Duma Key

  I thought Nannuzzi had just given a perfect definition of mediocrity--I had seen the principle at work in hundreds of architectural drawings--but again I kept silent.

  "Mary shares our interest in new artists. There may come a time when it would be in your interest to sit down with her, Mr. Freemantle. Prior to a showing of your work, let us say."

  "Would you be interested in having such a showing here at the Scoto?" Wireman asked me.

  My lips were dry. I attempted to moisten them with my tongue, but that was dry, too. So I took a sip of my water and then said, "That's getting the harm before the force." I paused. Gave myself time. Took another sip of water. "Sorry. Cart before the horse. I came in to find out what you think, Signor Nannuzzi. You're the expert."

  He unlaced his fingers from the front of his vest and leaned forward. The squeak his chair made in the small room seemed very loud to me. But he smiled and the smile was warm. It brightened his eyes, made them compelling. I could see why he was a success when it came to selling pictures, but I don't think he was selling just then. He reached across his desk and took my hand--the one I painted with, the only one I had left.

  "Mr. Freemantle, you do me honor, but my father Augustino is the Signor of our family. I am happy to be a mister. As for your paintings, yes, they're good. Considering how long you've been at work, they are very good indeed. Maybe more than good."

  "What makes them good?" I asked. "If they're good, what makes them good?"

  "Truth," he said. "It shines through in every stroke."

  "But most of them are only sunsets! The things I added . . ." I lifted my hand, then dropped it. "They're just gimmicks."

  Nannuzzi laughed. "You've learned such mean words! Where? Reading The New York Times art pages? Listening to Bill O'Reilly? Both?" He pointed to the ceiling. "Lightbulb? Gimmick!" He pointed to his own chest. "Pacemaker? Gimmick!" He tossed his hands in the air. The lucky devil had two to toss. "Throw out your mean words, Mr. Freemantle. Art should be a place of hope, not doubt. And your doubts rise from inexperience, which is not a dishonorable thing. Listen to me. Will you listen?"

  "Sure," I said. "That's why I came."

  "When I say truth, I mean beauty."

  "John Keats," Wireman said. " 'Ode On A Grecian Urn.' All we know, all we need to know. An oldie but still a goodie."

  Nannuzzi paid no attention. He was leaning forward over his desk and looking at me. "For me, Mr. Freemantle--"

  "Edgar."

  "For me, Edgar, that sums up what all art is for, and the only way it can be judged."

  He smiled--a trifle defensively, I thought.

  "I don't want to think too much about art, you see. I don't want to criticize it. I don't want to attend symposia, listen to papers, or discuss it at cocktail parties--although sometimes in my line of work I'm forced to do all those things. What I want to do is clutch my heart and fall down when I see it."

  Wireman burst out laughing and raised both hands in the air. "Yes, Lawd!" he proclaimed. "I don't know if that guy out there was clutching his heart and falling down, but he surely was ready to clutch his checkbook."

  Nannuzzi said, "Inside himself, I think he did fall down. I think they all did."

  "Actually, I do too," Wireman said. He was no longer smiling.

  Nannuzzi remained fixed on me. "No talk of gimmicks. What you are after in most of these paintings is perfectly straightforward: you're looking for a way to re-invent the most popular and hackneyed of all Florida subjects, the tropical sunset. You've been trying to find your way past the cliche."

  "Yes, that's pretty much it. So I copied Dali--"

  Nannuzzi waved a hand. "Those paintings out there are nothing like Dali. And I won't discuss schools of art with you, Edgar, or stoop to using words ending in ism. You don't belong to any school of art, because you don't know any."

  "I know buildings," I said.

  "Then why don't you paint buildings?"

  I shook my head. I could have told him the thought had never crossed my mind, but it would have been closer to the truth to say it had never crossed my missing arm.

  "Mary was right. You're an American primitive. Nothing wrong with that. Grandma Moses was an American primitive. Jackson Pollock was another. The point is, Edgar, you're talented."

  I opened my mouth. Closed it. I simply couldn't figure out what to say. Wireman helped me.

  "Thank the man, Edgar," he said.

  "Thank you," I said.

  "Very welcome. And if you do decide to show, Edgar, please come to the Scoto first. I'll make you the best deal of any gallery on Palm Avenue. That's a promise."

