AT NIGHT WE PAINT THE STARS
the second entry
*
The doorknob rattled and she turned, frightened at the sudden noise. She was afraid Gerald would come into the room one day and burn her paintings, just as he promised he would. She’d gotten into the habit of locking the door now, not only because there was always someone about, but because thinking she’d locked it gave her a sense of security she couldn’t explain. But it was such a flimsy door, anyone would be able to push it in.
“Are you gonna sit in there all day, talkin’ to yourself?” Gerald grumbled through the door. His voice sounded rough and gravely, like he’d been chewing rocks and his tongue was picking through the words carefully — though he never picks at his words before he says what’s on his mind.
“I was just cleaning up,” she stammered, thinking how her voice sounded meek and timid compared to his — how everything about her seemed meek and timid — and she thinks of herself as a little doe cowering in front of a roaring bear. She pulled her robe closed, pulling the belt tight.
“Well, best get my breakfast started — you’re not gonna be able to cook it from in there,” he said, and she heard him trundle off down the hall, the floor groaning in protest to his immense weight. She unlocked the door, seeing his huge shadow where it barred the kitchen door as he struggled to get his boots on, stamping his feet down hard and leaving clumps of dried mud on the bright yellow linoleum.
*
She can see him from the kitchen window. She’s standing in front of the sink cleaning dishes from the left-overs he ate after last night’s dinner. He’d simply piled the dishes into the sink when he was done, just like he always did; he never thinks to rinse them, or scrape them clean, and she’s given up thinking he ever will.
She cuts onions and tomatoes after washing the dishes, holding them with the childlike fingers of her left hand. Then she chops a dozen small russet potatoes, throwing them into the frying pan with herbs she plucks out of the terra-cotta pots lining the window sill. She loves the smell of fresh herbs in her cooking. She takes a dozen slices of bacon out of the fridge, chops them up, and throws them into the frying pan, too. In a minute, the kitchen is sizzling with the smell of breakfast. It won’t be long before the apple pickers come in looking for a bite to eat, so she pulls a second frying pan down and starts all over again.
The Voice reminds her to pull the sheets off of her bed at the same time, and she hobbles up the stairs, the drag-clump, drag-clump of her left foot hitting the hollow riser of each step. The dull thud of her foot sounds like the monotonous tolling of a broken bell lost in the distance.
She strips the sheets and pauses at the window when she sees the figure of a solitary man making his way across the open fields.
“He’s probably looking for shelter,” she tells the Voice, “or maybe work? Those clouds are as good a reason as any for him to come here,” she adds, almost as if it’s an after thought, and about as convincing. “I think he just wants to get in out of the rain. It might not be here yet, but can feel it coming, in my arm.”
—the wind looks like it's picking up too, the Voice adds in a whisper.
She can see the trees bending in the distance, like they’re uttering a silent prayer to a god only they can see; or maybe they’re answering their own voices in a language only they can understand? She turns to look down at the man again.
The man’s carrying a knapsack, with a long, black, cylindrical tube sticking out of it, and a sleeping bag hanging underneath. He has a slow, loping gait — the easy stride of a man who’s not in a hurry, but with the purposeful step of a man who looks determined to be someplace at a certain time. He’s wearing faded blue jeans torn at the pockets and worn out at the knees, and an old field jacket like she sees Viet Nam Vets wearing on T.V.
— like those ones always demonstrating against the war, the Voice reminds her.
“Yeah, those ones,” she agrees.
He has a tie-dyed tee-shirt underneath his jacket, and as she bundles up the bedding, she tells the Voice maybe the man should just keep on walking. His hair is long, hanging loose, but most of it’s tucked up under the battered brown Fedora he’s wearing. It was the kind of hat her father used to own. She can see his boots as he approaches, the wet gleam of dew flashing in the dull morning.
“Autumn’ll be here before you know it,” she says absently. “He must’ve walked all night to get here. Maybe he slept outside last night?” she asks the Voice. “It’s still warm enough for that. I’ll never have that kind of freedom, will I? It’s easy to envy a person his freedom.”
As he approaches, Gerald comes out of the hen house and sees him for the first time. Some of the apple pickers poke their heads out of their tents, and watch the man with mounting suspicion. Gerald’s holding a basket of eggs in one hand, and a pail of warm milk in the other, waddling with the duck-like exactness of a man in pain.
