A Permanent Member of the Family (8 page)

Joan said, “Sam, you are a riot.”

“You don't know who the writers are, do you?” Raphael asked. “The usual suspects, I imagine.”

Ted said, “No usual suspect here. This time they got it right, man. That's such fucking good news! And richly deserved. The genius grant! Congratulations, man!”

Joan said, “People, the hors d'oeuvres! Don't neglect the puff pastries, they're from Mrs. London's.”

“I don't know who any of the other winners are,” Erik said to Raphael without looking at him. “All the guy told me was the size of the award. They call it a fellowship, actually, not a genius grant. I'll be able to take a leave of absence for five years.”

Ted said, “I thought you really dug teaching.”

“I can live without it for five years, believe me,” Erik said and laughed. “No faculty meetings! C'mon, Joan, open the champagne and pour!”

She opened one bottle and Ted opened the other, and both poured. They all drank, even Raphael, who rarely took more than a glass of seltzer water with a wedge of lime, and by the time they moved into the dining room for dinner, they were very loud and seemed very happy.

While Joan carefully transported a ceramic tureen of cold leek and potato soup from the kitchen to the table, Ted poured a decent pinot grigio. When he got to Erik's glass, he paused before pouring and said, “If you don't mind my saying, man, the truth is, you have a kind of forceful openness that attracts grace. I mean it. Attracts grace, not from above, of course, in the religious sense, but like from the fucking universe at large. From the life force, man.”

“That's bullshit. I'm just lucky is all.”

“No, Ted's right,” Joan said. “It's what they call magnetism. Or charisma. You're blessed with it, lovey, and it doesn't come to you just because you're lucky. You have to will it, you have to woo and win it with hard, sustained work and imagination. And talent. Until the world and everything in the world recognizes it in you and honors it. That's what Teddy means by grace. Like with this award.”

“Come on, it's a fucking lottery . . . ,” Erik began.

Joan said, “Let me finish, lovey. It's not a lottery. You were given the MacArthur Fellowship or grant or whatever, because you deserve it. That's what Teddy means by attracting grace. From the universe, the life force.”

Raphael said, “God, next you'll be washing his feet.”

Erik said, “No one ‘deserves' a MacArthur.”

“Here, my dear,” Joan said and filled his soup bowl from the tureen. “At least you deserve to be first served.” She passed Erik his soup and proceeded to serve the others.

Sam said, “Let me propose a toast,” and raised his glass. The others raised theirs. Erik slowly lifted his, too. He didn't know why, but he wasn't happy with the way this was going. He probably should have followed the foundation director's instructions and just not mentioned the award, let them learn about it next week in the
Times.
A MacArthur was supposed to eliminate one's need to compete with one's friends and colleagues and fellow artists, but somehow it was having the opposite effect on Erik.

“To grace! And to the few among us who attract it!” Sam said.

Raphael pursed his lips and lowered his glass a bit. Then he brought it back to his lips and, with the others, drank. He put his glass on the table with emphasis. “It's not really a lottery, you know. The MacArthur. It's not just dumb luck. It's friends of friends and their ex-students and acolytes and protégés who end up on that list. And I'm sorry, Ted, but it's not grace, either. The universe really doesn't give a damn. About Erik or anyone else.”

Erik said, “Let's just forget the whole MacArthur thing, can we? It's a wheelbarrow of money, and I didn't have to peddle my ass to get it, so I intend to enjoy it. End of story. And, Raphael, as far as I know I'm nobody's acolyte or ex-student. All my teachers are dead. And I'm not friends with anybody who picks the winners.”

“As far as you know,” Raphael said.

Sam said, “Rafe, honey, come on! None of that matters. Those folks who dole out the MacArthurs, they all have loads of friends and ex-students who wouldn't even be considered for one. Ted and Joan are right, the universe, or the life force or whatever they want to call it, has been kind to Erik because he's been able to draw its attention to him and his work.”

Rafael rolled his eyes and smiled down at his plate while Ted served the lamb shanks and roasted vegetables and Joan refilled the wineglasses. Ellen had been watching Erik warily, as if she knew he was about to say something he'd regret later. She raised her glass. “Okay, my turn! Here's to good friends and long winter evenings together!”