  "Are you kidding? Of course I'll come here first."

  "And of course I'll vet the contract," Wireman said with a choirboy's smile.

  Nannuzzi smiled in return. "You should and I welcome it. Not that you'll find a lot to vet; the standard Scoto first-artist contract is a page and half long."

  "Mr. Nannuzzi," I said, "I really don't know how to thank you."

  "You already did," he said. "I clutched my heart--what's left of it--and fell down. Before you go, there's one more matter." He found a pad on his desk, scribbled on it, then tore off the sheet and handed it to me like a doctor handing a patient a prescription. The word written on it in large slanting capitals even looked like a word you'd see on a doctor's prescription: LIQUIN.

  "What's Liquin?" I asked.

  "A preservative. I suggest you begin by putting it on finished works with a paper towel. Just a thin coat. Let it dry for twenty-four hours, then put on a second coat. That will keep your sunsets bright and fresh for centuries." He looked at me so solemnly I felt my stomach rise a little toward my chest. "I don't know if they're good enough to deserve such longevity, but maybe they are. Who knows? Maybe they are."

  viii

  We ate dinner at Zoria's, the restaurant Mary Ire had mentioned, and I let Wireman buy me a bourbon before the meal. It was the first truly stiff drink I'd had since the accident, and it hit me in a funny way. Everything seemed to grow sharper until the world was drenched with light and color. The angles of things--doors, windows, even the cocked elbows of the passing waiters--seemed sharp enough to cut the air open and allow some darker, thicker atmosphere to come flowing out like syrup. The swordfish I ordered was delicious, the green beans snapped between my teeth, and the creme brulee was almost too rich to finish (but too rich to leave). The conversation among the three of us was cheerful; there was plenty of laughter. Still, I wanted the meal to be over. My head still ached, although the throb had slid to the back of my skull (like a weight in one of those barroom bowling games), and the bumper-to-bumper traffic we could see on Main Street was distracting. Every horn-honk sounded ill-tempered and menacing. I wanted Duma. I wanted the blackness of the Gulf and the quiet conversation of the shells below me as I lay in my bed with Reba on the other pillow.

  And by the time the waiter came to ask if we wanted more coffee, Jack was carrying the conversation almost single-handed. In my state of hyper-awareness I could see that I wasn't the only one who needed a change of venue. Given the low lighting in the restaurant and Wireman's mahogany tan, it was hard to tell just how much color he'd lost, but I thought quite a bit. Also, that left eye of his was weeping again.

  "Just the check," Wireman said, and then managed a smile. "Sorry to cut the celebration short, but I want to get back to my lady. If that's okay with you guys."

  "Fine by me," Jack said. "A free meal and home in time to watch SportsCenter? Such a deal."

  Wireman and I waited outside the parking garage while Jack went to get the rented van. Here the light was brighter, but what it showed didn't make me feel better about my new friend; in the glow spilling out of the garage, his complexion looked almost yellow. I asked him if he was okay.

  "Wireman's as fine as paint," he said. "Miss Eastlake, on the other hand, has put in a few restless, shitty nights. Calling for her sisters, calling for her Pa, calling for everything but her pipe and bowl and fiddlers
three. There's something to that full-moon shit. It makes no logical sense, but there it is. Diana calls on a wavelength to which only the tottering mind is attuned. Now that it's in its last quarter, she'll start sleeping through again. Which means I can start sleeping through again. I hope."

  "Good."

  "If I were you, Edgar, I'd sleep on this gallery thing, and for more than one night. Also, keep painting. You've been a busy bee, but I doubt if you have enough pictures yet to--"

  There was a tiled pillar behind him. He staggered back against it. If it hadn't been there, I'm pretty sure he would have gone down. The effects of the bourbon were wearing off a little, but there was enough of that hyper-reality left for me to see what happened to his eyes when he lost his equilibrium. The right one looked down, as if to check out his shoes, while the bloodshot and weepy left one rolled up in its socket until the iris was no more than an arc. I had time to think that what I was seeing was surely impossible, eyes couldn't go in two completely different directions like that. And that was probably true for people who were healthy. Then Wireman started to slide.

  I grabbed him. "Wireman? Wireman!"

