Dining With the Great Presto
Christina Hamlett
October 07, 2006
I first met Milton - or 'Presto', as he preferred to be called - at the graduation party of a friend who had just become an accredited psychic. It was an especially jubilant occasion for her, given that she was not only approaching the Big 5-0, but had graduated at the top of her class by getting 100% on every test. (The fact that they should all have gotten 100% if they were any good as psychics is not addressed herein.)
At any rate, she had also wanted to use this auspicious occasion as an opportunity to play matchmaker between yours truly and a local artist she had recently commissioned to paint her aura. Yes, people really do make a living at such things, generally hanging out their shingles next door to all those genuine accredited psychics and banking on the public's weakness to buy just about anything, no matter how ridiculous.
His "gift," as my friend explained it, was to close his eyes, concentrate very hard, and "let the colors come" - the result being a garish swash of light and shadow, plus or minus a few zig-zags, which were meant to depict the subject's inner self, Zodiac sign, and universal worth.
"But how do you know that your aura is marigold with a splash of magenta?" I asked her when she showed me the finished product. (Heaven forbid that one should be cursed with an unflattering aural palette and have to keep it in the hall closet.)
"Because his muse tells him so," she replied, as if this answer should be obvious to anyone.
Apparently his resident muse had also dropped quite a few hints that he should one day like to 'connect' with this scintillating author and playwright Sheri had so generously bragged about during their sessions together.
"You'd be perfect for each other!" she predicted.
Should I mention at this juncture that she said the very same thing about the guy with the bladder-challenged cat who told me he wasn't built for monogamy? Perhaps not. Or that I rarely, if ever, hit it off romantically with men who used phrases like 'connect,' 'get centered,' 'have a dialogue,' or 'think outside the box'? You'd think, as a psychic, she would already know that.
It was a cold and foggy Saturday afternoon - the kind that Sacramento is famous for during the November to January spread. An hour and a half into the party, The Artist Formerly Known as Milton had yet to arrive.
"I can't imagine what happened to him," Sheri remarked, though consciously opting not to use her newly acquired degree and telepathic powers on such tawdry and show-boating tricks as discerning where all of one's guests are.
The words were no sooner past her lips when - Voila! - or rather, Presto!, the missing celebrity made his entrance, replete with short ponytail, John Lennon tinted glasses, and a midnight blue wool cape which - in spite of its weight - he was able to effortlessly shrug off of his broad shoulders to be caught by the person standing nearest the front door.
Now lest you start envisioning otherwise, Milton was not a bad looking man. One might, in fact, see him at a neighborhood gym and smile approvingly at what could be done with a six-foot-two frame, 40 years of moderately healthy eating, and an hour per week in a tanning salon.
My best friend, Susan, however, didn't get much past his quirky wardrobe or the ponytail that looked like a wind-up key at the back of his head. "Who's the kook in the cape?" she leaned in to ask.
"Some friend of Sheri's," I replied.
"She sure knows some weird ones," Susan opined with a smirk, notwithstanding that both of us might be counted as well among Sheri's ever widening circle of eclectic acquaintances.
Having doffed his outer apparel with great panache, he was now making his way across the living room - purposefully striding, to be more specific - to where we had parked ourselves by the hearth. "You must be Christina!" he exclaimed as he enthusiastically reached for my hand. "I'd know your aura anywhere."
"Oh good grief," Susan - the Queen of Tact - muttered under her breath.
"And you must be Milton," I said.
Did I detect a cringe of embarrassment just then?
"Please," he insisted, "call me 'Presto'."
Had Susan not opted to go questing for more eggrolls at that moment, I'm sure she would have asked him if that was 'Presto-with-one-exclamation-point-or-two?'
"Sheri tells me that you're an artist," I remarked, even though his moniker was one which seemed better suited to a double billing with 'Stinko the Clown' at a kids' party.
Almost immediately, he corrected me and said that it was pronounced "artiste."
"What a dynamic milieu," I responded, figuring that anyone who called himself an artiste would feel right at home chatting about his milieu as well.
