And what made Rory think he could get away with…? How far would he have gone?
John
When I awoke, around noon, I pulled the newsprint sheets out of the garbage and studied the angry, despairing images I’d made the night before. Everything I couldn’t articulate or didn’t dare express, every murderous and suicidal impulse, lust and loss and longing, even the violent sexual urges Rhiann stirred in me had gone onto those sheets.
Enough venting. I started again, making my sketches on the white walls of the studio, tempering my passion with reflection. I tried to reify my loss—not just of Rhiann—my mother; Steve and Billy; Carl; the structure that my hatred of my father gave my life until he, too, ceased to be; and opportunities…
The gun was there. The revolver that she’d pointed at Sinter, then as seriously at me, morphed into the rifle Billy carried to Vietnam. Then I abstracted it.
I caught the look on Rhiann’s face when she’d thought I’d killed Smoke literally. I abstracted that, as well.
The frog that symbolized so much between us over the years made its way into the design, a tiny corpse.
When I was satisfied with the sketches, I planned their execution, calculating the scope and the materials I’d need. That done, I called and left a message at the shop—that I’d be gone a while.
It hit me, then, that I hadn’t eaten in a day. I wasn’t hungry. I thought maybe if I went where I could smell food, I could eat something. I closed up the studio and got in my Jeep. Where to?
I’m not sure what impulse made me turn toward Greenville.
Rhiann
“Sheriff, Rory beat up my neighbor.” I’d barged in past the deputy and entered the office without knocking.
Sheriff Linden hid whatever surprise he felt. “Good morning to you, too, Mrs. Fahey.”
“Did you hear me?”
“I did. Is your neighbor in the hospital?”
“No.”
“You an’ him run off an’ get married recently?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well, then, if he’s got a complaint against Rory, he’ll have to come in an’ make it himself.”
“But I witnessed it!”
“If you had any sense, you’d realize Rory’s just trying to protect you.”
“Rory’s a Peeping Tom. And he was coming on to me before John Devlin came to town.”
“I think Devlin’s got you razzle-dazzled. But I don’t care how much money he’s got, or even if he’s got talent, far as I’m concerned, he’s a convicted killer.”
“What makes you think John’s got money?”
My surprise must have shown on my face, because the sheriff snorted. “Rory did a background check. Devlin’s art collection alone’s got to be worth a million or two.”
My surprise became amazement. “He didn’t tell me he collects art.”
“He doesn’t collect it, he makes it. You didn’t know?” I shook my head.
“I know he’s a good neighbor and a great mechanic.”
As soon as I left the sheriff’s office, I drove to the Overlook Public Library and called Frank to beg off work. I had too many questions to keep my mind on business.
Who was John Devlin really? When did the Frog Prince become an artist? And for that matter, what sort of art did a mechanic make? I had to know.
The library had a reference librarian who reminded me of Mrs. Hammond. “How do you find out about someone?” I asked her.
“What, exactly, do you want to know?”
“Whether someone has a wife and kids, or a prison record, or owns real estate.”
“Well, let’s start with the easiest. Property. The county assessor may be able to tell you if someone owns property. Contact City Hall about a business or the state incorporation registry. About a prison record—you’ll have to contact the police.”
“Thank you. I also need to research an artist named John Devlin.”
She went right to work. Five minutes later, she said, “I believe you’re in luck. Mr. Devlin has an exhibit in Chicago.”
Steve opened the door and saw me and did a double take. “Rhiann, come in.”
The place wasn’t much different from my childhood memories. Aunt Emily had kept it neater, but the same family pictures covered the wall opposite the front door, the same Readers’ Digests and National Geographies spilled off the coffee table. If the couch was new, it had been chosen for its resemblance to the one it replaced. New rug, new drapes; no different in style than those I remembered. Everything comfortably familiar. Like Steve.
“Okay,” he said, when I was planted on the couch. “What’s up?”
“Smoke’s alive.”
“No,” he said.
“He lives next door to me. John Devlin.”