  He gave his head a shake, then looked at me. Eyes front and all accounted for. The left one was glistening and bloodshot, that was all. He took out his hankie and wiped his cheek. He laughed. "I've heard of putting other people to sleep with a boring line of quack, but oneself? That's ridiculous."

  "You weren't dozing off. You were . . . I don't know what you were."

  "Don't be seely, dollink," Wireman said.

  "No, your eyes got all funny."

  "That's called going to sleep, muchacho." He gave me one of his patented Wireman looks: head cocked, eyebrows raised, corners of the mouth dimpled in the beginnings of a smile. But I thought he knew exactly what I was talking about.

  "I have to see a doctor, have a checkup," I said. "Do the MRI thing. I promised my friend Kamen. How about I make it a twofer?"

  Wireman was still leaning against the pillar. Now he straightened up. "Hey, here's Jack with the van. That was quick. Step lively, Edgar--last bus to Duma Key, leaving now."

  ix

  It happened again, on the way back, and worse, although Jack didn't see it--he was busy piloting the van along Casey Key Road--and I'm pretty sure Wireman himself never knew. I had asked Jack if he minded skipping the Tamiami Trail, which is west coast Florida's engagingly tacky Main Street, in favor of the narrower, twistier way. I wanted to watch the moon on the water, I said.

  "Gettin those little artist eccentricities, muchacho," Wireman said from the back seat, where he was stretched out with his feet up. He wasn't much of a stickler when it came to seatbelts, it seemed. "Next thing we know, you'll be wearing a beret." He pronounced it so it rhymed with garret.

  "Fuck you, Wireman," I said.

  "I been fucked to the east and I been fucked to the west," Wireman recited in tones of sentimental recollection, "but when it comes to the fuckin, yo mamma's the best." With that he lapsed into silence.

  I watched the moon go swimming through the black water to my right. It was hypnotic. I wondered if it would be possible to paint it the way it looked from the van: a moon in motion, a silver bullet just beneath the water.

  I was thinking these thoughts (and maybe drifting toward a doze) when I became aware of ghostly movement above the moon in the water. It was Wireman's reflection. For a moment I had the crazy idea that he was jerking off back there, because his thighs appeared to be opening and closing and his hips seemed to be moving up and down. I shot a peek at Jack, but the Casey Key Road is a symphony of curves and Jack was absorbed in his driving. Besides, most of Wireman was right behind Jack's seat, not even visible in the rear-view mirror.

  I looked over my left shoulder. Wireman wasn't masturbating. Wireman wasn't sleeping and having a vivid dream. Wireman was having a seizure. It was quiet, probably petit mal, but it was a seizure, all right; I'd employed an epileptic draftsman during the first ten years of The Freemantle Company's existence, and I knew a seizure when I saw one. Wireman's torso lifted and dropped four or five inches as his buttocks clenched and released. His hands jittered on his stomach. His lips were smacking as though he tasted something particularly good. And his eyes looked as they had outside the parking garage. By starlight that one-up, one-down look was weird beyond my ability to describe. Spittle ran from the left corner of his mouth; a tear from his welling left eye trickled into his shaggy sideburn.

  It went on for perhaps twenty seconds, then ceased. He blinked, and his eyes went back where they belonged. He was completely quiet for a minute. Maybe two. He saw me looking at him and said, "I'd kill for another drink or a peanut butter cup, and I suppose a drink is out of the question, huh?"

  "I guess it is if you want to make sure you hear her ring in the night," I said, hoping I sounded casual.

  "Bridge to Duma Key dead ahead," Jack told us. "Almost home, guys."

  Wireman sat up and stretched. "It's been a hell of a day, but I won't be sorry to see my bed tonight, boys. I guess I'm getting old, huh?"

  x

  Although my leg was stiff, I got out of the van and stood next to him while he opened the door of the little iron box beside the gate to reveal a state-of-the-art security keypad.

  "Thanks for coming with me, Wireman."

  "Sure," he said. "But if you thank me again, muchacho, I'm going to have to punch you in the mouth. Sorry, but that's just the way it's gotta be."

  "Good to know," I said. "Thanks for sharing."

  He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. "I like you, Edgar. You got style, you got class, you got the lips to kiss my ass."

