Amanda told the story again and again until she was sick of it, and just as dawn was breaking, she threw the last of them out and barred the door.
She wasn't sleepy at all. She felt wired up, speedy and depressed all at once. The alien was gone, Charley was gone and she was all alone. She was going to be famous for the next couple of days, but that wouldn't help. She'd still be alone. For a time she wandered around the house, looking at it the way an alien might, as if she had never seen a stereo cassette before, or a television set, or a rack of spices. The smell of oregano was everywhere. There were little trails of it on the floor.
Amanda switched on the radio and there she was on the six A.M. news. " – the emergency is over, thanks to the courageous Walnut Creek High School girl who trapped and outsmarted the most dangerous life form in the known universe – "
She shook her head. "You think that's true?" she asked the cat. "Most dangerous life form in the universe? I don't think so, Macavity, I think I know of at least one that's a lot deadlier. Eh, kid?" She winked. "If they only knew, eh? If they only knew." She scooped the cat up and hugged it, and it began to purr. Maybe trying to get a little sleep would be a good idea. Then she had to figure out what she was going to do about the rest of the weekend.
Diary from an Empty Studio
Don Webb
Day 1. I couldn't paint when I took the medicine.
If I laid off for a few days the images would come and I could finish a canvas, but there was always the danger that I would forget who was doing the painting, or maybe even right and wrong. So I started this diary. I'll read it every day and write in it every day and that way I won't get in trouble like that other time. Yesterday I prepared a canvas. Today I put my medicine aside. Tomorrow I'll start my sketches.
Day 2. My name is Tyrone Watson. I am. I live in Austin, Texas. There, that seems pretty sane. I don't think it's a good idea to kill one's critics. Violence has no special beauty. If I want to get people, I'll just caricature them. I work for Roberta Sais.
I started today on The Market of Values, which will be a study in blues and grays of people at some sort of carnival buying and selling things of no value. Maybe I'll work in miniatures of Bessie Vollman's paintings.
Day 3. Ideas are getting really slippery today. It feels great. My sketchbook is filling up and Market's coming along. Oh I forgot to do my focusing mantra.
My name is Tyrone Watson, MFA. I have had two one-man exhibitions. The last was five years ago.
There that's in control. In fact the only control problem I have is wanting to spend all my time up here painting instead of down in the shop, but that's normal. Artists want to do art. It's a pity that business hours coincide with the light being good.
Day 4. Depressed today.
Day 5. Depressed today. Did nothing. Got mad.
Day 6. My name is Tyrone Watson. I am thirty-eight. I live in Austin. I had a great day. A Mr. Simon Pound had a lot to ask me about my art. Maybe I'm in for a comeback. I started to take him upstairs and show him my work in progress, but a little voice told me not to. I don't mean a little voice like before, I just mean a hunch, that feeling of not letting people in on it until you're ready. I got a lot done today. Market should be finished tomorrow.
Day 7. Finished Market. Not as good as I had hoped, but still that's the essence of the artistic personality. Always dissatisfied. Like Faust. I'm starting something more freeform, a response to those people who caused me so much trouble. I'm going to call it Exposed Heart. I'm not sure how to start. Well, an idea suggests itself, but not a good one. My name is Tyrone Watson. I'm a thirtysomething painter on the go.
Day 8. Busy.
Day 9. Spent several hours with my model.
Day 10. Mr. Pound came by today. I was disappointed to learn he wasn't an art critic. He is a retired cop. His life story seemed pretty interesting. Maybe I'll do him after Exposed Heart which is coming along nicely thank you. It's a little bit more gory than anything I've done in years.
Day 11. My name is Tyrone Watson. Today Mr. Pound came by and we discussed our life stories, which were amazingly similar. I want to get to know him because I'm going to do a picture of him called The Multidimensional Blue Lines.
He became a cop in the seventies. His big ambition from the first was to make detective. He studied every text on criminology, took every possible course and dedicated his life to that particular transformation, but various political forces downtown saw to it that he didn't make the grade.
I told him how critics had ruined my two shows, particularly the second show when Bessie Vollman's competing exhibition won such lavish praise. She had been the more "politically correct" artist. So her career took off and I managed a used bookstore for minimum wage and free studio space.
He asked if he could see my work in progress, and I told him no. I hate anyone to see something before I'm done with it. But I told him that I was interested in painting him. At first he seemed surprised, then readily agreed.
He asked me if I knew anything about the death of two art critics five years ago.
I asked him if he was still a cop.
He said that he quit the force a couple of years ago. He'd arrested too many criminals who got off on technicalities. So he quit. He was near enough retirement anyway and he had a few investments that had paid off well. He liked to keep his hand in. The police, he assured me, at least the good cops – the real force – still called him for advice.
