25. Bradford Shawe

Attendance was excellent for the evening’s showing at the Trois-Avectoi Art Gallery. The building had once been a textile factory, and it was once again packed to the rafters with suits and dresses, but these recent arrivals of the sartorial sort were wrapped around the most influential buyers in New York City. Regardless, Bradford Shawe, occasional gallerist and second-tier art dealer-at-large, was afflicted with paralyzing dread. None of his artists had shown up in the flesh, leaving his personal representation the only remaining link between the paintings and high society.

24. Thin Soup

For the last hour, it’s been nothing but wheat and horizon on either side of the road. I’d started off awestruck when the fields opened up. It’s so vast; a golden sea. That was early in the morning, around sunrise. The sight seemed new again, for a little while. The prairies are incredibly something, either beautiful or boring. Maybe I’ve got used to it now. Maybe beauty becomes redundant. Just another thing I’ve seen enough of.

From a convertible, the road feels different. You’re really on it, like you could get out and run. In a hardtop, there’s glass on every side, you're inside a television. I hate TV. I like this.

Carter’s driving fast, but I can’t see the speedometer. “How fast are we?”
“Buck and a half,” he says, without looking away. “What’s the posted limit?”
“The sky,” I say. “Hasn’t been a sign since never.”

23. Witless

Witless let himself in and he was crying. He didn't make no noise right away, but the first part of him I saw was the light from the naphtha lamp shining on his cheeks. I say "what's with you" and he don't say a thing, so I go on tying up my fishing flies like I was doing.
His big long face was drawn so tight that when my wife came in the room, she says right away, "What's the matter, Witless?" and out it comes in bawls.
"It was the most unnatural thing I ever saw," Witless says, finally wiping at the streaks on his face. “Lydia – my Liddie! – stood atop the water, clear as I see you now.” He broke into a sob. “I seen her ghost! Not one hour ago, Irv! Her spirit, my dead wife!”
The way he was, it was a damned sight. I’ve never seen a man break down like that before or since, all gulping for air, babbling and blubbering and making a damned spectacle of himself. “Quit acting a damn fool, Wit,” I tell him, “start at the beginning: where’d you see this?”
“In the glades! Her ghost walks the waterway – oh, Irv, I know you’ll say there ain’t such a thing, but I know what I saw, and –”
“Just tell it like it happened, Wit.”