SO WHAT A written creative work submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of The requirements for The Degree As 3C, EMGiCU • VJ551' Master of Fine Arts In Creative Writing by Emily Jane Wilson San Francisco, California May 2016 Copyright by Emily Jane Wilson 2016 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read So What by Emily Jane Wilson, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a written creative work submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree: Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. Maxine Chernoff Professor of Creative Writing Andrew Joron Professor of Creative Writing SO WHAT Emily Jane Wilson San Francisco, California 2016 Three confessions chronicle the rise and fall of Gregory Thompson aka Sir Hefty: father, cokehead, husband, art handler, identity thief, friend. I certify that the Annotation is a correct representation of the content of this written creative work. Date 1 GREGORY Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Summer 2010 I’m not the kind of guy who customarily goes around beating his chest but after my ex changed the locks on our brownstone I drove to the Verizon in McGinley Square where I mumbled at a clerk, “Gimme a phone before I kill myself!” “Sir,” she said, “you have to get in line.” She waved me away in tandem with her ponytail’s sway. Hey pretty pony. How'd you like it if I led you close and whiffed your Herbal Essence? Hey pretty, pretty. I edged up to the counter once more. “Sir!” “I’m just trying to see what’s in the showcase. It’s not my fault I’m nearsighted.” I realized Pony’s hair probably wasn’t dirty, just dishwater-colored. I wanted to tug it down, down, down into the display case. Ooooh, the satisfaction of shattered glass, blood on my hands and the freedom to steal something I didn’t even want. Yayyyyhooooo! Too easy, though. I’m not the kind of guy who takes the easy way out. I swept past chiffoned brocaded braceleted cardamom ’n coriander ladies and assumed my place behind a guy wearing two Replica watches. He jittered within blue earbuds. His hair looked partially eaten. He was probably about my age. He blew his 2 cheeks out. He sucked them in. He blew them out. One of his buds fell. The door swung open. A teenage couple clung there, elaborately kissing, the logos of their hoodies merging. Jazzy fragments filled the room. I could have sworn I was overhearing Miles. Maybe On the Comer. Better yet, Sketches of Spain. My friends learned the heavy beats of my new number by calling the house—the old house, the one that used to be a sign of our marriage but is now in my ex’s name. “He’s got a cell now,” Sheila would say, adding, “Nine-one-seven-seven-two-two-five.” If my friends dialed it I made them into a contact. If they didn’t, I told myself I’d never speak with them again. To my knowledge Sheila never said, “I kicked him out.” Of course not. She’s impeccable. Though I did discover she told at least one person, “He finally got a cell phone,” which basically meant, “It was all Greg’s fault.” I avoided mobile service because of my trade. I used to be known as an Art Handler though I prefer Fine Art Preparator. Most of my time was spent in traffic in my 1995 Dodge Dakota. Unhappy Betty, manager of Asphalt Forever Office Park in Hackensack, simply called me “You,” as in, “You need to deliver twelve framed photographs on Thursday no later than three and you need to have them completely installed by five,” meaning I had to finish my other job fitting a six-by-nine-foot acrylic painting of a brown cow on a yellow hill onto a curved gray wall at a fairly upscale medical clinic in Chelsea by twelve-thirty so I could get to the framer on Amsterdam by one and, depending on how busy they were, maybe have to wait around for awhile 3 twiddling my thumbs and counting backwards from one hundred before inspecting each ink-jet sunset-and-bridge photograph to make sure someone hadn’t been eating a croissant while fitting the glass and irresponsibly leaving a few flakes inside—yeah, I know, I know, they’d be barely visible but as the middleman I’d be the fall guy if someone noticed. Without a cell, all I had to do was keep a commitment, just like in the old days, when if you were late or changed your mind you were irresponsible, plain and simple. When Sheila and I were still together I made appointments from our landline first thing in the morning and received messages when I returned at night. Black and white, just the way I like it. Maybe Betty, etc.’d be peeved I wasn’t going to instantly get their last- minute command that they had to change our time to two or two-thirty or Friday or next week because a meeting went over or the principal at the Little Red Schoolhouse wanted Emma picked up early because she’d thrown a warm lavender wafer at Liam in her World of Baking class but if you break my schedule I’m gonna think you don’t value my time. Or yours. I’m gonna think you don’t respect structure. And structure is pleasure. It means you care. And caring—too much caring—is deep in my nature. It’s the grain of my character. When a phone asks, I answer. It’s gospel: call and response. “Hey, Greg? Can you come a little bit earlier?” “Sure,” I’ll say, thinking hey is for horses, opening the door to rupture. See, if I start saying yes to Unhappy Betty, etc., they will without one iota of doubt change the rules on me again. And again. I’ll wind up uncontrollably giving. 4 Think my unavailability cost me gigs? Me, the problem solver, the Magic Man? I’m a guy who makes no mistakes. I’m all business before pleasure. Scorsese’s assistant once told me, “Marty’s really pleased with your sequencing. He’d like to watch you hang. If you could come later in the day next week he’ll be happy to give you a bonus.” Marty doesn’t get up until at least four because he’s been in his dungeon all night rewatching the last ten minutes of Duel in the Sun. “No thanks,” I politely replied. If I changed my schedule for Marty it would mean I favored him. And I don’t favor certain customers over others. It’s just not fair. When the assistant asked if I was sure I added, “No only means one thing.” My new apartment was decent enough. No droopy housekeeper around to make the bed like at the old place but I didn’t miss that, in fact I started liking how familiar my sheets got when left unwashed for months. Fingernails and drool and sometimes even shit stains though I’m not sure how the latter got there as I tended to sleep in my clothes so I wouldn’t have to suffer the tedium of taking them off just to have to return them to my aging bones. Sometimes I didn’t even bother to get in the bed. Sometimes I didn’t even go home, especially when I had one of those first-thing-in-the-morning de-installs at the Brooklyn Museum. Instead I’d get a pack of Pabst, park in Flatbush, and spend the night in the truck. My favorite spot was on Ocean Avenue between Lincoln and Parkside where there was a building that reminded me of my Hoboken house. Ah, brownstone beside an 5 elm! I’d patched then painted your ceiling medallions in a glistening but unglossy high hiding white and I personally rescued your real crystal chandeliers from the ravishing thud of a predawn Williamsburg wrecking ball and I saved the lives of streaked-with- orange-and-white tiles tossed beside a curb when developers were making way for the Greenwich Street Project—how I re- and re- and rearranged the marble’s disorienting surfaces within your fireplace mantel until they flickered in a perfect arc! Your walls lined with pine I’d meticulously sanded and glazed to mimic wood grain! Most would have whitewashed it. I’m not most people. The afternoon after Sheila and I met with our lawyers across a long table in a small room I drove my pickup to Manhattan, left it on University Place, and started putting one boot in front of the other. Ah, how my phone shook when I reached the Metronome at Union Square! “I’d recognize your voice anywhere,” I said. I was smiling uncontrollably. I was practically tripping over my own feet. Of course I was: Harriet was on the line. Unonnnhhhhn. Harriet R. Hickman. The last time we’d spoken had been in Tribeca, on the evening of April 26, 2005, during a birthday party-slash-Cal reunion in a floor- through loft. Sheila’s old friend Keeler Cuthbert had reached a remarkable age and didn’t look it. While settling Sheila’s bottle of Prosperity Red on the marble kitchen counter I wished her happiness, looked around, and said, “I love your place.” I used to be able to seem like a sincere guy.