Chapter Thirty-Three #2

Mrs. M picks up some index cards, looks over her notes, and begins her prepared remarks.

I’m moved that she’s spent so much time and effort on this.

She says she believes that painters and writers are magicians of a sort—that they invite us to lose ourselves in their work and, in doing so, find ourselves.

“As you take in Corby Ledbetter’s mural, you most likely see and feel something different from what the person standing next to you sees and feels; we bring our own lives, our personal histories, and our values to art and literature.

Yet somehow, simultaneously, art and literature connect us to one another.

That’s the magic! So I feel it is entirely fitting that this mural now resides in a library filled with books and ideas—a prison library where incarcerated men arrive feeling remorseful or resentful or defiant, perhaps wondering how their lives went so far off track from what they imagined.

And if they are brave enough to face themselves without looking away, then this is a place where they can gain the valuable insights that will help send them on a better path.

” She ends with a quote from Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall: something about how an inmate who comes to prison does not have to lose his humanity or end his quest for self-realization and growth.

“And now, Corby, I’d like to say something to you personally,” she says.

“Long after you leave Yates and go on your way, your evocative work will remain here, inviting the incarcerated men who enter this library to linger over your mural’s mysteries and meaning and puzzle through whatever it says to them.

Thank you for your gift. We are grateful.

” More applause. More blushing from me. I scan the room, looking for Emily, but she’s not here.

Up from their seats now, the audience mills around, chatting and enjoying refreshments, studying the mural up close, pointing out details to one another.

People keep coming up to me, complimenting and congratulating me, and it’s so nerve-racking that I take refuge in the stacks.

Having grown up in my father’s house, I feel more comfortable with criticism than praise.

And has everyone conveniently forgotten what I did? Why I had to come here?

“Corby?” Mrs. Millman calls. “Some of the media people are looking for you.”

I try to beg off being interviewed by a reporter from the local TV station, but thankfully it only lasts for thirty seconds and the camera lingers on the mural, not me, as I speak. No mention is made of why I’m doing time.

The Hartford Courant reporter tells me she and her photographer are on a tight schedule.

“Let him get his picture first. Then I need to ask you some questions before we have to take off.” The photographer says he wants to shoot me in front of the mural.

Remembering the only other time my face appeared in the Courant and why, I think fast and point out that the figure in the painting closest to the front with his back to the viewer is supposed to be me.

“How about if I stand facing the painting rather than looking at the camera and you can photograph me from the back?” To my great relief, he says he likes the idea and obliges me.

But I’m not so lucky with the eager young reporter. She looks like she just arrived from some journalism school and is angling for a big story. “Do you feel the rehabilitative services at Yates have helped to prepare you for a successful return to life on the outside?”

The commissioner, his media relations officer, the warden, and Mrs. Millman are standing close by, so I give her a pallid version of what they want to hear.

Next she asks me a series of softball questions.

Was I trained as an artist or am I self-taught?

What drew me to the Bruegel painting? How long did I work on the mural from start to finish?

Then she leans close. “You were sentenced to prison after being convicted of negligent homicide in the death of your son, right?” I nod.

“There’s rehabilitation, sure, but is there any getting over a tragedy like that? ”

None of her goddamn business! “Can we please just talk about the mural?”

“Okay, sure,” she says. “Would you care to comment on the subversive nature of the work, Mr. Ledbetter?”

It’s a “gotcha” question, the kind I was dreading during my bouts of insomnia. When I glance over at Corrections’ PR person, it looks like she’s gone on high alert. I figure I’d better play dumb. “Subversive? What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve painted the prison property without the prison. Why?”

“Because I’m imagining the area centuries before there was a prison—way back before the white European settlers came and it was Wequonnoc land.”

“Right. I get that. But that guy over there tells me he’s in the mural.

” She nods toward Javier, who’s chatting with one of the local politicians.

“He says that’s him floating downriver with two other prisoners.

Prisoners but no prison? Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin resurrected?

An Indigenous tribe living again on the land?

Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Ledbetter, but isn’t your painting a protest of sorts?

