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John Skoyles
Art and Letters

John asks Jen’s help in introducing Sheila to the world of arts and letters. So Jen has invited Nick, an actor, and Bree, his novelist wife. John hopes Sheila will be enchanted. He wants, he hopes. He tries everything to lure her into his life, an effort based on a wish, a wish blown into the atmosphere like a dandelion whose seeds are this cast of characters. 

Jen and Frank are in their sixties. Jen writes articles for travel magazines based on research. She never leaves her apartment. When she was a sophomore at Sarah Lawrence, she published two poems in The Atlantic. Because the faculty stood in awe of her, her work died of over encouragement. When she failed to publish anything more by graduation, she stopped writing. Her competitive classmates referred to her as “the late poet, Jennifer Tottle.” 

Frank is preparing for a show with a major gallery. John has used his images of a squid, a weir and skeletal ships on the covers of his books. Frank was dropped by his former dealer after two powerful reviewers, in simultaneous critiques, called his paintings “tentative.” These critical dismissals and lack of sales sent Frank into an immobilizing depression that lasted a year, out of which he emerged in full agreement with his critics. He decided his work was tentative, and he entered his studio with a burst of energy so imaginative that it alarmed Jen. When she saw the skinned faces of dead cats sewn to denim nailed on his studio walls, and mice bones stacked into catacomb-like labyrinths, she convinced him to sign into Creedmoor Psychiatric, citing Lou Reed’s successful recovery there. While institutionalized, Frank discovered Karl Shapiro’s poetry and learned that when Shapiro’s work was criticized as too “Jewish,” he named his next book, Poems of a Jew. And when demeaned for “bourgeois” subject matter, called his new collection, The Bourgeois Poet. Frank took courage from Shapiro’s steadfastness and returned to his former cautious ways supported by his therapist’s advice that when he’s criticized for something, he should emphasize it, because it is really him. So now Frank has taken the bold step of being tentative.

Jen and Frank live on Riverside Drive in a columned, pre-war building. Sheila stares into the lobby at the uniformed doorman standing

at a podium as if about to give a press conference. But John takes her past the main entrance to the side street. They walk through an alley and down a flight of stairs. They duck under a beam and enter a maze of recycling bins, hand-trucks, pails, shovels, brooms and mops. Beyond a wall of gas and electric meters, they arrive at the apartment. Dark and illegal, it was converted from an ancient fallout shelter by the super to make extra cash. There is no nameplate, buzzer or knocker and John pushes at the slightly open door and calls hello. Frank appears looking aggravated and they hear Jen yelling, “You don’t know who I am!” 

John hands him a bottle of wine and they enter the kitchen, an alcove where Jen hovers over two hot plates. Jen is a stout, freckled woman with a double chin that disappears when she smiles, and she is grinning now to make light of the spat she knows they’ve overheard. 

“I was telling Frank I grew up with a Viking range and a Jenn Air, and look at this mess.” She points to the hot plates on which pots have boiled over, dripping their contents down the side of a brand new kitchen block. Smoothing her hands on the front of her apron, she says with a hearty smile, “This is not who I am!” and shakes her head negatively.

Nick gets up from a folding chair. “I haven’t seen you since Christ left Chicago,” he says to John. “Not since you stopped drinking.” He’s dressed in black, with a few days growth of beard, hair mussed and moussed perfectly. His belt is six notches too long and hangs about his fly like a long tongue or soft scabbard. Nick and John went to high school together in Astoria. Nick was such a skinny and pale boy, he was nicknamed “Lint.” He’s married to Bree, a thin red head in jeans, red high-top Converse sneakers and a white t-shirt with holes at the collarbone. She’s vaping and holds a glass of pink liquid. Always curious about cocktails, especially one this shade, John asks what she’s drinking. She says, “Straight vodka.” She has only one reason for noting the modifier: to continue her image. John feels stupid when he realizes the glass itself is pink, not the contents. And he’s put off by her reply because you can’t impress an alcoholic with an adjective.

