And on that beach in Sea Isle City, I decided that I was going to marry Jessica and be the father to her bastard son—only I’d never tell him he was the bastard son of a lowdown scumbag rapist, and I wouldn’t let Jessica tell him either. It would be four more weeks before I shared my decision with Hank’s mother, which is also when I asked for her hand in marriage. But I had made up my mind right there and then on the beach less than twenty-four hours after first meeting Jessica. When it’s love, you just know.
I hadn’t asked to be a killer of gooks over there in Vietnam. My government said that gook killing was what needed to be done, and so I did it to the best of my abilities. And I hadn’t asked to be a father either, but there was a young woman who needed a man to step up to the plate. It was a mission that simply needed to be done. Period.
Learning about Brian’s death later that night in some ways sealed the deal for me. I did the moral math in my head: without a doubt, a narrative had clearly formed. God had given me a chance to atone. And after my time in the jungle, I fucking needed it. Sometimes you just have to take what comes your way and do the absolute best you can with the opportunity.
10.
Hank and Sue’s second date took place at the Philadelphia Museum of Art because my son wanted to educate my friend on the finer points of art appreciation, which, of course, is just another way of saying that Hank wanted to show off. Peacocks flaunt whatever feathers they got, and goddamn useless knowledge of art Hank had in spades.
Ella and I went along to chaperone, but I made sure we kept our distance so that we wouldn’t be throwing a wet blanket over the fire we were trying to ignite.
Hank spent a lot of time yapping at Sue in the South Asian Art section, even though they didn’t have shit from Vietnam. Mostly India, Nepal, Tibet, and Pakistan.
Then he spent just about a millennium talking about his boys Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, because he majored in those two clowns back in art appreciation school or whatever they call it. When it comes to Klimt and Schiele, Hank will talk both your ears off.
There’s this one section called Masters of American Craft where they basically hang rugs on the wall and call it art, except these aren’t even fancy expensive Persian rugs but shitty half-finished American rugs.
I don’t like Iranians one fucking bit, and Persian is just an old-fashioned word for Iranian, only your average American moron doesn’t know that these days. But those Iranian motherfuckers are the best at making rugs, you have to give them that. Bomb every single one of the Ayatollah Ass-A-Hole-A’s nuclear weapon–making facilities, but let them keep all the rug factories they want. A Persian rug really classes up a dining room, let me tell you. I even have one in my office because I like the way it feels on my bare feet. Heirloom quality. Never buy a rug from a non-Persian.
But back to the Masters of American Craft section of the art museum. There are these creepy dollhouses in plastic cubes and sundry bullshit that make my son cream his pants, he gets so goddamn turned on when in the presence of that dumb stuff. Sue did a good job faking enthusiasm, but Ella, having done this Hank Art Museum Tour monthly since she was born, was bored to tears. I took her to look at the suits of armor they have there, and we talked about princesses and knights while Sue and Hank were somewhere else, hopefully falling in love.
Ella and I were looking up at a fake man on a fake horse, both of which were wearing heavy armor, when I told her that one of my first dates with her grandmother had been right here at the art museum.
“Why aren’t Grandmom Granger’s paintings hanging up in this museum?” Ella asked, and I shrugged because my dead wife was the fucking best painter ever to breathe American air, but I couldn’t tell a seven-year-old the true answer to her question.
“Was she pretty?” Ella asked, and I needed more than a gesture to answer that one, so I told Ella that her paternal grandmother was the prettiest woman who ever lived and that I fell in love with her the instant that I saw her. “One look, and I was hooked.” Of course I left out the part about accidentally killing that rapist Brian. My granddaughter hopefully didn’t even know what rape was. And like I said before, I vowed to tell no one about killing Brian, and I didn’t until now in this tell-all report because we have a fucking deal.
But Jessica and I had gone to the art museum on our second date back in January of ’69, which took place the day after we spent the night driving around in my GTO. Jessica loved going to the art museum on Sunday mornings. I think they might have let students in for free way back in the day, but I can’t remember for sure.
I do remember her dragging me by the hand to show me a particular portrait painted by her hero, which I already mentioned was that Frenchman named Henri Rousseau. Jessica’s high school art teacher had introduced her to Rousseau and had convinced her that his work hanging in art museums all over the world meant that anyone had a shot at making art that would be praised long after his or her death. It was obvious that her teacher thought his own art would someday be discovered and future critics would say that he was unappreciated as a lowly fucking high school art teacher, but I never said that to Jessica, because she lit up whenever she talked about this Rousseau dude.
The painting Jessica wanted me to see that Sunday morning was the one Hank mentioned to Sue during our first family dinner together. Carnival Evening. Jessica and I stared at that painting for so long, I could tell you anything about it from memory. My dead wife could look at any Henri Rousseau for an eternity and never be bored for a second. Also, we used to have a print of Carnival Evening in our living room, so I used to study it at home too, trying to figure out why Jessica and Hank thought it was so fucking world-altering—why they had chosen this painting out of all the millions that existed all over the globe as their personal Mona Lisa. Why hang this particular Rousseau in our house, when I would have bought them any print they wanted?
Carnival Evening depicts a costumed couple standing in front of barren skeletal trees. A full moon hangs in the top right corner. There are clouds and stars in the sky. I could never figure out if it’s supposed to be sunset and the costumed couple is going to a carnival, or it’s sunrise and the couple is returning home. In the bottom left corner, there’s a strange structure that looks like the roof of a small house, only there are no walls underneath, so it appears to float for the most part.
Why?
Couldn’t fucking tell you.
Only a single corner pillar is present—the front right—on which Rousseau painted what looks like a decapitated head, at least to me, but remember that I’ve seen horrific shit, so maybe I’m just projecting, as my VA therapist says.