The Wonders of the Invisible World Read Free Page B

now ‘at a jaunty angle.’
Jaunty,
for Christ’s sake. I mean, this is what my life has come down to, ‘a jaunty angle.’ I told him, I said, ‘Look, the picture’s done, he’s got his tail in the fucking air, and if the goddamn angle isn’t
jaunty
enough, they can shove it.’ ”
    “Good for you,” I said.
    “So where’ve you been?” he said. “You didn’t go all the way back there, did you?”
    “No, you were right, they had it at Webster’s. I went up to Randolph Pond and tried to do some sketching.” I held up my sketch pad as evidence.
    “Good for
you,
” he said. “You haven’t sketched for a long time. Let’s see.”
    I shook my head. “They suck,” I said. I got a book of matches out of the drawer. “I’m going to use the Steven Sturdivant method. Burn it before it gets out of hand.”
    “You’re kidding, I hope. You know, you were absolutely on the money with what you said the other day. How does that thing go? ‘The man of genius makes no errors’?”
    “I’m not a man,” I said, “and I’m not of genius. Be back in a second.”
    “Come on, now,” he said, grabbing for the pad. “Let the old doctor have a gander.”
    “No, Steven.” I twisted away. “I’m serious.” If he’d gotten the pad away from me, he would’ve seen that the last sketch in the book was of a little girl at Jones Beach, with pail and shovel. But the word
serious
seemed to back him off. I slammed the door behind me, to lend myself still more power.
    Standing over the rusty oil drum, I ripped out two blank pages and set fire to them. Then I ripped out the little girl and burned her up, too. When I came back into the kitchen, I heard the toilet flush upstairs. I listened to Steven’s footsteps going back to his workroom, then went out and brought the new bottle in. I brought the level in the old bottle up to something like what I guessed it had been—apparently I’d hit it much harder last night than I remembered—took a slug of what was left for old times’ sake and poured the rest into the sink, running hot water to chase it down. I put the empty bottle back in the paper bag, stuffed it into a milk carton and tucked it away in the bottomof the garbage. Okay: crisis averted. I lit the oven, unwrapped the chicken, sawed the top off the bread loaf with the good knife from Broadway Panhandler, and began clawing out the soft inside.
    “I have a confession to make,” he said as I lit the candles. “I smoked most of a pack of cigarettes last night.”
    “Steven,” I said. “You
didn’t.
”
    “I decided I’m not going to do it anymore,” he said.
    “How come you did it at all?”
    “Well, we had that—and believe me, I’m not blaming you—but we had that unpleasantness yesterday that never really got resolved, and I felt like I was under the gun with those pictures, which it turns out I’m not, I mean I’m actually in very good shape with them. I think all it really was, I was just looking for an excuse to do it. So I did it.”
    “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry if I contributed.” I began cutting the stuffed bread loaf into inch-thick slices.
    He shook his head. “Not your responsibility. It was my choice.”
    “And you had them around,” I said.
    “Yeah. I had them around.” He did his snorting laugh. “But I think this has taught me something. I mean, if
you
weren’t reason enough, there’s Trigger Junior to think of.” Trigger Junior was his provisional name for the baby.
    “What about you?” I said. “Aren’t you reason enough?”
    “Well, I never
have
been,” he said. “Maybe that’s changing. Did I tell you? I think these pills might be starting to do something. This morning I woke up and I felt just sort of—I don’t know. Not heavy of heart for a change. I can’t really describe it. But I definitely didn’t want a cigarette, despite putting all that nicotine into my system last night. Which I find almost scary.”
    “But that’s wonderful,”