Sheila and John share a glass of club soda in the chilly basement that has floorboards rather than a floor. Braided rugs cover wooden planks that buckle with each step. Frank’s paintings of apples in plastic wrap on green trays cover the dim walls. Short, quick bursts of a referee’s whistle: “Phwee! Phwee!” and an expletive, can be heard from the apartment above. Frank says the super has just become coach of his daughter’s basketball team. He thinks it’s funny to practice at home. As Frank reports this, we hear it again, 

“Phwee!” And for the rest of the evening, blasts and laughter interrupt them and sometimes they can also make out the words, “Phwee! Do the dishes!” 

Nick asks Sheila what she’s been up to, and she says she just got back from the Grand Canyon. She hiked 17 miles to the bottom with her closest friend. “I never feel more insignificant than at the base of that magnificent gorge,” she says. She has done it eight times. 

“I don’t have to go to such depths to feel inconsequential,” John says. His remark, meant to be jocularly self-effacing, seems to ridicule Sheila’s ego which must descend to the abyss of immateriality to be suppressed. She wrinkles her nose and squints at him, an expression he recalls from a childhood schoolyard, usually accompanied by a thrust out tongue. 

Frank is staring very closely at one of his paintings on the wall, his face an inch from the canvas, as if performing eye surgery.

Jen asks John about his ex, Ava, and John says she bought a cottage in Southampton and has taken up with a scholar named Willard who adds suffixes to many nouns. 

“He dries his hands on ‘paper toweling,’ and attends trunk shows of ‘new suiting.’” 

Bree says she always liked Ava, and associates her with the term, “shod foot.” Years back, Bree had read in the local paper that Ava had been arrested, along with other demonstrators against the nuclear station in Plymouth. When Ava felt she was being manhandled too roughly, she kicked the arresting cop and was charged with a felony: assault with a shod foot. The six of them take seats around a tree stump coffee table from West Elm, a gift, along with the kitchen block, from Frank’s new gallery. The surface is covered with copies of Art in America, The Nation and boxes of Skittles. 

John says he hopes things work out for Ava and the new guy, as they both love gardening and antiques. 

Frank backs away from his painting and says that their mutual friend, Walker, seventy, has taken up with a student who’s twenty-four.

“How many times does seventy go into twenty-four?” Nick says. 

Bree asks, “What’s for dinner?”

“Gnocchi,” Jen says, “and I hope it doesn’t stick to that fucking pot. It’s hard to control a hot plate.”

Frank opens a box of Skittles, pokes a finger into it and eats a red one.

“Frank,” Jen scolds. “before dinner?”

Frank gives her a harsh look, lifts the box to his lips and slides half the contents into his mouth. 

“We’re creatures of habit,” Sheila says. “Don’t you think we’re creatures of habit?”

John drops his cocktail napkin and, when he picks it up, he feels the cold driving through the floor. Jen is trying hard to make the evening a success and marvels, wide-eyed, over every word of conversation, willing it into fabulousness. Bree says her new novel concerns prescription drugs, and that Ritalin was named after the inventor’s wife, Marguerita, nicknamed Rita. 

“Isn’t that fascinating?” Jen says, inhaling deeply as she looks around the table, hoping others are as captivated and as breathless. 

“We’re creatures of habit,” Sheila says again. “John, don’t you think we are creatures of habit?”

“Habitually,” John says, channeling Willard. He looks at the label on his beer bottle to make sure it’s non-alcoholic.

Sheila says she loves Frank’s paintings and asks about a monstrous otherworldly doll on a bookshelf. Its paper mâché face is contorted into a toothy grimace, the open pores resemble the surface of an orange and her fabric fingers spread out as if receiving an electric shock. 

“People aren’t used to seeing such a realistic looking doll,” Frank says.

“Every time I’m here, I want to turn that face to the wall,” Nick says. 

“Everyone expresses revulsion at Agatha,” Jen says. “Our daughter made it in high school.”

“You should toss it,” Bree says. “It’s slippery on the soul.”

Jen runs to the hot plate and curses. The gnocchi has boiled into brown nubbins and Frank consoles her in the alcove. Nick suggests ordering pizza from Mama’s Too. John opens his wallet and says, “I pulled out my last fifty with an old man’s abandon.” 

Bree says. “You weren’t always such a fuck-up, Jen. Don’t worry about it.”

Jen brings another bottle of wine to the stump and says, “Thanks, Bree. You know how to make me feel better.”

