Thumbsucker by Walter Kirn Read Free Book Online Page A

the Knox box, they curved and tapered perfectly, ending in bladelike crimson nails that I could see my reflection in.
    I knew it then: the winning essay would focus on hands and fingers. It was obvious.
    “You’ve got it,” Audrey said. “You’ve solved the puzzle.”
    “It’s just a thought. It’s stupid.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “When are we going to find a pharmacy?”
    “As soon as you stop stalling me. Let’s hear it.”
    Grit from the sand truck rained against the windshield.I pictured Audrey sitting on a hotel bed as Johnson splashed on cologne in his beach house, preparing for their evening out. A towel was tied loosely around his narrow waist and even the tops of his feet were darkly tanned.
    “Fine. No cough syrup,” Audrey said.
    I stiffened. Everything inside me reversed itself.
    “I think you ought to write about your hands.”
    “What about them?” Her voice was low, excited.
    “You have to promise me that if you win you won’t forget who helped you.”
    “Promise,” she said.
    A minute later, I’d told her everything, betraying myself for a mild narcotic. Idiot.

    We wrote the essay at lunch in a department store. The cheese in my French onion soup disintegrated as Audrey took my dictation. I was flying. I’d snuck some cough syrup into my Pepsi and suddenly I felt lyrical, fearless, my brain a lubricated spool of words. I described Audrey’s hands folding laundry, forming piecrusts, stroking hospital patients. They turned pages in hymnals and helped deliver newborns.
    “Let’s change hymnals to novels,” Audrey said. “We don’t go to church.”
    “Write ‘hymnals.’ Take my word for it. A little religion makes a person sound modest.”
    The waitress whisked away my untouched soup and set down two Reuben sandwich platters. Audrey laid her pen aside and drew out the frilly toothpick from a sandwich half. Our table was on a balcony overlooking the perfume floor, and I could smell lilies, cinnamon, and vanilla mixed with the salty odor of corned beef.
    “It doesn’t sound like me,” said Audrey. “That’s the whole point, the whole dream: that he’d like
me
.”
    “Johnson’s not judging the contest. Knox is.”
    “Good point. I forget that. I’ll owe you one for this.”
    “No problem,” I said.
    “I mean it. This must feel strange, helping your mother refine her image.”
    “It does.”
    Audrey picked up a sandwich half and nibbled at the overhanging sauerkraut. According to my changed idea of things, helping her with her entry was in my interest, regardless of the outcome. If she lost, as was likely, she’d know I’d stood behind her. And in the event she won, which seemed impossible, she’d know that the credit belonged to me, her son, and not to herself for being smart or special. She’d feel humbled, grateful, in my debt.
    “The point,” I said, “is to show your hands in action and not just describe their appearance. That’s our gimmick.”
    “I still like my scar idea. This seems conventional.”
    “Trust me on this. I’ve really thought about it.”
    Audrey wedged a nail between her teeth and picked out a bit of sauerkraut and nodded. She pushed away her plate and got the pen.

    After Audrey submitted her essay, I started seeing Don Johnson everywhere: profiled in magazines, posing on billboards, pitching aftershave on TV commercials. I’d always assumed, without giving it much thought, that somewhere in America there was a border between famous people like him and people like us, but I wasn’t sure how far away it lay or how easy it was to cross. If Audrey made it to the other side, there was no telling when she’d come back, if ever. The only person I knew who’d made the trip was a gorgeous blonde high school senior named Jeanna Meade who’d left for Los Angeles three years ago, appeared in a soap opera for a couple of months, and never been heard from since. Her parents had closed their motel and gone to find her and they had vanished,