Joe was sorry to see him leave. Jason had carried his talent for
theater into the business world. He had taken on the role of front man
and image projector. His job was to walk the walk, talking the talk,
while his colleagues fried their brains in the midnight hours. No doubt
he'd done it with his usual wholeheartedness; he'd earned his toys. And
if the banjo was in the back seat, took second place, what difference
did it make so long as he was contributing and doing his best?
Too bad about Wes, Joe thought. Daisy was strong. "Hang in there,
Babe," he said. He sent them a Christmas card, a beach scene by a local
artist. A large Hawaiian woman in a flowered dress lay on her side in
four inches of water. Three small children, playing on her, held fast
as a tiny wave broke before them.
Joe kept to his routine, writing each day. The steel company dropped to
.62 on light trading. He thought about buying more, but he held back.
For his father's painting, he chose a linen mat and a natural cherry
frame. He hung the painting over his table and watched the light moving
from outside the frame onto the green leaves and into the woods behind.
"Might as well have the best, Batman," he said.
He put the drawing of his mother above an unfinished pine bookcase that
he bought to hold the books that had accumulated on the floor. He
bought two towels, a set of 300 count sheets and pillow cases, and a Le
Creuset saucepan. He stopped short of buying a real bed, although it
was no longer unthinkable.
He received a package of stories from Montpelier, written by the ten
students in his assigned workshop group. One account of a young and
world--weary gay woman was sweet and clear. Most of the students seemed
to be in their twenties or thirties. His back gave him a scare one
morning as he bent over to tie his shoes, but he stood up slowly and
the pain went away. He bought a yoga book written for people with back
problems and began to exercise.
He spent the holidays alone. Kate and Jackson were visiting Jackson's
parents. Max was busy. On Christmas Eve, he strolled through Waikiki
exchanging ironic smiles with other missing persons. In one of the
hotel lobbies, a Filipino with a deep tan sang, "Roasting chestnuts on
an open fire . . . "
Two days later, Joe slung the Filson bag over his shoulder. His
apartment was clean, festive even, with Christmas cards taped to the
kitchen door frame. "Back soon, Batman," he said.
17
Joe flew to Florida and spent the night in Tallahassee. He rented a
car, and took the coastal route through Apalachicola and Panama City
toward Fort Walton Beach. Apalachicola was a sleepy Caribbean
place--palm trees, dirt alleys, low concrete buildings built for
hurricanes. He munched fried shrimp and sipped a glass of beer at a
restaurant by the slow moving mouth of the Apalachicola River. A
solitary pelican waited on a sunny piling. A hundred writers in one
spot. I don't know, he thought. He envied the pelican. Learn as much as
you can, he told himself.
The school had rented space in a community built on a barrier island
that separated the Gulf from a wide bay. "You're a day early. Let's
see--your unit is ready. We can let you in." The woman behind the
registration counter gave him a key and a paper pass. "Show this at the
gate," she said.
"Gate?"
"Across the highway, over there." She pointed through the front
windows.
Joe drove across and held the pass out the car window. A security guard
motioned him through, and he followed a blacktop road along the edge of
a golf course, passing clusters of houses that had been built at the
same time from the same ten designs. Expanses of grass were broken by
strips of pine trees and mounds of tended shrubbery. He stopped and
checked the map he'd been given. Two older men bounced low drives down
a fairway. They followed their balls silently, dragging golf bags
behind them on two wheeled carts with long curved handles.
Joe's "unit" was empty and impersonal. First come, first served, he
decided. He hung his shirts in the master bedroom closet, spread the
rest of his stuff on the bed, and fled.
He walked past landscaped ponds and drainage canals to the conference
center where they were to eat and attend readings. Joe introduced
himself and was told that meals would begin the following morning at 7
a.m. Books written by the faculty were for sale in a room arranged as a
temporary store. He picked up copies of writing by each of the other
workshop groups.
His preference for housemates was not honored. Walter, a lawyer from
California, and Jamie, a newly retired military officer from New
Hampshire, arrived the next day. Walter had been expensively educated,
but his mother was a singer and he had inherited her talent. After
graduation, he toured for years with a rock band before settling down
to appellate work and raising a family. He was determined to write a
novel, to lead another life. Jamie was a sensitive type who hid behind
a thick layer of masculinity. "We call him 'Leather Man,"' one of the
women later told Joe derisively. She was good looking. The good looking
ones didn't trust Jamie.
