{"id":4222,"date":"2014-12-07T23:16:19","date_gmt":"2014-12-07T23:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4222"},"modified":"2014-12-07T23:18:13","modified_gmt":"2014-12-07T23:18:13","slug":"a-son-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4222","title":{"rendered":"A Son in Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Edith Wharton\u2019s <\/em>A Son at the Front and Heinrich von Kleist\u2019s <\/em>The Marquise of O<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe both know you\u2019re cynical,\u201d my son Danny says. We\u2019re in my studio, tenth floor, big corner of what used to be a factory warehouse. I\u2019m painting his portrait. C-SPAN on my beat old TV with sound down to zero. I need to get my head out of my hand when I paint, nothing\u2019s better than our elected representatives making faces at the future that\u2019s swallowing them. No need to listen, their minds are made up. So\u2019s mine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy start politics the minute I get you settled?\u201d I say. \u201cYou know I\u2019ll say Bush is a war criminal. Let me paint if you want to be painted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shadows of taller buildings lay along the floor. They\u2019ll swing through the space as the afternoon goes on like black beams from slow searchlights. Moving the client with the sun is part of my strategy. Scrubbed grubby walls, phone numbers written beside the metal plate that used to be a wall phone before I got my cell. Paintings lined up along the floor turned back to front. I keep my failures to myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalm down,\u201d he says wearily. He drops his cigarette on the floor, wiping his foot over, thinking what to say next. He says, \u201cNot making a mess, am I?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re rich and twenty-six, does that mean \u2013 You\u2019re checking your watch already?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe agree. See?\u201d He holds out his wrist. \u201cIt shows month, day and year. I\u2019m twenty-six.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t break the pose,\u201d I say. I quick-sketch a fat gold watch with spiky diamonds. Cramped dissatisfied Senate face on TV, dyed his sparse hair rusted-burnt umber to match his tie.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou told me break the pose whenever I want,\u201d he says, relieved to be arguing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I thought you were smart,\u201d I say, moving to get diamond glitz. \u201cHow much did that thing cost?\u201d<\/p>\n

Danny\u2019s joking about his cigarette making a mess. There\u2019s paint on the floor, my pants, my shoes. My clean new teeshirt says A VILLAGE IN TEXAS HAS LOST ITS IDIOT to bother Danny, the kind of smart young arrogant NeoCon who calls himself Libertarian. He says the portrait\u2019s a present for his mother. I suspect it\u2019s an ugly joke, the kind he likes. His mother doesn\u2019t want my paintings any more than she wants me. I like an ugly joke myself, though not on his mother, a good friend. But portraits are a chance to listen. Set clients in a pose, close to but more uncomfortable than the way they sit themselves, fuss with brushes, lay out the palette, look up, say, \u201cIt\u2019s wrong somehow, wriggle around.\u201d Whatever they do, say, \u201cMuch better. Move any time you want. This isn\u2019t a photograph. I need to see you changing.\u201d Now they can\u2019t stop telling you secrets, and neither can their bodies.<\/p>\n

Danny\u2019s in my favorite chair, blue, overstuffed, velvety texture. Faint green sprigs covering it are hard to see, perfect background, a design that surrenders rather than insists. He slumps back, arms dangling over the arms, uncharacteristically self-important, a look I will change.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re sure you don\u2019t mind?\u201d He lights a new cigarette, holds it ostentatiously over one shoulder to save me from second hand cancer. Now he looks like a fencer eager to be attacked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wreathes you nicely,\u201d I say. Like everybody in their fifties I\u2019m an ex-smoker. \u201cIda likes those dreary da Vinci sfumato virgins.\u201d<\/p>\n

He takes a drag. \u201cDa Vinci virgins are dreary?\u201d I\u2019m painting diamonds.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, just da Vinci, poor guy. Read a life. Any decisions on your life? Don\u2019t give me the list of multi-ethnic lawyer names from the firm you joined, I don\u2019t know one pirate gang from another. I mean real life \u2013 the other stuff, what you do for free.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do law for fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFunny, I thought I said free, not fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou did say free, I said fun. You get paid for painting.\u201d He taps ashes on the floor. This is boring, predictable and getting no closer to whatever he wants to tell me.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy successful already couple hundred thousandaire son working on his first million, rubs it in I\u2019m a broken down half failure of an artist. You know the shame I feel shopping for paints with a welfare smart-card? I might have to grind my own colors from birch bark and beet tops like Picasso.\u201d<\/p>\n

He smiles. \u201cCan I take off this fucking hat?\u201d It\u2019s a blazing red baseball cap with a white P on the front, he\u2019s a Phillies fan. It will ruin the painting.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. You walk in wearing it to bother me, it\u2019s goes on canvas. It\u2019ll ruin the painting and I need more ruined paintings. They sell, clients think it\u2019s post-modern. This is your portrait but my art, never forget that. Take it off, I fake it in, and don\u2019t fake caps good, I\u2019d have to turn it sideways.\u201d He throws up his hands, resigned nobody-can-do-anything-with-you pose I see a lot of. Sunshine slides across his diamonds. Great glint! He turns the hat sideways.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs this going to take long?\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m enlisting for Iraq.\u201d<\/p>\n

I step back from the painting. \u201cThat\u2019s crazy,\u201d I say without thinking, and can\u2019t think of anything to say so step back to the painting saying anything to stop him. Not that anything I say could. My argument is politics. He got his obscenely overpaid job right out of law school and thinks it proves he knows everything, proving he knows nothing. The war is a joke, Bush is a joke, we\u2019re like a country that stepped in dog shit and can\u2019t find anything to wipe it off with except the money in our wallets and it\u2019s everything we own in billion dollar bills. The war\u2019s lost, the media\u2019s too scared of Rumsfeld to say so, Cheney\u2019s pals treat Iraq like an ATM that keeps paying off when the account\u2019s overdrawn, the army\u2019s degenerating into brutal gangs of torturers and murderers, Republicans lie when they lie, Democrats lie when they say they believe them.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to serve your country? I lived through the second half of the twentieth century, Vietnam, Granada, Marines in Lebanon, Black Hawk Down in Africa, Clinton bombing Serbia, the Father-Son Holy Bush Wars in Iraq. I served by marching against them. Four or five arrests, two semi-serious tear gassings, one cop\u2019s nightstick at the \u201968 Democratic Convention gave me a purple shoulder. Otherwise, I hated the liars, I laughed at the lies. I survived unmarked.\u201d<\/p>\n