"I am The Painter of Glow," he informed me.
I found myself wondering whether he'd had that title printed on his business cards. I'd have to remember to ask for one before he left just so I could check it out. "'The Painter of Glow'," I thoughtfully repeated. "Is that sort of like Thomas Kinkade being 'The Painter of Light'?"
Apparently it is a faux pas of enormous consequence to make such brazen comparisons, no matter how clever they sound at the time. Presto was instantly ruffled.
"Kinkade is just an artist," he retorted. "He only paints what he sees. I, on the other hand, paint energies that are invisible."
I resisted the urge to point out that my fellow Californian Mr. Kinkade made a darned good living at what Presto considered 'the easy stuff'. I couldn't resist, however, asking how he - or his paying clients, for that matter - knew whether he got all those invisible energies 'right' if no one but him could actually see them wafting around.
"Because my muse tells me so," he replied, which must have been the correct answer because I had heard the same thing the day before from a genuine accredited psychic.
"So what does your muse say about me?" I queried, figuring that so many people are always coming up to me at parties to ask how to write a book that now and then I think I should be able to turn around and sponge up my own share of free advice.
He lifted his wire-frame glasses off the bridge of his patrician nose and proceeded to squint intently at my forehead.
Oh dear, I thought. I'm going to be one of those subjects with a pukey aura and it's giving him a migraine just looking at it.
At last he spoke. Softly. "I've never seen anything like this," he revealed, gallantly taking my hand and pressing my fingers to his lips. "My muse says that it would take me an entire lifetime to capture the full spectrum of your inner radiance and spirit..."
Presto or his muse, I mused, must charge by the hour.
His voice once again cut into my thoughts, which was not especially difficult considering that the only one in there was that this guy was one suave-talkin' idiot. "You," he said, "are The Quintessential Goddess."
Sheri picked that exact moment to come bouncing up with a refill of Cook's champagne. "How are we all getting along?" she chirped.
"Did you know that I'm The Quintessential Goddess?" I said.
"No, I didn't," she replied. "Did you know that Presto is The Painter of Glow?"
"Yes," I said, "I think we've established that."
LATER, THAT SAME DAY (although it seemed much longer)...
"Have you had dinner yet?" he inquired.
We had not progressed any farther than Sheri's hearth ever since his arrival almost two hours before, owing to Presto's fascination with telling me his life history. Susan, however, had progressed herself all the way home and was probably watching "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" by now. The rest of the guests - averse to venturing out into what had become a dark and stormy night - had broken into small herdlets around the house and were liberally partaking of Sheri's more expensive bottles of wine.
"I know a wonderful little Italian restaurant," he continued. "Do you like minestrone soup? This place has the best minestrone soup in the city."
Hmm. Cold night. Hot soup. A free meal, albeit with an artist(e) whose ego would have put the entire State of Maine in shadow. Oh yes, and I was also driving my own car which gave me the freedom to end the evening on my own clock. Had she still been there, Susan would have asked me why I said yes. And I would have replied, "Because there's probably a funny story in it that I can put in a book."
I did, of course, exercise the added precaution of telling Sheri where I was going and not simply leaving to chance that her psychic abilities would supply this information. "I knew you'd hit it off," she said with a grin of satisfaction. The part she didn't know, of course, was that I was bored out of my mind and just using The Amazing Presto as a font of comic material.
The restaurant was located in what had once been Sacramento's primary upscale shopping complex. Unlike the mega-malls which had eventually lured away the bulk of its regular customers, it was still a collection of one-story Spanish-style buildings linked by open-air paseos and punctuated with sidewalk cafes that offered everything from Jewish Deli to Tandoori.
From the enthusiastic reception he received from all of the waiters when we entered the room, I could draw one of two conclusions: either he was much more famous than I thought or else he worked there part-time and this just happened to be his night off.
Whatever the case, his wool cape was dutifully caught by one of the staff before it hit the floor and we were escorted to what would be the first of four tables before finally settling on the one which he felt put me (or was it him?) in the best light.
