“Are you implying the show’s not worth defending?” she asked. “That it’s something I should be ashamed of?”
“I wish you had exhibited your paintings,” I said, looking at the stacks of canvases against the wall. “I think these are wonderful. I really think that’s the direction you should’ve followed.”
“Don’t obfuscate. Answer my question. Say what you really mean.”
“Why do you think all those other organizations wouldn’t take the case? Purely out of legal considerations?”
“Answer me.”
“Maybe,” I told her, “the Globe review had some validity. Maybe there could have been more substance, fewer gimmicks.”
“You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve,” Jessica said. “I can’t believe this, coming from you. You’ve written one good story in your life, and you took what could have been Esther’s slot in the Discoveries issue, no compunction whatsoever, even though you’re on the staff. For what?”
“That’s not fair,” I said. “I did have compunctions. A lot of them. I wanted to pull my story. Joshua convinced me not to.”
“And he’s the god of propriety,” Jessica said. “I hate the bitch right now, but Esther’s the real deal. You know that. She works hard, she deserves to be recognized. Whereas you’re always complaining you don’t have time to write. Let me ask you: When will you? Will you ever do anything instead of just talking about it? Maybe you should just quit, Eric. Give up trying. The world doesn’t need another dilettante, and that’s all you’ve ever been.”
Barboza filed a counter-complaint against Jessica, Chapter 272, Section 29, for public dissemination of obscene and pornographic materials, which was punishable by a maximum of five years or a fine of $10,000. Both the malicious destruction and obscenity complaints would be heard in ten days by the clerk magistrate of the Third District Court of Middlesex County, who would determine if criminal charges should go forward against either party.
“This is scandalous,” Barboza told the Globe. “I can’t believe she and her misfit cronies want to waste taxpayer money on this. But if they want a fight, I’ll give them one.”
This time, in addition to newspaper reporters, local TV crews showed up at the house, and Margolies and Joshua were all too happy to grant interviews.
“Freedom is about tolerating what you might despise,” Margolies said. “If you can’t do that, you’re un-American.”
“It’s clear with the councilman’s recent remarks,” Joshua said, “that he’s a bigot. We’re demanding his resignation. We will not condone this kind of racist conduct. Asian Americans will not be anyone’s patsies.”
Some City Council members began to backpedal from their initial decision not to cancel the show. “It’s possible that the exhibit constitutes a form of artistic recklessness,” the vice mayor said. One of the Arts Council members alleged that she did not know the exhibit would contain sexually explicit material when they had approved the project — a barefaced lie, since Jessica’s application had described exactly what she planned to do, her only alteration using casts of real genitalia instead of sex toys.
With increased ardor, the story was rehashed on talk radio stations, and the head columnist for the Boston Herald, Joe Quinney, addressed the subject with particular zeal. “Over in the People’s Republic of Cambridge,” he wrote, “where the diversity-university PC police run amok and City Hall is banned from displaying Christmas trees, it’s apparently permissible to display your private parts in public, as long as you call it ‘art.’ ” (“P-p-please. Is it possible to alliterate any more than that?” Joshua said.) “This is yet another example of the sordidness polluting our society, where this cheap, imitation Mapplethorpe with penis envy is being allowed to parade her perversions in a public place.” (“Yes, it’s possible!” Joshua cackled.)
Paviromo, in one of his rare visits to the Palaver office, asked me, very amused, “What in the world is going on in that house of yours? I didn’t think you had it in you, my boy.”
There followed, as Margolies predicted, protests and rallies. Demonstrators gathered in front of the City Hall Annex with signs that read THE FIRST AMENDMENT DOES NOT PROTECT FILTH, STOP PORNOGRAPHY NOW, GOD HATES SINNERS.
Anonymous hate mail was sent to the house, and anonymous hate phone messages were left on the machine: “You gooks are pervs” and “Fucking chink whore, go back to China.”
We unlisted the number and stopped answering the telephone. “Still think this was such a great idea?” I said to Joshua.
“Give me the damn code so I can erase this shit.”
“No. We might need the tape later for evidence.”
The story was picked up by the wires, the AP writing “City Councilor Charged in Stolen Porn Case,” and presumably the article was reprinted in the Saratogian, the local paper in Saratoga Springs, for one evening I came home to find that Jessica’s father had called the house. They had had no communication in seven years, although, surreptitiously, her mother and younger sisters had been in occasional touch with Jessica.
Her father had left a two-sentence message on the answering machine. “You shame me,” he said. “You are not my daughter.”
I knocked on her door. “Jessica?” She was lying on her bed in the dark, turned toward the wall.
“You heard it,” she said.
“I heard it,” I said, squatting down on the futon.
She sat up and leaned her back against the wall to face me. “I should have listened to you,” she said. “I never thought it’d get so crazy.”
I don’t think any of us really had. At Mac, with Kathryn Newey, everything had gone so peaceably, so easily for us, we had been lulled into believing that we would be sheltered from true adversity. “It’ll die down soon,” I said. “It can’t get any worse, right?”
In the last two days, she had been told by Martinique College of Art that her contract as a teacher would not be renewed, and she had been fired from Gaston & Snow.
“I’m finished as an artist,” Jessica said.
“You’d be surprised how quickly people forget things. In a year, maybe even less, I bet no one will remember any of this.”
“I went to Mount Auburn Hospital this morning,” she told me.
“You did?” Reflexively I thought about Mirielle, wondered if she was still a medical secretary there, if she had heard from any MFA programs, if she was still seeing the temp. “Was it another panic attack?” I asked.
Jessica picked up her wrist braces. “My hands have been killing me. I couldn’t stand it anymore, so last week I went in to find out about the surgery, and they did a bunch of tests. I got the results today. After all these years, now they tell me I might not have carpal tunnel at all. They think I might have rheumatoid arthritis.”
I didn’t know anything about the condition. “Is it treatable?”
“It’s chronic and progressive.” She flexed her hand, opening and closing her fingers, the tattoo of the green peacock quill on her forearm pulsing. “They don’t know, it might be a different kind of arthritis altogether. I’m supposed to see a rheumatologist next month. But I went over to Longwood”—where she proofread part-time for the New England Journal of Medicine—“and did some research. It all fits, all the symptoms. My bones could start fusing. My fingers could twist up and become permanently deformed. It might get so I can’t grip a paintbrush or craft knife anymore.”
The image of Jessica crippled, no longer being able to do what she loved most, was heartbreaking. “Try not to dwell on it right now,” I said. “Wait till you hear from the rheumatologist.”