Dougie gathered up all the pens and paints that Daddy had forsaken, and set about forging an art career of his own. (Actually . . . let's say embarked on an art career. Dougie is understandably a little touchy about the f-word.)

Growing up, painting had been Dougie's one great dream. Well, unless you count the summer he was obsessed with saving Princess Peach from the sorcerer-turtle. Or his chivalric knight phase—but of course that dream was brief and generally dismissed as Impossible. So, I guess, three dreams. One great, and two goodish ones.

Dougie's great dream was to be a painter. And not just any painter, but America's foremost painter of waterfowl. Now, this might seem surprising, given that Dougie was never really fond of birds, or wetlands, or nature at all for that matter. But how could he resist the thrilling allure of the Fish and Wildlife Service's annual duck stamp competition, by far the most prestigious—and I guess probably only—art contest run by the U. S. Department of the Interior?

It had all started back in Kentucky, the year before I was born, or possibly the year before that (Dougie wasn't sure, as he'd made no particular notice of my nonexistence at the time). Mama, Daddy, Dougie, and Gladys went to an Independence Day burgoo festival where Gladys was scheduled to make an appearance as part of her toddler beauty queen obligations. According to Dougie, it was all quite an ordeal. There was a parade with a marching band (which he described as "loud"), a barbershop quartet ("creepy"), carnival games ("rigged"), a carousel and Ferris wheel ("terrifying"), and a petting zoo with miniature ponies ("smelly," "menacing"). And of course there was the burgoo stew, which Dougie would not eat, because Dougie would never eat any foods that were "touching." But most fearsome of all (in Dougie's opinion), was the cotton candy. He said it "felt like eating spiderwebs" and turned everything he gakked on bright pink, including the white part of Gladys's star-spangled tutu. (Fortunately, by then Gladdy had already performed her public duties; namely, posing for photos with the 4-H blue ribbon animals. Mama still has a poster-sized blowup of Gladdy standing between a prize lamb and a prize goat. All three of them—lamb, goat, and Gladys—wear the practiced smiles of pageant winners.)

At some point, the crowd gathered around a gazebo so the mayor could introduce a few local celebrities. The first was some guy dubbed the "Kentucky Colonel," a title which Dougie was disappointed to learn had nothing to do with war, or fried chicken. The Colonel, in turn, introduced a local big-shot jockey who wore satin pants, and (Dougie noted) would have gotten totally stuck at the high end of a seesaw, if an average-sized third grader sat on the opposite end. This was a fate Dougie himself had experienced on quite a few occasions, and he'd never regarded himself as possible athlete material. But before Dougie could add "jockey?" to his mental list of great-and-goodish ambitions, destiny intervened.

Because that's when, in a probably less-than-booming voice, the jockey turned everyone's attention to acclaimed painter and hometown hero, J. Murgatroyd Jr., winner of that year's federal duck stamp art contest. He apparently cut a glamorous figure. Instead of a beret and a smock, he dared to wear a furry trapper hat ("in July," Dougie noted with awe), tall rubber boots, and coveralls in a water reed camouflage pattern. He began and ended his speech by cupping his hands over his mouth and quacking. Privately, Daddy once told me he thought "The Stamp Artiste" was a bit full of himself, but then, competitive duck stampery is a pretty cutthroat field.

After that day, Dougie threw himself into his art studies. His earliest training was in the school of happy clouds and friendly trees, under the tutelage of that TV artist whose hair was also a happy cloud. Dougie would tape every show and watch it over and over, trying to duplicate each painting with the precision of an art forger. When he was done, he'd tape over that episode with the new one, and paint over the finished painting with a new painting, because he only owned one videotape and one canvas. But by the time we moved to California, Dougie had started to question the teacher's methods, particularly the haphazard addition and subtraction of snowcapped mountaintops, tree "friends," and even tiny lakeside cabins. Happy accidents, the teacher called them. "It's like he's just making this up as he goes along!" Dougie would complain to the VCR. "I don't even think that lake in the woods is a real place!"

