“In the annals of Anna Geller, there is no greater patsy than Harvey Painter,” wrote Frederick Guest in his bestselling novel, Looking for a Poet in all the Wrong Places.
Looking for a Poet in all the Wrong PlacesAnd I can’t disagree with him. None of the other gift-recipients, who lost, threw-out or had their poems stolen—a group wholeheartedly devoted to second-guessing and self-flagellation—could match the speed of my descent and the depth to which I plunged, just as, before, none of them could match my towering good fortune.
The real William Gerrity was the one who called the police. It would be their second investigation in less than a week into a crime against me, or, more accurately, against my poem and me. The first officer who took my statement was a young man in uniform. He rec
