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from painting to painting.
    Crackpop was no Picasso, but the images were sort of charming in their neo-kindergarten style. They were all depictions of events in the Barrens—Indians and deer and settlers hunting wild turkey. There was one of a burial beneath a giant oak, and a whole series of what looked like demons. I felt self-conscious there, so I lit a cigarette and strolled closer to the house. When the music, Faron Young’s “Hello Walls” scratching away on an old Victrola, ended, I heard a woman call my name. I looked around.
    â€œIn here,” I heard her say, and I turned and looked into the shadow of a screened porch I was standing near.
    â€œWho is that?” I said, shading my eyes to try to see.
    â€œGinny Sanger,” came the voice.
    I walked over to the concrete block that stood where steps should have, hoisted myself up, and opened the screen door. My eyes adjusted, and I saw Ginny sitting in a redwood lawn chair next to Crackpop, who wore some kind of animal pelt over his shoulders; a red, white, and blue headband; and his usual getup. He had a joint between his fingers that was as thick as a cigar.
    Ginny introduced me and said, “This is Sherman Gretts, the artist.” I stepped over and shook the old man’s hand.
    â€œSeen you at the pizza place,” he said.
    I nodded. “I was looking at your paintings,” I said.
    â€œWant to buy one?” he asked and laughed.
    â€œHow much?” I said.
    He motioned for me to sit down in the empty chair next to his. I did. He passed me the joint and I took a hit. Ginny took it from me. Gretts leaned close and said, “She tells me that you’re a writer.”
    â€œI am,” I said.
    â€œWhy do you write?” he asked.
    â€œBecause I like to,” I told him and he laughed.
    He stubbed the joint out and said, “Okay, you want to witness something?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI’ll give you a painting if you bear witness to me. Ginny’ll be my other witness.”
    â€œTo what?” I asked.
    â€œI’ll show you,” he said. He reached down beside his chair and lifted into his lap a rolled-up pink bath towel. He laid it on the coffee table in front of us. “First thing, you gotta listen to me,” he said.
    I nodded.
    â€œBack in 1863, a book titled The American Nations, written by this gent Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz, was published. In it Rafinesque, as he was known here, claimed to have had revealed to him by the Lenape a copy of the Wallum Olam, a book written on tree bark in ancient pictographs, telling the narrative of how the Lenape had arrived in the area from far away due to a great flood.” The old man took a beer off the table, snapped it open, and handed it to me.
    â€œRafinesque even hinted that some of the scenes had shown the early Lenape beginnings in Siberia. By the time the book came out, though, he said the actual Wallum Olam had been destroyed in a fire, but assured the reading public that the reprinted pictographs in his book were authentic. But of course they weren’t. Of course they weren’t.” Here Crackpop went silent for a moment and leaned back in his seat.
    I glanced over at Ginny and she winked at me.
    â€œHis was a fraud,” the old man began again. “But like so many things labeled false, it holds some pieces of truth. I’m telling you the Wallum Olam is a real thing. Let’s just say that I have contact with a certain sect of the Lenape who guard the real Wallum Olam at the dark heart of the forest. What I’m going to show you is a page of it.” Sherman put his yellow-nailed hand out and unrolled the towel. Within it was a roll of the thinnest piece of birch bark, so supple it appeared to have the texture of cloth. It was off white, and in the center was a black drawing of a giant turtle with a man straddling its back.
    â€œYou didn’t make that, Sherman?”