His argument is, \u201cYou don\u2019t have politics, you\u2019re like New Yorkers who hate baseball so much they root against the Yankees. Only the game you hate is history. You boo and cheer the six o\u2019clock news and march for peace and think you made a difference? The players on the field can\u2019t hear you, Wally my dad, when you watch on TV. Nothing you did mattered.\u201d Botoxed senator with a full head of wavy white senatorial hair heaves his frozen face at a frown. \u201cYou\u2019re marked by being an unmarked man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat twisted law school logic,\u201d I say. \u201cYou still know nothing about life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d he says. \u201cThe job I always thought I always wanted turned out to be a money tunnel with calm happy death at the end. Iraq\u2019s a lie? It\u2019s the only war I\u2019ll get before I wind up like everybody else, bragging about everything they were luckily scared enough to miss, saying, \u2018Better sad than sorry.\u2019 You never lived that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean how I treated Ida,\u201d I say. I deserted his mother ten months after he was born, walked off one morning with a big bad-tempered woman I wanted to paint, and walked away from her for the next one and the next, never married again. \u201cIs this portrait thing an excuse to have a heart to heart with Dad? Because I\u2019ll put away the paints. Otherwise sit up and stop looking like a snotnose pre-schooler. Ida survived. You won\u2019t.\u201d He slouches further down, a defiant ten year old at his first expensive restaurant, what I wanted. He\u2019s a great subject, expressions chase each other across his face, none of them mean anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cIda says she understands your need to flee. That\u2019s why I want you to tell her about Iraq,\u201d he says. \u201cTell her like you did when you ran off with Aunt whatshername who wasn\u2019t my aunt, the blonde with big gazongas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAunt Gazongas was a different blonde. Are we father son best pals doing women jokes to bond?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIda says you\u2019re such an oldfashioned guy-guy women forgive you everything.\u201d He reaches for the tweed jacket he wore coming in, and threw in a ball on the floor. He finds a blue pack of Ducados and chrome Zippo in the inside pocket, bends to light up, lifts his head with the cigarette in his mouth for the first puff. Like a goldfish rising to food. I get it quick on the sketchbook I always keep beside me. \u201cTemporarily forgive,\u201d he says sfumatoing the air. It stinks. Ducados, Spain\u2019s cheapest and foulest cigarette, must be some new hipster fad. Only an up-to-the-minute dandy like Danny could stand them.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t drop that jacket, throw it on the chair. Not the arm, don\u2019t you have any color sense?\u201d I pull his head forward, droop it carefully careless along the back. Thick nubby tweed itching to be painted. \u201cIf future millionaires would take one course in basic visual composition while they\u2019re cramming pre-tax-avoidance crap, I\u2019d give them a fifty percent discount. What\u2019d the coat cost, I\u2019m poor enough to be fascinated with prices. Seriously, a thousand dollars? Are you shaving with one of those razors that leaves inch-long stubble because you know how hard it is to paint?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYup. Three thousand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood, I like painting what\u2019s hard to paint. Ida says she understands me? You don\u2019t understand her. She hates me because she\u2019s happy. After me she got handsome Rob the CEO, powerful guests at dinner, vacation trips to Europe, Asia and darkest Africa on safari, not forgetting a stepfather role model for her son the lawyer. Giving up art got her every stupid luxury America has to offer. My failure is proof it was worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTell her that stuff too, you did lots of times. I heard you at their parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUpstairs supposed to be asleep, spying on Mom and both your Dads. Maybe I knew you were there and was talking to you. I don\u2019t remember any of anything much before I stopped drinking. Get drunk and tell her. Shift your shoulder into the shadow till it cuts you completely off from the coat. Show less brutal grace, can\u2019t you? You look like a club bouncer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d he says, and shifts. All his brutal grace comes through. \u201cCan I take off the hat, now you got the jacket to put in?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLeave that hat here so I can be sure you\u2019ll wear it next time. I\u2019d make you leave the coat, but it cost twice what I get for a portrait now. My last big price jump, what a year it was, Fall \u201999, everybody rich with the money they were going to lose in the stock market. Is there a woman? Is that the reason?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy watch without sound,\u201d he says to the TV. \u201cPolitics for the deaf?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo need to listen.\u201d I remote it to high. A voice in from a face like shaved Smoky the Bear talks deep truths in a melodious snuffle.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, without delay, America must,\u201d says the senator, letting the palm of his hand fall gravely on the podium.<\/p>\n

\u201cOff,\u201d Danny says. I mute it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we done for today?\u201d He gets up, puts his cigarette out on the floor, lights another. \u201cThere\u2019s always a woman,\u201d he says. He means don\u2019t be stupid. The silent senator waves in reproach, disbelief and misery a sad goodbye.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSo the reason we\u2019re having lunch is,\u201d I put my mineral water down firmly and solemnly on the table. \u201cI need a loan. Otherwise you have to pick up the check.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBe serious,\u201d says Ida, who always picks up the check. My first wife, eighteen when we got married, ten years younger than me. Still has her blank, pretty, eager unknowing look \u2013 tabla rasa, color me who you want. An unearned look, some trick of genetics, unearned and undeserved. My paperback of James\u2019s Wings of the Dove<\/i> and my paperback Anna Karenina, <\/i>different publisher, both have Manet\u2019s portrait of Berthe Morisot on the cover. Weird to think of Anna and Kate Croy each looking like a sleek painter of bourgeois secular Madonnas, but that\u2019s how I think of Ida. She fiddles with the big opal I gave her for the first anniversary of our first happy year together \u2013 that ended two months after we got married. I mention Iraq vaguely.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never were good at breaking news gently. He told me he\u2019s going. He said you\u2019re painting him nude so I\u2019d remember him with all of his arms and all of his legs, hurroo hurroo. He\u2019s your son.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him the war is finished, Bush is finished, you see him on TV? We\u2019ve never had a President this buff. All he does is run on his treadmill, ride his stationary bike, climb the stair machine, all cardio, all fitness, exercising with his head cut off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hoped you\u2019d talk politics at Daniel. What did he do, leap from his chair, shout, \u2018You\u2019re right!\u2019 and join the black bandana kids?\u201d She pours herself another glass from the bottle in the ice-bucket, deliberately dripping water across the table. A horrified waiter is at her side, replacing the soaked towel with a dry one, retreating in confusion when Ida, brushing her off, deliberately sticks the new towel in the bucket.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis place has gone downhill,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mind me asking you to not pick fights with waiters and talk about our son instead?\u201d<\/p>\n

