Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 31-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
An excerpt from Holding Up the Falling Snake Sky, a novel (literary fiction) by Jean Smith
Nadine was reminded of Trevor’s incessant jealousy, always thinking some guy on the street was looking at her. The first time it happened, she felt flattered. She knew she shouldn’t, but she did. It had been a long time since men paid attention to her in the street—she was in her 50s for god’s sake. She was happy with how she looked, and actually, it was a relief to not have random men saying stupid things to her. Smile baby.
Nadine got a tremendous amount of satisfaction in striding down the street without being taunted by men. She was an observer, comfortable in her own skin, looking directly at men without them reacting to her. They were looking elsewhere—for women they could more easily intimidate. No more whistling from construction sites where men were basically donkeys lugging stuff around in the rain. They needed to make someone else feel shittier than they did, so they picked on women passing by, calling out clichés to diminish, frighten and anger them. The men themselves were safe behind scaffolding or on the other side of a muddy hole in the ground—cowards. Bus drivers, mailmen and storekeepers didn’t whistle and say nice ass to her, but give a guy a hard hat, a nail gun and something to hide behind and they’d be spouting the same crap. “The big secret about men,”thought Nadine, “is that they are mostly cowards who can’t navigate their way through anything important or difficult without resorting to lying and manipulating.”
“Armchairs Fit Through Doorways” from Jarred Up (K, 1993) (download):