He gave me a disgusted look. “That guy’s just a ghost.”
I started to protest. Steve held up a hand. “He looked me up at Hannigan’s last night. I’m having a game of darts when I hear this familiar voice say, ‘How’s it going, Steve?’ I think, A voice from the past!
“So I say, ‘Smoke!’ I whip around and there’s Devlin.
“An’ he says, ‘Once. Long ago.’ An’ now he sounds like Devlin.
“I take a good look. And it’s him—sorta. I say, ‘Fifteen years you let us think you’re dead.’ Then I deck him—split his lip open. He doesn’t even hit back. Smoke would—in a heartbeat. No way he’d let anybody get away with that. This guy just gets up and stands there, like he’s waiting for me to hit him again—didn’t even raise his hands. Denny almost throws us out. I had to convince him it was just a joke.
“Then this guy—I can’t think of him as Smoke—Devlin offers to buy me a drink and explain.” Steve shrugged. “What could I do?
“He gives me this cockamamy story about how he was in prison and then got out and straightened out his life. And how he’s now a famous sculptor.”
“He said famous?”
“Well, successful.”
“He is. Very. He gets upwards of thirty thousand for a small piece.”
“Yikes! What about the prison thing?”
I nodded. “Rory Sinter made a point to tell me John has a record.”
“So it’s all true?”
I shrugged.
“But there’s something wrong with the guy. He’s not Smoke. So we come back to where we started—Smoke’s dead.”
“So it would appear. What did he say about me?”
“Just that he loves you, but you’re not interested. That true?”
I wasn’t sure. I said, “Smoke’s gone. And I don’t know John Devlin. I thought I did. I thought he was this nice, ordinary, helpful neighbor. He’s turned out to be not ordinary, and I’m wondering about the nice and helpful.”
Steve shook his head. “You should have chosen me back in sixth grade.”
“You didn’t put a frog down my dress.”
John
Leaving Rhiann’s the morning after my mother’s funeral, after we first became lovers, was the hardest thing I’d done in my life. She loved me! And I’d felt as if no one ever would again.
I’d known I had to leave town. I would have killed the old man if I stayed. Now I didn’t want to go. Couldn’t.
I went back to the cemetery. Unlike the day before, it was peaceful—no well-meaning people reminding me my ma was dead with their condolences. No sign of the old man. Not even any ghosts, as far as I could tell—just trees and grass and headstones. And Ma’s grave like a new scab on the green skin of the marble orchard. I went and lay down on the dew-wet grass next to it. Face up, I laced my fingers behind my head and stared at the sky, trying to hear Ma’s voice telling me what to do. But the only sound was birds squabbling the way they do at first light. I fell asleep.
When I awoke, the birds had all left for work and the sun was burning my face. I sat up and tried to memorize the gravesite so I could find it again because I didn’t think the old man would ever pop for a headstone. I checked out Ma’s new nei
ghbors who had stones with inscriptions like “Beloved Wife,” “Loving Husband,” and “Cherished Child.”
Someday I’d buy Ma a stone that said “Amy Johnson/Beloved Mother of—” Who? Tommy Johnson? He was my old man. As far as I could tell, he’d never “beloved” anyone, especially my mother. Smoke? I guess that was as true a name as I’d ever had. But people who knew me would say “Smoke Johnson, that asshole Tommy Johnson’s kid.”
As soon as I had that thought, I wanted to be someone else. Someone nobody associated with Tommy Johnson or his poor wife, Amy. I wanted to be someone beloved.
I was. By Rhiann. But she was still a kid, really, and I couldn’t support her. Yet. I couldn’t give her a name she could be proud of.
Then I spotted the child’s grave: JOHN DEVLIN 1952-1954 BELOVED SON OF JOHN AND MARY DEVLIN. John and Mary Devlin had died in 1954, too, and were buried on either side of him. Son John had been born the same year as I. His stone wasn’t huge or ostentatious, but it was decorated with smiling cherubs and the words “Angels Keep You.”