Aren’t you arguing against white oppression?

And wouldn’t some consider that subversive? ”

Although she’s right, all I can think of to say is that all art is open to interpretation.

She smirks as she jots down something on her pad.

The photographer approaches, tapping the face of his wristwatch.

“Come on, Abby,” he tells her. “We’re running late and I’ve got to get a shot of that ribbon-cutting. ”

“Okay, last question then, Mr. Ledbetter,” she says. “Tell me about the little boy with the butterflies who’s way in the background. Is that your son? Your Icarus?”

Mrs. Millman runs interference for me before I can respond. “Corby, look who’s here!” Thinking it’s Emily—that maybe she got here in time to see the standing ovation they gave me—I see, instead, Lieutenant Cavagnero.

“Excuse me,” I tell the reporter. “There’s someone I need to talk to.” As I pass by Mrs. M, she gives me a wink.

Cavagnero’s face looks pale and drawn; he’s using a walker.

“Good to see you, Ledbetter,” he says, limping slowly toward me.

“If I’d have known you were an artiste , I would have exchanged your rake for a paintbrush.

” I thank him for coming and ask how he’s doing.

“Better than I was right after I took that spill,” he says.

“A fractured pelvis is no joke, believe me. But anyway, congratulations. How’ve you been? ”

I have the urge to tell him about getting kicked off the work crew and why. Instead, I say things are okay and that I’m looking forward to getting out in another ten months. “Oh, and that kid Solomon? He got transferred to a psych facility.”

“Good,” he says. “Never should have put him here in the first place. Now tell me about this mural of yours. What’s it mean?”

“Whatever you want it to mean,” I tell him.

I stick pretty close to Cavagnero for the rest of the reception, avoiding as best I can any more questions or compliments.

The commissioner and his gang leave shortly after the Courant folks, followed by most of the others.

When it’s only Javi, the Millmans, and me, Mrs. M tells me that several of the people she spoke with said how impressed they were with my work and that she thinks things went well.

“I just hope all that praise wasn’t too painful for you. ” She smiles.

“Excruciating,” I tell her. “Nah, just kidding. It was okay. Thanks for doing all this and for the kind words you spoke. Did you get a chance to lobby for more funding?”

“I did,” she says. “I spoke with Dr. Spears, the Unified School District superintendent, about beefing up the literacy materials for our new readers and maybe updating the law books in our collection. He’s invited me to call his office and make an appointment.”

“Sounds like a good sign. And by the way, thanks for rescuing me from that eager-beaver reporter.”

“You know, Corby, every time I stand in front of your mural, I see some detail I hadn’t noticed before.

And when I discovered the little boy in the distance, I never presumed to ask you about him.

Interacting with art is about being immersed in its mysteries, not solving them—getting to the bottom of what they mean.

That’s like asking Picasso why he misplaced Dora Maar’s eyes in the portraits he did of her.

That reporter had no right to grill you like that, but she’s young; she didn’t know any better. Maybe she’ll learn.”

“Yeah, maybe. But anyway, thanks for rescuing me from her detective work. I appreciate it. Let me give Javier a hand with the chairs. Then I’m going to take off. I’m exhausted and I’m starting to get a headache.”

“It’s okay, hombre,” Javi says. “I got this. Now that you’re a celebrity, you don’t have to stack no chairs.” I start stacking anyway and tell him to knock off the celebrity shit. “Oh yeah, that’s right,” he says. “You only made the mural, but I’m in it. Guess that makes me the celebrity.”

“Yeah, you’ll probably have people start asking you for your autograph.” He grins and says he’s going to charge five bucks a pop.

When I start to leave, Mrs. M tells me to hold on. Says she has something for me. She hurries into her office and comes out carrying a plastic bag bulging with leftover cookies. “As promised,” she says. “And this. It’s a printout of a poem that might interest you. Do you like poetry, Corby?”

“Not so much. My seventh-grade English teacher kind of killed that off when she made us memorize these corny poems she loved. ‘Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies.’?”

“Not a fan of Tennyson then,” she says.

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