  "Beautiful. I may cry. Listen, Wireman . . ."

  I could have told him about what had just happened to him. I came close. In the end, I decided not to. I didn't know if it was the right decision or the wrong one, but I did know he might have a long night with Elizabeth Eastlake ahead of him. Also, that headache was still sitting in the back of my skull. I settled for asking him again if he wouldn't consider letting me turn my promised doctor's appointment into a double date.

  "I will consider it," he said. "And I'll let you know."

  "Well don't wait too long, because--"

  He raised a hand, stilling me, and for once his face was unsmiling. "Enough, Edgar. Enough for one night, okay?"

  "Okay," I said. I watched him go in, then went back to the van.

  Jack had the volume up. It was "Renegade." He went to turn it down and I said, "No, that's okay. Crank it."

  "Really?" He turned around and headed back up the road. "Great band. You ever heard em before?"

  "Jack," I said, "that's Styx. Dennis DeYoung? Tommy Shaw? Where have you been all your life? In a cave?"

  Jack smiled guiltily. "I'm into country and even more into old standards," he said. "To tell you the truth, I'm a Rat Pack kind of guy."

  The idea of Jack Cantori hanging with Dino and Frank made me wonder--and not for the first time that day--if any of this was really happening. I also wondered how I could remember that Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw had been in Styx--that Shaw had in fact written the song currently blasting out of the van's speakers--and sometimes not be able to remember my own ex-wife's name.

  xi

  Both lights on the answering machine next to the living room phone were blinking: the one indicating that I had messages and the one indicating that the tape for recording messages was full. But the number in the MESSAGES WAITING window was only 1. I considered this with foreboding while the weight with my headache inside it slid a little closer to the front of my skull. The only two people I could think of who might call and leave a message so long it would use up the whole tape were Pam and Ilse, and in neither case would hitting PLAY MESSAGES be apt to bring me good news. It doesn't take five minutes of recording-time to say Everything's fine, call when you get a chance.

  Leave it until tomorrow, I thought, and a craven voice I hadn't even known was in my mental repertoire (maybe it was new) w
as willing to go further. It suggested I simply delete the message without listening to it at all.

  "That's right, sure," I said. "And when whichever one it is calls back, I can just tell her the dog ate my answering machine."

  I pushed PLAY. And as so often happens when we are sure we know what to expect, I drew a wild card. It wasn't Pam and it wasn't Ilse. The wheezy, slightly emphysematic voice coming from the answering machine belonged to Elizabeth Eastlake.

  "Hello, Edgar," she said. "One hopes you had a fruitful afternoon and are enjoying your evening out with Wireman as much as I am my evening in with Miss . . . well, I forget her name, but she's very pleasant. And one hopes you'll notice that I have remembered your name. I'm enjoying one of my clear patches. I love and treasure them, but they make me sad, as well. It's like being in a glider and rising on a gust of wind above a lowlying groundmist. For a little while one can see everything so clearly . . . and at the same time one knows the wind will die and one's glider will sink back into the mist again. Do you see?"

  I saw, all right. Things were better for me now, but that was the world I'd woken up to, one where words clanged senselessly and memories were scattered like lawn furniture after a windstorm. It was a world where I had tried to communicate by hitting people and the only two emotions I really seemed capable of were fear and fury. One progresses beyond that state (as Elizabeth might say), but afterward one never quite loses the conviction that reality is gossamer. Behind its webwork? Chaos. Madness. The real truth, maybe, and the real truth is red.

  "But enough of me, Edgar. I called to ask a question. Are you one who creates art for money, or do you believe in art for art's sake? I'm sure I asked when I met you--I'm almost positive--but I can't remember your answer. I believe it must be art for art's sake, or Duma should not have called you. But if you stay here for long . . ."

  Clear anxiety crept into her voice.

  "Edgar, one is sure you'll make a very nice neighbor, I have no doubts on that score, but you must take precautions. I think you have a daughter, and I believe she visited you. Didn't she? I seem to remember her waving to me. A pretty thing with blond hair? I may be confusing her with my sister Hannah--I tend to do that, I know I do--but in this case, I think I'm right. If you mean to stay, Edgar, you mustn't invite your daughter back. Under no circumstances. Duma Key isn't a safe place for daughters."