Thank you to Eleanor Jackson for your incredible expertise, savvy, and kindness, every step of the way.
Thanks to the FSG copyediting team for a thorough and insightful review.
Thanks to David Bachmann, Paula Closson Buck, Jeff Glodek, Nathan Graham, Derek Palacio, David Peak, Andrew Roddewig, and Stephen Lloyd Webber for your honest and encouraging feedback on early drafts.
Thank you to Nathan Graham, Michelle Mariano, Derek Palacio, and Claire Vaye Watkins for the gifts of your friendship, literary guidance, and professional advice.
Thank you to Kevin McIlvoy for saying, “Your first assignment will be forty pages of fiction.” And for everything that followed, and follows still.
Thank you to Robert Boswell, Antonya Nelson, and Alexander Parsons—again and again.
Thank you to my Creative Writing Program and English Department colleagues at Bucknell University and to my former Writers Institute colleagues at Susquehanna University for your nonstop support and truly inspiring examples. I’m lucky and I know it.
Thank you to Dana Diehl, Melissa Goodrich, Will Hoffacker, and Elizabeth Deanna Morris Lakes.
Thank you to Deirdre O’Connor for the Writer’s Boot Camp.
Apologies to Lumans and Dustyn for running that red light.
Thank you to the great Kris Trego for taking the time to share your internationally renowned archaeological expertise (more than once!)—for our discussions, your suggestions, and your generosity as a colleague and a reader of fiction.
Thank you to the dedicated professionals at the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, especially Bill Iseminger, for graciously answering a stranger’s many questions.
Dziękuję to Joanna Matuszak for the stimulating and enlightening conversation on Eastern European performance art.
Thank you to Victor LaValle for patiently showing me how to make the draft way, way better; to Lance Cleland, for organizing an astounding conference; and to my Tin House workshop-mates: Jennifer Brody, Hope Chernov, Kala Dunn, Jared Lipof, Dorotea Mendoza, Karen Munro, Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint, Loie Rawding, Kawai Washburn, and Janelle Williams, with a special thank-you to Erinn Kindig for that early email.
Thank you to Andrew Roddewig—and to Dick and Noreen Roddewig—for the trip.
Thank you to Jordan Kardasz and Lucy Kim for conversations about Prague.
Thank you to Bart Davis for answering a question about hand-rolled cigarettes.
Thank you to the chombattas, every one of you.
Thank you to Bron Gacki for Polish and Polish-American wisdom.
Thank you to Rus Bradburd and Connie Voisine for your place in Lincoln Square—for the desk and the chair where most of the first draft of this work was written.
Thank you to my family—the Scapellatos, Gackis, Kostals, Thurmans, Cocos, Martinciches, and Horvaths—especially to my parents, Marge and Frank, for your love, curiosity, and wit, for the wondrous way you live your lives, and for dealing with this dupa jasiu. I love you.
Thank you to Mario Scapellato for reading I don’t know how many drafts of this book, and for seeing and saying what I can’t, on and off the page.
And thank you to Dustyn, first reader, best friend, for truth, and to Vida, our love, for life.