There was a kid who could’ve been someone because his parents loved him. Well, my ma had loved me. But she was dead, turned into an actual angel.
I stood in front of the kid’s stone and talked to him as if he could hear me. “I’m gonna borrow your name,” I said. “And I’m gonna try’n make something of it.”
Then I turned to Ma’s grave and told her to watch out for the Devlin kid. “And watch out for me, too.”
It wasn’t hard to become John Devlin. I burned my driver’s license and everything else with the name Smoke or Tommy Johnson on it. I went to the county building and told them I needed a copy of my birth certificate so I could get my driver’s permit. I said my name was John Devlin and my parents were John and Mary Devlin, that I was born in 1952. They gave me a form to fill out and charged me fifteen dollars. And I walked out with a notarized copy of John Devlin’s birth certificate. I’ve been John Devlin ever since.
Rhiann
John’s retrospective was at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. I took the train to Union Station, then a CTA bus to Michigan and Ontario. I walked the last two blocks. It was a perfect fall day. I hadn’t been to the city since the day Billy and I were married. I was amazed at the changes. It seemed cleaner and brighter than I remembered.
I felt terribly sad. No. Lonely. Billy was gone. And Mickey. Smoke seemed to be gone for good, too—some part of him had died. Steve had drowned his potential in alcohol. Jimmy would be going to college soon, leaving me as alone in Overlook as I felt in this city of a million strangers.
As if to knock me out of my moody fit, a man hurrying along the sidewalk bumped me hard enough to make me stagger. He caught me before I fell and muttered, “Sorry,” insincerely, before he charged away.
I muttered, “Clumsy,” and checked to see that I still had my wallet.
The man stopped at the next corner and waved frantically at a cab.
I went into the museum.
The retrospective took up most of the first floor. Two huge abstract stone sculptures stood like sentries on either side of the exhibit entrance. The docent handed me a brochure, and I stepped between the giant stones. The brochure said the stones were on loan from a corporation I’d never heard of. Titled Emergent Possibilities I and Emergent Possibilities II, they seemed to be hatching polished curves and bulges from their rough granite sides. I didn’t get them.
Farther along there were more stone pieces that seemed to invite me to feel their smooth surfaces. Most of them had DO NOT TOUCH signs, but one—Hands On—had PLEASE TOUCH chiseled under its face. And it was a face, with smooth cheeks, furrowed brows, and full, wrinkled lips. Its curls looked like the hair I’d seen in pictures of Greek statues. The face had a beard that felt just like a man’s two-day-old stubble, though it just looked like a different-colored stone.
As I moved farther from the entrance, the sculptures became more realistic—a granite bear standing on three feet to scratch its chin with the fourth; a life-sized bronze horse prancing with head and tail held high; a cat carved from black walnut—the sign said—arching its back in an angry hiss. And a giant frog cut from green marble, polished until its skin seemed completely wet.
Beyond the frog, like the entrance to a garden, was an archway of bronze vines, with a sign announcing, THE HEART OF THE MATTER.
I stopped to skim the brochure. “Ten related bronzes cast to 1/10 scale,” it said. I passed under the arch.
Tommy Loves Rhiann portrayed a crew-cut, sixth-grade Smoke in Levi’s and Sneakers holding up a fat frog—with its feet hanging down like a bunch of flowers—for the inspection of a girl in a sleeveless, scooped-neck dress. The figures were reminiscent of Norman Rockwell, their faces perfectly illustrating Smoke’s mischievous glee and sly intelligence, his underlying sadness, Rhiann’s feigned disdain.
John’s ability to portray emotions was amazing. Which made his inability to express them in person all the more incredible.
Tears leaked from my eyes. I had forgotten to bring tissue and had to run to the ladies’ room for paper towels. Equipped, I started in again.
The Monster that Lives in the Dark portrayed Tommy Johnson with photographic reality as he stood, legs splayed, a bottle in one hand and a belt in the other. And Amy Johnson was a fierce Madonna defending the child at her feet with a broom and a garbage can lid.
