Mark Wisniewski, author of Confessionsof a Polish Used Car Salesmen, has recently published his second novel, Show Up, Look Good. The novel relates theadventures of a young Midwestern woman who hopes to get over a failed relationshipby moving to Manhattan.
Here’s what Kelly Cherry, the PoetLaureate of Virginia, says about it:
“This novel about a thirty-somethingwoman who travels from Kankakee, Illinois, to New York to ‘make it’ deepens inunexpected and moving ways. Wisniewski ventriloquizes with perfect pitch hisfemale narrator, who has a real talent for getting into trouble. Show Up, Look Good is funny, dark, poignant, and unsettling.”
Here's an excerpt from the novel:
“Joycebetter leave,” I said.
Ernestwrote:
FIRE ESCAPE
IN BACK.
“Good,”I said, and he nodded, and I did, too, and I was glad Tino was in Etta’ssection of the building’s back yard: with the firemen now inside, I trustedhe’d be safe there. Then I wasn’t so sure. To distract myself from worry, Iasked Ernest, “What was in your duffel bag?”
MEMORABILIA.
I WAS
GOING TO
SELL IT.
Anotherwindow exploded, and then they were exploding from left to right, ax-headspopping through them like iron tongues. This is serious, I almost said, but theescaping smoke tapered off. Then axes shattered two second-floor windows. Iglanced at Ernest, whose eyes were fixed on the window to my room, and his expressionassured me that he, unlike Joyce, knew that heat and smoke ascended, and thathe was picturing Joyce dashing through Etta’s dark hallway while his duffel bagremained beside a bra on my floor.
“Excuseme,” I told him.
Icrossed the street, accelerated toward the building, and a fireman yelled, “Ma’am.Where you going?”
“I’vegot to get something,” I said. “Just a duffel bag. Before it burns.”
“It’sburning.”
“Whatif it’s still there?”
“It’sburning. You might as well phone your insurance.”
“Ican’t run up and check?”
“Wejust got everyone out of there. You run up and I lose my job.” He clutched anindustrial-size crowbar. “So you’re not running up.”
Inodded and walked back to Ernest. We stood beside each other, neither speakingnor writing, just watching more onslaughts of smoke. Then a hand squeezed my shoulderhard enough to portend rudeness. Joyce? I thought, and I turned and saw Ettapulled up as close to my left as Ernest was to my right.
“Etta,”I said, “can you believe this?”
“Unfortunately,”she said.
“Atleast we’re out here,” I said, but my insides churned—because if the thirdfloor caught fire, our living arrangement might end. “Tino’s out back,” I said.“In the yard.”
Ernestthickened a period and handed his notepad to me, and Etta read it as I did:
I HOPE
JOYCE
BRINGS
MY DUFFEL
BAG.
“Sodo I,” I said.
“Whatwas in his duffel bag?” Etta asked me, and before I could answer, another firetruck rounded the corner. Ernest and I exchanged glances. He shrugged. Then thesecond-floor window beneath mine explodedwithout the help of an ax. Inside that room, the tips of flames stretched intoview. Ernest’s breathing grew vexed, then worse. He had only so muchmemorabilia, I was sure, and he was probablypicturing his last aged and genuine baseball singe, and his autograph on thatbaseball could have made someone happy—and helped Ernest afford more of thecity. I felt sorry for the person the memorabilia might have made happy, andfor Ernest himself. I felt ashamed that I’d fantasized about Letterman whileErnest’s future had burned.
“Ifthe whole building goes,” I said to myself out loud, and then I babbled abouthow I’d just begun to get my life together, about how Manhattan was the onlyplace open enough to let me be who I really was, and about who knows what else.As I said these things, I used phrases made common on talk shows and feltdestined to make an awful impression on Ernest, but I babbled on anyway, and thenI tried to explain to Ernest that, for most of my life (which, granted, Iadded, had been less than half of his), all of my trying and talking andlovemaking and understanding had done nothing but separate me from everyoneelse. Then I noticed that his breathing had gone silent, and I turned to seehis pencil finish a message:
I KNOW
WHAT YOU
MEAN.
“Doyou really?”
Henodded, sat on the curb, and watched the flames rise. Then he lay back so thathis legs were splayed on the street, his spine flat against a sidewalk dottedby black, discarded gum. He shut his eyes and placed his palms down, one on topof the other, on his chest.
“Willyou watch it?” I yelled at a woman who nearly stepped on his head, butshe kept on walking, so I hoped for a response from Ernest.
Hiseyes stayed shut. He can’t, I thought, handle the city right now.
“Ernest?”I tried.
Someonetapped my shoulder: Joyce, hugging Tino, then handing him to Etta. “Ernest isnapping,” she said. “He does this wherever he feels.”
Ettaglanced over. “Is he okay?” she asked me.
“I’dsay he’s felt better,” I said.
“Itook CPR at the gym,” a guy on the sidewalk behind us said. “If anyone here canhelp, it’s me.” This guy was huge, maybe three hundred pounds, and he plantedhis feet on either side of Ernest’s chest, then crouched so his ass touchedErnest’s abdomen, then rested on it.
“AndI’m engaged to this man,” Joyce said. “Do you see what I have to put up with?”
“You’resmothering him,” I told the fat guy.
“I’mhelping him,” he said.
“Idon’t think so,” I said. “He doesn’t need CPR. It’s a breathing thing.”
Heplaced a palm on Ernest’s chest and pressed. “It’s his heart,” he said, and Igrabbed his gargantuan arm and tried to shove him off of Ernest, but he didn’tbudge. I pushed again, using strength I hadn’t expected, and he let go of Ernest’sdwindled shoulders and rolled onto the sidewalk. He was lying beside Ernest,straining to sit up, but I didn’t see him rise: I was hovering over Ernest,pinching his nose and grabbing the skin where his jaw was supposed to be, andlowering the flabby remains of his chin. Then I was descending, hoping Ernest’seyes would open before our lips touched. Then we were sharing his silence. Hismouth was warm, and I exhaled into it, and my palm, on his chest, rose slightly.I won’t have to do this more than twice, I thought, and I inhaled, tasting garlic,halitosis, and cinnamon. I heard glass pelt the sidewalk across the street. Itried not to hear the fat guy, who was shouting at me with instructions. Onemore time, I told myself, and I’ll hear that troubled breathing. Everythingwill be exactly the way it was.
_______________________________________________
Mark Wisniewski is theauthor of the novel Confessionsof a Polish Used Car Salesman, the collection of short stories All Weekendwith the Lights On, and the book of narrative poems One of UsOne Night. His fiction has appeared in magazines such as The Southern Review, Antioch Review, Virginia QuarterlyReview, TriQuarterly, New England Review, The Gettysburg Review, The YaleReview, The Sun, andThe Georgia Review, and has been anthologized in Pushcart Prize and Best American Short Stories. His narrative poems have appeared in such venues as Poetry International, New York Quarterly, and Poetry. He’s been awarded two Regents’ Fellowships in Fiction,an Isherwood Fellowship in Fiction, and first place in competitions for the KayCattarulla Award for Best Short Story, the Gival Press Short Story Award, andthe Tobias Wolff Award.
Show Up, Look Good is available from Amazon and Gival Press, the publisher.
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