Also by Joseph Scapellato
Big Lonesome
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Scapellato published his debut story collection, Big Lonesome, in 2017. He earned his MFA in fiction at New Mexico State University and has been published in Kenyon Review Online, Gulf Coast, Post Road, PANK, UNSAID, and other literary magazines. His work has been anthologized in Forty Stories, Gigantic Worlds, and The &NOW AWARDS: The Best Innovative Writing. Scapellato is an assistant professor of English in the creative writing program at Bucknell University. He grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, with his wife, daughter, and dog. You can sign up for email updates here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Part I: Only the Stupid Can Be Happy
1. Stanley Arrives in Prague
2. Stanley Thinks About It
3. Stanley Knows What It Was
4. Stanley Tries to Feel the Space at the Center of Himself That Isn’t Him
5. Stanley Hears Footsteps, Which, for Reasons That Aren’t Clear to Him, Remind Him of His Father
6. Stanley Reflects on His Decision to Accept His Uncle Lech’s Proposal to “Apartment-Sit” for Three Days in Prague
7. Stanley Reflects on the Sort of Man He Was
8. Stanley Hears More Footsteps, Then Doors
9. Stanley Continues to Reflect on the Sort of Man He Was
10. Stanley Decides to Day-Trip from Prague to the Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora
11. Stanley Recalls a Time When He Thought He Could Be Anybody Else
12. Stanley Day-Trips to the Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora
13. Stanley Recalls the Last Time He Talked to Manny
14. Stanley Naps
15. Stanley Remembers the Dream
16. Stanley Wakes Up as Manny Arrives
17. Stanley Recounts His Aunt Abbey’s Birthday Party
18. Stanley Recalls the Artist with the Drawings on His Face
19. Stanley Recalls the Artist with the Laugh
20. Stanley Recalls the Artist Who Pretended to Be Homeless
21. Stanley Recalls the Artist Who Pretended to Be Asleep, Comatose, or Dead
22. Stanley Recalls the Artist with the Easel
23. Stanley Reflects on Uncle Lech’s Art
24. Stanley Receives an Envelope
25. Stanley Recalls His Conversation with His Brother at His Aunt Abbey’s Birthday Party
26. Stanley Remembers the Final Family Dinner with Busia
27. Stanley Continues to Recount Aunt Abbey’s Birthday Party
28. Stanley Recalls the First Year of Aunt Abbey’s Marriage to Uncle Lech
29. Stanley Recounts Uncle Lech’s Proposal at His Aunt Abbey’s Birthday Party
30. Stanley Recalls the Flight to Prague
31. Stanley Accompanies Manny to a Restaurant
32. Stanley Watches Manny Answer His Own Question
33. Stanley Remembers Another Instance of Manny’s Laugh
34. Stanley Eats a Meal and Takes a Lengthy Constitutional with Manny
35. Stanley Reluctantly Observes the First Figure, Which, for Reasons That Aren’t Clear to Him, Reminds Him of Barton
36. Stanley and Manny Enter the Apartment Building
37. Stanley Reluctantly Observes the Second Figure, Which, for Reasons That Aren’t Clear to Him, Reminds Him of Torrentelli
38. Stanley Enters the Apartment
39. Stanley Remembers His Mother’s Migraines
40. Stanley Remembers a Time When He Tried to Think Less
41. Stanley Remembers Another Time When He Tried to Think Less
42. Stanley Almost Has a Realization
43. Stanley Has a Realization
44. Stanley Imagines How T Persuaded Manny to Stay with Him
45. Stanley Almost Has Another Realization
46. Stanley Has Another Realization
47. Stanley Imagines T at the Café
48. Stanley Controls Himself
49. Stanley Remembers the Last Time Manny Lied to Him
50. Stanley Remembers Other Uncomfortable Assessments of His Character
51. Stanley Remembers an Uncomfortable but Accurate Assessment of His Character
52. Stanley Recalls How T Planned His Surprise Birthday Party
53. Stanley Hears Artists in the Hallway
54. Stanley Recounts an Easter at Uncle Lech and Aunt Abbey’s
55. Stanley Hears Artists in the Hallway, Again
56. Stanley Remembers a Christmas Eve at Uncle Lech and Aunt Abbey’s
57. Stanley Tells Manny the Truth
58. Stanley, Remembering How the Made-Up Woman Made Up to Res
emble the Made-Up Man “Left” Her Purse in the Apartment, Recalls a Night with Torrentelli
59. Stanley, Remembering the Shoe That Manny Left on the Bed, Recalls When Barton Lived with Him
60. Stanley Stops to Think
61. Stanley, Remembering Manny’s Questions About Uncle Lech, Recalls Leaving His Aunt’s Birthday Party Last July
62. Stanley Continues
63. Stanley Resists Several Thoughts
64. Stanley Falls Down the Stairs
65. Stanley Encounters Two More Artists
66. Stanley Has Three Realizations