With a certain intensity, as if relieved, everyone drank, as if thirsty, and everyone ate, as if hungry. They talked politics for a while, local and state—they were all slightly to the left of the current governor, a Democrat—and Ted gave a lengthy plot summary of a new PBS series, an Edwardian historical romance now in its fourth week that none of the others had seen.

There was a lull in the conversation, when suddenly Joan turned to Erik and in a voice shaking with emotion said, “You'll still be friends with us, won't you, Erik? Even though you'll be rich now. And famous.”

Erik laughed, as much at the absurdity of her concern as the idea of his being rich and famous, and said, “Yes, I'll always love you and Ted. And I'm not going to be anywhere near as rich and famous as you think. Divide half a million bucks by five, and you come out with a little more than my annual Skidmore salary.”

“So you say now,” Joan said. “But, Erik, none of us will ever be a MacArthur. None of us will ever be a certified genius.” She looked frightened and a little mystified, as if she'd received a threatening phone call. “We're not your peers anymore, Erik. Maybe we never were. None of us is ever going to be rich and famous because of our work and our personal magnetism and so on. They'll never give a MacArthur for touch healing, will they? Or for running a small-town newspaper. Or weaving. Or photography. There's never been a MacArthur given to a photographer, has there, Sam? You'd know.”

Sam said, “Actually, there have been a fair number of photographers who've received MacArthurs. There was Uta Barth and An-My Lê a year or two ago. Conceptual photographers, not my cup of tea. And of course Lee Friedlander and Cindy Sherman before that. Not my cups of tea, either.”

“But it's for creative work, right? The MacArthur,” Ted said. “Or for out-of-the-box scientific research. That's why it'll never go to a newspaper editor or a journalist. Of course, we do have the Pulitzers. I can always hope for a Pulitzer,” he said and laughed heartily to show he was only kidding.

Ellen said, “It's possible for a weaver, though. Right? I mean, not saying it's me who deserves one, but if her work is seen as more than just a craft, if it's seen as art, it's possible for a weaver to get a MacArthur. Right?”

Everyone was silent for a moment. Then Joan said, “Right. Of course.”

Sam said, “Definitely!”

Ted said, “A hell of a lot more possible than for a journalist or an editor.”

Erik didn't say anything. He picked up his wineglass and gently rolled the stem, swirling the wine.

Raphael looked around the table and said, “Okay, people, enough about your chances for fame and fortune. What about mine?”

Ellen said, “Yours?”

“Yes, Ellen. Mine. They give MacArthurs to writers, you know. And I'm a writer, remember?”

Ted started clearing the dinner plates, and Sam stood up to help him. Erik made a move to help, saw the plates were already gone, and slumped back in his chair.

Raphael continued, “Speaking strictly hypothetically, why not? I could be a ‘genius.' Erik's peer. Even though no one, not even my husband, has read my novel yet,” he said and smiled mischievously at Sam, who stood by the kitchen door, watching his husband back with the same wary eye Ellen kept on hers. After a few seconds, Sam sighed, gave it up and retreated to the kitchen.

“But someday I will finish my novel,” Raphael said. “And then, who knows, maybe it'll be published by an obscure avant-garde press in Brooklyn, instead of a big commercial house in Manhattan, and wowie, zowie, in a few years every hot young MFA writing student in the country could be imitating it in their workshops.”

Erik shook his head and let himself smile.

“Hey, don't laugh, Erik, it happens! Which would oblige the professors of creative writing to actually read my novel, so they could know what the kids are raving about. And a few of those professors will be MacArthur jurors, and in the interests of impartiality, to fend off oedipal attacks, to look academically hip and tuned in to the literary Street and to protect their own largely ignored, middlebrow work, they'll bypass the obviously more qualified novelists and anoint me with a MacArthur. And then I'll be just like Erik! Then I too can truthfully say, ‘As far as I know, I have no friends or friends of friends or ex-professors of my own among the jurors,' and can therefore attribute the award to dumb luck. A lottery ticket bought on a whim and forgotten in a jacket pocket like lint. Or, if I prefer, I can attribute it to my charisma and the grace said charisma attracts from above.”

