Percival Everett by Virgil Russell by Percival Everett Read Free Book Online Page B

point you can well imagine that I have every intention of imagining that I will take this camera. It is beautiful. It is history. In the story I press the shutter and feel almost moved by the tight, quiet click, not even the cracking of a twig, but what it might sound like if a baby could snap his fingers. And here I could go on with my orgiastic discovery of lens after lens, of only the large-format Schneiders, Angulon, Xenotar, Xenar, Symmar, Rubinar, Isconar. But the Leica that I have myself holding, that 1963 beauty, this is what I will have myself take, but why does fat Douglas have this, any of this, on this big table in his scary room?
    There’s more in the storeroom. My father was a photographer. He was good friends with Ansel Adams. What do you call them? Contemporaries. They were in f/64 together.
    Your father and Ansel Adams. They were friends.
    Good old Uncle Ansel. Take the camera. I don’t use any of this stuff. I just have it. Douglas is always saying he’s going to sell it on eBay, but it ain’t happened yet and it won’t. Take it.
    And what do you want in return?
    Consider it your fee.
    This is worth a lot more than my fee.
    Don’t worry about that. Come back and take my blood pressure and listen to my internal noises and my heart and shit and you can have another lens, a telephoto even, to go with that baby.
    In other words.
    You’ll be my doctor.
    Donald lies there like the lump of adipose tissue he is. He smiles, nods his big head, his greasy hair, perhaps fearing to move. I do not will not employ modal verbs. Of course this is a lie.
    You must be my doctor, Donald said.
    Where is Meg Caro?
    She came walking back up my drive toward my studio. My wife was at home this time, in the yard separating irises. The rhizomes were in a pile at the border of rocks that surrounded that part of the garden. The sun was brilliant and boring. However, I was not there but at the market buying low-fat coconut milk for a curry I had planned for the evening. It was the afternoon and she stood so that her shadow fell over Sylvia. Sylvia pushed back her wide-brimmed and weathered straw hat and looked up. The young woman wanted to know if I was around and Sylvia told her that she was my wife. She then asked why she wanted me. Meg Caro told her that she had visited a few days ago, that she and I had talked about her possibly being my apprentice or, rather, intern. Sylvia stood and looked back at my empty studio, told her again that I was out, asked just when she had paid this visit. Sylvia wondered why I had not mentioned this young woman. Intern. Sylvia repeated the word and found she disliked the taste of it. Meg Caro told her that she had dropped by unannounced and that we had had tea and talked and that she had asked to work with me. Sylvia asked for my response. Oh, he said no and I thought I might try to change his mind And how might you hope to change his mind? Sylvia was angry, though she did not know why, perhaps feeling proprietary, but not likely. She did feel territorial and exhibited it by standing to her full height, some four inches taller than the young woman in front of her. If he said no, she wanted to know, why are you back? I’m back to ask again because there was something I didn’t tell him. And what is that? I need to tell him. Sylvia reminded the woman that she was my wife. He’s going to tell me anyway. I’ll wait and tell him. Now Sylvia was angrier. You may come back and tell him, but you may not wait. When will he be back? Just then I rolled up the driveway. I felt some alarm when I saw Meg Caro standing there and a great deal of alarm when I saw my wife and then her expression. We had a conversation through the windshield of the car, she asking why I had not told her about this young woman and I saying that I had not deemed it terribly important and then she said that I had obviously found it important enough to not mention and she had the last word, until I was out of the car, walking