Excavation

Albert Eckwright reluctantly spoke at a local bookstore. His voice was hoarse, but still had a hint of paternal timbre, a tone immediately soothing and unobtrusive and familiar. He’d been losing weight steadily for a little over a year—since Lynn, his second wife, had died—so that his cheeks caved in at the molars and his shoulder blades protruded sharply from his back, almost touching. Though the lighting in the bookstore was dim, turning his white hair yellow, the author wore a pair of tinted glasses to protect his eyes, which had been all but ruined two years ago (as everyone knew from his latest memoir, Bespectacled) by a botched Lasik surgery. Hearing aids were lodged in either ear, invisible except for the translucent plastic bands that curled around the cartilage. In his famous essay “Plagiarizing Myself,” Eckwright had compared the process of writing to carving flesh from his body, a claim which now seemed especially believable, given the surplus fabric in the crotch and through the chest of his suit.

The audience regarded him with equal parts awe, respect, and envy. They knew him as he wanted them to know him; they had read his autobiography (National Book Critics Circle Award, 1974), in which he’d narrated his life through two wars and two wives (drawing, of course, several parallels between these experiences). But Eckwright could recognize that he had exaggerated for effect. His achievements in battle filled him with pride, not the regret he purported. It was as if some tool, a sensory spatula, separated Eckwright’s emotions from his body. He knew the grief, the anguish, the general suffering he was supposed to feel, and exploited these in his writings, but his true sentiments tended towards stoicism, equanimity, and apathy. Futility was the only feeling he’d ever been able to distinguish independent of the general mix of emotions that comprised his complacency. It had followed him throughout his life, a numbing, immobilizing sensation, and when it set upon him, Eckwright felt as if his work were meaningless and unnecessary, which made him somehow lonely.

He was enduring one such episode now, and in the bookstore the writer’s fatigue was apparent. His slumped posture was that of a child up past his bedtime, eager to be awake but unable to control his drooping eyelids. Still, a boyish charisma persisted: Eckwright’s cheeks blushed as the store manager introduced him to the audience, accolade by accolade: his publications comprised of twenty-odd memoirs and autobiographical fictions, as well as three novels of pure imagination from his early years (Dystopia, about a woman whose optical ailment prevented her from seeing goodness in the world, won him the Pulitzer), and most recently—this what the bookstore crowd had come to hear him read—a book of poems.

Finally it was time for Eckwright to step forward. He patted down the applause, as if smoothing a blanket.

“There’s not a lot left in me as far as writing goes, I don’t think,” he said. “All that remains is poetry, which is sometimes like listening to the echoes of great thoughts, but only the echoes. Still, it’s pretty in a way.”

A few shoppers lingered by the magazine racks and in the aisles, turning their attention on the writer—wondering who he was—whenever a burst of applause issued from the crowd.

Eckwright recited several short poems. The audience, seated in green metal folding chairs, held their open copies in their laps and followed his words with their fingers, silently mouthing along. This was the first reading he’d given in nearly two years (since Lynn had become ill). His fingers played nervously with the loose change in his pocket, and twice he accidentally sent pennies bouncing off the hardwood floor.

His last poem was about Lynn, the woman who’d guided the last thirty years of his life as strictly and sensibly as a mother; who, at his insistence, had bathed with him when he’d succumbed to depression, even though their tub was too small; the woman in whose absence he felt childish, lost. The few stanzas he read revealed what Eckwright had always referred to as Lynn’s “photosynthetic quality.” Sunlight was necessary to her existence as it was to cats, plants, and mirrors. She prayed rain away—the presence of clouds made her suddenly religious. It was strange, Eckwright had somehow forgotten this particular aspect of his wife. As he read his words now, he relived several mornings in bed when the light, even through their curtains, had affected warmth on Lynn’s skin (this warmth was the subject of the poem).

The audience faded from the foreground, and Eckwright felt he was no longer addressing anyone, but was being addressed by his memory. Especially in winter, he now recalled, the sun would lure her, dangerously, from their home. Its manifold brightness—reflecting off the snow, off car windows, off the icicles that hung from their roof—made the world into a sparkling invitation. But when she reached the outdoors, Lynn became tense. If she ventured past their front gate, Eckwright had long ago concluded, their neighborhood became a wilderness to her. She’d told him once that she had to be able to control, to manipulate her surroundings, in order to feel wholly comfortable: each year she rearranged the flowerbeds in their garden; each month she reorganized the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen. But only when she convinced Eckwright to come with her could Lynn make the trek around the block, or down to Cedar Lake, without a certain feeling of trespass.

“It’s too big out there,” she would say.

Since her death, Eckwright had undertaken an impossible endeavor: he was attempting to narrate a human into existence. He needed Lynn the way he needed house keys; without her, his life was impregnable. Even now he could not find mittens, old copies of magazines, pens, cuff links that she’d stored away for him years ago.

Others had tried before him, and some had succeeded in extracting life from clay or marble, colors or words. Eckwright had studied these phenomena, but dismissed them: they were perfect creations, inspired by hope or inspiration or insanity. His would be imperfect, not merely a smooth statue come to life; Lynn would have sagging skin and sour odors and idiosyncrasies.

When he finished reading the poem, his dead wife’s image quickly receded from his mind.

Everyone in the audience stood from their folding chairs to applaud Eckwright. Even the browsers in the aisles were compelled to clap. But he was nonetheless disappointed; by the end of the poem his voice had become thin, fragile. Since Lynn had died, it was as if his ability to speak had been taken from him, as if that, too, had been put away in the bottom of some drawer he couldn’t find. He felt his futility begin to take him over, pulsing softly in his throat. His breaths became palpable, scraped their way free of his mouth. From his breast pocket he extracted a menthol cough drop, unwrapped it from the cellophane cocoon, and slipped it under his tongue.

He readied himself for handshakes and the requisite pleasantries. The store manager, whose shirt buttons were attempting escape from under his tight wool sweater, smiled at Eckwright.

“It’s good to see you again,” the manager said, though Eckwright couldn’t remember having ever met the clerk before. His hand, as he offered it, was soft and damp, like tallow. The author let his own hand, whose nails and calluses were hard as pistachio shells, be enveloped in the clayey mass.

“How am I selling?” Eckwright said. “I noticed I’m not on the ‘Local Favorites’ display anymore.”

“You were great tonight,” said the clerk. “Powerful.”

Eckwright smiled his thanks and tactfully, almost stealthily, moved toward the door.