Joan said, “I'll get the dessert from the kitchen,” and left the dining room.

Ellen said, “I'll help,” and followed, leaving Erik and Raphael alone facing each other across the table. Someone in the kitchen was grinding coffee beans.

Erik reached for the half-emptied third bottle of wine and topped off his glass. “Tell me what the fuck that was all about,” he said. He pointed the open end of the bottle at Raphael's glass.

Raphael covered his glass with the flat of his hand. “No more for me, thanks. I'm driving.” He yawned and raised his left hand and checked his watch.

Erik said, “Before you have to rush off, tell me what the fuck that was all about.”

“What I'm saying is, you're both wrong, you and Ted, and you're both right. It is luck, as you say. But it's also grace attracted to charisma, as Ted thinks. I.e., you are lucky to be charismatic enough to have attracted the attention of bountiful grace, tonight's word for the eyes and ears of the world that surrounds us. Or at least the eyes and ears of the MacArthur Foundation.”

“Bullshit. It's about my work. Nothing else.”

“You'll agree that the value of any work of art at any given time is in the eye of the beholder. Right?”

“Okay.”

“And we're talking here about how to influence that eye in order to give significant meaning to the work. Your gigantic bathrooms, for instance, and those outsize kitchens, they could be seen as meaningless. Or clichéd. They could be seen as fakery. But obviously they're not. At least not anymore.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“No, when your installations are perceived by the MacArthur Foundation as works of genius, they can't any longer be perceived as meaningless or clichéd. And thanks to the money and prestige of the award, not perceived as meaningless or clichéd by
The New York Times,
either, or by any of the rest of the media, and thus not by the nation or the world at large. You've seen reputations change overnight, Erik. Now it's your turn. Ten or twelve so-called ‘genius grants' a year of half a million bucks each gets people's attention. Changes people's minds. All of a sudden, tonight here in this room, as we have just witnessed, and in a few days all over the world, your enormous bathroom and kitchen appliance installations have acquired great meaning. You have acquired great meaning. Congratulations, Erik. You are about to be interviewed by
The New York Times,
NPR,
PBS NewsHour,
and by Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea. There's probably already a profile in the works at
The New Yorker
by whatzizname, Peter Schjeldahl, the art critic who up to now has not once reviewed your work in those august pages.”

Erik's face had tightened like a fist. “Are you condescending to the MacArthur Foundation? Or to me?”

“I'm not condescending to anyone. I'm ‘just sayin',' as the kids say.”

They were both silent for a moment, and gradually Erik's expression softened, as if he'd begun to agree with Raphael. “What's happening here, Raphael? How come I'm fair game tonight? Before tonight you wouldn't dare talk to me like this. You might think it, but you wouldn't say it to my face.”

“Yes, paradoxical, isn't it? You win a MacArthur, and while the others feel intimidated and threatened by it, diminished by it, even Ellen, I feel sufficiently emboldened to attack you. Well, not attack you. Confront you. It's as if in my eyes the MacArthur, by making you rich and famous, as Joan noticed, has weakened you somehow. But maybe, by the same token, since it's no longer necessary to protect you from the truth, it's also made you in a sense fair game, Erik.”

Erik pushed his chair back and stood up. He saw Ellen emerge from the kitchen. She stopped at the far end of the table and stared at him. One by one, the others, Ted, Joan and Sam, followed and bunched together beside and behind her, like a chorus, all of them watching Erik as if he were alone on a darkened stage with a spotlight on him. Raphael, seated at the outer edge of the circle of light, hadn't moved, except to cross his arms nonchalantly over his chest. He turned to one side, away from the others and pointedly away from Erik, as if showing them that he could meet Erik's struck, angry, hurt gaze if he wanted to, but instead had merely elected to look elsewhere, as if giving Erik a moment alone to survey the damage that had been done to him.

Erik said to Raphael, “Goddammit, look at me!”

Slowly Raphael turned in his chair, and expressionless, as if deciding whether or not to take an incoming phone call, he gazed up at Erik.