The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [69]
Since the review, Caleb had not begun work on any new projects. He taught his classes on postmodern art, watched the easy way that Camille cared for the baby, and read the classifieds section of the newspaper for some bizarre personal ad or horrible employment opportunity that might ignite the next idea for his work.
Desperate for expression, he came up with the idea of digging a hole to the center of the earth. One weekend, his morning coffee working its magic on his internals, he spent nine dollars that they could not spare on a shovel. When he returned to the apartment, Camille was spooning strained peas into the baby and looked over her shoulder at Caleb, shovel in hand, explaining the piece. “I’m just going to dig,” he said.
Camille was supportive. A hole? Yes, a hole. Interesting. It could be. Where? To the center of the earth, through the center, to the other side of the world. Like the mantle wasn’t even there. How? With this shovel. A primitive tool, perfectly made. The baby marveled at the shiny blade of the shovel, her hands reaching for it. Caleb held firmly to the handle and stepped away from the baby.
“I’ll just dig until it makes sense,” he said, and Camille gestured for him to kiss her. He kissed her, then stroked the soft curve of the back of the baby’s head, her face streaked a mossy green, and strode out of the apartment, in possession of an implement, trying to ignore the thought that he was losing his mind.
In the park, he jammed the shovel into the earth and put his weight into the effort. A quick motion and then, where there had not been seconds earlier, there was a hole. He repeated the procedure and watched the way the ground opened up for him. If this was art, it existed on the furthest part of the spectrum, the part that touched up against yard work. “The act is not the art,” he told himself. “The reaction is the art.”
Standing knee-deep in a hole in the middle of a public park, Caleb tried to explain this to the policeman. Caleb looked up at the uniform towering over him, hand resting easy on his holster, and said, “It’s a hole in the earth. It’s a depression. I think it means something.”
“Fill it back up and get out of here,” the cop said.
“Yes, Officer,” Caleb responded. He stepped out of the hole as if emerging from the shaft of a mine, dazed by the world he had reentered.
With each heave of dirt, tapped down with his foot, Caleb saw the made thing become unmade.
“Don’t come back here,” the police officer said, “or I’ll arrest you.”
Caleb had been arrested several times and had never felt any animosity toward the police. He understood their reaction to his actions. It was a predictable element of his work; he would create disorder, and, once he achieved the desired effect, order would need to be restored. “Have a nice day,” Caleb said and the police officer simply nodded.
Back at the apartment, the shovel hidden in the back of the closet, he confessed to Camille that he might be going crazy.
“I suspected as much,” Camille said.
“If only we had done fifty weddings,” Caleb said.
“Oh, Caleb,” Camille replied, her face full of what he suspected was pity. “It just didn’t work. That’s all. We made a bomb and it didn’t go off. The wiring was faulty. We’ll just make another one.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
The baby sputtered and spit, drool covering her onesie, darkening the fabric. Held loosely in Camille’s arms, she reached for Caleb and he let her hands, soft and barely corporeal, worry his face.