I asked him how long he'd been interested in art. He said that every good cop is interested in art. The artistic mind and the criminal mind are very, very similar. Most criminals, he reasoned, were failed artists.
But criminals don't have critics, I told him.
"Of course they do," he said. "Cops, they catch inept criminals. The great criminals go free."
I had never thought of a cop as a critic for a criminal's art.
Day 12. Terrible dreams last night. I was too depressed to open the store.
Day 13. It's been almost two weeks and I'm doing fine. Maybe I'm over my trouble. My name is Tyrone Watson. Elementary, my dear Watson. Someone broke into the shop last night. They didn't take anything, but I think they may have been through my studio. Both the outside door and the studio door were open. Despite this I can't tell you how GREAT I feel. I started two different paintings this morning. I started to call the owner and tell her the shop had been broken into, but realized that would screw up my process. I painted like Picasso. I'll stay here at night. Maybe I'll catch my burglar and paint him. I'm ready. I'm ready for anything. I feel GREAT!
Day 14. I painted well into the night and finished my first painting; a riotous and much spangled study in purple and green called The Water People Are Talking to Me. I went out for a walk about 3 A.M. I needed inspiration for the second piece – a study in chrome yellow called Voltman Discharges. Oh what a wonderful great buzzy great picture! Zip zip, I say, zip zap.
Day 15. Mr. Pound came by with the news about Bessie Vollman. I felt really really bad for a moment as though it had something to do with me. I suppose that shows I have a great soul that I can feel sorry for a rival. I asked to see the obituary notice since he was carrying the paper. Sure enough although I was Bessie's greatest rival I wasn't mentioned. Maybe I should send a wreath or something, after all I would be remembered a hundred years hence and she will be forgotten. Maybe I should go to the funeral to do a second painting of her.
Mr. Pound told me that he was unable to find any references to my one-man show five years ago. He said he was hoping to see some photos of my previous work. He seemed genuinely sad when I told him that it had all been purchased by Japanese investors.
Did I have unsold pieces that I might consider parting with?
Of course I had to tell him that I sold everything a few years ago when devastating poverty took hold of my life.
We all have our ups and downs, he said. He is truly a wise man for a cop.
I asked him when he would come sit for me and he be
came agitated. I guess the thought of sitting for eternity is frightening to some. It brings out that fear that their flaws, that one tiny flaw that everybody has, might be magnified through the ages. After a while all they would be would be the flaw.
My name is Vincent van Gogh and I'm one-hundred-andthirty-eight years old. Just kidding.
Day 16. I dreamt I was a child again. It must've been when I was in the sixth grade. We had an art teacher who we went to see twice a week. She gave us the assignment of drawing something on the schoolyard, so I drew the blue portable toilets that had been placed on the football field. I could see them from my desk if I craned my neck over. The bell rang and class was over and I was supposed to have the picture finished by the end of the period. Mrs. Elgood came over and told me to give it to her. That I could work on it Thursday. I said just a minute I could finish it and then it was done and I handed it to her, and she said, "Tyrone, there is nothing like this outside." I told her to look and she wouldn't look and I told her to look and she wouldn't look so I took hold of her head and tried to make her look and I pushed her face through the glass and she bled.
Then I woke up and all I can say is she should have looked.
I reread my entry for yesterday. I am really mad that the newspaper files have been tampered with. Maybe I'll go paint all of them. I'll paint every fucking critic into a corner. I was too mad to open the shop today. I heard some people knocking and the damn phone kept ringing. Ring a ding a ding until I took it off the hook. Probably the damn owner. I'll take care of her too. You shouldn't disturb a genius at work. There should be a law. I painted a bright red and orange painting today. Angry Sun Bites Man. I'll open up tomorrow.
Day 17. Depressed and mad.
Day 18. The police banged and banged on my door. Mr. Pound wasn't with them. They wanted to know if I knew that Ms. Roberta Sais, who owned the Book Cellar (and who in theory is my employer) had died. No, I said, I didn't know. Murdered, they said. No, I said, I didn't know. I was very busy. I had to work on my paintings. I thanked them for the news. She had heirs, they said. I said I always thought she put on airs. Heirs, they said, I should close the shop until the heirs came. And I said good. I made a "Closed on Account of Death" sign and hung it in the door.
In the afternoon Mr. Pound came by and pounded on my door until I answered it. I told him we were closed.
He said he was here to pose.
I let him in to do some sketches. He started to go upstairs to my studio. I told him I do my sketches in the shop. He wasn't easy to sketch because he kept talking. He hinted that he was a vigilante going after criminals the system might let off on some technicality – like no Miranda rights. Lots of stories of cars in the nights. For some reason I pictured them as moving silently and without headlights. "Dark of night doesn't stop you, eh?" I asked.
