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always held the winning cards, and he had known that and forgotten it
somewhere along the way. The fact was that, in real life, the tortoise would
never beat the hare. The hare would always wake up at the last minute and pull
it off in the final stretch.
Mr. Irving cleared his throat carefully. "Are you very upset, son? No, that's
a silly question  of course you're very upset. But are you really very
upset?" He added, "Huh, Simon?"
Simon smiled in spite of himself. "Mom was right," he said. "It's business.
Thanks for the early warning." He sighed. Now he had to break the news to the
co-owners, all fifteen hundred of them.
Fourteen
"Mother and Child" by Laura Dixon won the 1985 New York State Vishnik Prize.
"Subway Breakdown" finished a disappointing fifth. Peter Ashley came second,
Lawrence and Chernik came third, and fourth place went to an underdog entry
from a small school in Buffalo. Sam Stavrinidis's "Traffic Jam" received a
special award, created on the spot, in recognition of its wit and style. The
head judge commented, "It didn't deserve the top prize, but it was by far the
pet entry of this year's competition, and too good to be ignored."
Querada was so delighted by this special honor that Sam received instant
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forgiveness for changing his entry without the teacher's approval. "Yes, I
suppose it does have  a few camels  "
"But, Mr. Querada," Sam baited, "there are over four hundred of them."
"All right  several camels. But it also has a prize ribbon, and this is
saving your life."
The teacher was even more pleased to note that last year's winner from Albany
failed to make the top ten.
It was Querada's best finish ever, and he was so jubilant that his style of
celebration would have looked more in place in the center-field bleachers at
the World Series. Soon gallery security asked him to leave, which was an
annual event. In the history of the competition, Emile Querada had never seen
a judging through to the end. As was the tradition, his students left with
him, and the teacher resumed his festivities in the middle of West Broadway.
This continued until the residents of nearby buildings began to shout
obscenities at this six-foot-eight-inch disturber of the peace. Then Querada
kissed each of his glorious dozen fondly on both cheeks, and sent them home.
Of the twelve, Simon alone went home unhappy. He tried to tell himself that to
make the top five out of over three hundred entries should be enough for him,
but it just wouldn't wash. He'd been so sure that he'd take this year's prize,
just as he was sure to this very moment that "Subway Breakdown" was better
than the four pictures that had come ahead of it. Naturally, he was happy for
Sam. And he didn't grudge Laura, Peter, Bob, and Grace their success. And
placing fifth wasn't that bad. But coming on the heels of the news that
Antiflux was finished, it just didn't seem right. He thought things like this
were supposed to balance out  a goes wrong, so B goes right. You blow it with
Wendy, but you're a resounding success in Nathan's movie. Antiflux goes sour,
but they give you the Vishnik Prize. That was equitable, reasonable, fair, and
also the pipe dream of an idiot.
Sam and Phil called to say they were coming over to cheer him out of his
Vishnik blues, then called a half hour later from a pay phone to report that
the intermittent defect had stranded them at a busy intersection halfway
between Greenbush and Fosterville. Simon went out to the rescue, and the three
finally ended up at their usual hangout, the DeWitt Burger King.
"This is your fault," Sam accused Phil. "We're dealing with a vehicle that
works on a shoestring as it is, and you have to take it through a car wash
with a wedding cake!"
"We think there may be some icing sugar in the engine," Phil explained to
Simon.
"How did the project come out?" Simon asked.
"Sickening!" said Sam. "Disgusting!"
"Oh, I don't know about that, Sotirios. I kind of like it. Sure, most of the
cake got washed away, but the metal parts are bent into some pretty
interesting shapes. And the little bride and groom look kind of funky
half-melted like that. I think it's got a shot."
"How'd Copadrick respond when you brought it in?"
"Hard to tell. He said 'Very original,' and went on to the next thing. If I
had it to do over again, I'd have passed on the hot wax. But otherwise I'm
pretty satisfied. I call it 'Wet Wedding.''
The subject changed to the Vishnik results, and Sam talked about how everyone,
even Peter and Laura, was surprised that "Subway Breakdown" hadn't fared
better. Simon sat through this sympathy session until he was good and
depressed, and then he decided it was time to get everyone else good and
depressed, too. So he told them about the upcoming expropriation of Lot 1346B,
and how there was nothing at all Antiflux could do about it.
The hardest part was convincing Phil that Antiflux had, in fact, run out of
options. On the spot, he came up with seven different defenses, all of them
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crazy enough to give Sam palpitations. "Well, can't we at least get ourselves
a lawyer and tie the whole thing up in the courts? That could drag for years!"
"We can't do anything," Simon insisted. "No one would ever let us make a move
that could risk having Interflux leave Greenbush. The town's just going to
grab our land and hand it over. That's it."
Phil scowled. "Well, if that's the way it is, then my faith is suffering a
severe blow."
"The weather's still nice," Sam pointed out.
"Big deal! We may as well have hurricanes twice a day if we're going to have
to close up the Cultural Center anyway! What a downer!"
"I suppose you and your old man are kind of on the outs," said Sam to Simon.
"Not really. You see, I was brought up on Interflux. I knew something like
this was going to happen sooner or later, but somewhere between weed-cutting
and the worm store, we all kind of lost touch with reality. When we stood up
on that platform and looked down on all those cheering enthusiastic Antiflux
supporters, and we'd already pulled off half a dozen minor miracles before,
and our minds were balled up with women and school and art prizes and a lot of
other things, we started thinking that maybe the impossible might be possible.
But in the end, hundreds of kids are no match for zillions of dollars. Like my
dad said, it was never a contest."
"You know," Phil mused, a distant gleam in his eye, "they can take away our
land and everything on it; they can force us into submission and slap our
wrists from here to Mongolia; they can blow us off the face of the earth if
they want to. But no matter how rich and powerful they are, they can't wipe
out the moments we've had, the odds we've beaten, the memory of six hundred
kids marching out to cut weeds!" Phil was on his feet for this last statement.
"Sit down, idiot," Sam intoned.
"Phil, that was beautiful," said Simon.
"Beautiful, but useless," Sam agreed grudgingly.
Phil sat down, nodding sadly. "Yeah."
They drove back to the wreck, which started perfectly, and Simon followed Phil
and Sam back to Greenbush. Sam went home to catch up on some sleep, but Simon
and Phil weren't tired, and elected to take a walk.
They walked in silence for a while, then Phil stopped suddenly. "Where are we,
Simon?"
"About three blocks from your house."
"No, I mean where are we really? You know, 'Wet Wedding' wasn't the first
title for that project. I
originally called it 'Farewell Nassau Arts.' And all that stuff about it
having a shot  just air. I'm not going to be at Nassau Arts that much longer,
you know."
"I know. So does Sam. That's why he's so cranky." They began to walk again.
"I talked to T.C.," Phil went on, "and there's no way I'm going to get into
another department. I already hold the record with four. It's burn-out time."
"Then why did you try that lunatic stunt with the cake? You knew it wouldn't [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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