"Did I tell you how wonderful their minestrone soup is?" he reiterated after ordering a pot of chamomile tea to take off the winter chill.
Although there were actually quite a few items on the menu that I might have been hungry for, my memory was tugged back to an earlier age and a book which - in its time - was the quintessential manual for teenage girls growing up in rich Republican households: "The Seventeen Book of Etiquette and Entertaining." (1963 by Enid A. Haupt; David McKay Company, Publishers)
In addition to broaching such delicate dining topics as "How can I find the ladies' room?" and "What should I do when he pays the check?", the book boldly addressed the issue of "the young man's finances."
I quote:
"If you order the most expensive thing on the menu, you may weaken your date's wallet; with the least expensive, you'll surely weaken his pride."
(This is the same definitive source, of course, which also extolled the virtues of coming-out parties, adding gloves to your ensemble for a "brisk, smart flourish," and declining any invitations to smoke during a job interview because "it looks too casual.")
Since he had already volunteered so many endorsements about the minestrone, I naturally assumed that perhaps the aura-painting business occasionally strapped him for dinner funds and that minestrone was the best he could manage if he was paying for two of us.
"The lady will have the minestrone," he said when the waiter returned.
"Will that be a cup or a bowl?" the waiter asked.
"A cup will be just fine," I lied.
Instead of ordering the same for himself, however, my companion proceeded to ask what all of the specials were.
The list was lengthy.
"I can't decide between the Abbacchio Brodettatto or the Bistecca alla Fiorentina," he lamented.
"The Bistecca is especially nice," the waiter recommended.
Presto scowled. "That might be too heavy. How's your Cuscineti di Vitello?"
"An excellent choice."
"What about a salad? Does that come with a salad, too?"
The waiter replied that they had an amusing Insalata di Funghi Crudi.
Presto scowled again. "Raw mushrooms," he muttered in unabashed disdain. "I have some unresolved issues with them..."
I couldn't imagine what kind of 'issues' a grown man might have with mushrooms. For that matter, I wasn't sure why a quintessential goddess such as myself had suddenly receded into the woodwork as my date yakked amicably with our server about whether he should throw in an appetizer of Anguilla Marinata, Caponata or just stick with the house Bagna Cauda. I caught myself thinking that the Beach Boys could have fun substituting some of the entrees for the lyrics that begin, "Off the Florida Keys, there's a place called...."
None of this exchange, mind you, included an invitation for me to expand on my own order. I was almost tempted to pipe up that I would like a glass--nay, an entire bottle--of their most pricey wine to wash down my minestrone. Alas, but it's a curse to have grown up reading Enid Haupt's advice and being enormously well bred.
"I'm feeling so positive about finally connecting with you," Presto said when our waiter had - at long last - departed. "In fact," he added, "I'm feeling the need to share my latest vision with you. Would you mind?"
"Sure, whatever," I replied, knowing that he was probably going to share it with me whether I asked him to or not.
He reached for a cocktail napkin and asked if I had a pen in my purse. It was no sooner in his hand than he began to vigorously sketch what looked like a bunch of big rocks standing in a circle. "This is going to be my greatest creation," he declared between strokes of ink. "When the leaders of the world powers see it, they're going to lay down their arms and weep..."
A pretty heady prediction, I thought, especially since what he was drawing looked a lot like Stonehenge and which - I'm pretty sure of this - a lot of people on the planet, world leaders included, are already familiar with.
A few dramatic details later and he was finished, turning the napkin around for me to see.
"It looks like Stonehenge," I remarked, which was probably as much of a faux pas as my earlier gaff comparing him to Thomas Kinkade.
"It's much bigger than Stonehenge," he said with an underscore of impatience at my naiveté. "It's a message from Him."
"Him?" I said.
With expression unchanging, he leaned forward to confide that God Himself had called him at home the other night and commissioned him to sculpt this particular grouping of granite and take it on tour.
This raises some intriguing questions.
