Nor is there likely to be much interest in the testimonials that I gathered for my project, almost all of which tell of experiences with Adam Lyons’s machine. As the new machines grow more and more prominent, Adam Lyons’s device seems like a quaint curiosity, of interest primarily to tedious old men obsessed with Beatles trivia.
Baby Rose does have one parent whom I believe is fated to achieve literary glory, sooner rather than later: Rebecca. While she was on maternity leave from her firm—a shockingly ungenerous three months—Rebecca wrote several stories, and my mother read them and reread them and said that they were brilliant. Now that Rebecca has gone back to work, she wakes up impossibly early to write for two hours every morning, and once a week she and my mother go to a café to discuss Rebecca’s stories. One of these stories will be published in a forthcoming issue of a prestigious journal in which I always dreamed of getting published—sometimes so dreamily that I barely wrote for years at a time. Last month, she signed a two-book contract for a collection of short stories, to be followed by a novel.
Yesterday afternoon I took Baby Rose to see the Whitney Museum’s exhibition Arming the Self: The Epiphany Machine in American Life, 1960−2018. Much of the exhibition consisted of photos of epiphany tattoos, some disembodied, others as part of full-figure portraits. There were photos by amateurs and photos by professionals, Polaroids taken in 1975 and iPhone selfies taken last year. Roxanne Salehi’s documentary was playing on a loop.
“Hey, you’re the guy from the documentary! You suck!”
I gave this guy a nasty look, which he captured in a photo. “Free Ismail!” he said, probably the caption he would use when he posted that photo online, where it would be liked, widely shared, and promptly forgotten.
In the center of the hallway, three people sat with their bare arms entangled; a sign below them, printed in Adam’s font, read: MEET MICHAEL BRANDON AND SHANICE FEEL FREE TO STARE AT THEIR TATTOOS BUT THEIR TATTOOS WILL STARE BACK.
Through Brandon and Shanice, I saw a lifelike sculpture of Ismail’s mother on the deck outside. This struck me as tasteless until she pulled her arms tightly against her chest to keep warm, and I realized that it was actually Ismail’s mother. She saw me before I reached the glass doors (on which were written the words OUTSIDE IS STILL INSIDE THE EPIPHANY MACHINE), and she stared at me with an expression I could not even read as disgust.
“There are a million reasons why I shouldn’t keep coming here, starting with the fact that I can barely afford the admission fee, because I lost my job,” she said as I opened the doors. “But, also because I lost my job, I have nothing else to do with my days. They gave everybody the choice of getting an epiphany tattoo or resigning. I wasn’t going to let that thing near my arm.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything to make this right.”
“There is something you can do, and you know that there is. But you also can never know what it is. That’s the closest you’ll come to punishment. Not nearly close enough. My best wishes for your daughter.”
And then she walked away.
Baby Rose made a gurgle that sounded like a question. To stop myself from sobbing I pointed out some buildings to her, in this city that Adam Lyons once dreamed of changing. I walked with her to the plexiglass barrier that halted any patrons tempted to leap to their deaths in distant sight of the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty. I thought about Ismail and his joke about driving us into this very river, north of here. If we had gone over the bridge that day, my arm would have been clean when I gave it to the water. Maybe it would have been severed somehow in the wreckage, and it would have floated all the way down to this final stretch of New York, where it would have bobbed and pointed to the sky, a miniature version of the massive faded green arm above it, suggesting only promise and possibility, without words to limit either.
The way we were constantly learning and forgetting things—the way that I constantly learned and forgot my culpability for what had happened to Ismail is only one small example—made me feel that the human race was pitiful and should be annihilated. I looked up at the blue sky and I hated everything underneath it, including this tiny child who would soon ask me why the sky was blue. It occurred to me to hurl my baby over the plexiglass, to bring about the fulfillment of any number of prophecies, and to bring upon myself the calumny and disaster I deserved. Baby Rose would hit the pavement and become part of the pavement never knowing the words that described her.
Of course, many prophecies had already been fulfilled. My father should never have become a father, and my mother had abandoned what mattered most—her sense of decency—to accept as her son a man who had betrayed his best friend.
Baby Rose reached up and put her forearm in my face. Terrified of myself, I kissed her forearm and took her back inside the museum.
Current trends suggest she will get a tattoo when she turns eighteen, or maybe even earlier, if only to fit in with friends who might look at her askance if she refuses. But maybe she will refuse. Maybe she will seek out Ismail’s mother—or even a finally freed Ismail. Or she will just watch the documentary. Even the broadest outlines of the case will be enough to make her hate me. Stronger than my father and mother, my daughter will never allow me to win her back, leaving me with only my tattoo.
I kissed the top of her head, and then kissed it again, and again, as though if I kissed her head often enough I could stop any negative thoughts about me from forming in it. Eventually she started to wriggle hard enough that I could see I was smothering her, my kisses pushing her face into my forearm. I eased up and she cried a nasty cry, still staring at my forearm, as though she could read my tattoo. I tried to murmur soothingly, but she wailed louder, drawing attention, and out of embarrassment, I looked over her head at another looped video installation. Titled The Epiphany Machine Is Good; The Epiphany Machine Is Bad, it consisted of interviews with people on the street giving their opinions about what the epiphany machine meant for human hopes, while the words they spoke were inscribed on the screen, not disappearing like normal subtitles but instead inching up until they obscured the faces of the people who spoke them. Then the words obscured each other, blending together until they covered the screen as one unreadable tattoo.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My agent, Monika Woods, and my editor, Alexis Sattler, are brilliant readers who made this book much better than it would have been otherwise. They are also tireless advocates. I am immeasurably lucky to work with them both.
I am lucky as well to have many friends who provided invaluable support and feedback. Angelica Baker read many drafts with great insight. I am indebted also to Tara Isabella Burton, Will Chancellor, Scott Cheshire, Ryan Joe, Courtney Elizabeth Mauk, Maxwell Neely-Cohen, Abby Rosebrock, Yvette Siegert, and Chandler Klang Smith.
Much of this book was written at The Oracle Club in Long Island City. Special thanks to Julian Tepper, Jenna Gribbon, and Matthew Gribbon. (Of course, the portraits in this book of The Oracle Club and of Julian and Jenna are pure fiction.) Thanks to Bryce Bauer and Tyler Wetherall. Thanks also to Sandra from the Long Island City UPS store.
Of many books that were helpful, particular gratitude is due to: Terry McDermott’s Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It; Philip Norman’s John Lennon: The Life; Dave Schwensen’s The Beatles at Shea Stadium: The Story Behind Their Greatest Concert; Larry Siems’s The Torture Report: What the Documents Say About America’s Post-9/11 Torture Program; and John Michael Vlach’s The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts. The 9/11 Commission Report and The Official Senate Report on CIA Torture were also useful.
Few things in my life have been as important to me as the friendship of Michael Seidenberg. What he has created in Brazenhead Books can never be satisfactorily described or repeated.
My writing—along with everything else in my life—would be impossible without the love and suppo
rt I have consistently received from my mother, Barbara Gerrard, my father, Michael Gerrard, and my brother, William Gerrard.
Thanks most of all to Grace Bello for all her help with this book, and for filling my life with love every single day.
David Burr Gerrard received an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia University. His first novel, Short Century, was published in 2014, and his work has appeared in The Awl, the Los Angeles Review of Books, BOMB, Guernica, and other publications. He teaches fiction writing at the New School, Manhattanville College, the 92nd Street Y, and the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop. He lives with his wife in Queens, New York.
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
* * *
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.
The Epiphany Machine Page 40
