Atwater... Alpha betical order. I jumped ahead. Engels, French... I jumped again. Orsulak, Pardou, Preller ...
Wait a minute. Where the hell was Penn?
Molly had said his application would be here, hadn't she? I checked again. Orsulak, Pardou, Preller ...
Shit.
Maybe it had been misplaced. I went through the entire pile of applications carefully, one by one.
But Donald Penn's application wasn't there.
Someone had taken it away.
Great. This was just perfect. Now what?
I checked my watch: 4:15. A wave of exhaustion poured through me. The top of my head was radiating dull throbs and my eyes ached. Outside the wind was picking up again, rattling the windowpanes. There was some kind of unpleasant smell in the air, probably dust from all those old files.
I looked down at the applications in front of me, and on a whim checked out the one from Mike Pardou. He had applied for $1 500 to support him while he com posed a "one-man, folk-music opera about lost love, with harmonica and spoons." Just what the world needed. Bad enough people had to listen to him cry and warble "Midnight at the Oasis" whenever he got high; now he wanted to be paid for it.
But the panel had actually accepted his application. And not only that, they'd awarded him the entire $1500. Come on, this guy hadn't done anything of artistic note since the Jim Kweskin Jug Band broke up, and that was so long ago, people still said "groovy."
Intrigued, I decided to check the grant applications from the other artists who were also members of the panel. Bonnie Engels had applied for $2000 to produce her boxing video; and her application had been ac cepted in full, too. Now Bonnie was a legit artist—I'd seen a couple of plays she directed, and they were pretty good—but two grand seemed like a lot, given how little money the Arts Council had to spread around.
I kept on going. Antoinette Carlson: $1800, accepted in full. George Hosey: also $1800, also accepted in full.
What a joke.
And to top things off, Steve Simpkins, the Novella Man, had applied for $1200 "to support me while I complete my novella. Several publishers have already expressed interest." Give me a break, the Novella Man didn't need any grants to support him; he had a trust fund. And besides, I would bet my wife and at least one of my children that no publisher anywhere on this planet had ever "expressed interest" in anything this chump had ever written.
But his application was accepted in full. Every single application from me mbers of the grant panel was ac cepted in full.
Talk about conflict of interest.
Weird. With such small sums of money involved, you'd think people wouldn't bother to be dishonest. They'd just figure it wasn't worth the trouble. But I guess that's not how it works. What the heck, Spiro Agnew, one Watergat e heartbeat away from the presi dency, gave it all up for a $25,000 bribe.
Of course, with these NYFA grants it wasn't just money at stake, it was prestige. But still, it seemed so petty.
And what about Gretchen? Why did she go along with it? Because she needed these folks' help to do the grunt work for her Arts Center?
Disgusted with people in general, and artists in par ticular, I threw the box of applications back in the bookcase. And that's when I noticed, sitting right there on the bottom shelf, two more cardboard boxes. They were labeled nyfa, 97 and nyfa , 96 . I quickly opened the '97 box, tore through the pile, and there it was: Donald Penn's application. W ith his cramped meticulous hand writing covering the page. A year old, but still, maybe it would have that ma gic hidden clue. I started read ing.
I got so engrossed in the application, I didn't notice the unpleasant smell in the room getting stronger.
And I didn't notice the fire until I looked up and black smoke was already racing through the broken windowpane.
15
I was so lost in Penn' s words, the smoke didn't regis ter at first. I just stared at it blankly.
But then that old chestnut flashed
Wait a minute. Where the hell was Penn?
Molly had said his application would be here, hadn't she? I checked again. Orsulak, Pardou, Preller ...
Shit.
Maybe it had been misplaced. I went through the entire pile of applications carefully, one by one.
But Donald Penn's application wasn't there.
Someone had taken it away.
Great. This was just perfect. Now what?
I checked my watch: 4:15. A wave of exhaustion poured through me. The top of my head was radiating dull throbs and my eyes ached. Outside the wind was picking up again, rattling the windowpanes. There was some kind of unpleasant smell in the air, probably dust from all those old files.
I looked down at the applications in front of me, and on a whim checked out the one from Mike Pardou. He had applied for $1 500 to support him while he com posed a "one-man, folk-music opera about lost love, with harmonica and spoons." Just what the world needed. Bad enough people had to listen to him cry and warble "Midnight at the Oasis" whenever he got high; now he wanted to be paid for it.
But the panel had actually accepted his application. And not only that, they'd awarded him the entire $1500. Come on, this guy hadn't done anything of artistic note since the Jim Kweskin Jug Band broke up, and that was so long ago, people still said "groovy."
Intrigued, I decided to check the grant applications from the other artists who were also members of the panel. Bonnie Engels had applied for $2000 to produce her boxing video; and her application had been ac cepted in full, too. Now Bonnie was a legit artist—I'd seen a couple of plays she directed, and they were pretty good—but two grand seemed like a lot, given how little money the Arts Council had to spread around.
I kept on going. Antoinette Carlson: $1800, accepted in full. George Hosey: also $1800, also accepted in full.
What a joke.
And to top things off, Steve Simpkins, the Novella Man, had applied for $1200 "to support me while I complete my novella. Several publishers have already expressed interest." Give me a break, the Novella Man didn't need any grants to support him; he had a trust fund. And besides, I would bet my wife and at least one of my children that no publisher anywhere on this planet had ever "expressed interest" in anything this chump had ever written.
But his application was accepted in full. Every single application from me mbers of the grant panel was ac cepted in full.
Talk about conflict of interest.
Weird. With such small sums of money involved, you'd think people wouldn't bother to be dishonest. They'd just figure it wasn't worth the trouble. But I guess that's not how it works. What the heck, Spiro Agnew, one Watergat e heartbeat away from the presi dency, gave it all up for a $25,000 bribe.
Of course, with these NYFA grants it wasn't just money at stake, it was prestige. But still, it seemed so petty.
And what about Gretchen? Why did she go along with it? Because she needed these folks' help to do the grunt work for her Arts Center?
Disgusted with people in general, and artists in par ticular, I threw the box of applications back in the bookcase. And that's when I noticed, sitting right there on the bottom shelf, two more cardboard boxes. They were labeled nyfa, 97 and nyfa , 96 . I quickly opened the '97 box, tore through the pile, and there it was: Donald Penn's application. W ith his cramped meticulous hand writing covering the page. A year old, but still, maybe it would have that ma gic hidden clue. I started read ing.
I got so engrossed in the application, I didn't notice the unpleasant smell in the room getting stronger.
And I didn't notice the fire until I looked up and black smoke was already racing through the broken windowpane.
15
I was so lost in Penn' s words, the smoke didn't regis ter at first. I just stared at it blankly.
But then that old chestnut flashed
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