Duma Key(112)

This time the laughter was a little freer and a little more general.

"I was going to start by saying I have no idea how I wound up here, but actually I do. And that's good, because it's all I have to tell. You see, I don't know anything about art history, art theory, or even art appreciation. Some of you probably know Mary Ire."

This brought a chuckle, as if I'd said Some of you may have heard of Andy Warhol. The lady herself looked around, preening a little, her back ramrod straight.

"When I first brought some of my paintings into the Scoto Gallery, Ms. Ire saw them and called me an American primitive. I sort of resented that, because I change my underwear every morning and brush my teeth every night before I go to bed-"

Another burst of laughter. My legs were just legs again, not cement, and now that I felt capable of running away, I no longer wanted or needed to. It was possible they'd hate my pictures, but that was all right because I didn't hate them. Let 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."

Kamen was nodding and looking pleased. And so, by God, was Mary Ire.

"So all that leaves is the story of how I got here the 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 soundlessly. That made me feel good. Having him there made me feel good. I 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 yourself... mmm... I don't know... telling the past you wished for?"

I looked down and saw Wireman was nodding.

"Yeah, I think so, the one you wished for. So simply put, what happened is this: I had an accident at a job site. Bad accident. There was this crane, you see, and it crushed the pickup truck I was in, and it crushed me, as well. I lost my right arm and I almost lost my life. I was married, but my marriage broke up. I was at my wits' end. This 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 happy. That was something..."

I paused. Kamen 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 floor. I 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, but I no longer dreaded it. And my audience seemed not to mind. It was natural for my mind to wander. I was an artist.

"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 me. I also thought of becoming a success, and worked for it, mostly because so many people expected me to fail. Then the accident happened. Everything changed. I discovered I had no-"

I reached out for the word I wanted, groping with both hands, although they only saw one. And, perhaps, a twitch of the old stump inside its pinned-up sleeve.

"I had no resources to fall back on. As far as happiness went..." I shrugged. "I told my friend Kamen that I used to draw, but I hadn't done it in a long time. He suggested I take it up again, and when I asked why, he said because I needed hedges against the night. I didn't understand what he meant then, because I was lost and confused and in pain. I understand it better now. People say night falls, but down here it rises. It rises out of the Gulf, after sunset's done. Seeing that happen amazed me."

I was also amazed at my own unplanned eloquence. My right arm was quiet throughout. My 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 time. The spotlight in which I had been standing dimmed to a whisper. The auditorium was swallowed in gloom.

I said, "What I discovered, crossing the bridge between my two lives, is that sometimes beauty grows in spite of all expectations. But that's not a very original idea, is it? It's really just a platitude... sort of like a Florida sunset. Nevertheless, it happens to be the truth, and the truth deserves to be spoken... if you can say it in a new way. I tried to put it in a picture. Alice, could we have the first slide, please?"

It shone out on the large screen to my right, nine feet wide and seven feet high: a trio of gigantic lush roses growing from a bed of dark pink shells. They were dark because they were below the house, in the shadow of the house. The audience drew in its breath, a sound like a brief but loud gust of wind. I heard that and knew it wasn't just Wireman and the folks at the Scoto who understood. Who saw. They gasped the way people do when they have been blindsided by something completely unexpected.