Jamie was masculine. He had been shot in Vietnam, had trained for
Special Forces dirty missions, and had flown carrier jets. He was good
at games, in shape for his forties, dressed for a magazine cover at all
times, and endlessly charming. He was also drunk for the entire
residency, but he managed to get through it without being thrown out.
Montpelier's administration was no challenge to Jamie after the
Pentagon where his final assignment was to impress members of Congress
with new weapons and the military "can do" attitude.
"One look at the toys and they would come in their pants. Never lost an
appropriation. Ha, ha, ha." His glance drifted out the window to the
wetlands behind the house. He told Joe of a tracheotomy in the jungle,
a soldier shot and dying in his arms. "He died happy. He thought I was
going to save him."
Joe had no wish to compare masculinity with Jamie. Joe lived in the
reverse disguise, his strength hidden beneath layers of sensitivity. He
spent more time with Walter. Besides, Eugenie, one of the faculty, had
fallen for Jamie and was with him as often as she could find him.
The students were divided into two groups, fiction and poetry. Joe was
in fiction and glad of it as he came to meet more students. The poets
were high strung; they tended to lapse into proud and delicate
silences. The fiction writers were gregarious, given to loud laughter.
Round tables in the dining room usually filled with one group or the
other.
On their second day, the students were scheduled to meet with faculty
members. Joe and Walter traipsed about the development and talked to
half a dozen of the most interesting teachers. Joe asked whether they
considered themselves artists, and, if so, what they understood that to
mean. One rubbed his forehead and said, "It was a good morning." He had
at least thought about it. Generally, yes, the faculty members
considered themselves artists, but, mumble, mumble. They accepted the
status and the authority, but they were confused about the
responsibility that art did or did not entail. One of the more widely
published professors had read a story the previous night. Joe asked him
if he felt that it was good enough to write a story which posed
questions but made no attempt to answer them. In this manner, over the
course of two days, Joe pissed everybody off. As a reward, he was
assigned to Roland, the most intimidating faculty member.
Joe had always identified with artists. But art meant painting. In what
way were writers artists? He didn't intend to annoy the faculty; he was
trying to get his money's worth.
Workshops were carefully choreographed. Each student's writing was
scheduled for uninterrupted discussion, led by two faculty members. The
writer was not allowed to speak until the discussion was complete.
Everyone else in the group was expected to contribute. Day after day,
Joe's group analyzed and explored stories, avoiding judgments about
their quality. Did developments in the story make sense in terms of
earlier events? Which characters were convincing? What was the story
about?
The faculty was good at this, and the new students improved as days
went by. Students who had been there a few semesters set a good
example. Joe thought hard about what to say in each session. He became
more aware of "story" as a form or structure independent of the
characters and setting. He still didn't get it; he didn't know what a
story was, but he wasn't discouraged. He had learned from designing
computer systems that there was always a period of absorbing
information before he could see the big picture.
His own story was praised for the occasional good sentence and
criticized for its lack of structure. The best part of it was a
description that Joe copied from memory, a late evening with Daisy.
"Don't hold back," she had said. He had begun to shake in her arms,
deep uncontrollable shaking that took him all the way back to some
wordless time when he was a baby. Daisy held him until he was reborn as
a man, clean as the sun, beyond fear. No one in the group mentioned
this scene, but several of the women looked at him thoughtfully.
One night Joe heard voices in the living room and stumbled out half
asleep to see what was happening. Eugenie and Jamie were close together
on the couch. He excused himself and went back to bed. Two days later,
he came back after a reading, and there was Jamie in the center of the
living room, weaving slightly, holding a tennis racquet. "You have
to--feel it," he said, flexing his wrist. "Like a friend."
"Oh, I understand," Eugenie said, her face flushed and happy. "Like my
cello." Joe slipped by, closed his bedroom door, and put his head
between two pillows.
The days blurred together. Jamie was more and more out of it. When it
came time to leave, Walter and Eva, a cheerful recovering alcoholic who
had been in Joe's workshop, helped scrape Jamie's stuff together. After
a tearful farewell from Eugenie, they assisted Jamie into the rental
car.