1. What kind of long-distance service does God have and does He get frequent flyer miles?
2. What sort of advance and/or royalties are involved when the Almighty commissions mere mortals to do something?
3. How does one transport that much weight on a road-show?
4. Will He make an appearance at the various gallery openings or just watch from afar?
5 Why have I not gotten a similar call myself for a new novel or script?
"So does this happen to you often?" I inquired. "Getting calls from God, I mean."
Presto shook his head. "I was as surprised as you are," he replied, "even though my muse hinted that He was very pleased with my work and that I might be getting a call."
Between you and me, I have always found it a prudent course to give wide berth to people who profess to be Martians, witches, or the reincarnation of Freddie Prinze. After all, I once supervised a woman for two years who told me she was from another galaxy and that she was just killing time as a typist in the Department of Food and Agriculure until the mother ship came back to pick her up. On the one hand--and if her story was true--would I really want to alienate a bunch of, well, aliens in the event they were planning a conquest of Earth? On the other hand, she was one of the best typists I had ever seen and had the endearing quality of always bringing me some salsa and a sombrero whenever she went to Tijuana.
Accordingly, I decided to be open-minded about Presto's revelation that God was calling him up at home and telling him to go sculpt rocks--a task which, I might add, sounded much easier than the one He dumped on Noah.
"So what exactly are these rocks supposed to say to people?" I asked.
Without losing a beat, he proceeded to explain that each of them represented man's foibles: gluttony, greed, pride--
"Excuse me," I interrupted, "but aren't those the same as--"
"Yes," Presto said, "but now He wants them depicted in stone." He smiled. "And this is the part where you come in."
No, I thought, this is the part where I go out. Unfortunately, my minestrone arrived at that moment and I was committed to at least another 20 minutes of inane conversation.
"Sheri tells me you write plays," he went on.
"Among other things, yes."
"Picture this, then," he said. "Between my sculpture and your script, what would we have?"
"A rock musical?" I quipped.
Behind those wire-frames, Presto's eyes grew moist with tears. "You've read my mind," he replied.
POSTSCRIPT
Suffice it to say, I never did take him up on his offer to collaborate. Nor did my friendship with Sheri the Psychic last much longer after that. I did hear via the grapevine, however, that she frequently presses him into service whenever she wants an escort to a wedding and that his muse has told him to expect a call from Oprah any day now.
At any rate, she had also wanted to use this auspicious occasion as an opportunity to play matchmaker between yours truly and a local artist she had recently commissioned to paint her aura. Yes, people really do make a living at such things, generally hanging out their shingles next door to all those genuine accredited psychics and banking on the public's weakness to buy just about anything, no matter how ridiculous.
His "gift," as my friend explained it, was to close his eyes, concentrate very hard, and "let the colors come" - the result being a garish swash of light and shadow, plus or minus a few zig-zags, which were meant to depict the subject's inner self, Zodiac sign, and universal worth.
"But how do you know that your aura is marigold with a splash of magenta?" I asked her when she showed me the finished product. (Heaven forbid that one should be cursed with an unflattering aural palette and have to keep it in the hall closet.)
"Because his muse tells him so," she replied, as if this answer should be obvious to anyone.
Apparently his resident muse had also dropped quite a few hints that he should one day like to 'connect' with this scintillating author and playwright Sheri had so generously bragged about during their sessions together.
"You'd be perfect for each other!" she predicted.
Should I mention at this juncture that she said the very same thing about the guy with the bladder-challenged cat who told me he wasn't built for monogamy? Perhaps not. Or that I rarely, if ever, hit it off romantically with men who used phrases like 'connect,' 'get centered,' 'have a dialogue,' or 'think outside the box'? You'd think, as a psychic, she would already know that.
It was a cold and foggy Saturday afternoon - the kind that Sacramento is famous for during the November to January spread. An hour and a half into the party, The Artist Formerly Known as Milton had yet to arrive.
"I can't imagine what happened to him," Sheri remarked, though consciously opting not to use her newly acquired degree and telepathic powers on such tawdry and show-boating tricks as discerning where all of one's guests are.