She pats my cheek the way she knows I hate. She eats. She says, between dainty bites, \u201cHe\u2019s afraid you\u2019ll worry and it will interfere with your art. He made me promise not to tell you that. He\u2019s surprisingly protective of you. The painting I wasn\u2019t supposed to let you know I know about is for his office. Make it ugly, edgy, satiric, \u2013 you know what he wants far better than I. He needs partners to come in and say, \u2018Where\u2019d you get that horror?\u2019 Then he can say, \u2018It\u2019s my father\u2019s. He caught something of myself and the entire legal profession, don\u2019t you think?\u2019 He has this inherited need to be outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he joins he won\u2019t have an office.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re saving his office. You don\u2019t let a lawyer like Daniel go simply because he volunteers for legal duties in Iraq. It\u2019s a twelve-month program. He\u2019ll prosecute rapists and killers he says, up to and including the rank of sergeant. Officers are golden. He would have told you, but you two get in this irony thing. He loves it, you reading him Great Expectations <\/i>is why he\u2019s a lawyer. <\/i>Remember Jaggers, who you called the only a little more than half-evil solicitor? But he can\u2019t talk seriously to you. Talking seriously is my job. He says it\u2019s why you left me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot he knows.\u201d We\u2019re in Philadelphia\u2019s most expensive French restaurant. Classic haute cuisine. Splendidly gilt chairs, flowered chintz wallpaper and on the ceiling a copy of Fragonard\u2019s, The Swing, or Happy Accidents of the Oscillation<\/i>. A babyface babypink wife spreadlegged on a swing kicks one leg so high the shoe flies off revealing all to her lover. \u201cSouvenir of the days when no respectable woman would think of wearing panties. You told me that on our first date.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShowing off art history smut from a course I dropped to live with a regrettably real live artist. Regrettable fun, the best kind.\u201d She drinks a little of her very good Riesling. \u201cI like cheap wines in dear places.\u201d The Riesling costs more our lunch. She has her own need to be outrageous. A way I like.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow\u2019s Rob?\u201d I say. \u201cWhat does Danny want, my blessing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRob\u2019s great, we\u2019re going to Bangladesh this year, apparently it\u2019s not like you imagine, I saw in the Times travel section. Daniel wants you to not worry, and paint. The idea he\u2019s in the army is ridiculous, he might not get a uniform. He\u2019ll certainly never get it dirty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBlood is dirt,\u201d I think but don\u2019t say.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always did know what you\u2019re thinking,\u201d Ida says. \u201cDon\u2019t hold it against him. He asked me to tell you he won\u2019t let them blame war on the chumps on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll be prosecuting them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOr defending, it\u2019s the luck of the draw. No matter what the draw, he says his chumps will walk.\u201d<\/p>\n

C-SPAN off in her honor, I can never tell how the rich will take it. Jennifer, a name she mourns, comically: \u201cEvery Tom, Dick and Harriet is named Jennifer.\u201d Her dress\u2019s neat curl over her knees echoes the fold of the hands in her lap, clasped to show massive matching diamond-crusted platinum engagement and wedding bands. You\u2019ll never sell portraits if you can\u2019t paint diamonds, and forget radical politics, you can\u2019t paint diamonds without loving them. Her prim expensively dyed and trimmed bangs give a relaxed alert look to her pretty-as-a-premeditated-picture personality. Neat, benign and concerned, like portraits of Past Presidents in college hallways: \u201cI am looking at you looking at the me I want you to see.\u201d Always makes me want to stab them in the canvas heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name\u2019s Wally,\u201d I say. \u201cNot short for Walter. Wally on my birth certificate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t run a magazine where twentysomething interns call you Jennifer with that lilt they keep for each other. I have to be Ice Queen or I get \u2018Hey there, Jen Babe.\u2019 It\u2019s not tragic, but all jokes get tiring. You\u2019re sure this angle\u2019s right for me? Could I look?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get one peek,\u201d I say. \u201cMake it a good one. Remember it\u2019s unfinished.\u201d<\/p>\n

I turn the canvas to her. It\u2019s blocked out in underpaint. Rough hump of blue for the chair, scabby-brown-rose for the shadowed wall behind. Burnt ochre splotch that doesn\u2019t even approximate her marvelous hair. Russet glints in it, must cost a fortune to keep up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do I trust you, when that\u2019s the first thing Ida warned me not to do? It looks like the Dow Jones average since January,\u201d she says. \u201cRoughly soaring, tending downward. This is a present for a friend. Do me without my warts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMmff,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought of you as an artist. I don\u2019t mean your work for the magazine is ordinary, we get you when we need a touch<\/i>.\u201d She talks on, her pale green dress seems to be melting and fraying into the sprigs. It\u2019ll paint great, later. I do diamonds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for Ida, I\u2019d never have got the idea. You\u2019re coming to Dan\u2019s going away party?\u201d I nod. \u201cYou see them socially? It\u2019s odd we never met.\u201d Silent stiff staring at the wall, she seems to need to hold her breath to talk.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re right, the pose stinks. Try again.\u201d She inches an inch.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat,\u201d I say. It\u2019s lousier yet. \u201cBut don\u2019t hold it. This isn\u2019t a photograph. I need to see you changing.\u201d She inches another inch. This is an emergency. I throw a handful of cheap brushes on the floor, always impressive. \u201cYou\u2019ll get used to this. These fucking shadows, I need them, but have to chase them around the studio. You don\u2019t mind? I\u2019ll move you \u2013 here!\u201d I get behind the chair, nobody thinks it\u2019s on rollers, and shove her halfway across the studio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will not be pushed and positioned like an apple by Cezanne,\u201d she says quietly, a voice full of power. Jennifer is the famous first woman editor of Philly Folks, Philadelphia\u2019s equivalent of the New Yorker, New York, Village Voice and scabrous gossip rag rolled into one. She\u2019s also my boss, part time. I\u2019m not entirely unsuccessful, but make my living with odd jobs. Illustration, design, adjunct teaching. None of it pays much. Mostly it\u2019s enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo worry I\u2019m Cezanne, or you\u2019d turn out green,\u201d I say. \u201cGet settled if you want but this is perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