He reacted violently, then chuckled, and said, "No, dark of night doesn't stop me."
He talked a lot about criminals who made their confessions got off easily. With his pull down at the station he could help such a criminal. If the criminal doing the murders now were, say, to confess to him, he could make it very easy on the guy.
If on the other hand the current murderer were to try to weasel out – to escape from the long arm of the law – he would make it very difficult for him. He would track the murderer down and strike when the killer least expected it.
He didn't ask to see my sketches, which was good, because I wasn't pleased with them. When he left I tore them all up in little pieces.
I am going to sleep in the studio tonight – to protect my paintings. I am worried about them somehow.
Day 19. Today I painted The Last Innocent Man. The picture is full of big blue eyes looking everywhere. In the lower right corner is a single yellow square – representing a window. Inside an artist can be seen painting a flowery peaceful landscape. I may change the title to This Is My Skull.
Day 20. This morning I came to my senses and took my medicine. I realized I must have done some pretty bad things. I figured I'd wait for Mr. Pound, and when he came I'd confess to him. He could make it easy for me. He was my friend. I waited all day, but he didn't show.
About six I called the downtown police station. Mr. Pound had told me that he still had friends on the force. I figured I could ask around and they could put me in touch with him. It took forever to get in touch with homicide. While I waited I cursed myself for not having got his number. Then I got Detective Blick. I asked if he knew Mr. Pound.
"Mr. Clarence Pound?" he asked.
"I'm not sure of his first name. He is a retired policeman. He had told me he still had friends on the force."
"Let me guess, he told you that he tried to make detective but 'political forces' kept him from making the grade. He also said that he was a vigilante, bringing criminals to justice who had escaped their just desserts."
"Well, yes," I said.
"I am sorry to tell you this, sir, but Clarence Pound is a retired postal worker with some severe personality problems. Every few months he stops his medication for a while and gets to thinking he's some super-cop. If he's been bothering you, let me know and we'll pick him up and take him to his doctor."
"No. He hasn't been bothering me at all. Thank you."
I hung up as he was asking "Who are – "
Mr. Pound is some kind of nut. I'll have to be ready for him.
Day 21. I slept in the studio and he broke in. I woke up and saw him looking at my paintings. He had a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
"They're blank," he said. "All of these canvasses just painted white."
"No," I said, "They're very subtle. You must study them carefully."
"They're blank. You're some kind of nut."
"No, you're the nut. You're an ex-postal employee. You're not a cop. You've never been a cop."
"That's not true." He pointed the gun at me.
"It is true. You're not a cop."
Suddenly he sat down. Just sort of collapsed. He didn't say anything for a long time. I thought about going over and taking his gun away.
Then he began to talk in a low monotone. He explained who he really was and everything became clear to me.
He is Mr. Carlos Pound, owner of a very important gallery in New York. Today we are putting my paintings into a U-Haul van. We will drive up to New York, where he'll host a one-man show for me.
I bet we make quite a splash.
Is That Hard Science, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?
Leslie What
Independence Day – Fourth Of July – Fireworks Begin
I was waiting in the hallway so I could be first to hear the doorbell, but Mother still beat me to the door. She held the spy clam gingerly, like finger cymbals, and its green light blinked to signal readiness. The spy clamshell was gray textured aluminum that looked both comical and scary; in fact, it was always that way at my house – you never knew whether to laugh or cry.
I said, "Oh, Mother!"
But she said, "Ginny, we have to know," and opened the door.
Jason took a step forward. He shrieked when the spy clam opened and its foot reached out, grabbing hold of his skin, to measure his temperature, blood pressure, and psychological profile. His freckles began to sweat – I never knew freckles could sweat – and though he stood as tall as the doorframe, he slouched enough that Mother looked bigger by comparison. He checked me out, as if trying to decide if I was worth dealing with her. I had already promised to make it worth his time, but I could tell he was having second thoughts.
Mother glanced at the readout, her eyes narrowing as the foot slowly retracted. The clam snapped shut, and a faint buzzing sounded. She already knew what Jason was thinking – she didn't need a spy clam for that. He was seventeen, same as me. He was thinking about things a seventeen-year-old thinks about and what would happen next. Mother was forty and was thinking about then. Her then, and all the trouble she'd gotten into.
She punched the ready button on my cattle-prod pants
and said, "Okay. I guess you can go out with John."
"Jason," I said.
"Whatever," said Mother.
The prod pants fit like oven mitts, wired and preset to a maximum of stun. Wearing them made me feel huge, like I was a girl Michelin Tire Man. The pants had made Mother, their inventor, rich. Millions of units were in use across the globe, and so far there had only been five fatalities, from heart failure. Mother had used the profits to develop the Smart Twat and a lot of other weird surveillance technologies, most of which she tested on me.
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