The words were no sooner past her lips when - Voila! - or rather, Presto!, the missing celebrity made his entrance, replete with short ponytail, John Lennon tinted glasses, and a midnight blue wool cape which - in spite of its weight - he was able to effortlessly shrug off of his broad shoulders to be caught by the person standing nearest the front door.
Now lest you start envisioning otherwise, Milton was not a bad looking man. One might, in fact, see him at a neighborhood gym and smile approvingly at what could be done with a six-foot-two frame, 40 years of moderately healthy eating, and an hour per week in a tanning salon.
My best friend, Susan, however, didn't get much past his quirky wardrobe or the ponytail that looked like a wind-up key at the back of his head. "Who's the kook in the cape?" she leaned in to ask.
"Some friend of Sheri's," I replied.
"She sure knows some weird ones," Susan opined with a smirk, notwithstanding that both of us might be counted as well among Sheri's ever widening circle of eclectic acquaintances.
Having doffed his outer apparel with great panache, he was now making his way across the living room - purposefully striding, to be more specific - to where we had parked ourselves by the hearth. "You must be Christina!" he exclaimed as he enthusiastically reached for my hand. "I'd know your aura anywhere."
"Oh good grief," Susan - the Queen of Tact - muttered under her breath.
"And you must be Milton," I said.
Did I detect a cringe of embarrassment just then?
"Please," he insisted, "call me 'Presto'."
Had Susan not opted to go questing for more eggrolls at that moment, I'm sure she would have asked him if that was 'Presto-with-one-exclamation-point-or-two?'
"Sheri tells me that you're an artist," I remarked, even though his moniker was one which seemed better suited to a double billing with 'Stinko the Clown' at a kids' party.
Almost immediately, he corrected me and said that it was pronounced "artiste."
"What a dynamic milieu," I responded, figuring that anyone who called himself an artiste would feel right at home chatting about his milieu as well.
"I am The Painter of Glow," he informed me.
I found myself wondering whether he'd had that title printed on his business cards. I'd have to remember to ask for one before he left just so I could check it out. "'The Painter of Glow'," I thoughtfully repeated. "Is that sort of like Thomas Kinkade being 'The Painter of Light'?"
Apparently it is a faux pas of enormous consequence to make such brazen comparisons, no matter how clever they sound at the time. Presto was instantly ruffled.
"Kinkade is just an artist," he retorted. "He only paints what he sees. I, on the other hand, paint energies that are invisible."
I resisted the urge to point out that my fellow Californian Mr. Kinkade made a darned good living at what Presto considered 'the easy stuff'. I couldn't resist, however, asking how he - or his paying clients, for that matter - knew whether he got all those invisible energies 'right' if no one but him could actually see them wafting around.
"Because my muse tells me so," he replied, which must have been the correct answer because I had heard the same thing the day before from a genuine accredited psychic.
"So what does your muse say about me?" I queried, figuring that so many people are always coming up to me at parties to ask how to write a book that now and then I think I should be able to turn around and sponge up my own share of free advice.
He lifted his wire-frame glasses off the bridge of his patrician nose and proceeded to squint intently at my forehead.
Oh dear, I thought. I'm going to be one of those subjects with a pukey aura and it's giving him a migraine just looking at it.
At last he spoke. Softly. "I've never seen anything like this," he revealed, gallantly taking my hand and pressing my fingers to his lips. "My muse says that it would take me an entire lifetime to capture the full spectrum of your inner radiance and spirit..."
Presto or his muse, I mused, must charge by the hour.
His voice once again cut into my thoughts, which was not especially difficult considering that the only one in there was that this guy was one suave-talkin' idiot. "You," he said, "are The Quintessential Goddess."
Sheri picked that exact moment to come bouncing up with a refill of Cook's champagne. "How are we all getting along?" she chirped.
"Did you know that I'm The Quintessential Goddess?" I said.
"No, I didn't," she replied. "Did you know that Presto is The Painter of Glow?"
"Yes," I said, "I think we've established that."
LATER, THAT SAME DAY (although it seemed much longer)...
"Have you had dinner yet?" he inquired.
