And so, in my imagination, I see a trailer sitting in a mobile home park in Pahrump, Nevada, or outside Bakersfield, cooking in the sun. Inside it's clean and orderly, the home of a guy who is disciplined, meticulous, a man who lives by himself and likes things just so. There's a small TV, a mustard-colored couch, a fridge well stocked with beer, a battered hard hat sitting on a Formica table, and a pair of dusty work boots resting on a dull green linoleum floor. It's a totally unremarkable place, with almost nothing at all to indicate that its occupant once did something amazing.
But in the bedroom, on top of a particle-board chest of drawers full of tightly rolled socks and neatly folded underwear, there's an old book of poetry that someday the man who lives here might just read. And over the bed, encased in a Wal-Mart frame and hanging from a nail driven into the wood veneer paneling, there's an untitled sketch of a young woman, a kind of free-flowing line drawing, a series of loops and swirls that show the idea of the woman more than the details of her. He's been dragging it around with him for years now, and while he doesn't know much about the drawing, he likes it. It's important to him.
It's by some guy named Matisse.
-- "The Hole In The Ground Gang" from 'Where The Money Is', William J. Rehder and Gordon Dillow
But in the bedroom, on top of a particle-board chest of drawers full of tightly rolled socks and neatly folded underwear, there's an old book of poetry that someday the man who lives here might just read. And over the bed, encased in a Wal-Mart frame and hanging from a nail driven into the wood veneer paneling, there's an untitled sketch of a young woman, a kind of free-flowing line drawing, a series of loops and swirls that show the idea of the woman more than the details of her. He's been dragging it around with him for years now, and while he doesn't know much about the drawing, he likes it. It's important to him.
It's by some guy named Matisse.
-- "The Hole In The Ground Gang" from 'Where The Money Is', William J. Rehder and Gordon Dillow