"Eugenie is facing major heartbreak, the stuff of literature," Eva
said.
"Eugenie thinks I'm Joseph Conrad," Jamie explained apologetically,
sprawled against the side window. As they passed Eglin Air Force Base,
two F-16's thundered up, up, and away. "Looka those beauties, pulling 6
g's," he said.
When they parted at the terminal, Eva surprised Joe with a kiss. She
had a long-time lover in Vermont. Or didn't she? It was too late for
Joe to figure it out. He boarded his plane feeling that, in his
single-minded pursuit of fiction, he had missed a good person.
Roland had assigned him a long reading list of contemporary stories and
French criticism. "Some of this is a little esoteric. You can handle
it," he said. Roland was impressed that Joe had made a living as an
independent computer programmer. Joe was to mail in a criticism of each
book along with short stories of his own.
There was a lot to sort through. Cleo, who had written about the gay
woman, had impressed him. She had short black hair, deep brown eyes
that were intelligent and sympathetic, and a clear spirit. She reminded
him of Maxie's arrowhead in its Kauri wood box. "Am I missing something
here?" Eva had said in Joe's ear one afternoon. "Is she friggin
beautiful, or what?"
"Friggin beautiful," Joe said. "Like her writing."
"Jesus," Eva said.
"It works that way sometimes," Joe said. "I've seen it in paintings.
Beautiful people can do beautiful work; they aren't afraid of it;
they're used to it." Eva looked at him. She was good-looking herself,
although not in Cleo's league.
Joe's head was spinning from two weeks of conversation at breakfast,
lunch, dinner, and points in between. It was a relief to be in the
plane, seated next to an elderly woman who had no interest in writing.
He had scheduled a stopover in San Francisco, but, when he arrived, he
couldn't bring himself to call Brendan. He was too tired to socialize.
He spent a day walking about the city and was able to buy almost all of
the books on his reading list. He wouldn't have to wait for any of them
to be delivered to Honolulu.
After an uneventful flight and a satisfying view of Diamond Head, Joe
climbed the stairs to his apartment, a cloth shopping bag filled with
paperbacks in one hand, his Filson bag in the other. "Yo, Batman! New
books!"
18
Mo swirled special noodles around in her bowl. "So, did you find out?
What's a story?"
Joe handed her a manila envelope. "Here's one," he said. "A story is
about change, is of change. It's obvious, I guess, but I couldn't see
it. My instructor, Roland, finally said, 'Look, Joe, for God's sake--in
a story, sooner or later, something has to happen to somebody."' Joe
shook his head. "I kept trying to stop time, like a painter. I've got
it now; stories model, take place, in time. The meaning is embodied in
the movement--like a dance--you can't separate them." He sipped tea.
"The school has been good, but I'm stopping after this semester. Too
expensive. Diminishing returns. I just have to do it now--the writing."
"It has been good for you," Mo said. "I have news."
"Aha," Joe said.
"Rob Wilcox. You remember? On Kauai? He's offered to go into business
with me--a gallery and a fine art print shop with enough space to teach
classes. He has a building on Queen Street. He'll supply the space and
the money for equipment. I'll take care of the rest."
Joe's cheeks flushed slowly. So that was why she had been so hard to
reach.
"Rob and I have known each other a long time. Did I tell you that?"
He tried to remember.
"We've become--closer," she said.
"Lucky fellow."
"I hope you'll come to the grand opening. When I have a date I'll send
you an invitation."
"Of course I will. It's a terrific idea. You'll do a great job."
"A lot of work," she said into the middle distance. "But . . ." she
shrugged and smiled. "Can't wait to read your story."
They split the bill and left Hee Hing's, promising to get together
soon. Joe went straight to the Moana.
"Gilbert, I've got trouble."
"What's her name?"
Good old Gilbert.
Joe was upset. He had thought of Mo as a possible partner, or lover. He
had leaned on her without realizing it. It wasn't to be. Wilcox. Was it
always about money? No, that wasn't fair. He had another drink and
began to feel freer. "We're all grown up, here," he said in the
direction of the beach. He ordered one for the road and toasted, "Your
problem now, Wilcox." To hell with it. He declared the day over and
ambled up Kalakaua Avenue smiling at strangers.