We had not progressed any farther than Sheri's hearth ever since his arrival almost two hours before, owing to Presto's fascination with telling me his life history. Susan, however, had progressed herself all the way home and was probably watching "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" by now. The rest of the guests - averse to venturing out into what had become a dark and stormy night - had broken into small herdlets around the house and were liberally partaking of Sheri's more expensive bottles of wine.
"I know a wonderful little Italian restaurant," he continued. "Do you like minestrone soup? This place has the best minestrone soup in the city."
Hmm. Cold night. Hot soup. A free meal, albeit with an artist(e) whose ego would have put the entire State of Maine in shadow. Oh yes, and I was also driving my own car which gave me the freedom to end the evening on my own clock. Had she still been there, Susan would have asked me why I said yes. And I would have replied, "Because there's probably a funny story in it that I can put in a book."
I did, of course, exercise the added precaution of telling Sheri where I was going and not simply leaving to chance that her psychic abilities would supply this information. "I knew you'd hit it off," she said with a grin of satisfaction. The part she didn't know, of course, was that I was bored out of my mind and just using The Amazing Presto as a font of comic material.
The restaurant was located in what had once been Sacramento's primary upscale shopping complex. Unlike the mega-malls which had eventually lured away the bulk of its regular customers, it was still a collection of one-story Spanish-style buildings linked by open-air paseos and punctuated with sidewalk cafes that offered everything from Jewish Deli to Tandoori.
From the enthusiastic reception he received from all of the waiters when we entered the room, I could draw one of two conclusions: either he was much more famous than I thought or else he worked there part-time and this just happened to be his night off.
Whatever the case, his wool cape was dutifully caught by one of the staff before it hit the floor and we were escorted to what would be the first of four tables before finally settling on the one which he felt put me (or was it him?) in the best light.
"Did I tell you how wonderful their minestrone soup is?" he reiterated after ordering a pot of chamomile tea to take off the winter chill.
Although there were actually quite a few items on the menu that I might have been hungry for, my memory was tugged back to an earlier age and a book which - in its time - was the quintessential manual for teenage girls growing up in rich Republican households: "The Seventeen Book of Etiquette and Entertaining." (1963 by Enid A. Haupt; David McKay Company, Publishers)
In addition to broaching such delicate dining topics as "How can I find the ladies' room?" and "What should I do when he pays the check?", the book boldly addressed the issue of "the young man's finances."
I quote:
"If you order the most expensive thing on the menu, you may weaken your date's wallet; with the least expensive, you'll surely weaken his pride."
(This is the same definitive source, of course, which also extolled the virtues of coming-out parties, adding gloves to your ensemble for a "brisk, smart flourish," and declining any invitations to smoke during a job interview because "it looks too casual.")
Since he had already volunteered so many endorsements about the minestrone, I naturally assumed that perhaps the aura-painting business occasionally strapped him for dinner funds and that minestrone was the best he could manage if he was paying for two of us.
"The lady will have the minestrone," he said when the waiter returned.
"Will that be a cup or a bowl?" the waiter asked.
"A cup will be just fine," I lied.
Instead of ordering the same for himself, however, my companion proceeded to ask what all of the specials were.
The list was lengthy.
"I can't decide between the Abbacchio Brodettatto or the Bistecca alla Fiorentina," he lamented.
"The Bistecca is especially nice," the waiter recommended.
Presto scowled. "That might be too heavy. How's your Cuscineti di Vitello?"
"An excellent choice."
"What about a salad? Does that come with a salad, too?"
The waiter replied that they had an amusing Insalata di Funghi Crudi.
Presto scowled again. "Raw mushrooms," he muttered in unabashed disdain. "I have some unresolved issues with them..."
I couldn't imagine what kind of 'issues' a grown man might have with mushrooms. For that matter, I wasn't sure why a quintessential goddess such as myself had suddenly receded into the woodwork as my date yakked amicably with our server about whether he should throw in an appetizer of Anguilla Marinata, Caponata or just stick with the house Bagna Cauda. I caught myself thinking that the Beach Boys could have fun substituting some of the entrees for the lyrics that begin, "Off the Florida Keys, there's a place called...."