She changes as much as she can back to her old pose. The pose doesn\u2019t matter now that the will comes through. I admire Jennifer, the fearsome bitch. She scares me. You don\u2019t get to be an editor, specially a woman editor in a boy\u2019s game, by being Little Bo Peep. Underlings call her Jennifer, but she was born for the maiden name she kept through two husbands, Ms Wright. Silent, stiff, she won\u2019t give me anything but what she wants. Either I ruin her pose or she ruins the painting.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you mind if I smoke,\u201d she says. It\u2019s not a question, she opens the huge designer bag at her feet, and digs out a silver case with somebody else\u2019s florid initials on it because it\u2019s an antique. \u201cI started again recently, please don\u2019t put it in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHold the case though,\u201d I say. \u201cOr drop it in your lap. If whoever\u2019s getting the painting gave you it, it\u2019s an inside joke.\u201d Finally, for an instant, she looks human and embarrassed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe case, leave it in I guess, is a present from \u2013 the person who\u2019s getting my present,\u201d she says. \u201cNot my husband. To change the subject, you and I have worked together since I came to Folks, you were always good, always better than what we asked. Is it horrible for you doing commercial work?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always interested in the kind of people who ask me that,\u201d I have to put her in her place, so she\u2019ll break out of it. \u201cCommercial work pays the bills. I love it. It\u2019s the opposite of art. You either take it seriously or fuck it up completely. When it\u2019s done I get to fuck paintings up completely. What do you get to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew you guessed that. There\u2019s nothing I want to get to do.\u201d She turns sideways, showing a long Nordic-tracked thigh. Now she\u2019s human, embarrassed and friendly. Her lover\u2019s only seen her this way right after sex. He\u2019ll tell her the portrait captures the real her. Maybe he\u2019s right. Are you really you after sex with a new partner? Or is the rest of your life real? Acrid smell of burning turd fills the studio. She lazes into a slump, staring at the floor. \u201cYou smoke Ducados too? I recognize the butts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy son. I quit years ago. I\u2019m painting him, a present for his mother. He insists on paying. I\u2019d feel guilty, but I never feel guilty, and it probably costs less than your cigarette case did. He\u2019s going to Iraq.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know. Ida was hoping you\u2019d stop him someway. She says that\u2019s why she insisted on keeping in touch with you, he needed a father\u2019s hand from his real father.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRob\u2019s his real father. Ida needs me as a horrible example.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that the reason Dan\u2019s going? Like father like son? A young man with all the advantages, and such a waste of a war to lose them in. I talk to Dan a little. Jay and I see the Steels frequently. He seems so certain of his life, and yet, I\u2019m sure you see it, he wants something different. He\u2019s got his dreams. My twentysomethings would say he\u2019s an old soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe runs six miles every morning, competing with himself. Himself is who he dreams about. My bet is, he\u2019s twenty-six, the old soul is a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy to joke about young people\u2019s dreams. I think of the silly things I wanted and wonder why I didn\u2019t go after them.\u201d She\u2019s in a splayed sprawl, feeling with one hand under the chair. \u201cYou don\u2019t have an ashtray? Painting is why Dan envies you, he says you have the one life he can understand. It couldn\u2019t be only a woman, he\u2019s too complicated. If he\u2019s leaving her behind, it can\u2019t be serious. Isn\u2019t it more possible that being wrong is in itself an adventure for him. Is that what you thought leaving women?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYup.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m prying.\u201d She sits up, leans forward, glossy lonely eyes, I sketch them fast on the side of the canvas. \u201cDoes he see a lot of women? He never brings any to parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen it\u2019s serious,\u201d I say, painting thin lines under those shining eyes. \u201cShe\u2019s married.\u201d I paint age signs in, wait for clients to say, \u201cSomehow I don\u2019t like it,\u201d and paint half out. They\u2019re delighted. Men are hardest to delight, they need to be clear-eyed clear-skinned highschool heroes. Women want to look like they welcomed experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nothing happens at Rob and Ida\u2019s parties. Drinks, dinner, more drinks. Wine only. Husbands over sixty don\u2019t drink hard liquor anymore, in public. Jennifer talks to me, watched by her husband Jay. After dinner she and Danny go out on the patio. Two Ducados smokers, ten times worse than one. A strong tarry smell of wild woodsy morel mushrooms freshly fertilized by passing deer wafts back in. Jay, I watch him from curiosity, times them with his watch. Like Danny\u2019s, more diamonds. I memorize glint.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou should let me stage all your paintings,\u201d says Dor\u00e9, who thinks her name is a good joke played on her by fate and earnest culture-climbing parents. She\u2019s naked on the floor, one leg under her, other one raised at the knee to support a big sketch board. She copies an old painting of mine, Aunt Gazonga, the amazing nude, before she left for a respectable career in art evaluation. I\u2019m painting me in paint-splotched clothes, crouched in a corner, sketching Dor\u00e9. It\u2019s Dor\u00e9\u2019s idea, from Picasso\u2019s model and painter series. But not an old man reproducing what he can\u2019t do anything about, this artist paints his young and his former model-mistress, creepily and warily triumphant. It started as a joke, then I got obsessed. She\u2019s African-American, Chinese, Scottish mix. I can\u2019t describe her skin, but I\u2019m learning to paint it.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet your glasses in,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

I paint with heavy black-rimmed reading glasses, and use my fingers as much as the brush, the frames are caked solid with runny oils. Dor\u00e9, 25, is not as they say in Art Bios my companion, she\u2019s my assistant. Meaning, we don\u2019t live together. We talk so much about how happy we are not living together that both of us must want to. Even me, for years a lone ranger. Neither of us has said anything. It\u2019s not a problem I look forward to. I paint her shoulder blade, radiant with hybrid vigor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a body Gazongas had,\u201d says Dor\u00e9 in despair. \u201cLike Titian\u2019s Danae. Your\u00a0 painting\u2019s like a novel called Why I am a Self-Made Failure. An artist too poor to hire a model, too choosey to seduce students, and too pigheaded to care what the market is. Nobody buys nudes, especially yours, they\u2019re so butt-naked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was never poor,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorse. You were a talented young man who married a rich wife to work on your art. It\u2019s not that it\u2019s boring that makes that life sad, it\u2019s that it\u2019s bored. How long did she last, eight months? I hope she left you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty months, counting the time before we got married. She discovered I was unfaithful and owed it to herself to leave. She left me broke, not poor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood for her. What was going on when you were painting Gazonga? Photo-Realism, Pop, Minimalism? You ignore everything but your own dumb way, and as a reward nobody wants your work except if they know a lot about art and art history, all that unsalable stuff. You\u2019ll have your mini-vogue, though, dead or alive, when you\u2019re eighty.\u201d<\/p>\n

I get the curve of her back right. No C-SPAN, I don\u2019t need distraction with Dor\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething wrong with your pose,\u201d I say. \u201cStretch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t try your art secrets on me,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I need a break.\u201d She stands and bends backwards till her palms touch the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t move,\u201d I grab the sketchbook. \u201cYou\u2019re aiming it at me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThink I don\u2019t know that? Go fast, think croquis, this is hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

I get her drawn, she flips upright. I wish, not for the first time, I could draw her moving. She walks around the room turning paintings back to front. \u201cWorking class paintings of exploited darkskinned people painted not to sell.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I don\u2019t have commissions, which is often, I pay kids on the street, janitors, neighbor Moms and their babies to sit. It\u2019s something to paint, I need to paint.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo much Alice Neel, not enough Sargent. Is everybody you know African-American or third world including me, the occasional partner of your life? What\u2019s this?\u201d Dan and Jennifer, almost finished. \u201cWally. Wow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFriends, they\u2019ll pick them up later.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou sure they\u2019ll be your friends after this? It looks like standard he-sits-she-sits twin family portraits. Same chair for each, he leans out at her portrait, she\u2019s shifted backwards, legs spread, here I am. He smokes the cigarette, she has the case in her lap. He says, I\u2019m young enough to do anything and anybody. But her eyes, what did you do to them, they say no, I\u2019m the doer not the done, it\u2019s me does you. Except \u2013 brilliant Wally \u2013 the cigarette case in her lap\u2019s like a silver chastity belt. Another novel in paint, call it Ugly Love.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI have to tell you everything, be patient, and remember even the bad parts aren\u2019t serious,\u201d says Jennifer. She sits on the leather burnt umber couch in her corner office. Views out every window. Clouds fat and summery. Smoke stacks, few of them smoking anymore in Rust Belt Philly. No boats on the Delaware, the port\u2019s dying too. \u201cSit beside me,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is personal, not business. We\u2019re doing it here because it\u2019s alright for you to shout. Or cry, if you do.\u201d<\/p>\n

I sit beside her, watching. Amber choker, splotched with chunks of bug, neat Anchor Woman hair, red blouse to soften the chestnut tones in that soft touchable hair, simple brown cashmere skirt.<\/p>\n