Dougie decided the whole Happy Accidents style of painting was way too abstract. He wanted to paint exactly what he saw. This became a big point of contention between him and his high school art teacher, who said Dougie would never get anywhere in the art world because his work was too realistic and that wasn't The Thing anymore. "Realism," she scolded him, "is what Polaroids are for." It should be pointed out that Dougie's art teacher made a name for herself—well, a small name, really more of a nickname—by framing blank canvases and declaring that they were art at its purest, when it was just a notion. "If you actually paint it, you're putting it to death," she was known for saying. "That's why the act of painting is called execution." (I don't know if she actually sounded so sneery, as I only have Dougie's imitation to go by. The art teacher was long gone by the time I got to high school, Art having been replaced by "Advanced Standardized Test-Taking Strategies." But don't feel too bad for the art teacher. She sued a chain of art supply stores, claiming they were selling unauthorized reproductions of her work and calling them "blank canvases." The case was settled out of court and the art teacher retired to some warm country overseas.)

(Probably her original paintings are worth a lot of money now, if you can tell them apart from all the knock-offs.)

Well, Dougie wasn't discouraged by his art teacher's criticism, or by Daddy's firing him from background drawing, or by "all the Phyllis Steins of the world" who always gave him a hard time. Every year, Dougie entered the junior duck stamp contest, widely regarded as training ground for future duck stamp superstars. On weekends he would ride his bike to one of the local duck habitats, such as a park or abandoned swimming pool, to take Polaroids of the ducks and geese, which he would then faithfully reproduce as paintings. He was sure to copy every detail that appeared in the photograph. My favorite of his paintings featured a comically fat Canada goose with its head stuck inside a bag of Fritos and its wings flapping frantically. In the foreground was a broken Aquaman action figure, which the state judges described as "ironic." The state judges said that every year about Dougie's entries. They would point to certain elements—such as a dented and unhinged Mighty Ducks lunchbox—and declare them "irony," and Dougie would be offended.

"All that stuff was really there," Dougie would keep telling the judges.

"Ah, a happy accident, then!"

"Ugggh," Dougie would say.

Dougie won honorable mention at the state level for Fat Goose with Fritos, and apparently his entry, which did not entirely adhere to the rules, nevertheless created a stir for what the judges referred to as its "provocative and cautionary message."

When reporters talked to the winners afterward, Dougie could only mumble, "I just paint what's there. Just what's there."

The year Dougie turned eighteen he was at last old enough for the big leagues: the adult duck stamp contest. It was all he talked about. Finally he would fulfill his destiny. Finally. He was going to win.

After the winter rains he took the metro ("crowded," "germy") to a concrete riverbed that was a known duck hangout. He braved all sorts of mud and bugs and took so many pictures he came home reeking of Polaroid developer fluid. Then he covered every inch of his bedroom walls with photos of the ducks, like some kind of duck stalker/serial killer.

It took him three and a half months to complete his entry. The finished masterpiece depicted a pair of mallards and their fluffy chicks valiantly paddling through a sludge of algae, past a half-submerged shopping cart. Dozens of white plastic grocery bags were stuck all over the cart, and they poofed in the wind like a pirate ship's sails. Dougie was so proud of the way he captured the rainbow of an oil slick, the milky glow of the plastic bags, and the dazzling gleam of the shopping cart. You could already hear the judges using words like "luminous" and "a revelation," and maybe even "rollicking," whatever that meant. You could already hear them calling the shopping cart "irony" (despite it being chromey). Dougie was giddy with excitement. All that stood between him and duck stamp glory was entering the contest.

And this is where Dougie hit a snag. It seems he'd been so busy painting his ducks that he'd forgotten to get an after-school job. He'd also forgotten that unlike the junior duck stamp contest, the adult duck stamp contest was not free. And he'd already spent every penny of his savings on Polaroid film.

Now, none of us liked asking Mama for money. Not only was the answer usually "No," but it was often accompanied by boring lectures about "kids today" having "everything handed to them" and "when I was growing up" and "the value of a dollar." And it was no use calling Daddy for money, as the answer was always something along the lines of, "What happened to all that money I just sent your mother? Why does she have to take Gladys to a tanning salon all the time when there's a perfectly good, free sun in the sky, made by the Lord God Himself? Twenty dollars a pop to lay in fake sun! In California!" (And then you'd be told what parable it reminded him of, which was different each time.)

But Dougie wanted to enter that contest more than anything in the world.

So, at dinner one night, he took off his imaginary hat, held it by its imaginary brim, and groveled like George Bailey asking Mr. Potter for help.

