All of Us (17 page)

Palette knife

Scraping knife

Essence of turpentine

Pointed marten-hair brushes

Flat hog-hair brushes

Indifference to everything except your canvas.

The ability to work like a locomotive.

An iron will.

As he writes, without looking at the sea,

he feels the tip of his pen begin to tremble.

The tide is going out across the shingle.

But it isn’t that. No,

it’s because at that moment she chooses

to walk into the room without any clothes on.

Drowsy, not even sure where she is

for a moment. She waves the hair from her forehead.

Sits on the toilet with her eyes closed,

head down. Legs sprawled. He sees her

through the doorway. Maybe

she’s remembering what happened that morning.

For after a time, she opens one eye and looks at him.

And sweetly smiles.

And all at length are gathered in
.

—
LOUISE BOGAN

By the time I came around to feeling pain

and woke up, moonlight

flooded the room. My arm lay paralyzed,

propped like an old anchor under

your back. You were in a dream,

you said later, where you’d arrived

early for the dance. But after

a moment’s anxiety you were okay

because it was really a sidewalk

sale, and the shoes you were wearing,

or not wearing, were fine for that.

“Help me,” I said. And tried to hoist

my arm. But it just lay there, aching,

unable to rise on its own. Even after

you said “What is it? What’s wrong?”

it stayed put—deaf, unmoved

by any expression of fear or amazement.

We shouted at it, and grew afraid

when it didn’t answer. “It’s gone to sleep,”

I said, and hearing those words

knew how absurd this was. But

I couldn’t laugh. Somehow,

between the two of us, we managed

to raise it.
This can’t be my arm

is what I kept thinking as

we thumped it, squeezed it, and

prodded it back to life. Shook it

until that stinging went away.

We said a few words to each other.

I don’t remember what. Whatever

reassuring things people

who love each other say to each other

given the hour and such odd

circumstance. I do remember

you remarked how it was light

enough in the room that you could see

circles under my eyes.

You said I needed more regular sleep,

and I agreed. Each of us went

to the bathroom, and climbed back in bed

on our respective sides.

Pulled the covers up. “Good night,”

you said, for the second time that night.

And fell asleep. Maybe

into that same dream, or else another.

I lay until daybreak, holding

both arms fast across my chest.

Working my fingers now and then.

While my thoughts kept circling

around and around, but always going back

where they’d started from.

That one inescapable fact: even while

we undertake this trip,

there’s another, far more bizarre,

we still have to make.

A few minutes ago, I stepped onto the deck

of the house. From there I could see and hear the water,

and everything that’s happened to me all these years.

It was hot and still. The tide was out.

No birds sang. As I leaned against the railing

a cobweb touched my forehead.

It caught in my hair. No one can blame me that I turned

and went inside. There was no wind. The sea

was dead calm. I hung the cobweb from the lampshade.

Where I watch it shudder now and then when my breath

touches it. A fine thread. Intricate.

Before long, before anyone realizes,

I’ll be gone from here.

My dad is at the stove in front of a pan with brains

and eggs. But who has any appetite

this morning? I feel flimsy as

balsa wood. Something has just been said.

My mom said it. What was it? Something,

I’ll bet, that bears on money. I’ll do my part

if I don’t eat. Dad turns his back on the stove.

“I’m in a hole. Don’t dig me deeper.”

Light leaks in from the window. Someone’s crying.

The last thing I recall is the smell

of burned brains and eggs. The whole morning

is shoveled into the garbage and mixed

with other things. Sometime later

he and I drive to the dump, ten miles out.

We don’t talk. We throw our bags and cartons

onto a dark mound. Rats screech.

They whistle as they crawl out of rotten sacks

dragging their bellies. We get back in the car

to watch the smoke and fire. The motor’s running.

I smell the airplane glue on my fingers.

He looks at me as I bring my fingers to my nose.

Then looks away again, toward town.

He wants to say something but can’t.

He’s a million miles away. We’re both far away

from there, and still someone’s crying. Even then

I was beginning to understand how it’s possible

to be in one place. And someplace else, too.

We sipped tea. Politely musing

on possible reasons for the success

of my books in your country. Slipped

into talk of pain and humiliation

you find occurring, and reoccurring,

in my stories. And that element

of sheer chance. How all this translates

in terms of sales.

I looked into a corner of the room.

And for a minute I was 16 again,

careening around in the snow

in a ’50 Dodge sedan with five or six

bozos. Giving the finger

to some other bozos, who yelled and pelted

our car with snowballs, gravel, old

tree branches. We spun away, shouting.

And we were going to leave it at that.

But my window was down three inches.

Only three inches. I hollered out

one last obscenity. And saw this guy

wind up to throw. From this vantage,

now, I imagine I see it coming. See it

speeding through the air while I watch,

like those soldiers in the first part

of the last century watched canisters

of shot fly in their direction

while they stood, unable to move

for the dread fascination of it.

But I
didn’t
see it. I’d already turned

my head to laugh with my pals.

