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  Praise for

  Benchere in Wonderland

  Steven Gillis has created an indelible character in Benchere and let him loose in a slyly subversive wonderland of art, violence, love, grief, greed, and grand ideals. At once magnificently strange and achingly intimate, Gillis’ novel lingers and burns long after the covers are shut.

  DAWN RAFFEL, Author of The Secret Life of Objects

  Steven Gillis’ latest novel once again reminds us that he is not only a master storyteller able to conjure up narrative magic, but it’s his lyrical voice throughout the narrative that’s capable of finding the poetry in the most unlikely places that makes him the 21st century heir to Saul Bellow, John Cheever, and Stanley Elkin. When you mix Gillis’ sad, beaten lyricism with his continual explosions of narrative surprise, the result is a glorious, tense luminosity that makes Benchere in Wonderland his best book yet, a satisfying and deeply moving read.

  RICHARD GRAYSON, Author of Winter in Brooklyn

  Steven Gillis’ new novel, Benchere in Wonderland, is not quite like anything else I’ve ever read. Surprising, arresting, and electric, it kept me up a couple of nights in a row. This author has a voice all his own, and it’s one I won’t forget. Benchere in Wonderland is that rare thing—an original novel.

  STEVE YARBROUGH, Author of The Realm of Last Chances

  Steven Gillis’ latest novel, Benchere in Wonderland, takes readers into the Kalahari Desert and embroils them in the stormy clash of art and commerce, politics and aesthetics, ideas, ideals, and the chaos of the human heart. Anyone who has ever worried over the troubled relationship between art and the world will want to read this compelling novel.

  ED FALCO, Author of The Family Corleone

  Praise for Temporary People

  Temporary People is a vicious and compelling storyboard for our time.

  JEFF PARKER, author of The Taste of Penny

  Praise for The Consequence of Skating

  Steven Gillis possess the rarest of gifts, the voice that seems to flow effortlessly. This guy makes it look easy. Read the first three pages of The Consequence of Skating and if you’re not hooked, go see a doctor.

  JONATHAN EVISON, author of All About Lulu and West of Here

  Praise for Giraffes

  Gillis’ stories are illuminatingly strange, filled with power, electric, and will stay with you long after you think you’ve gone to sleep.

  STEPHEN ELLIOTT, author of Adderall Diaries

  Praise for The Weight of Nothing

  Beguilingly mystical.

  PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

  Praise for Walter Falls

  An exceptionally well written novel … Walter Falls is highly recommended as a powerful and moving saga of the human condition.

  MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

  Praise for The Law of Strings

  This story collection hooked me from story one and continued to captivate to the end. The expert dialogue and movement and resolution in each piece … This is a book you could read in a sitting or two. The pace is that swift; the stories are that good.

  STEPHEN DIXON, two-time National Book Award finalist

  Copyright ©2014 Steven Gillis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage-and-retrieval systems, without prior permission in writing from the Publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Gillis, Steven, 1957—

  Bencher in wonderland: a novel / Stephen Gillis.

  pages ; cm

  ISBN 978-0-9904370-7-9

  (softcover)

  1.Artists – Fiction.

  2.Widowers – Fiction.

  3.Self-realization – Fiction.

  4.Self-actualization (Psychology) – Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PS3607.I446B46 2015

  813’.6 – DC23

  2015001970

  Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts

  98765432

  2201 Northeast 23rd Avenue

  3rd Floor

  Portland, Oregon 97212

  hawthornebooks.com

  Form:

  Adam McIsaac/Sibley House

  Set in Paperback

  For Mary, always

  Art making is not about telling the truth, but making the truth felt.

  —CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI

  Whole sight, or all the rest is desolation.

  —JOHN FOWLES, Daniel Martin

  Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, life goes on.

  —THE BEATLES, Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da

  BENCHERE IN WONDERLAND

  Contents

  Prologue

  Book I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Book II

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  AHH BENCHERE, HE THINKS, I AM THIS: A BARROSA BULL. American bred. Both eager and unruly. Wayward and thick-headed. Older now, I am the unexpected manifest of my most deliberate ambitions. Hard working yet significantly flawed. I’m the steam kept too long in the kettle. A force of nature, forged in the waters. I am youth gone gray. Unreserved, I am Daniel Boone and George Washington Carver. Deliberate and erratic, foul tempered and temperate, I am a great bustard with one wing snapped hoping to fly. I’ve gone fat, though am powerful still. Wed to my root, I am the buffalo, am baseball and cool jazz. I am ego and humility. Am charitable and Godless. I am Walt Whitman launched over the rooftops, Lincoln and Jefferson, Action Jackson, Geronimo, John Galt and Joan Jett. I am Harold Brodkey and Harry Caray, Patrick Henry and Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and Mickey Mantle. I’m Mark Zuckerberg, Clara Barton and Benny Goodman, Rosa Parks and Paul Newman, Michael Dell and Billy the Kid, Barbra Streisand, Neil Armstrong, John Paul Stevens, Edmonia Lewis and Arthur Miller. I am Benchere, fickle and firm and quick to howl, I want, followed by, I will!