"Mama-can-I-borrow-some-money-for-the-contest?" Dougie asked, all in one breath.

"Contest?"

"The duck stamp contest."

"The what?"

Now, Dougie had probably mentioned the duck stamp competition 437 times in the previous month. But I guess Mama's head had been too stuffed full of the Man of La Mancha soundtrack for anything else to squeeze in.

"You 'member that contest I got honorable mention in two years ago . . . ?"

"You mean that coloring contest where we had to drive all the way to Sacramento to find out you got a certificate?"

"Yeah . . . I mean . . . well . . . I mean . . . it was honorable mention. I almost won a scholarship."

Mama laughed, though it turned into a cough. She'd re-taken up smoking to lose weight, and it made her sound like she was always getting over a cold. "You, a scholarship. That would've been like giving shoes to a fish, huh?" Laugh, cough, cough. Mama looked at Gladdy and me to see if we were laughing along with her.

We weren't. Gladdy was frowning at her cottage cheese and celery. I was carefully relocating peas from one compartment of my TV dinner to a more desirable neighborhood near the meatloaf and gravy. I never actually ate peas, I just liked setting them free from their confinement.

Dougie said, "So . . . can I, Mama? Borrow the entry fee?"

Mama sighed. "How much?"

Dougie filled his mouth with mashed potatoes and said something that sounded like "mpfff-mpfff-mpfffy-five dollars."

Mama was not fooled. She knew how to translate mouth-full mumblespeak. "A hundred and twenty five—!? Do I look like I'm made of money? Why not ask your father, he's the one who got you into this 'drawing' business."

"I did." Dougie didn't elaborate, clearly afraid that Mama would shoot the messenger, and all of his duck stamp dreams would be shot dead right alongside.

Gladdy and I looked at each other across the uncomfortable silence. She crossed her eyes at me, and I crossed mine back. Gladdy had on this horrible wig that Mama made her wear because she (Gladdy) was bald. Gladdy turned the wig around to make herself look like Cousin It, which usually would have cracked me up.

Mama lit a cigarette, inhaled, and sighed again. Trails of smoke leaked from her nostrils like she was part dragon. "And what, pray tell, is the prize if you win?"

"Well, your art ends up on a duck stamp. Hunters buy it . . . like a, you know, a permit."

"And when hunters buy it you get a cut?"

Dougie shook his head.

"So the government keeps the money. Typical."

"Well, it goes for preserving, like, ponds and . . . stuff." Dougie's voice was getting desperate. He could tell he was losing her. Suddenly he realized he'd left out the most important part. "And you get famous!"

Mama brightened slightly, but still looked skeptical. "So you'll end up in People magazine and Entertainment Weekly and all that?"

"Um . . . maybe like . . . Fish and Stream?"

"So, not a magazine in the checkout aisle at the grocery store."

Dougie stared down at the imaginary hat in his hands and crumpled its imaginary brim.

"Famous, Douglas, means that you are in a magazine in the checkout aisle of the grocery store. Everybody knows that. Not counting those magazines with the telenovela actors. Nobody cares who those people are except Mexicans."

"Mama. I'll pay you back, I swear."

Laugh laugh cough. "Really. And with what job do you propose to do that?"

Panicked, Dougie could only open and close his mouth like a fish dying on a ship's deck.

"Mmm-hmm. I guess you'll just have to find a way to make some money and enter your 'contest' next year if it's so important to you."

"But, Mama! They ask for a certain type of duck each year. This year it's mallards. Next year it'll be something else. I'd have to do a whole nother painting!"

"So? You do another painting."

"But I worked so hard on that one . . ."

"You and your father." Mama wagged a French-manicured fingertip the color of vanilla ice cream. "If you think dabbing at a piece of paper with a little brush is work then you've got a lot to learn, young man. You want work? Try dancing. You sweat, you sprain muscles, you bleed, you get callouses. That's work. Try giving birth. Try slaving every day for kids who always have a hand out."

Dougie made that quivery face that meant he was trying not to cry.

Mama flicked her cigarette, examined a cuticle, and made that twitchy face that meant she was trying not to smile.

And that was the real reason we kids hated to ask for things. Because deep down we suspected that, just like Mr. Potter, Mama actually liked saying No.