67. Stanley Deceives Himself
68. Stanley Deceives Himself About His Strategy
69. Stanley Justifies a Shift in His Strategy
70. Stanley Critiques His Strategy
71. Stanley Is “Followed”
72. Stanley Is Embarrassed
73. Stanley Encounters Uncle Lech, the Made-Up Woman, and the Police
74. Stanley Corrects His Observation
74. Stanley Corrects His Observation
74. Stanley Corrects His Observation
74. Stanley Corrects His Observation
74. Stanley Corrects His Observation
74. Stanley Corrects His Observation
74. Stanley Corrects His Observation
74. Stanley Corrects His Observation
Part II: Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys
75. Stanley, in Jail, with Himself—
76. —Stanley, Looking for “Himself,” Remembers the Dig—
77. —in Jail—
78. —“Himself”—
79. —Shadows in the Corridor—
80. —the Dig—
81. —Stanley with Himself—
82. —the Dig—
83. —an Artist—
84. —the Dig—the Site of the Dig—
85. —What Is Known About the Man Who’d Been Buried Without His Head—
86. —What Is Not—
87. —Dig—
88. —Ears Covered, Eyes Closed—an Artist—
89. —the End of the Dig—
90. —Stanley’s Brother—
91. —Stanley’s Mom
Part III: Life Is Brutal and Full of Traps
92. Stanley Sits on a Cot in a Cell in the Dark
93. Stanley Sits on a Cot in a Cell in the Dark and Considers to What Degree His Having Been Wrong About Reading Faces Has Affected His Relationships with Family, Friends, and T
94. Stanley Sits on a Cot in a Cell in the Dark and Considers to What Degree His Decision to Knowingly but Unwillingly Agree to Involvement in a Personalized Performance Art Project in a Foreign Country Has Changed His Self-Conception
95. Stanley Sits on a Cot in a Cell in the Dark and Considers Whether or Not His Decision to Knowingly but Unwillingly Agree to Involvement in a Personalized Performance Art Project in a Foreign Country Has Accelerated Changes in His Self-Conception That He Would Have Come to Anyway, on His Own, Alone
96. Stanley Sits on a Cot in a Cell in the Dark and Tries to Remember When He’s Felt This Way Before
97. Stanley Sits on a Cot in a Cell in the Dark and Remembers the Time in High School After Class in the Parking Lot When He Was Walking Around Looking for Torrentelli or Barton or Torrentelli’s Car, and at the End of the Lot He Found Marcus Svachma and Ronan O’Kelly Up in Torrentelli’s Face, Calling Him a Fag and a Freak, and Stanley Approached, and They Called Stanley a Fag and a Freak and a Fuckup, and Stanley Called Them Fascists, and as They Moved Step-by-Step into the Fight That None of Them Had It in Them at That Time in Their Lives to Avoid, Part of Stanley Realized That Through These Exchanges Marcus Svachma and Ronan O’Kelly Were Co-creating a Woefully Reductive Misconception of Stanley, a Misconception That Stanley Perhaps Encouraged (or at the Very Least Failed to Discourage) Through How He Acted (Misanthropic Anger, Existential Apathy, Pessimism, Privilege) and What He Wore (Trench Coats, Explicit T-Shirts That Teachers Made Him Turn Inside Out, Baggy Jeans, Dog Collars, Black Lipstick, Red Contact Lenses), and Although This Was True, at the Same Time, Stanley and Torrentelli Were Co-creating Woefully Reductive Misconceptions of Marcus Svachma and Ronan O’Kelly, Misconceptions That Marcus Svachma and Ronan O’Kelly Without a Doubt Encouraged Through How They Acted (Antagonistic Anger, Academic Apathy, Pessimism, Privilege) and What They Wore (Designer Casual, Designer Sportswear), and This Realization of His Accountability in a System of Two-Way Misrepresentation Was What Stanley Struggled with but Didn’t Mention During His Three-Day Hospital Stay and Three-Week School Suspension When He Argued with His Dad, Mom, and Brother About Who He Was and Wasn’t, with His Dad Saying That If It Walks Like a Freak and Talks Like a Freak It’s a Freak, with His Mom Saying That Yes, She Agreed That He Knew Who He Was, It Was Just That He Had to Figure Out How to Be Himself About It, and with His Brother Saying That Although It Might Not Seem Possible Now, Before He Knew It He Wouldn’t Be Able to Equate the Way He Dressed and Acted with Who He Was, Even If He Wanted to, Ever Again
98. Stanley Is Released
99. Stanley Is Treated
100. Stanley Arrives in Warsaw
List of Scenes
Acknowledgments
Also by Joseph Scapellato
A Note About the Author
Copyright
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
175 Varick Street, New York 10014
Copyright © 2019 by Joseph Scapellato
All rights reserved
First edition, 2019
E-book ISBN: 978-0-374-71654-7
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The Made-Up Man Page 22