When he got home, he found a letter with three British stamps and a
London return address. It was from Sarah, the girl who had stuck to her
story about Mike, the cat burglar. She had married a Brit and had two
children of her own. "I read your letter to my daughters and told them
that parents sometimes make mistakes. I can remember it as clearly as
if it were yesterday," she wrote. "I hope Mike has found another way to
make a living. Please do thank him for being nice, if you should see
him." The thought of Sarah reading his words to her children filled Joe
with pleasure. He immediately wrote to Alison, thanking her for
encouraging him to write and deliver the story.
A week later, a square envelope arrived from Madison, Wisconsin. It was
a wedding announcement.
Oh Joe, how nice to hear from you! I was just thinking about you. I am
marrying another Joe, Joe Jurgens, next month. He is a wonderful man
who lost his wife two years ago. He has a fourteen year old son and a
twelve year old daughter, so I have a lot to do. I think of you often.
Keep writing. You have a lot to do, too. Love, Alison.
Well! Joe knocked on his wooden table top and wished her luck. He sent
her a lavish congratulations card.
A month later Joe finished his last school assignment. "We're on our
own, Batman," he said, carrying the packet for Roland out the door. He
kept writing and submitted stories to The Paris Review, Manoa,
Ploughshares, and The New Yorker. Things happened in each of them. He
was making progress, but he wasn't satisfied. The stories were rejected
with form letters, sometimes not even form letters, form scraps.
Fortunately, there was more in the mail than rejection slips. Kate and
Jackson found a house in the Ballard section of Seattle. Mo sent an
invitation to an opening party for her new business. Max sent pictures
of Stone Man watching over the valley. Joe taped the pictures on the
wall near his father's painting.
His steel company stock fell to .50, down by a third of his original
investment. Buy more, he thought. But he was afraid of running out of
money and being forced to sell at a loss. He kicked himself for buying
so much at .75. If he'd bought half as much, he could have picked up
some of these bargain shares. Remember that, he told himself, you don't
have to buy it all at once.
Joe settled more deeply into his routine. One morning in a coffee shop,
he looked up and realized that a young woman was watching him from a
corner table. He had seen her before, sitting in the same corner,
sketching. She was in her late teens, slightly built. Her hair was
shoulder length, a fresh mahogany brushed back from her face. She had
artist's eyes, open and steady, similar in color to her hair but
lighter. She caught him looking and smiled--a knowing smile for someone
so young. Her teeth were so white and her look was so proud and gentle,
so female, that he felt a sharp pain. It was like being pierced by a
thin hot wire. He smiled back as best he could and left quickly.
The next morning, the young woman looked at him calmly from her usual
seat in the corner of the coffee shop. "I did a drawing of you. Would
you like it?"
"Sure." Joe rose from his table and walked over. She handed him a
pencil drawing that showed him sitting, head forward, looking down. The
lines were simplified but intense. His head was like a hatchet about to
strike. It embarrassed Joe to realize that this maniacal stranger was
him, or her perception of him. There was life in it.
"It isn't very good," she said.
"I like it . . . Thanks. I'll trade; I'll give you some writing." She
seemed pleased. She had signed the drawing in one corner. "Rhiannon,
that's a beautiful name. I've never heard it before."
"It's Welsh."
"Oh. I'm Joe Burke--Irish." He meant it as a joke, but it sounded in
his ears like a warning or an acknowledgment of kinship. "So, you work
around here?"
"Club 21, the clothing boutique on the corner. I don't start until ten,
but I like to get up early, get out of the apartment." That explained
her stylish outfits. She put her sketch book, her pencils, and her CD
player into a backpack and waved goodbye.
The next day he gave her four poems, handwritten on heavy stock that he
bought in the art store next to the coffee shop. "Awesome," she said,
putting them carefully in her pack.
"I'm starting a novel," he said.
"I could never write a book."
"Do you live around here?"
"My mother has a place on Wilder Avenue."
