Fiction | April 28, 2014
The Chautauqua Sessions
Monica McFawn
My son, the drug addict, is about to tell a story. I know this because he’s closed his eyes and lifted his chin. I can tell because he’s laid his hands palms down on the table, like a shaman feeling the energy of the tree spirit still in the wood. I can tell because he’s drawing a shuddering breath, as if what he has to say will take all he’s got. He’s putting on the full show because he has a new audience—he’d streamline the theatrics if it were only me. We’re having dinner in Levi Lambright’s recording compound, Chautauqua, in remote Appalachian Tennessee. I’m a songwriter—a lyricist—and I’m here to work on a new album with Levi, our first in fifteen years. Dee was not invited. The only other person who should be here is Lucinda, Levi’s cook. But Dee just showed up, the way drug-addicted sons sometimes do.
Right as he’s about to speak, I reach for the wine bottle and refill my glass, placing the bottle back down in front of me, providing a bit of a visual shield between us. He’s sitting across from me, next to Levi. The kid looks good, I’ll give him that. He’s clean shaven, and his dun-colored hair appears professionally cut. His eyes, where the cresting chaos can most often be seen, are clear and still. They still don’t track exactly right, though. Like his mother, he looks at you out of one eye at a time, like a quizzical parrot. If you look at him straight on, his thin face seems to wobble and shake like a coin spun on end before it flips back into profile, his mother’s aquiline nose and sharp chin etched in the center of his round boy’s head. On his forearm, his old self-mutilation scars have been scribbled over, I see, with a new homemade tattoo: Trust. I don’t see myself in him at all.
This story is not currently available online.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT

Fiction
Nov 08 2019
Door to Everything
Galleries know there is a certain type of painting that sells, and every gallery has one or two artists whose work isn’t exciting or edgy but are kept on because… read more

Fiction
Nov 08 2019
One or Several Mothers
After installing my mother at the facility, we drove home in shock. My father sat in the passenger seat scratching his unshaven chin and spoke about the threat of rain… read more

Fiction
Nov 08 2019
Defensible Space
Sometimes Ned Parrish dreams that his ex-wife has come back and lives out of his converted office and greets him in the hallway like an apologetic stranger. Their daughter, Julie,… read more