In Artesia, Figman finished his second taco, then spent the next eleven weeks waiting for parts to arrive from Germany. He took a room at the Starlite Motel, biding his time in contemplation of how he would make a name for himself and where (Texas? Montana? Utah?—No, not Utah.), all the while weighing the possibility that his doctor may have been right: Perhaps he was not dying— at least not yet. Though still violent, his headaches had become less frequent, and the blob in the corner of his vision had all but disappeared. As his health had improved, his general outlook had grown noticeably brighter. So after nearly three months of waiting for death and/or Germany, Figman concluded 1) Germany was faster, and
2) his stay in Artesia had been beneficial in some way.
Perhaps it was something in the water (for there was water in Artesia), or in the makeup of its atmosphere. He liked the smell of the place. Oil. Cattle. The creosote scent of its snow. The townsfolk were friendly; the prices, cheap. If he played his cards right (a cliché he never should have used, as he hated card games), his money might stretch two — perhaps three— years. Thus, Figman concluded that in Artesia he was not at all on death's doorstep but merely on death's windowsill. He took a house out on the highway.
The house was owned by a widow named Verdie Hooks. She had lived in it for almost three decades but now rented it out to supplement her income. At least that was the story she'd told Figman, who suspected the house simply held too many memories. He'd worked with widows; he'd even dated one once. She'd been a frail young woman who drank herb tea, took endless bubble baths, and often wept for no apparent reason.
Figman's new house was modest by anyone's standards: a living room, kitchen, two small bedrooms, and a single bath. Its doorways consisted of arches through which one room led to the next without benefit of hallways, a look that reminded Figman of the stucco bungalows of thirties Hollywood. Just ten yards beyond his kitchen window stood Verdie's grotesque pink and green trailer. He wondered whether a row of trees might help to disguise it.
At first, Figman worried that having his landlady living so close might impinge upon his privacy. But Verdie Hooks seemed reasonable— not high-strung like some women in menopause. "I'm fifty-two," she told him, the gold in the back of her mouth flashing. "A full deck." Figman had assumed she was at least ten years older. Her skin had that baked look that women sometimes acquire spending too many hours poolside. Small-boned and skinny, she had heavy lids and an overbite. She reminded Figman of a turtle.
When the Pontelle sisters finally vacated the house, they left their keys for Figman in the mailbox. He picked them up on a Thursday morning in early February. Snow had fallen the night before, and the metal mailbox door had frozen shut. Standing out on the edge of the highway, he hit the top of the contraption with his fist, then yanked the door open. Inside, he found two sets of house keys and a letter to Verdie from a hospital in Denver.
At once, Figman realized that his house and Verdie's trailer shared a single mailbox. He thought about the mail he was likely to receive and the likelihood of his landlady sorting through it, a prospect that made him feel uneasy. He'd be receiving nothing to be ashamed of: mostly letters from his mother and a flier or two. But mail was a private matter. Years earlier, he'd broken up with a girlfriend who'd opened a shoe-store advertisement addressed to him. Though she'd claimed she was only curious about the dates of an upcoming sale, Figman had seen her action as an indication of character. First store fliers, then MasterCard bills. Next, she'd be opening his paychecks.
Figman's new house was dirtier than he remembered. The carpet was soiled and mildew grew in the bathtub. White rectangles dotted the walls where pictures had hung from the now-yellowed plaster. In the closets, the smell of mothballs; throughout, the sour-sweet stench of menthol cigarettes. Burn holes pocked the sofa and armchair. The draperies, torn and sagging from bent, paint-chipped rods, lent testimony to years of closely guarded privacy. In the kitchen, the olive-green linoleum bore layers of accumulated food and dirt buffed to a dull patina by what had to have been an infantry of shoes. Scuff marks, black and heavy, suggested the former presence of a man. Dust was everywhere.
Figman hated dust. Before unloading his possessions, he set out to the local grocery. But Bulldog Superette, where he usually shopped, was clean out of Windex. Abandoning his cart half full, he headed over to Lester's E-Z Mart on Main Street. Lester's had plenty of Windex. Also rags, sponges, brushes, brooms, bleach, cleansers, floor wax, a mop and bucket, rug shampoo, a sewing kit, air freshener, and Lysol. At the checkout counter he added two jars of aloe to the stockpile in his basket.
"You from California?" asked the checker. Figman glanced up from his magazine at the woman standing before him. She was heart-stopping beautiful: pale complected with thick auburn hair pulled loosely into a ponytail. She looked about twenty. "Well?" she said, punching numbers faster than Figman could think. The badge over her breast said, "Oma."
He'd forgotten her question. "I shop here," he said.
"Hmm," said the woman. She had the most sensuous lips Figman had ever seen: pouty and full, with corners that turned sweetly upward. He looked for a wedding ring. There wasn't one.
"I live here, too," said Figman. "Do you live here? Of course you do. That was stupid."
Oma stopped her number punching and turned to face him. One of her eyes was blue; the other, violet, an anomaly that made her face all the more alluring. A shame, thought Figman, for such beauty to be squandered on a pit-town like Artesia. And then Oma smiled, a devastating smile, and the blob in his field of vision materialized.
Figman's headaches took a predictable course. First the blob, quivering, then a twenty-minute respite before agony set in. When the pain came, it came suddenly. Vomit-inducing and continual, it lasted five hours and no medicine could touch it. Figman had long since given up searching for a remedy. He'd tried them all at one time or another— Ergomar, codeine, Percocet, as well as other drugs whose names he could no longer remember— all to no apparent effect. Now, he simply endured his pain. It was a trial, he figured, something Zen and challenging and necessary to the evolution of his soul. A final test before dying. Dr. Feldstein had told him it was migraine.
Figman paid cash for his groceries and left the store quickly. His house was five miles south of town, on the highway to Carlsbad. If he drove about eighty, he'd make it home in time to close his bedroom draperies and take refuge under the covers. As he slipped his key into his car's ignition, he thought of Oma. Her mystifying eyes. Her tragic smile. Her smile was tragic because her two front teeth were broken into an inverted V that hinted boyfriend or father— some male with an attitude. She was otherwise perfection. The blob grew bigger.
The next day, in misery's afterglow, Figman scoured his house from one end to the other. It took him ten hours (twice the duration of his headache) and seemed, somehow, its logical extension. When in late afternoon he grew hungry, he drove into town for a quick bite at Eileen's Tac Olé. He picked up a copy of Men's Health at Batie's, then hurried back home to unpack his Aion.
At thirty-nine, Louis T. Figman was a man who owned little. Dying, and in need of what little redemption he could cultivate, he'd sold his house in Encino and most of his possessions. What he couldn't sell, he'd given to his gardener. He'd packed only clothes, his cassette player and tapes, some business files, and a box of personal articles. In El Paso, he'd picked up a book on oil painting. It was big and heavy and filled with pictures. He'd read the book cover to cover while waiting for his axle.
Ceremoniously, he placed the book on the highest shelf in his living room. It looked small up there, and appropriately lonely. Figman saw it as a metaphor. If art (and subsequent fame) were to become his sole purpose, he'd need to eliminate all life's other distractions. Painting would have to become his everything. Such singular devotion might even sustain him longer than fate intended, a happy thought that drew Figman to his refrigerator.
Uncapping a bottle of Dos Equis, he sat down at his kitchen table and thought seriously about his future. He would need to be mindful of his drinking; artists, he knew, had trouble with alcohol. At night only, he promised himself, once his day's work