\u201cDan got you to paint him for me, not Ida, I don\u2019t want it. It can\u2019t hang in the house, there\u2019s Jay. The painting of me was for Dan. One of his jokes. \u2018We\u2019ll hang them side by side when we\u2019re married,\u2019 he said. \u2018The Unholy family. Madonna, child and Dad the devil, invisible except in the record of his skill.\u2019 He gets like that when he drinks. Some wild streak in him. Thanks for being quiet through this, so far. I have a way to go. I\u2019ll listen to anything afterward. As long as you want, my daybook is clear. Do you mind if I smoke.\u201d It\u2019s not a question. She opens the cigarette case in her lap, sighs, closes it again.<\/p>\n

\u201cCigarettes later,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m not marrying him. It\u2019s crazy. He\u2019s crazy. He was very affected by your leaving Ida. He thinks she wasn\u2019t much of a mother because she blames you. I don\u2019t see how that could matter after she remarried.\u201d She touches a hand to the back of her neat hair. \u201cBut Ida and I are different. I\u2019m embarrassed to tell you what shouldn\u2019t be embarrassing. Dan and I never slept together, never necked. Nothing. He wants to do it right, for my sake. Wally, this isn\u2019t embarrassing though it shouldn\u2019t be.\u201d She hurriedly gets out a cigarette and lights it with the Zippo she had underneath. \u201cHe could have had me the first time we talked, outside one of Ida\u2019s parties on that ugly patio full of cactus because nothing else can stand the sun.\u201d She closes her eyes. \u201cDon\u2019t let me digress into landscaping, please God.\u201d Opens them. \u201cThere\u2019s something anti about him, anti-anti even. He doesn\u2019t believe anything so has to try it all. You do understand he\u2019d be a perfect fling for a woman who spends her life in a humdrum high-pressure office job? I may have a fling or two, when pressures,\u201d she waves a hand, \u201cpress. Jay always suspects, it\u2019s his way of understanding. Don\u2019t let me digress into my marriage. Jay has his own resources. But Dan would tear my life apart. Fine with me, for a month or six. But he wouldn\u2019t be Dan if he left it at that. So,\u201d she inhales. \u201cHe\u2019s safe, from me. Now you talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see the problem,\u201d I say. \u201cThis is a lot of confession for no sins.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is. Be calm, it\u2019s not serious. He\u2019s coming home. He\u2019s wounded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could?\u201d I squeeze my eyes shut. \u201cWhat\u2019s not serious mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the shoulder, it shouldn\u2019t have happened. His vest malfunctioned, or no, that\u2019s too big and mechanical a word for a vest. Some defect, otherwise he\u2019d be fine. The vest took most of the damage. He\u2019s keeping it as a souvenir. He laughs about it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou talked to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe called me. A very sympathetic doctor called first. My number was the only one Dan would give them. Wa-a-a-a-ally.\u201d Not for the first time, I think irrelevantly that my name makes a perfect wail of sorrow. \u201cThey thought he was dying!\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m on my feet, walking around the room. The beautiful haze the sun makes on smog in summer hangs over Philly. Like a Sisley without those floods he loved to paint. \u201cHe\u2019s not dying?\u201d I say, staring at black smudge from oil refineries, sole survivors of Philly\u2019s Industrial Counter-Revolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s perfect. The doctor took a lot of time explaining, overnighted me X-rays, they\u2019re on the desk for you. The bullet, bullets, two he thinks, nicked an artery, he got immediate emergency help, medivacuated out, I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s the word. A week in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA week, and nobody told us? There\u2019s regulations, they\u2019d call his parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was out of danger inside ten hours. They didn\u2019t call me till then. I don\u2019t know how he managed that or them not calling you, but he manages what he wants. He doesn\u2019t want me to tell you now. He\u2019ll deal with you and Ida himself he says. I\u2019m breaking a solemn promise. Twice. You in the morning. Then Ida and more confessions. What a day, right? What a day of days.\u201d<\/p>\n

I hold up X-rays to look at black bones and cloudy organs. She stands beside me.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could he get shot in a courtroom?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe got tired defending and accusing them, he said. They were shut off in unknowable lives. He somehow got to drive a Humvee. He says one time, that\u2019s not probable says the doctor, he\u2019s protecting people who let him do it. The army\u2019s furious at him. He\u2019s all they have over there, Dan says, who knows anything about law \u2013 military, civilian or moral. They threatened to court martial him, but backed down when he said he\u2019d defend himself. That\u2019s almost certainly one of his jokes.\u201d She laughs phlegmily. She gets several tissues from a box on her desk, hands a handful to me. We\u2019re more snotty than teary. We blow noses together sociably, sad and relieved. I cry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWa-a-a-a-ally,\u201d she wails. \u201cHe\u2019s coming home to marry me. He says if I won\u2019t he\u2019ll go back and do it again!\u201d<\/p>\n

I sit her down, I hold her tight. The bitch boss of Philly Folks weeps in my arms. \u201cHe\u2019ll wreck my life and his \u2013 am I crazy? Can he boss me around? NO!\u201d she shouts. \u201cDamn it all, it\u2019s not love. Not like Jay. But I do need to not be alone with him. He\u2019ll make me do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

She goes in her private bathroom and comes out, face washed clean of makeup. Looks younger, scared and determined. \u201cThis is weak of me, but please? Talk to Ida. I need to make myself presentable enough to walk through the office and go get drunk. The door in the corner\u2019s my private elevator, nonstop to an exit on a side street. I can\u2019t have us walk out together. You\u2019re a mess too. Congratulations, after this everyone at the magazine will be convinced we\u2019re lovers. Before you go.\u201d She pulls her hair back into a bun. \u201cThe January issue, always a dead loss. Everybody got everything they didn\u2019t want for Christmas and is sick of spending money. Do the cover. Check with Stu on the story, it\u2019ll be one more idea whose time has yet to come \u2013 Plastic Surgery for Your Pet, Yes or No? <\/i>You might as well get something for losing your reputation for integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

We hug, like worried parents. I keep thinking Danny\u2019s coming home, changed somehow, obviously the same pain in the ass. It feels funny realizing how much I love him.<\/p>\n