  I will, I say. I will, again.

  Book I

  1.

  IN TIVERTON LAST MONTH, BEFORE GETTING OUT OF BED, Benchere tried to masturbate. He removed the sheet and tugged off his boxers, went with a left grip first, followed by a right, then left again, milking himself until the muscle in his arms gave way and his application was aborted.

  Arggh. Ahh Benchere. Way to go. Add this to the list. Without Marti, his cock was a slack slab, indifferent to the effort.

  He lay for a while after, rolled on his side, his hand extended toward Marti’s half of the bed. A reflex, he mimicked the way he used to touch her, slipping his fingers beneath the surface of her shirt until he found the puff flesh of her remaining nipple. From there he’d move onto the flattened space where Marti’s scar snaked across an unexpected hollow. Gently he massaged as the healing allowed.

  AT A PARTY on the north end of College Hill, a hundred years ago now. Marti spoke with friends inside the front room. A silver keg sat on ice. Rickie Lee Jones played on the stereo. How come you don’t come and P.L.P. with me …. Benchere wore blue sweatpants cut off at the knee, white canvas high tops and a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt. The lighting in the house was lava lamps and candles. Two barefoot girls did toe stands for no particular reason. Marti had on jeans and a purple t-shi
rt, leather sandals and a green string tied around her right wrist.

  Most of Marti’s friends were engineering and architectural students. Benchere had completed his studies in visual arts the year before, was transitioning from favored student to anxious applicant, working four nights a week at The Green Bar – what would become The Scurvy Dog – serving dollar shots and yellow beer. During the day he shared studio space in a Waterman Street loft. A few of his sculptures were placed on consignment at the Dodge House Gallery and Providence Art Club where, through June, only one had sold.

  Someone in Marti’s group mentioned Charles Jenks’ article on the Pompidou Centre in Paris, where Jenks touted the Pompidou as the greatest architectural achievement to come along in a generation, and Marti said, “Please. Where’s the achievement? You architects couldn’t build a snowman without an engineer there to show you how.”

  Ha now. Benchere stopped to listen.

  One of the other students defended Su and Richard Rogers’ design as innovatory, described the 200,000 meters of glass, the exposed coded tubing done up in rainbow colors and maximized flow of light.

  “You mean what the engineers did.” Marti called the Rogers’ effort irrelevant. “They tossed a few ideas down on a sheet of drafting paper then asked Happold and Rice to build it.”

  Dang, Benchere moved closer. Marti’s smile was playful, revealed a confidence rather than arrogance. Undeterred by how little he knew of the Pompidou, about engineering or architecture, Benchere pushed his way into the group and approached Marti with a quick, “Say there, you can’t actually believe any of this jabber you’re peddling.”

  Marti looked up.

  In his colored shirt, saggy shorts and size 14 Converse, Benchere appeared clown-like, ridiculously large and impossible to ignore. He took another step forward and declared, “You have it all backwards there, Sally. Architects are the ones who deliver the goods. You engineers are functionaries. Like doorknobs and waffle irons. You’re waiters and bank tellers, as interchangeable as bullpen catchers. You have a narrow skill-set and no imagination. The best anyone can say is that you enable what others bring to the table. Without architects you engineers would have no career.”

  “Hey now … Did he just say …?” Those in the group hooted, then formed a circle, turned and stared at Marti in anticipation of her response.

  Even as she laughed, could not help, found Benchere’s largeness and queer dress amusing, his way of talking as if everything was part of some half-finished lyric, there was a sense of Marti gearing up. Firm of spirit, the second daughter of a third-generation Hillsboro farmer, Marti’s temperament was Old Testament, her personal convictions liberal, her nature tenacious, a devourer of fools and false prophets. In reply to Benchere she said, “So engineers have no imagination, is that right?”

  “It’s true,” Benchere defended his statement. “If you guys had some you’d all be architects.”

  Marti shifted her shoulders. She stood beneath Benchere’s chin and asked if he knew the origin of the Panama Canal, the Coliseum, Falling Water and the Pantheon? “What about the Netherlands Delta Works, Hoover Dam and Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower and Tibet Railway? All of these were built by engineers from their own designs. Did you know that?”

  “Well now …”

  “Imagine,” she gave Benchere a tsk with her tongue and handed him her beer. “It’s easy for architects to come up with designs when they don’t have to worry about function or physical laws. The Pompidou would have fallen in on itself without Happold and Rice.”

  “Maybe,” Benchere answered. “But there would be no Pompidou for you engineers to work on without the Rogers.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Marti told Benchere to “Stop and think. There was no Pompidou before the engineers got involved. Architects draft concepts. They aren’t trained to actually build what they draw. Their designs are rudimentary. Sure they have imagination, but so what? Kids have great imaginations, too, but you wouldn’t want them designing a building for you.”

  “Of course not.” Benchere countered with, “Kids aren’t architects.”

  “And architects aren’t engineers,” Marti took her beer back, kept Benchere off balance. Engaged in the debate, her voice rose expressively as she said, “Without engineers, you architects couldn’t put two pinwheels together. What good is imagination when you can’t even set a cantilever beam or figure out the tension load for a quadrangular Warren truss?” She made a motion with her right hand, suggesting whole worlds collapsing.

