Mr. Bones Read Free Page A

economy?”
    â€œYour objection is that I’m wasting money, not destroying a work of art. You’re the fuckwit. You don’t deserve to live.”
    Afterward Redman talked, word got around, but no one asked straight-out if Minor Watt had destroyed the painting. To several friends Minor Watt said, “By the way, I fried the Bacon.”
    A witness gave the destruction a greater meaning and made it all the more satisfying. But the problem was to find someone who knew enough about such an eclectic collection to care. Most of the idiots had no idea. What good was it to smash something in private? Someone else had to know, someone had to care. Who better than the painter himself? The Noland target painting was an early one from 1965. Minor Watt invited Kenneth Noland to his house and encouraged the softly smiling white-haired man to admire his own painting. “One of my favorites,” the old man said. And then, with Noland watching, Minor Watt stepped close and shot an arrow into the bull’s-eye. Before the startled Noland could protest, Minor Watt threw down his bow and swiped at the painting with a dagger.
    â€œWhoa,” Noland said, staggering a little and raising his hands to protect his face, as though he expected to be assaulted. And then, cursing, he hurried from the room.
    â€œIt was like wasting one of his children,” Minor Watt told Noland’s dealer, because the dealer had once asked to buy back the painting.
    The dealer said, “I don’t think anyone has ever done what you’ve done.”
    â€œPeople used to tell me that all the time,” Minor Watt said, “but for once I think you’re right.”
    He owned a set of crockery, a dinner service for eight, that had been used at Vailima by Robert Louis Stevenson. He invited seven friends, Manolo served a gourmet meal, Minor Watt told the story of the plates, how they had been brought by old Mrs. Stevenson, visiting from Edinburgh (“They’d been in the family for years”), explained the monogram, called attention to the gilded rims. Over dinner the talk was of selling valuables and budgeting. “We’re selling our plane.” “We’ve auctioned our Stella.” “We’ve put Palm Beach on the market.”
    When the meal was over, he asked the diners to carry the plates out to the upper deck of his penthouse. He stacked them and, fascinated by the oddity of the pile of plates resting on a rail, a pillar of bone china, the diners watched him push them over the edge onto the tiled terrace below.
    As a woman screamed, Minor Watt said, “Now we don’t have to wash them.”
    That look of joy meant he had to be insane, probably dangerous—they were afraid. They would never forget this, he knew. And he saw how they sidled away, made excuses to leave.
    About fifteen minutes later, one of them, Irby Wilders, came back.
    â€œMinor—you okay?”
    â€œNever better. You?”
    Irby’s mouth was shut tight, his eyes narrowed, like a man on the deck of a ship in a gale. He said, “I’m wondering where the bottom is.”
    â€œIt’s down there,” Minor Watt said, pointing to the smashed plates.
    He knew this disillusioned investor thought he was crazed by the recession. But “never better” was exactly how he felt. He was strengthened by the dropping of the irreplaceable plates.
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    Minor Watt did not say the word, but he knew the feeling that preceded this act of violence. It was disgust. Disgust had made him drop the Ming vase. What was the origin of his disgust? He did not know. It wasn’t money, but it was related to wealth, a kind of fatness. Many people he knew were embarrassing themselves in their economies. Now they believed him when he said, “None of that for me.” He was well aware that by ridding himself of the rare objects all the sourness in him was gone, and he had an appetite again.
    He saw the point of