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Normal History Vol. 326: The Art Of David Lester

Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 31-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.

An excerpt from Holding Up the Falling Snake Sky, a novel (literary fiction) by Jean Smith

Martin Lewis was born in 1956 when his mother Odele was 34 years old. Continuing part time at the drug store, Odele left her husband Griffin to look after the baby, to change diapers and put him down for his naps in the top drawer of a pine dresser in the living room, and when Martin cried, Griffin carried him the four blocks to the drug store, holding the squalling mass away from his body, like a bowl of soup or something else he didn’t want to get all over his vest. Odele took the baby into the storeroom and gave him his bottle, but neither formula nor her attention stopped the crying. Where once there was the sound of Odele’s laughter alternating with the squeak of the greeting-card rack, there was now a baby wailing well beyond what anyone considered normal. Customers frowned and looked over the tops of their glasses to tsk-tsk the inappropriate nature of the Lewis’ arrangement. To them, it almost went without saying that the combination of a working mother and a father so obviously inept at childrearing were the root of child’s distress.

The couple consulted Dr. Spock’s Common Sense Book Of Baby And Child Care and heeded advice to not pick Martin up every time he cried. They left him to stew in the top drawer of the dresser, squirming so intensely that Odele feared he’d manage to wiggle out and land on the floor. Griffin tried to appease her by moving the baby down to the third drawer, claiming he was “as snug as a bug in a drawer,” which irritated Odele.

[to be continued]

“Fan Of Sparks” from Jarred Up (K, 1993) (download):