— it’s like his body protests every step, the Voice says.
“It’s his own form of silent suffering, don’t you know?”
— he walks like an old man, the Voice goes on; which is what she thinks whenever she sees him crossing the yard.
“I hope he doesn’t send him away,” she says softly, only this time she isn’t talking to the Voice.
— not without offering him something to eat first? the Voice laughs.
The food!
She drops the bedding and scurries away from the window, hobbling down the stairs as fast as she can. Her leg aches because of the angle she has to face the stairs. She’s sure breakfast is burned. She gives the frying pans a quick stir, and sees a few smaller pieces of onion laying burned on the bottom. She’ll have to pull them out before giving it to Gerald. She looks through the kitchen window again and sees that Gerald is still talking to the man. Some of the pickers come out of their tents, approaching the washtub outside with shaving kits and old, worn out towels.
“He looks young,” she says.
— he’s probably one of those hippies you hear so much about, the Voice whispers.
“He does look like the type,” she whispers back. “Doesn’t he? What was that thing I heard last week? On the radio?”
— tune in? the Voice asks — or turn on, and drop out?
“That’s it. Drop out. I’ll bet you he’s one of those guys that’s dropped out.”
She can’t see him any better from where she is, and she can’t hear what they’re talking about, but it seems pretty clear that Gerald’s pleased with the man.
— I guess he’s looking for work? the Voice says, but sounds unsure.
“I think he may have found it,” she says, her voice loud.
— hippies don't really want to work, do they? They’re lazy and shiftless. That’s what Gerald says, and why would he lie about that? Remember? He said he’d seen some last time he went into town for supplies? He said they’ve all but invaded, and it’s such a small town at that. He never hires them. Students’re what he wants. Remember?
She finds it hard to believe that Gerald would hire a hippie, and says so.
“If he was one of them, Gerald wouldn’t give him the time of day. And see? They’re still talking. There’s more to the man than just long hair.”
Gerald turns to look at her — as if he knows she’ll be watching — and she tells the Voice the smile on Gerald’s face isn’t real.
“He never smiles when he meets a stranger, and smiles even less when he gets to know one. He left his smile in Korea. How a man can get that damaged in such a short period of time, is beyond me,” she tells the Voice, shaking her head sadly.
“Remember how he was when he came back? How he refused to talk to me about what happened? That’s when he stopped sleeping with me. I haven’t seen him naked since before he left — though he can’t hide that ugly scar on his fat belly. I'm afraid to think of what it’s from. It reminds me of the apple parings Momma sliced when she made her apple pies. I used to picture someone opening him up at the belly like one of those dolls Momma had when I was a kid — the kind where the big one holds the littler ones inside, you know the one I mean? That’s what he reminds me of.
“He hasn’t touched me since he’s been back. Not the way I wanted him to; now, I don’t want him to touch me. He closed himself off to me, and all I have to say is good. I might as well be a prisoner in my own home. The deformed princess locked in her tower, that’s what I am. When I asked him about what happened that time — that one time, remember? What happened, I said. He slapped me, and hard too, telling me to never ask him about it again. Ever. That was twelve years ago. Gerald’s father was still alive then, but he didn’t say anything when Gerald hit me. I could see the old man was just as unsettled about Gerald as I was.”
After Gerald’s father died, there were just the two of them to run the orchard. Gerald went into town every summer and hired local boys to help pick apples, but lately, with the war escalating in Viet Nam, more and more of the local boys were enlisting just so they could leave town — or else running off to Canada to avoid the draft. It was getting harder to find good workers.
That’s why Gerald was always up early. That’s why he ate a big breakfast and stayed out until it was time for lunch — and she had to make sure lunch was ready, or there’d be hell to pay — and then he’d go out to the trees for the rest of the day, showing up when the sun was almost down.
— that’s why it takes so long to do the laundry, the Voice says. You're always cooking and cleaning up after him.
