Mr. Bones: Twenty Stories

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MINOR WATT, THE real estate developer and art collector, was seated at the Jacobean dining table with the fat baluster legs that served as his desk, waiting for his wife — soon to be ex-wife — to arrive. He had been thinking of himself, but the graceful Chinese vase with a tall flared neck, resting on the antique table, made him reflect that, as with so many things he owned — perhaps all of them — he was able to discern its inner meaning in its subtle underglaze, the circumstances of his acquiring it, its price of course, its provenance, all the hands that had touched it and yet left it undamaged, its relation to his own life, its secret history, its human dimension, almost as though this pale porcelain with the tracery of a red peony scroll was human flesh. And then after this flicker of distraction he thought of himself again.

How people said, “You’re the calmest man in the world.”

He always replied, “As I made more money my jokes got funnier.” And when they laughed, he added, “And I got better-looking.”

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