They're
back in their own garage--which, after their most recent job, looks about
as big and as well-appointed as a lavatory on a Greyhound bus. "We really
should fix this place up," Georgia says.
"One thing at a
time," Houston says.
Initially, Georgia
has doubts about the Perma-Crete. Although her husband's a certified installer,
she's never actually seen him use it on a job.
"You can put it
over anything," he insists. "Twice the strength of regular concrete. This
stuff comes in over 170 colors, and the texture choice is almost unlimited.
It exceeds the ASTM E-119 Fire Test Rating. And the ASTM E-84-95 Flame
& Smoke Spread Tests. It's officially rated as a fire retardant material."
"The legislature's
worried about vandalism," Georgia says.
"They use it on
pool bottoms, for Christ's sake. It's waterproof and chemical resistant.
You could wipe off any graffiti with mineral spirits and a cotton cloth.
It's even passed ballistic penetration tests." He reads from his Installer's
Brochure. "Easily withstood direct hits from 9 millimeter, .45 caliber,
and .38 caliber weapons. You'd need a mortar or an RPG to take out
this fetus."
After Houston unpacks
the vinyl punching bag, Georgia cuts a small hole in the alabaster pate
and holds it wide open while her husband pours in the Perma-Crete. Before
it dries, they puncture it with a maze of heavy-duty coathangers to provide
the additional substructure for Greetus's flippers. But for now, he looks
like St. Sebastian right after he's made a last-minute decision to join
the circus.
Georgia beholds
the punctured clown. Then she turns to Houston. "Didn't I tell you to
keep those coathangers away from my fetus?" When they stop laughing, Georgia
says, "Are you sorry we never had kids?"
"Sometimes," Houston
says. "Then I think of all those days you came home after school and screamed
in the shower. If they were your kids, you couldn't have done that."
"No, I suppose
not." Georgia touches her husband's face. "But if I'd seen you in them,
maybe I wouldn't have wanted to."
He kisses her on
the lips, something he rarely does anymore. "Maybe I could've learned
to play golf. To teach them," Houston explains. He walks over to
their work-in-progress and checks on its drying time. He's making this
up as he goes along, too. He's never worked with a Perma-Crete coating
more than 2" thick. "You know, I'm really starting to like this little
guy." The protruding wires flex in his grasp but don't wiggle. "Even if
his wings are coming out of his butt."
"Amen," she says.
Then
they get another call from the State Capitol. This time it's from the
Chair of the Ways and Means Property Tax Subcommittee. Himself.
The Greetus Bill has passed both the House and Senate. "Before we could
push it through, it was amended. But it's still $5,000."
"Amended to what?"
Georgia asks.
"Design, construction,
and delivery."
"You should've
told us beforehand," Georgia says.
"The check," Houston
says from atop the stepladder. He's looking to make sure Greetus meets
the design specs from The God's Eye View. "Tell him to send us the goddamn
check."
Georgia shushes
her husband. "Exactly what do you want?"
"We already have
the pedestal," Himself explains. "On site. It was donated by a local monument
firm. To keep us within budget. All he's asking is that we think of him
when we die."
"That's nice,"
Georgia says. "But what should I do in the meantime?"
"Could you drive
Greetus down here?"
"I don't know,"
Georgia says. "It's pretty heavy. Can I just mail it?"
"We don't want
the federal government getting involved."
Georgia's husband
is staring at her. She knows he's ready to ask her for the phone. He's
used to speaking with dithering clients all the time. "How about FedEx?"
"We've looked into
that," Himself says. "We're all in favor of privatizing. But it'd cost
more than the legislature has appropriated."
Georgia covers
the sound holes with her free hand. "Houston, we have a problem."
But Houston solves
it. Her husband has an F-350 pickup with four wheels on the rear axle.
It can haul three tons. "If you'd told us in the beginning," Houston scolds
Himself, "we could've used the bed of the truck. As a womb."
Georgia whispers
Don't push it into her husband's other ear, and then takes back
the phone. "I'm sorry," she says into the sound holes. "You were saying?"
"We can offer you
a free lunch. And 37 1/2¢ a mile. Plus a crane when you get here. All
you have to do is supervise the delivery."
"My husband will
be driving. Can he come to the lunch?"
"Of course," Himself says. "It's $14.95, and there's no tax for him to
pay. We're committed to keeping the cost of your government down."
"Yes," she says.
"You should be committed."
Himself tells her
to hold on the line, so his secretary can record her Social Security number.
"Your check's just waiting to be cut."
"Get it in writing!"
Houston shouts. "Before we load that sucker up."
They
get it in writing, along with a photocopy of the check, so they slather
the final coat of Perma-Crete on Greetus. Georgia can't believe it. She's
never done a sculpture before, and it looks exactly like her drawings.
On a unseasonably cold day in March, they back the F-350 into the garage,
as close to Greetus as they can get. The actual loading is performed by
the Cowpens College chapter of The Fellowship of Christian Linebackers,
who were looking for an off-season community service project that combined
moral rectitude with a formidable jerk-and-lift.
They've never been
to the Statehouse before, but they've heard it's somewhere between D and
C Streets. It's about a two-hour drive. At the end of it, a man with a
camouflage cap is sitting in a small crane. When he sees them inching
up to the curb, he climbs down and walks over to Houston's window. When
Houston lowers it, half of the man's gingery beard falls into the cab.