Ida knew without me. \u201cDaniel called me right after Jennifer. I knew about her before she did. I\u2019m the one who suggested he propose. I said if she turned him down he\u2019d know she wasn\u2019t serious. Not a nice thing to do to Jennifer, who is a friend, but I couldn\u2019t have Daniel wind up one of the dead bodies she tosses out of her life every half year or so.\u201d Ida and I cry together too, me as usual admiring her good sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t hard to do. I\u2019m not talking too much am I?\u201d says Danny, who can\u2019t stop talking. \u201cI go to a line company lieutenant. \u2018You want to go because you\u2019re defending us?\u2019 he says. \u2018I want to go because I\u2019m prosecuting you,\u2019 I say. \u2018I need to know why<\/i> things get done. How<\/i> is all they care about in court.\u2019 Then I got shot, very minor, scared me half to death. I\u2019m perfect.\u201d Danny lifts a fork in the air, turns his arm around a few times, lunges at me across the table. \u201cTouch\u00e9!\u201d We\u2019re at his welcome home dinner. No sign he\u2019s changed. That\u2019s how much he\u2019s changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow you know French you can take those fencing lessons,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019d come in handy,\u201d he says, dropping the fork, chewing and swallowing. \u201cIraq is a war of the Knights of Old versus the Minute Men of 1776. Remember armor got so heavy knights couldn\u2019t move if they fell off the horse? That\u2019s our Bradleys, all armor up front, perfect for leading attacks against enemy troops. No armor on the side, you could shoot through it with a target pistol. I exaggerate, but easy to pierce. Humvees are worse. Useless for riding past un-uniformed illegal enemy combatants like the Minute Men who\u2019d wind up in Guantanamo if they got captured today. Our troops weld steel plates to the sides of their vehicles, much safer, but top speed\u2019s cut in half. A kid on a roof with a Kalashnikov gets three or four shots as you go by. Not good when the job is patrol streets using electronic detectors to identify hidden IEDs, explode the device, question witnesses, hand out chocolates and move on. Meanwhile occasionally getting sniped at. When we take fire, regulations require that the convoy stop, dismount, fire only if enemy fire continues, proceed to search out, identify, capture or kill the assailant or assailants and hand out chocolates. That\u2019s what they did, and laughed about it the first couple times. Then a couple guys get killed, or SFU, seriously fucked up. I am talking too much. But somebody asked, didn\u2019t they? How it happened?\u201d He drinks, he scrunches in his chair. \u201cI\u2019m at the wheel of a Humvee, RRR=RRR, helmet down to my shoulders, vest up to my ears, gas pedal glued to the metal. A chicken, dog, kid, mother, goat, anything gets in the way, my orders from my comrades in arms squeezed down heavily armed behind me are \u2013 don\u2019t swerve, don\u2019t stop, don\u2019t look, run it over. A noise is heard. Might be a shot, who can tell over the screaming engine. Our completely exposed scared shitless who wouldn\u2019t be machine gunner fires a dozen rounds on the fly. Everybody joins in, shooting blind everywhere. Mostly they miss, panic doesn\u2019t help your aim and they aren\u2019t aiming. They get a dog or chicken. If they hit a mother or baby, I prosecute. Enlisted men only, officers, old joke, are innocent by act of Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dor\u00e9 squeezes my hand. I shouldn\u2019t have brought her, but wanted protection against Ida and Jen, and Jay, who must have a spy at Philly Folks and watches me as close as Danny. I\u2019m surprised and not delighted to discover I call Jennifer Jen in my head now.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re right to laugh,\u201d Danny says pointing a fork at me. \u201cSee why soldiers home from the war don\u2019t tell stories? The truth is, war isn\u2019t hell. War is shit, that\u2019s all. Unremitting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou didn\u2019t say how you got shot,\u201d Dor\u00e9 says. Everybody looks at her. \u201cSorry if I\u2019m supposed to be seen and not heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy be sorry, nobody here including me has ever forgiven anybody anything,\u201d Danny says. \u201cTraditionally, lawyers tell stories about clients, never themselves. But since it\u2019s you,\u201d he raises his glass in a toast. \u201cI\u2019ll make an exception. I\u2019m in the Humvee, metal plates everywhere. There\u2019s a bong from an IED, like being tied to the clapper of a bell when it\u2019s rung. Vibration goes up through your nose to the back of your skull. I stop, the sergeant and his translator go parlay with the neighbors. \u2018Nothing serious,\u2019 somebody behind me says, and I turn to say, \u2018Ha fucking ha,\u2019 and get hit, and rub my shoulder, it\u2019s like getting punched, and stand up, dazed, rubbing blood in my eyes, panicked, so much blood I think my eyes are hit, and flies, there\u2019re unbelievable flies everywhere, are all over my face, I can\u2019t see, everybody\u2019s shooting blind around me, it was probably a rooftop kid long gone, the copter\u2019s there in seconds, good thing, and good thing the guys\u2019re already pressure pointing my shoulder, I\u2019m stitched in a minute, in the air screaming, \u2018My eyes! My eyes!\u2019 The medic\u2019s a typical ignorant eighteen year old small town Midwest kid who thinks he\u2019s seen everything, with this difference, he\u2019s a medic in Iraq, he has seen everything, and says in his bored pissed teenage way, \u2018It\u2019s flies, we can\u2019t brush them off we might scratch your retinas, grab handfuls and squeeze.\u2019 So I can\u2019t tell you what it looked like, no mirror happened to be handy, but it feels like crushing handfuls of little wild blueberries, or,\u201d he looks at his plate. Ida\u2019s dinners are superb in their simplicity. Tonight it\u2019s rare racks of baby lamb, Yukon gold potatoes and fresh organic petit pois. Danny grabs up peas in both hands, holds them to his eyes and makes fists. Green goo runs out through his knuckles and thumb. Somebody gags.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m laughing, this is the craziest feeling I ever had, flies in my eyes, crawling and dying and buzzing and.\u201d He drinks again. \u201cGood wine.\u201d Somebody slams his fork down, it\u2019s Jay.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d Danny says. \u201cI left out the best part of any IED attack. The sergeant\u2019s parlay took longer than usual. We got hit midway between a police barricade and an Iraqi army checkpoint. First one citizen comes up with his kids, then another. They say cops helped the army set the IED, they were afraid to warn us, they\u2019re heartbroken, they love American soldiers, troops hand out chocolate and we get ready to roll on. Bang, I\u2019m shot. It\u2019s not certain they kept talking to give my sniper time to aim \u2013 but that\u2019s the way to bet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have any evidence,\u201d says Jay, a major contributor to Republican candidates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew you\u2019d get my point, Dad Jay. It could be lies. Did they set the IED and think we\u2019d never suspect a squealer? Did they want us to attack the cops and army so they\u2019d get left in peace? Did the kids just want chocolates? And I know you get my other point, which is \u2013 we can\u2019t trust anybody, they hate us. And they\u2019ve won the battle for our hearts and minds, we hate them back. Now Wally my Dad has to show us his thigh drawing.\u201d<\/p>\n

I keep a small sketchbook on my lap at dinners and draw unobtrusively. Everybody knows, but it\u2019s bad manners to notice, like making fun of a stutterer. Bad manners, of course, run in the family. I tear out the page and pass it to Danny. Most of the book is unposed awkward croquis of Dor\u00e9 nude.<\/p>\n

Danny shows the drawing to the table. A laughing soldier, fists at his eyes, flies leak through his fingers, or fall crushed, or fly. He says, \u201cPut some color in, I\u2019ll send it to Iraq, guys\u2019ll love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I dip the center of my napkin, not the hard edge, in my wine glass and get a pale blotty wash of red around clenched fingers. \u201cGimme your lipstick,\u201d I say to Dor\u00e9. She tells me it\u2019s brown not red. I say why else would I want it, and use the prong of my fork to lift crumbs of dried blood color I smear with my thumb. Danny reaches across the table and grabs. \u201cOne minute to scan and e-mail this, and you go down in military art history. Then as payment I tell you a happy story.\u201d<\/p>\n

