I'm someone who's doing
something he doesn't understand, that he can't
express in words because no one ever taught him
the right terms, then she's right
589
Kamen was nodding and looking pleasedAnd so, by
God, was Mary Ire
"So all that leaves is the story of how I got here
- the
vintage omega watches bridge I walked over to get from my other
life to the one I'm living these days
Kamen was patting his meaty hands together
soundlesslyThat made me feel goodHaving him
there made me feel goodI don't know exactly what
would have happened if he hadn't've been, but I
think it would have been what Wireman calls mucho
feo - very ugly
"But I have to keep it simple, because my friend
Wireman says that when it comes to the past, we
all stack the deck, and I believe that's true
Tell too much and you find yourselftelling the past you wished for?"
I looked down and saw Wireman was nodding
"Yeah, I think so, the one you wished forSo
simply put, what happened is this: I had an
accident at a job siteThere was
this crane, you see, and it crushed the
white chanel watch ceramic pickup
truck I was in, and it crushed me, as wellI lost
my right arm and I almost lost my lifeI was
married, but my marriage broke upI was at my
590
wits' endThis is a thing I see more clearly now;
I only knew then that I felt very, very bad
Another friend, a man named Xander Kamen, asked me
one day if anything made me happyKamen looked up intently from the first
row with the long gift-box balanced on his non-lap
I remembered him that day at Lake Phalen - the
tatty briefcase, the cold autumn sunshine coming
and going in diagonal stripes across the living
room floorI remembered thinking about suicide,
and the myriad roads leading into the dark:
turnpikes and secondary highways and shaggy little
forgotten lanes
The silence was spinning out,
women rolex watches but I no longer
dreaded itAnd my audience seemed not to mindIt
was natural for my mind to wander
"The idea of happiness - at least as it applied to
me - was something I hadn't thought of in a long
time," I said"I thought of supporting my family,
and after I started my own company, I thought of
not letting down the people who worked for meI
also thought of becoming a success, and worked for
it, mostly because so many people expected me to
591
failThen the accident happenedI discovered I had no-"
I reached out for the word I wanted, groping with
both hands, although they only saw oneAnd,
perhaps, a twitch of the old stump inside its
pinned-up sleeve
"I had no resources to fall back onAs far as
happiness went"I told my friend
Kamen that
borse replica I used to draw, but I hadn't done it in
a long timeHe suggested I take it up again, and
when I asked why, he said because I needed hedges
against the nightI didn't understand what he
meant then, because I was lost and confused and in
painI understand it better nowPeople say night
falls, but down here it risesIt rises out of the
Gulf, after sunset's doneSeeing that happen
amazed me
I was also amazed at my own unplanned eloquence
My right arm was quiet throughoutMy right arm
was just a stump inside a pinned-up sleeve
"Could we have the lights all the way down?
Including mine, please?"
Alice was running the board herself, and wasted no
timeThe spotlight in which I had been standing
592
dimmed to a whisperThe auditorium was swallowed
in
hermes wallet g