None of this exchange, mind you, included an invitation for me to expand on my own order. I was almost tempted to pipe up that I would like a glass--nay, an entire bottle--of their most pricey wine to wash down my minestrone. Alas, but it's a curse to have grown up reading Enid Haupt's advice and being enormously well bred.
"I'm feeling so positive about finally connecting with you," Presto said when our waiter had - at long last - departed. "In fact," he added, "I'm feeling the need to share my latest vision with you. Would you mind?"
"Sure, whatever," I replied, knowing that he was probably going to share it with me whether I asked him to or not.
He reached for a cocktail napkin and asked if I had a pen in my purse. It was no sooner in his hand than he began to vigorously sketch what looked like a bunch of big rocks standing in a circle. "This is going to be my greatest creation," he declared between strokes of ink. "When the leaders of the world powers see it, they're going to lay down their arms and weep..."
A pretty heady prediction, I thought, especially since what he was drawing looked a lot like Stonehenge and which - I'm pretty sure of this - a lot of people on the planet, world leaders included, are already familiar with.
A few dramatic details later and he was finished, turning the napkin around for me to see.
"It looks like Stonehenge," I remarked, which was probably as much of a faux pas as my earlier gaff comparing him to Thomas Kinkade.
"It's much bigger than Stonehenge," he said with an underscore of impatience at my naiveté. "It's a message from Him."
"Him?" I said.
With expression unchanging, he leaned forward to confide that God Himself had called him at home the other night and commissioned him to sculpt this particular grouping of granite and take it on tour.
This raises some intriguing questions.
1. What kind of long-distance service does God have and does He get frequent flyer miles?
2. What sort of advance and/or royalties are involved when the Almighty commissions mere mortals to do something?
3. How does one transport that much weight on a road-show?
4. Will He make an appearance at the various gallery openings or just watch from afar?
5 Why have I not gotten a similar call myself for a new novel or script?
"So does this happen to you often?" I inquired. "Getting calls from God, I mean."
Presto shook his head. "I was as surprised as you are," he replied, "even though my muse hinted that He was very pleased with my work and that I might be getting a call."
Between you and me, I have always found it a prudent course to give wide berth to people who profess to be Martians, witches, or the reincarnation of Freddie Prinze. After all, I once supervised a woman for two years who told me she was from another galaxy and that she was just killing time as a typist in the Department of Food and Agriculure until the mother ship came back to pick her up. On the one hand--and if her story was true--would I really want to alienate a bunch of, well, aliens in the event they were planning a conquest of Earth? On the other hand, she was one of the best typists I had ever seen and had the endearing quality of always bringing me some salsa and a sombrero whenever she went to Tijuana.
Accordingly, I decided to be open-minded about Presto's revelation that God was calling him up at home and telling him to go sculpt rocks--a task which, I might add, sounded much easier than the one He dumped on Noah.
"So what exactly are these rocks supposed to say to people?" I asked.
Without losing a beat, he proceeded to explain that each of them represented man's foibles: gluttony, greed, pride--
"Excuse me," I interrupted, "but aren't those the same as--"
"Yes," Presto said, "but now He wants them depicted in stone." He smiled. "And this is the part where you come in."
No, I thought, this is the part where I go out. Unfortunately, my minestrone arrived at that moment and I was committed to at least another 20 minutes of inane conversation.
"Sheri tells me you write plays," he went on.
"Among other things, yes."
"Picture this, then," he said. "Between my sculpture and your script, what would we have?"
"A rock musical?" I quipped.
Behind those wire-frames, Presto's eyes grew moist with tears. "You've read my mind," he replied.
POSTSCRIPT
Suffice it to say, I never did take him up on his offer to collaborate. Nor did my friendship with Sheri the Psychic last much longer after that. I did hear via the grapevine, however, that she frequently presses him into service whenever she wants an escort to a wedding and that his muse has told him to expect a call from Oprah any day now.
Print
Email