We sit around the table waiting for Danny, thinking here\u2019s a kid less than half our age older than any of us. I understand, it makes me shudder, why he wanted his war. He comes back with the drawing, he forged my signature for me, and, he needs his joke, included my e-mail address so I\u2019d get lots of helpful critiques. Which I do. They\u2019re funny, and sad.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow a happy story,\u201d Danny says. He smiles at me. \u201cRita saved from gang rape.\u201d A general rustling of revulsion among the guests. He knows I\u2019m enjoying this. \u201cI really am talking too much. But no clinical details, I promise. I wouldn\u2019t be telling this at all if it weren\u2019t for this twenty year old Vosne-Roman\u00e9e Rob my Dad opened specially for me,\u201d he takes a good drink. \u201cAnd if my Wally Dad,\u201d he smiles at me like he means it, \u201cwasn\u2019t enjoying his son being family drunk after all those years of sober bored boring dinners since he quit. Rita is tech sergeant in a support company that wouldn\u2019t see combat in a traditional war, and gets mortared two or three times a week in Iraq. It keeps them jumpy. She\u2019s cooling off in the outdoor shower, and six of our heroic men in uniform, all races and ethnic groups represented, decide as a joke to lift the shower shed, think of an oldfashioned telephone booth made of sheet steel, right over her head. Ha ha, lots of laughs, Rita too, possibly. Then somebody grabs her, another somebody, another \u2013 I\u2019m skipping this part because the details get ugly, rape is definitely attempted and nothing happens. Nothing, DNA tests are never wrong. Nothing happens because Ramirez, little guy, shithead, I talked to him, he knows he\u2019s right when he\u2019s right and can\u2019t see anybody get wronged, so he charges at the six soldiers. Probably because they\u2019re ashamed of themselves, they know Rita, that\u2019s why they played their joke, or because Ramirez is such a pug, like a featherweight, skinny, hard, long-armed, he\u2019d use his arms like flails, throwing his whole body behind them \u2013 they run. Rita faints. Ramirez revives her, helps get her clothes on, insists they go to the company commander otherwise it could happen again. The company commander knows what to do. Arrest the guys, make them give DNA samples, have Rita do a rape test swab for evidence. The guys are innocent of accomplished rape. But Rita shows sex. She says no, not for months. They say there must\u2019ve been a seventh guy. No, she says, no, no, nobody. On the off-chance they test Ramirez. It\u2019s him. He\u2019s alone with a naked woman, she\u2019s out, she\u2019ll never know the difference, he hasn\u2019t had any for weeks. It was probably over in a couple minutes. Now the military is doubly involved. Protecting female personnel from sexual assault is priority number one in today\u2019s army. Ramirez faces twenty-five years. I\u2019m legal officer, no vote in the verdict, but essentially judge\u2019s power during the trial. Regulations require this not be an all male court. But they\u2019re all soldiers. \u2018Ramirez seems to have been entrapped by circumstances and his own heroism,\u2019 the ranking officer says to me privately. \u2018You know what Rita\u2019s life would be like if they succeeded? Sex, sex, sex, forced or consensual, with the whole company, day after day. She\u2019d have to take it or resign. Ramirez saved her military career. Do something.\u2019 The ranking officer\u2019s a woman.\u201d Dramatic pause. Danny finishes his wine and looks for the bottle. Dor\u00e9 passes it to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll get to it,\u201d Dan pours himself a full glass. \u201cTo the future,\u201d he says, raising his glass. \u201cWally my Dad\u2019s former traditional toast.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the future,\u201d I say, raising my glass. \u201cIf you don\u2019t mind me toasting with water. It\u2019s supposed to be bad luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no luck. There is no fate. We make our lives. Like Rita did. She\u2019s bewildered more than angry. How could Ramirez do it? He was so nice helping her get dressed. Now she hates him. But won\u2019t press charges. He can\u2019t get twenty-five years for saving her, no matter what he did after. She hates him is enough. But it\u2019s the military pressing charges. Regulations say Rita \u2013 for her own protection against intimidation after the crime \u2013 cannot drop charges. She cries. I say, you\u2019d have to say it was consensual. She calls me lots of names and says, \u2018If that\u2019s the only way. Shit, you men.\u201d Uncomfortable rustling at the table. \u201cI tell Ramirez, this is the funny part, we got a consensual defense. He won\u2019t do it. He\u2019s guilty, he never did anything like this in his life, he\u2019s a religious man, he\u2019ll take his punishment. Twenty-five years, I say. Nothing can shake him. I go back to Rita, who is, this is the sentimental part, touched to the heart. Her words exactly. Touched \u2013 to the heart. \u2018Ask him if he\u2019ll marry me. Won\u2019t that get him off?\u2019 she says. I say, sure, but marrying somebody you don\u2019t love? She says, \u2018I married two guys I loved, it was horrible. No sex though, specially with him. Tell him this is to get him out of jail. He\u2019s a brave and wonderful man. If he wants to live with me I\u2019ll make him happy. No sex. Imagine our kids asking, \u201cMommy, how\u2019d you meet daddy?\u201d And me, \u201cOh it was so romantic, I\u2019m bloody and bruised all over my face, spread-eagle naked on the ground, how could he resist? So gentle I never felt a thing.\u201d\u2019 Ramirez thinks no sex is a just punishment for his crime, though maybe they\u2019ll come to love each other. He proposes in court in hand manacles, Rita accepts with a kiss. Their first. Case closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through all that, quietly, deliberately refusing to notice Jay noticing us, Jen\u2019s mumbling helplessly to get her out of marrying Danny.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell him you slept with me long ago,\u201d I mutter. \u201cMake it before he was born. Say you don\u2019t want to think of me while you\u2019re in his arms. He won\u2019t tell anybody, and he\u2019ll leave you alone. Trust me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNonsense. Think if Jay hears that. Besides, it\u2019s crazy. You\u2019d lose a son.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a while. He\u2019s twenty-six. In five years he\u2019ll be married with a two year old and another kid coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jen sobs once, loudly. She lowers her head almost to her plate to say, \u201cYou mean he\u2019ll forget me no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re right to cry,\u201d says Danny. \u201cThere\u2019s sadness to come. Militarily, case dismissed means rape never happened, and there\u2019s a press release about Rita\u2019s rescue. It\u2019s too tawdry to be cute, but makes it to their hometown papers. Turns out, they\u2019re both already married. Will we have to try a double bigamy case?\u201d He drinks again. It\u2019s like I\u2019m watching myself, thirty years ago, telling a story I want to make everybody hate.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s the happy ending part. Ramirez and Rita never got married, just moved in together. Rita thought the promise worked, enough was enough. They do though, the army\u2019s quick and thorough about this, get divorced from their former partners, who do not want them back. Then Rita changes her mind. Ramirez kept texting her love letters, sometimes sitting right next to her. He\u2019s a sweet guy. What\u2019s one mistake? I don\u2019t know if they got married but they\u2019re naming their first child, who\u2019s on the way, because it\u2019s a girl, Daniella.\u201d<\/p>\n