John asks Nick what he’s working on and he says he’s understudying in an Arthur Miller revival in two roles. It’s his first Broadway show and he’s hoping he’ll go on. Sheila says she’s sure he will, with his looks and presence. Sheila says she knows talent even though she doesn’t have it herself and she describes her career as an acting teacher. She also says she runs every day, goes rock climbing, hiking and skiing. 

“In other words, nothing John likes to do,” Nick says.

“Let’s order,” Bree says and yawns, getting up for more straight vodka.

Jen says again, “This is not who I am.”

Sheila takes a pad from her purse and writes down topping preferences. Bree suggests sausage and pepper. Jen forcefully says she wants pepperoni. John says he likes everything and Sheila says she, too, likes everything. Jen loudly reiterates pepperoni as if declaring war, reinforced by the super’s “Phwee! Pepperoni!” 

“Fuck!” Jen says. “They hear everything.”

Sheila solves the dilemma of the toppings by suggesting fractional divisions: half of this, quarter of this and half of that. Everyone is satisfied and Sheila accompanies Nick to pick up the order.

“I don’t know why you ate those Skittles,” Jen says to Frank.

“It’s who I am,” Frank says.

John makes the mistake of asking Jen what she’s working on and she asks him why he asked that. 

“You know how much I liked that long poem about the statue coming to life.”

“I never finished it.” 

“There’s a club in Brooklyn for writers who never finish anything,” Bree says.

“I have that in common with them,” Jen says.

“What do you have in common with Sheila?” Bree asks.

“I don’t know,” John says. “We have a lot in common.”

Bree says. “You like all pizza toppings.”

Jen says, “John’s the most rational man I know. He wouldn’t be with someone who wasn’t his caliber.”

“Ava?” Bree says.

“Hey, that’s another cup of coffee. That’s another piece of pie,” Jen says. “John’s also the world’s greatest compartmentalizer. He has compartmentalized decades!” They laugh the tortured laugh of those tickled by the truth.

“Is there pie?” Frank asks.

Sheila and Nick arrive with two boxes and Jen gets plates and, as they begin to eat, the calm room is shattered by “Phwee! Bon Appetit!”

“Does he know everything you do?” Bree asks. 

“Pretty much,” Frank says, picking off coins of pepperoni and laying them on Jen’s plate. “And we know everything they do.”

Jen’s knee bounces each time she brings a slice to her lips. It stops when she returns it to her plate, and bounces again as she takes a bite, a kind of keeping time. It is as if she’s conducting an orchestra of herself, with 

only one instrument, her knee, in coordination with her mouth. There is something cheerful about it, like a one-man band but without sound.

“What about Ukraine?” Sheila asks the room, and all heads turn to see if she’s kidding.

Nick says he has become selectively apathetic and Pam agrees, saying she’s exercising indifference in international politics.

“It’s awful to see trench combat,” John says, hoping to redeem Sheila’s foray into gravity. She might as well have said, “Let’s discuss infinity.”

“Let’s discuss infinity,” John says and everyone laughs except Sheila.

Nick says, “There’s a steel ball the size of the earth, and another steel ball the size of the sun. A hummingbird flies from one to the other, and by the time he wears each sphere down to nothing, that is infinity!” This theory, he says, is part of a speech he gave in summer stock on the Vineyard.

“It’s still finite,” Bree says, “Like this pizza.” She pushes her chair back from the stump. 

Sheila says she has ordered Bree’s last book and hopes to see Nick perform someday. 

“Don’t read that one! Get The Incoherent Ball,” Bree says.

“No,” says Nick. “Start with Only the Fat Guy Cared.”

Suddenly alert, Frank says he agrees how awful it is to see brutal hand to hand combat in Ukraine. 

“None of you guys got drafted,” Bree says, putting on her jean jacket. “Let’s hit it, Nick.”

“I have a bee and wasp allergy,” John says. “I forgot how you got out, Frank.”

“Unfit for death.”

Nick, who took off for Canada, says he’s impressed with the sniper fire of sharpshooters. John says Russian land mines are terrifyingly effective.

“You would!” Sheila says.

“I’m not for them!”

Nick says to Sheila, “Good luck with all your activities. You write the script, direct and star in it. It doesn’t matter that it’s not on stage.”

Frank says there are Skittles for dessert, but the party is over. Everyone hugs goodbye at the door. 

“Phwee! Good night!”

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