"Not far from me--on Liholiho." She smiled her unsettling smile and
began drawing. Their conversations were short; each felt the other's
need for privacy. The back tables of the coffee shop became their
studio for an hour or two nearly every morning. Gradually, Joe saw that
Rhiannon was beautiful. She had no spectacular features; it was the
whole combo working together that was beautiful--hair, eyes, mouth,
clear skin, proud compact walk. Feeling flickered on her face like
firelight. She was stubborn; Joe could see that. But, at the same time,
she laughed at herself. They were a lot alike, and she knew it. That
was why her smile troubled him--to deny her was to deny himself.
The coffee shop was cheerful in the early morning. Many of the
customers were young and worked in the surrounding shops. Rhiannon
joked with them but maintained a friendly distance. Once, a young man
came over to her table and said, "I've been watching you draw." He was
important about it, as though he were a well-known judge of drawing.
"Yes," she said.
"Hobby? Or are you a student or a professional or something?"
"Hobby," she said and went back to work. The judge bent over her table.
"Nice," he said.
Rhiannon said nothing, and he retreated. Joe avoided her eyes. He could
feel her glance, and he was starting to grin.
One morning she asked for the bathroom key. The gal behind the counter
tossed the key toward the bathroom door. It was attached to a large key
ring and crashed loudly on the floor. "One of your most valued
customers," Rhiannon protested, bending over for the key. When she
emerged from the bathroom, she drew herself up to her full five foot
three and threw the key back on the floor. Joe couldn't help
laughing--she was so intense and funny about it.
She had said "Her mother had a place," so he guessed that her father
wasn't around. Her parents were probably divorced, maybe not so long
ago. She was too self possessed not to have been well loved as a child.
On the day of Mo's business opening, Rhiannon announced that she had
the afternoon off. Joe had the invitation to the opening in his
shoulder bag and showed it to her. "She's a terrific photographer," he
said. "Want to go?"
Rhiannon looked down at her black cotton pants and touched her T-shirt.
"I'll have to change."
"It's not until four o'clock. She's a working gal; it won't be fancy."
Rhiannon looked at him as though he were retarded and agreed to meet
him there at four-thirty. Later, Joe went home and changed into one of
his better aloha shirts. He waited for Rhiannon at the bus stop nearest
to Mo's, but she surprised him by getting out of a Charley's cab in
front of the door.
"Yo, Rhiannon." He trotted up. "I thought you might come on the bus.
God, you look great." She was wearing white linen slacks, huaraches,
and a close fitting top with three quarter sleeves and a high neckline.
The top was silk, purple with subtle golds and browns. Flat, black,
oblong earrings hung partially obscured by her hair. Lip gloss and
touches of eye shadow sent the "I know how" message. "You should be
standing in a gondola, holding flowers," Joe said.
"Thank you."
They walked into the store and were greeted immediately by Mo. She gave
Joe a quick hug, saying, "How nice of you to come." She stepped back
and he introduced Rhiannon. Mo's eyebrows lifted as she looked down at
her. "I'm glad you could come," she said, extending her hand. "I hope
you find some things you like." She indicated the photographs hanging
on the walls. "There are more in the next room. Rob?" She beckoned to a
portly man with rimless glasses. "Rob, you must meet Joe and--his
friend, Rhiannon. Joe and I are old buddies."
"How do you do." They shook hands.
"So," Joe said to them both, "this is where you're going to make a
stand--gallery and print shop?"
"And classes," Rob said. His smile broadened as he considered Rhiannon.
"Help yourselves to wine and goodies."
"Hi, Wendell," Mo said. They stepped away from the door. Joe recognized
the gallery owner from Mo's show the previous year. People began
arriving in numbers. He and Rhiannon made their way to the pupu table
where he poured them wine.
"I'm going to look around," she said.
"Good, good. See you later." Joe stayed close to the kim chee and the
shrimp. There was a platter of spanakopita, veggies, watercress and
sour cream dip . . . Mo appeared. "Art can wait," he mumbled around a
mouthful of sourdough roll.
"So, where did you find PrettyLocks?"
"Just around the corner from MoneyBags," Joe said, straightening. Mo
tossed her head. "Look," Joe said. "Pax. I like being your old buddy.
Rob's a nice guy, actually."
"You can tell?"
"Guaranteed. Joe Burke's seal of approval."