IN & OZ: A Novel by Steve Tomasula Page A

her, not expected to speak, under no pressure to carry his end, or both ends of a conversation, it was easier to listen. Or rather, an understanding of what she was saying would come over him though she spoke no words, the wrinkle of her forehead speaking volumes, as did the arch of an eyebrow, a frown, or twitch so subtle that he would never have even seen it before, looking down at his shoes as he struggled to come up with something to say.
    Afterwards, the two men went up to congratulate her, and Mechanic thought that at least now he knew that she was a poet. But her book,
The Machine That Never Works: A Manual
, was thick as his fist, and shaped like a schematic symbol for—what? A valve? A heart? That is, it was a sculpture, and opening it he expected its inside to be blank: for if what she read resulted in silence, what she read must have been blank. She wasn’t mute. He had asked Photographer about that after meeting her and according to him she actually had a beautiful reading/singing voice. It’s just that after taking up dirt as her medium, she wouldn’t use it any longer. Unless there was something really worth saying. And her silence
did
point out how trite, how unnecessary most, if not all, conversation actually was. But this book
was
her work, after all, so if she didn’t speak it, what else could she possibly consider worth saying?
    But the book wasn’t blank at all. When he opened it up, visual poems poured out: warranty cards, blueprints; a wiring-harness diagram folded out into a geodesic dome the size of a breadbox: a book of poetry that was a sculpture, or a sculpture in the form of a book that was poetry? Thumbing through its pages, trying to imagine what machine all the documents and drawings could refer to, he began to wonder if by “works” she meant “works right.”
    Photographer grabbed the book from his hands, then handed it to her for an autograph.
    “I would like to buy a copy also,” Mechanic said, drawing out his wallet, miffed by the way Photographer had snatched the book away.
    Poet (Sculptor) pretended as if she hadn’t heard him, her tongue stuck out in concentration as she fashioned a dedication to Photographer in the book’s flyleaf—more of a drawing than a signature.
    “Are you sure?” Photographer asked. “Each book is twenty-five thousand dollars, you know.”
    “Twenty-five thousand dollars?” Mechanic repeated, looking at the two limp bills in his billfold.
    “And it’s sold. As in ‘Sold out.’ The entire print run has sold out.”
    “Your book has sold out?” Mechanic repeated, incredulous. And not a little relieved. “That’s fantastic!”
    Poet (Sculptor) shrugged.
    “Of course there was only one copy,” Photographer said, making Mechanic afraid that he had accidentally slighted her again, that she had shrugged out of embarrassment for having such a small print run. “Mine.”
    Or was she embarrassed for him, shrugging to minimize her victory because she was a good sport, a good winner, having sold every copy while she knew the difficulty he was having in getting an audience for his work. She looked back down into the elaborate signature/dedication she was drawing for Photographer.
    “When the philistine publisher who held her manuscript hostage learned how much the book would cost to produce,” Photographer was explaining, “they tried to back out. They claimed that the special dies and plates that were needed to make her manuscript into the three-dimensional book she wanted would bankrupt their little kitchen-table operation. But she had a contract, and if she eliminated the sculptural nature that made her book her book it wouldn’t be her book. It would be nothing, so what would be the point? It was difficult, very difficult, huh?” he asked Poet (Sculptor). Her smile twisted into a wry look as though remembering a war story, or a story of a mass migration that had turned out well, though it was nonetheless still painful. “Many times she