Librarian depicted Mrs. Hammond sharing a book with a teenaged Smoke.
Smoke Loves Rhiann showed seventeen-year-old Smoke, with cigarette dangling from his mouth, pulling the petals off a daisy in the old she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not routine.
In We All Love Rhiann, Billy and Steve and Smoke circled a dancing Rhiann with their arms on one another’s shoulders as she embraced Billy and looked adoringly at Smoke.
Billy Loves Rhiann was a soldier, with full field kit, M-16, and helmet, hugging a pregnant Rhiann. Her head came just under his chin, her face was buried in his shirt front. Billy’s face clearly showed the anguish of parting.
A ghost of the loss I’d felt when Billy left shivered through me like someone walking on my grave.
Mickey Loves Rhiann depicted Mickey bracing his feet as he swung me overhead. His face glowed with good humor and the love he obviously felt.
Mickey and Jimmy showed a smiling Mickey teaching his son to ride his first bike.
John Loves Rhiann was a self-portrait of the artist sculpting the statue of a young Rhiann. The sculptor’s expression was adoring, his posture protective.
I had to stop. The story of my relationships with the men I loved was too clearly illustrated.
I hurried outside and walked, sobbing, back to Union Station.
John
After having Rhiann and losing her again, I couldn’t bear to see her. Not even at a distance. Not even a glance.
I couldn’t bear to not see her, either, but I felt distance was safer, so I didn’t go home.
I didn’t go to the shop, either. We had nothing urgent scheduled, so I made assignments via phone and told them not to call unless someone died.
I stayed at the studio. Cleaned it. Ordered materials for the work I’d sketched on the wall. Tried to keep busy.
Tried not to think of Rhiann.
Rhiann
The address the shipping company had given me was for a small, single-story brick factory built in a time when factories had large windows and high ceilings, with skylights and wood ceiling beams. The windows along the south side, facing the alley, had been painted over in white and covered by cyclone fencing. The number stenciled on the garage-type door facing east on the narrow lane was duplicated on the regular-sized steel door next to it.
I knocked. Moments later, John opened the door. He was clean and smelled of aftershave, and his hair was wet—he must have just taken a shower. He’d put on loafers but not socks—further proof.
He said, “I thought you’d given up on me.”
I put my hand over my heart and fluttered my fing
ers. “I discovered I still have a frog in my dress.”
He stepped aside to let me in. “How did you find me?”
“Your shipper.”
“Ah.”
I walked to the center of a space too large to call a room, roughly the size of a small gymnasium. It had a clean concrete floor that was chipped and spotted with welding slag. John followed me, hands at his sides. He waited while I looked around. There was an empty easel in the center, beneath the skylight. A tool bench ran along the left side with tools neatly lined up along its length. Others hung on the wall above it, between the windows. In the back corner, an old double-drainboard cast-iron sink sat below a wall-mounted cabinet. Next to the sink stood a wastebasket, and an old refrigerator. Farther along, between doors labeled “Relief” and “Supplies,” a cot stood against the wall with a drafting table within easy dropping-from-exhaustion distance. The right side of the room was filled with pallets of cardboard cartons. Nearby were blocks of wood and stone, and a Clark forklift.
The studio was a stark contrast to John’s office. Except for abstract charcoal drawings on the walls, there were no pictures or finished works of art. The drawings reminded me of Guernica.
“I saw your retrospective.”
He looked expectantly. “Well?”
“It was—” As I tried to find the words, I squeezed my lip between my teeth. No tears! “Overwhelming.”
He nodded as if he thought that was right. “Guess that’s why I didn’t send you an invitation.”
“Where did you learn to draw?”
“After I got out of Stateville, I got a night job in Chicago. Servicing trucks. It let me have days free. And I had my GED, so I applied at Columbia College. While I was working on my BA, I discovered The School of the Art Institute. They showed me what I was meant to do. It was like discovering swans.”
M.I.A. Page 16