  Benchere followed the movement, filled his chest with air and held it, gave himself a second to consider how best to reply. His history with woman was well documented, his habit of wading in too fast before gauging the depth of the tide. An overcharge of energy kept him scrambling from one affair to the next. Easily bored by submissive girls, he looked for those aspiring types, became excited by and then competitive with women more naturally ambitious.

  Marti moved a strand of hair away from her face. Her inclinations were less impulsive than Benchere’s. Never one to wade in blind, her approach was always carefully thought out, her stamina prodigious, her sense of the world in all its abundance. Self-secure, she did not compete with lovers, found most easy prey. As Benchere was not a lover yet, Marti concentrated on their conversation, asked if he had ever heard of I.M. Pei.

  “Did she just say …?” The reference caused the group to yelp again and quarrel among themselves. Marti took Benchere’s beer, told him that “Pei was the architect on the John Hancock Tower. You know, the one so poorly designed glass panes actually fell from the façade? This is what happens when an architect relies too much on his own imagination.”

  “Ahh, wait now.” Benchere bent himself forward at the hips, squinted as if he might somehow see Marti’s words. He tried to come up with the right response, told himself, Think, Benchere. “Pei in the sky,” he said for no reason, made a quick review of Marti’s claims, looked for inconsistencies in her argument. “Here’s the thing,” he took a stab. “Why when a building fails is it the architect’s fault and when it works you want to give engineers all the credit?”

  “Exactly. Why?”

  “Bah.” Benchere swears, “You’re cart hopping the horse there, Nancy. You can’t blame the architect. Pei did his job. He gave you a blueprint. If you engineers are all that and a box of nuts you’d have fixed Pei’s design just as you did the Pompidou.”

  “But it’s not our job to fix mistakes,” Marti shot back. “We’re waffle irons, remember? We’re doorknobs. We’re just functionaries connecting the dots you architects lay out.”

  Benchere rattled, “Who said? Did I say?”

  “At least the Rogers gave Happold and Rice something halfway sound. Pei’s design was awful and what could the engineers do?” Marti tugged at the front of Benchere’s shirt and said, “It’s like this. If you go to a tailor and insist he only dress you in Hawaiian prints, you can’t blame the tailor for what he comes up with given the limitation he has to work with.”

  “Whoa,” Benchere touched his chest, made a rubbing motion with his fingertips. “Hold on now,” despite his effort the conversation had gone sideways. He grunted, “Arghh,” stalled then tried to backtrack as Marti reached forward and returned Benchere’s beer. “You architects,” she said again.

  “But, but,” Benchere stammered, attempted to think of something clever to say. Who are you? he nearly shouted. Not used to being outdone, he decided to separate himself from the original target of Marti’s harass, and said, “But I’m no architect. I’m not one of them.”

  There followed then a new round of hoots and whistles as Benchere wiped his free hand on his shirt and introduced himself to Marti.

  THE WIND AT night in the Kalahari runs across the savannah half warm and half chilled. Unrestrained by anything more than the occasional hills and trees, the motion of the wind is constant as it searches for something to crash against and slow down.

  TWO NIGHTS AFTER the party, Ben
chere phoned Marti at her apartment.

  “Ben Cheer?” Marti pretended she couldn’t place him, then said, “Well Ben, this is unexpected. I never imagined.”

  “Good one. Ha to that.”

  In free-form, they spoke for more than an hour. Marti asked and Benchere answered questions about his work, described growing up in Yonkers, his adventures on Ludlow Street, hanging out at clubs where he first heard Kiki Smith and Fab Five Freddy. Wandering in SoHo and the East Village, he stumbled onto the Park Place Group, Richard Feigen and Paula Cooper, John Gibson and Brooke Alexander, the galleries that came and went, FUN and New Math, Nature Morte and P.P.O.W. where he learned about Brancusi, Botero and Nevelson. Later he discovered Portrait of Mademoiselle Pogany, the Sculptural Ensemble of Constantin Brancusi at Targu Jiu, and Clown Tight Rope Walker. “And that was it,” Benchere said. “After that I was hooked. Does it make sense?”

  Marti answered perfectly. “It doesn’t have to.”

  Ahh, Benchere.

  The stories Marti told were set in Hillsboro, in Boston briefly and then Providence. Asked how she came to engineering, Marti listed the machinery of her childhood; the subsoiler and chisel plow, seed drill and terragator, baler and topper, backhoe and gleaner all ancient and forever breaking down. She spoke of developing an affinity for repairing the necessity of the invention. “I’m a product of poor design,” Marti said and offered her sweet laugh.

  Encouraged, Benchere invited her to dinner, was surprised when she turned him down.

  He called the next night and they spoke for three hours more. A second invitation was extended, this time for coffee. Again Marti said no. A day later she phoned and asked Benchere to the movies. They saw The Gods Must Be Crazy, shared popcorn and a drink but she wouldn’t hold his hand and leaned away when he tried kissing her goodnight.