"Back her in,"
the man says. "Close as you can till I whistle."
Houston eases the
F-350 over the curb.
"It ain't done
it!" the man shouts. "Keep on back!"
When Houston finally
drops the tailgate, it's only inches from the waiting slab.
Georgia, however,
isn't watching any of this. She's too busy looking at the demonstrators.
Docile as cattle, they're standing behind the police cordons. Some of
the signs are so clever--or so stupid--that you can't tell which side
they're coming from.
WOULD JESUS DRIVE A FETUS EX MACHINA
MOSES WOULD BUY
MICROSOFT
VEAL EATERS AREN'T
PRO-FETUS
YOUR WOMB OR MINE
IF A FETUS IS A
PERSON, THEN I CAN DRINK AT 20-3
But they're all staring at Georgia's statue being hoisted from the truck.
The crane operator, whose name is Melvin, certainly knows what he's doing.
He's feathering the controls to keep Greetus gently in touch with the
supporting bed of the F-350 for as long as possible. Georgia just hopes
that Perma-Crete is as solid as Houston says it is.
She hears a voice
from behind the cordon. "Seems like they might could keep from crushing
the little feller's head with them forceps."
"That ain't his
head, Duane." A woman's voice. "He's still in the womb, remember? He's
standing on his head."
"No he ain't."
Georgia turns in time to see Duane clamp his wife's head between his hands,
adjusting it to his own line of sight.
"You mean his wings
are coming right out of his little . . . . Oh my God!"
Greetus is resting
safely on the pedestal for The Womb of the Unborn Soldier. His subtly
flattened posterior works admirably as a stabilizing force. Now somebody
encased in a semitransparent membrane slips under the cordon. He points
his Mr. Microphone at the statue and screams, "I AM SOME BODY!" He seems
to expect a response.
Houston comes up
to her and whispers, "Maybe they should've commissioned a composer, too.
For a voice-activated CD player."
"I AM THE GREETUS!
I AM THE GREETUS!"
When the cops haul
Membrane Man away, Georgia can't tell if the crowd's applauding for him
or for his removal. It's cold as hell, with a stiff wind blowing. Maybe
they're just trying to keep their hands warm.
Someone in combat
fatigues introduces himself. He says he's Sam Walton. He asks who the
artist is, and Houston points proudly to Georgia. "Ma'am, don't it look
a little small to you now?"
"That's why we
have him on the pedestal," Georgia explains.
"I was talking
bout my monument," Sam Walton says. Georgia notices that his eyes
seem to be focusing somewhere well beyond her own head. "That fetus can't
be more'n a 7-weeker. Ain't much bigger'n a grape. So if I'm working to
scale, I figure my monument's now not but the size of my middle finger."
He points it at the adjacent obelisk. "That's an insult to the American
men who fought for their country."
"We don't want
any trouble, buddy," Houston says.
But Georgia's not
backing down. "Sort of like this?" Georgia holds up her own middle finger,
but she's forgotten she's wearing mittens.
Sam Walton raises
his right hand to return her high-five. "Ma'am, I got nothing gainst little
Greetus. I just need myself something bigger."
By now, the crowd's
almost gone. The police nearly outnumber the demonstrators, so they start
taking down the cordons and putting them into their patrol cars. The stragglers
approach Greetus for a closer look. A woman in a dark wool coat gently
touches his right wing, then his left, then walks over to Georgia.
"I read that story
about you in the paper." Even though she's holding her collar closed up
against her throat, her teeth are still chattering. "He's a joke, isn't
he?"
At first, Georgia
wants to commend the woman for her intelligence. But a small voice inside
her says she'd better wait. "What makes you say that?"
"I just talked
with somebody who was suing her fetus. For her latest ectopic pregnancy.
Under the Victims of Unborn Violence Act. Can you believe that?"
"No," Georgia laughs.
"I can't."
"I took enough
art in school to know when I'm being insulted," she says. "This statue
isn't pro-anything. People like you think you have an abortion and then
you forget about it. Get on with your life. Well, you don't. You never
get over it."
Georgia feels her
anger souring into something else, like a recipe she's left on the stovetop
too long. "I can believe that," she whispers.
"Can you? Can you
really?"
"It doesn't matter
what I believe," Georgia says. Surprised by her own words, she leads the
woman to the base of the statue, giving her the one view that she's never
drawn, that she's never even imagined. "Just look up, and tell me what
you see."
"He's flying down."
The woman's mouth opens in wonder. "My God, he's flying down to me!"
"Then that's what
he's doing," Georgia says. "Don't let anyone tell you different."
"I just didn't
know how to see it like that." The woman's wind-whipped eyes are glistening
in the cold March sun. "Thank you."
After the woman
leaves, Georgia looks for Houston. Dear, dear Houston. He's waving goodbye
to Melvin, who's on his way to give the local Jaws of Life a helping hand
on the freeway. Georgia will tell her husband about the woman--and about
what was said, and about what was said in return. But not yet. For the
moment, they both wonder what's going to be for lunch. They wonder if
a six-foot fetus is worth a rubber chicken. They wonder if a rubber chicken
is worth $14.95. They wonder if the check they've already seen, in its
dimly reproduced glory, is going to bounce off the State Treasury. Then
they get into their truck and drive to one more place they've never been
before.