When something slammed into the side

of my head so hard it broke my eardrum and fell

in my lap, intact. A ball of packed ice

and snow. The pain was stupendous.

And the humiliation.

It was awful when I began to weep

in front of those tough guys while they

cried,
Dumb luck. Freak accident
.

A chance in a million!

The guy who threw it, he had to be amazed

and proud of himself while he took

the shouts and backslaps of the others.

He must have wiped his hands on his pants.

And messed around a little more

before going home to supper. He grew up

to have his share of setbacks and got lost

in his life, same as I got lost in mine.

He never gave that afternoon

another thought. And why should he?

So much else to think about always.

Why remember that stupid car sliding

down the road, then turning the corner

and disappearing?

We politely raise our teacups in the room.

A room that for a minute something else entered.

On my desk, a picture postcard from my son

in southern France. The Midi,

he calls it. Blue skies. Beautiful houses

loaded with begonias. Nevertheless

he’s going under, needs money fast.

Next to his card, a letter

from my daughter telling me her old man,

the speed-freak, is tearing down

a motorcycle in the living room.

They’re existing on oatmeal,

she and her children. For God’s sake,

she could use some help.

And there’s the letter from my mother

who is sick and losing her mind.

She tells me she won’t be here

much longer. Won’t I help her make

this one last move? Can’t I pay

for her to have a home of her own?

I go outside. Thinking to walk

to the graveyard for some comfort.

But the sky is in turmoil.

The clouds, huge and swollen with darkness,

about to spew open.

It’s then the postman turns into

the drive. His face

is a reptile’s, glistening and working.

His hand goes back—as if to strike!

It’s the mail.

Then I was young and had the strength of ten.

For anything, I thought. Though part of my job

at night was to clean the autopsy room

once the coroner’s work was done. But now

and then they knocked off early, or too late.

For, so help me, they left things out

on their specially built table. A little baby,

still as a stone and snow cold. Another time,

a huge black man with white hair whose chest

had been laid open. All his vital organs

lay in a pan beside his head. The hose

was running, the overhead lights blazed.

And one time there was a leg, a woman’s leg,

on the table. A pale and shapely leg.

I knew it for what it was. I’d seen them before.

Still, it took my breath away.

When I went home at night my wife would say,

“Sugar, it’s going to be all right. We’ll trade

this life in for another.” But it wasn’t

that easy. She’d take my hand between her hands

and hold it tight, while I leaned back on the sofa

and closed my eyes. Thinking of … something.

I don’t know what. But I’d let her bring

my hand to her breast. At which point

I’d open my eyes and stare at the ceiling, or else

the floor. Then my fingers strayed to her leg.

Which was warm and shapely, ready to tremble

and raise slightly, at the slightest touch.

But my mind was unclear and shaky. Nothing

was happening. Everything was happening. Life

was a stone, grinding and sharpening.

Everywhere he went that day he walked

in his own past. Kicked through piles

of memories. Looked through windows

that no longer belonged to him.

Work and poverty and short change.

In those days they’d lived by their wills,

determined to be invincible.

Nothing could stop them. Not

for the longest while.

                                        In the motel room

that night, in the early morning hours,

he opened a curtain. Saw clouds

banked against the moon. He leaned

closer to the glass. Cold air passed

through and put its hand over his heart.

I loved you, he thought.

Loved you well.

Before loving you no longer.

She lays her hand on his shoulder

at the checkout stand. But he won’t

go with her, and shakes his head.

She insists! He pays. She walks out

with him to his big car, takes one look,

laughs at it. Touches his cheek.

Leaves him with his groceries

in the parking lot. Feeling foolish.

Feeling diminished. Still paying.

The car with a cracked windshield.

The car that threw a rod.

The car without brakes.

The car with a faulty U-joint.

The car with a hole in its radiator.

The car I picked peaches for.

The car with a cracked block.

The car with no reverse gear.

The car I traded for a bicycle.

The car with steering problems.

The car with generator trouble.

The car with no back seat.

The car with the torn front seat.

The car that burned oil.

The car with rotten hoses.

The car that left the restaurant without paying.

The car with bald tires.

The car with no heater or defroster.

The car with its front end out of alignment.

The car the child threw up in.

The car
I
threw up in.

The car with the broken water pump.

The car whose timing gear was shot.

The car with a blown head-gasket.

The car I left on the side of the road.

The car that leaked carbon monoxide.

The car with a sticky carburetor.

The car that hit the dog and kept going.

The car with a hole in its muffler.

The car with no muffler.

The car my daughter wrecked.

The car with the twice-rebuilt engine.

The car with corroded battery cables.

The car bought with a bad check.

Car of my sleepless nights.

The car with a stuck thermostat.

The car whose engine caught fire.

The car with no headlights.

The car with a broken fan belt.

The car with wipers that wouldn’t work.

The car I gave away.

The car with transmission trouble.

The car I washed my hands of.

The car I struck with a hammer.

The car with payments that couldn’t be met.

The repossessed car.

The car whose clutch-pin broke.

The car waiting on the back lot.

Car of my dreams.

My car.