She hears them coming in and turns away from the door. It’s a vain attempt at hiding herself, she knows, because Gerald will point out everything wrong with her. She thinks that looking at her reflection in the window is a half hearted confirmation of how plain she is. She wears her hair up, because it’s the easiest way to take care of it. She sleeps with it up sometimes too, like when the day runs out of hours and her chores keep piling up on her — like this day promises to be. She hates her hair, and wants to cut it off, but Gerald likes it long.
“Set a plate,” Gerald says gruffly. “Dan ‘ere’s stayin’."
“Staying for breakfast, or staying to work?” Agnes asks softly.
“Never min’ the goddamned questions, an’ get ‘im a plate,” Gerald says once more.
“There’s not enough. I didn’t know — ”
“Then you’ll ‘ave t’ do wit’out, won’t ya?” Gerald says. “ ‘ow many eggs do ya want Dan? Just give ‘er yer order, an’ she’ll cook ‘em up for you, if she knows what’s good for ‘er. Where’s ‘is plate?” Gerald asks.
“Sit down, please. Dan is it?”
“Yes ma’am. Dan Reynolds,” the man says, taking his knapsack off and placing it beside Gerald’s muddy boots. He’s careful not to bang the cylinder against the wall, and slides the sleeping bag aside with a foot.
“So what’s that yer carryin’?” Gerald asks, as Dan pulls his boots off.
“A telescope. I'm something of an amateur astronomer.”
“What’re ya doin’, some sort of a geo-physical survey?” Gerald laughs. Dan echoes the laugh uneasily as he pulls a chair out, and sits at the table.
“No. I like to watch the stars.”
“Isn’t that geophysics?”
“No. Geophysics is the study of the Earth’s physics and structure. It’s all about using mathematical and physical methods — ”
“You know a lot about that sort of stuff, do ya, Dan?”
“How many eggs would you like, Mr. Reynolds?” Agnes asks cautiously.
“Two’s fine, thank you,” Dan says.
He watches her as she limps from the stove to the table. She sees him looking at her clubfoot, and feels the blood rushing to her face.
“Two?” Gerald laughs. “Ya can’t expect t’ give me a honest day’s work if ya don’t ‘ave a honest breakfast in ya. Give ‘im five, Vinnie. An’ where’s the goddamned toast? Ain’t ya gonna make any toast? What the ‘ell’ve ya been doin’ ‘ere all this time? Been talkin’ to yerself again, an’ fergettin’ about ever’thin’ again, ‘aven’t ya? She talks to ‘erself,” Gerald explains. “A lot. If ya hear ‘er askin’ ya a question, nine times outta ten, she ain’t talkin’ t’ ya. Been doin’ it fer as long as I’ve been wit’ ‘er. She ain’t much use ‘round ‘ere on account of ‘ow she’s crippled up like she is — God knows she ain’t gonna give me no sons — killed the only one she ever tried to have. Stillborned ‘im. I was in Korea at the time. That ain’t somethin’ a man wants to find out when ‘e comes back after bein' wounded an’ all.”
“I’m sorry ma’am,” Dan says gently.
“Ma’am?” Gerald laughs. “ ‘er name’s Agnes. She calls ‘erself Vincent — Vinnie I calls ‘er. That’s the name what she signs on ‘er pictures. Vincent. She’s an artiste, she says,” and he draws the word out like he’s extracting a tooth. “She’s even got ‘erself a studio; that’s what she likes to call it. That’s where you’ll be stayin’. It was apposed to be the kid’s room — the one what died. Still ‘as the wallpaper up, too. Won’t take it down, or change it, for some strange reason.”
“I’m sure it must be something of a comfort to her,” Dan says slowly.
“Yer sure ‘bout dat, are ye?” Gerald says, narrowing a look at Dan. “I guess yer welcome to yer opinions, seein’s how ya don’t know any better. But ye’ll see. She’s a strange one — not quite there, if ya know what I mean. I shoulda never married ‘er. I don’t think anyone woulda married ‘er if I din’t come along when I did.”
There’s a knock on the door and the apple pickers make their way in. They have a mindful look about them, afraid they might catch Gerald in an off mood and set his whole day off. Agnes turns to the other pan on the stove and breaks two dozen eggs into it, glad for the distraction. She tries not to listen to Gerald as he makes introductions, all the while yelling at her to hurry up because the day isn’t going to wait for them any more than he wants to wait for her.
