of being recognized in this sordid place. Especially he was in dread of seeing the crippled brother—“E.W”—whom he had not seen in nearly twenty years but believed that he would recognize immediately though by this time the twins—“fraternal twins”—looked nothing alike. Edgar anticipated the stunted broken figure in a wheelchair, yearning teary eyes and wistful smile that maddened, made you want to strike with your fists, that offer of forgiveness where forgiveness was not wanted. I am your brother, I am in you. Love me! But there was no one.
Only E.W.’s work, pretentiously called by the gallery “collage paintings.” These Fossil-Figures lacked all beauty, even the canvases upon which they were painted looked soiled and battered and the walls upon which they were (unevenly) hung were streaked as if the hammered-tin ceiling leaked rust. What were these artworks covered in dream/nightmare shapes, geometrical, yet humanoid, shifting into and out of one another like translucent guts, deeply offensive to the congressman who sensed “subterfuge”—“perversion”—“subversion” in such obscure art, and what was obscure was certain to be “soulless”—even “traitorous.” Most upsetting, the Fossil-Figures seemed to be taunting the viewer, anyway this viewer, like riddles, and he had no time for Goddamned riddles, the rich man’s daughter he’d married to advance his career was awaiting him at the St. Regis, this visit to West and Canal streets was an (unmarked) stop in Congressman Waldman’s itinerary for the day. Wiping his eyes to better see an artwork depicting the night sky, distant galaxies, and constellations, almost there was beauty here, suns like bursting egg yolks swallowing up smaller suns, comets shaped like—was it male sperm?—blazing male sperm?—colliding with luminous bluish-watery planets; and, protruding from the rough surface of the canvas, a thing so unexpected, so ugly, the congressman stepped back in astonishment: was it a nestlike growth of some kind? a tumor? composed of plasticine flesh and dark crinkly hairs and—could it be baby teeth? arranged in a smile?—and a scattering of baby bones?
A fossil, it was. A thing removed from the human body. Something very ugly discovered a cavity of a surviving twin’s body. The fossil-soul of the other, which had never breathed life.
Stunned, quivering with disgust, the congressman turned away.
Walked on, in a haze of denunciations, denials. Seeing that some of the canvases were beautiful—were they?—or were they all ugly, obscene, if you knew how to decode them?—he was made to think that he was endangered, something was going to happen to him, there was a blunt statistical fact that in the last election he’d been reelected to his seat in Congress by a smaller majority than in any of the preceding elections, in such victory there is the presentiment of defeat. Through the maze of rooms circling back to the start of the exhibit and at a glass-topped counter there was a bored-looking girl with dead-white skin and a face glittering with piercings who seemed to be working for the gallery and he asked of her in a voice that quavered with indignation if these ridiculous “fossil-figures” were considered “art” and she told him politely yes of course, everything the gallery exhibited was art and he asked if the exhibit was supported by public funds and seemed but partly mollified to learn that it was not. He asked who the “so-called artist” E.W. was and the girl spoke vaguely saying nobody knew E.W. personally, only the proprietor of the gallery had ever seen him, he lived by himself outside the city and never came into the city, not even to oversee the exhibit, didn’t seem to care if his artworks sold, or what prices they were sold for.
“He’s got some ‘wasting-away’ disease, like muscular dystrophy, or Parkinson’s, but last we knew, E.W. is alive. He’s alive.”
AND I WON’T GO away. You will come to me instead.
EACH YEAR: JANUARY 26. One year, one insomniac night, Edward is flicking restlessly though TV channels and is surprised to see a sudden close-up of—is it Edgar? The demon brother Edgar? TV news footage from earlier in the day, rerun now in the early hours of the morning, suddenly this magnification of a man’s head, thick-jawed face, an aging face obscured by dark glasses, skin gleaming with oily sweat, an arm lifted to shield the disgraced congressman from a pack of pursuing reporters, photographers and TV camera crews, there’s Congressman Edgar Waldman being briskly walked into a building by plainclothes police officers. Indicted on multiple charges of bribe-taking, violations of federal campaign laws, perjury before a