I look around the table trying to see what everybody thinks of the story. Resentful and embarrassed at their own revolted urge to giggle is my guess, but I could be wrong.<\/p>\n

Dor\u00e9 says, \u201cThat\u2019s crazy. And beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I need a smoke,\u201d says Danny. \u201cAnybody else? I hate to sin alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to quit,\u201d says Jen.<\/p>\n

Without a look of surprise, a pause, a smile or a frown, Danny says, \u201cThen I\u2019ll need this for company,\u201d and picks up a full bottle of wine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI smoke,\u201d says Dor\u00e9. \u201cBut was afraid to bring mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBring a glass,\u201d says Danny, and they walk out the French doors to the cactus patio. Thirty-five minutes of Ducados stink. Jen times them. I admit I do too.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee what\u2019s happening,\u201d Jen says. \u201cI can\u2019t, with Jay sitting here. Please.\u201d<\/p>\n

I pick up a bottle as if to fill her glass, but as an afterthought say, \u201cWe have an early day tomorrow, I\u2019ll see if Dor\u00e9.\u201d I walk outside to lean against the faux marble balustrade and say loudly, \u201cDon\u2019t see them.\u201d They\u2019re standing next to me arguing. Dor\u00e9\u2019s saying there is fate, it\u2019s the same as luck, look at her silly name. He says, \u201cFate is luck or vice versa, who cares? Don\u2019t believe in them is what I say. Live like you make your own. Otherwise you lose the fun.\u201d I put the bottle on the balustrade. I call back over my shoulder, \u201cThey must\u2019ve taken my car. Dor\u00e9 has the keys.\u201d I put my keys next to the bottle. Danny blows me a kiss. Dor\u00e9 flips a finger. \u201cI\u2019ll need a ride, Jay, when you and Jen are ready.\u201d I say walking back inside, reminding myself I love Danny not Dor\u00e9, no matter how necessary I let her get. So this is the happy ending part. Jen thinks I saved her marriage. Ida thinks I saved Danny from Jen. Jay and Rob think they had an object lesson in not fooling with twentysomethings no matter how tempting. Dor\u00e9 and Danny are the only possible problem.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou are a bastard with women, everybody warned me. \u201cYou knew I went out there with him to make you jealous because you and I had to go forward or stop. That wine bottle was your answer with car keys as a kicker. Like \u2013 \u2018Yes, children, live your young lives, I won\u2019t interfere with your happiness. There was never anything between Dor\u00e9 and me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnconsciously maybe,\u201d I say, and don\u2019t say, \u201cMy unconscious has always been right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDan believes, and it\u2019s in your interest to back me up, you and I never went to bed, you took me to dinner as a reward for being studio assistant because I\u2019m a committed radical anxious to see bourgeoisie having their corrupt fun. He\u2019s a boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years older than you,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo decades behind in maturity. All he knows how to do is make law and fuck. He thinks he\u2019s in love with me, so as a favor to you I said if he plays war games again I\u2019ll leave him, and he swore not to. He won\u2019t. He\u2019s such a boy you can tell whenever he\u2019s lying. Meantime, I\u2019m doing the son after the father, weird for me, and not something to tell the grandchildren. When he gets back we\u2019ll break up. I\u2019m doing this on the phone because I didn\u2019t want to get emotional and all I got was pissed. You meant well. You always do mean well. You\u2019re thoughtful. You\u2019re real sweet for being such a bastard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUm,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cleared out my stuff,\u201d she says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t much, we never got past three overnights a week. Have a nice rest of your life. See, bastard? You got me crying.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI was afraid, even though there wasn\u2019t any romance with you two.\u201d Danny pauses a second, it\u2019s the shade of a ghost of a question. Last sitting. He managed to get the hat on different, the painting\u2019s a mess. A senator turns from the whiteboard chart behind him, closes one eye, claps his hands as if in prayer, and nods. \u201cDor\u00e9 and I would look like some revenge or Oedipal thing. I fucked up my baseball hat to look stupid enough to say this, and still can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTurn it sidewise,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

He turns it backwards. He is my son. \u201cI do love you, Dad Wally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love you too,\u201d I say. \u201cYou should lend me your hat, if we\u2019re both being stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have three months medical leave, we\u2019re going to Paris. Away from family stuff. Ida says she knows for a fact there was nothing between you and Dor\u00e9, but we feel funny, you know? Dor\u00e9 says, don\u2019t plan, we\u2019re young, live as if in five years we\u2019ll be married to somebody else each with a two year old kid and another one on the way. She says that\u2019s what you tell the ones you break up with. Which is wise, and makes them laugh, and doesn\u2019t help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do the best I can,\u201d I say. C-SPAN pans the empty seats of the empty senate. Danny\u2019s face is wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cDor\u00e9 made me promise no more combat driving. I didn\u2019t tell her the only advice you ever gave me about relationships, \u2018Never do everything you promise.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going back,\u201d I say.\u00a0 Next senator, overdyed black hair, tan, fit, fat and massaged \u2013 prime steer in a suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably not,\u201d he says. He pulls his hat around so the peak\u2019s in front. \u201c Possibly not. I\u2019ll lie till I decide to Dor\u00e9 and Ida and Jen. Women worry.\u201d<\/p>\n

I hate the hat. It won\u2019t paint. My consciousness is unundistracted by the prime steer, who listlessly fingerpoints. I step back to distract me by predicting my life: I\u2019ll lose Danny to his war, five years at least to go, now everybody\u2019s against it but politicians. Danny\u2019s too smart not to find out about Dor\u00e9 and me, so war or no war, whether they\u2019re married or not, I lose him forever. I change the tilt of the peak. Or he never finds out, he\u2019s SFU. Made more of a mess, so, mess it up worst. Or he\u2019s dead. Red, not red enough, green some shadow in. Dor\u00e9, it took me a week to realize why I won\u2019t finish her and Gazonga. She\u2019s one more woman I didn\u2019t know I loved, and there she goes forever. Got it, what a hat! Now, \u201cLift your chin,\u201d I say so he\u2019ll drop it. Probably my last real affair, women young enough to fall in love with me lose patience anymore. It\u2019s not the chin. I\u2019ll go on being one more man dumped out of one more woman\u2019s life, painting portraits that capture the real her \u2013 after sex, before the other her I\u2019ll never see. The prime steer drinks triumphantly water.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen worry? Men worry,\u201d I say. It\u2019s not the chin that\u2019s wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever you. Never me.\u201d He throws the hat across the studio. \u201cYou taught me that, remember? You said,\u201d<\/p>\n

Make him close his fucking mouth. No, open it! \u201cI hate to get my truths preached back at me. They sound like horseshit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou said, we all survive.\u201d It\u2019s the lip. Swollen. Get a thumb on it, more red, more \u2013 what? \u201cTill we don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, bruise purple, she bites in bed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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