AT NIGHT WE PAINT THE STARS

4th entry

Photo by Robert Nelson on Unsplash

Gerald’s return ominously coincides with the approach of winter. The morning he returns, the sky dawns a dappled grey, limping in like an old, weary horse, as smaller clouds gallop across the vast horizon and trip across the distant mountains, falling off into tomorrow. A mist descends, wrapping itself around the hills like a shroud and feeling its way into the orchard where it clings to the withered trees and kisses the grass like an absented lover.

And coming back just as harsh and cruel, the Voice speaks out, saying it would’ve been easier for both of them if Gerald had died.

“I know,” she says softly, watching the ambulance pull away, the thin dust trail it leaves behind blown aside by the cold wind.

“What’d you say?” Dan asks absently, standing nearby on the porch steps.

“I didn’t say anything, did I?” she smiles.

“I thought I — you’re not talking to yourself again, are you?”

And she says in a strange voice, “I hadn’t noticed,” shaking her head.

— we better go inside before it gets too cold, the Voice says smugly.

“It is cold, isn’t it?” she says in return. Dan watches her as she steps into the kitchen, his mind racing in different directions.

When he first arrived, Gerald told him Agnes was a little off, as if that would explain her. She talks to herself, he said. He watched her closely that first week, and heard the conversations she had with herself. When he’d walk into the kitchen, she’d smile, asking him if he came to bring Gerald his lunch. She seemed to have no idea she was talking to herself, just like now, he thinks.

It reminded him of a man he knew in Nam who used to talk to his rifle. He even gave it a name. The guys called him Spooky, because he used to go out at night looking for V.C., collecting ears he wore around his neck like a necklace. Everyone avoided him. They’d hear him sitting off to the side, chatting like he was sitting with a woman only he could see. Once, when someone asked him who he was talking to, he looked up at the man asking him what he was talking about. Like Agnes, the man had no idea he was talking out loud. It wasn’t long after that when someone shot Spooky out on patrol. He just wanted to put Spooky out of his misery, he said, but more than that, he wanted to make sure Spooky never went back Stateside. Spooky had his papers in his pocket.

Dan felt uncomfortable staying in the house that first week; he felt uneasy about the paintings lining the walls of the studio Gerald told him to stay in. They were dark, haunting portraits: Agnes staring blindly into nothing — with blank, vacant eyes that were more than just the windows to her soul, but a portrait of her despondency. There was no doubt she was talented, but her paintings reminded him of an exhibit of concentration camp survivors. He saw the mural she was working on — four paintings of crucifixion and torture with bleak, mythological portraits of half naked women raped by monsters posing as men: centaurs and satyrs; horned, beastly men, who were fat, gross, and ugly — all of them somehow reminiscent of Gerald. She has these paintings hidden behind her Emily Carr-type landscapes, and her Van Gogh-like paintings of apple pickers in the orchards. They were paintings that were light and breezy, but painted with dark colours — as if the clouds had fallen and the workers were picking them up, instead of apples.

He went outside to sleep with the college kids after that. They asked him questions about her. They said they never knew who they’re talking to: her, or the ghost of herself. He could see that now. He knows that whatever reason she had for talking to herself, Gerald was a big part of it. She changed when he was in the hospital, even her paintings were more alive, the colours more vibrant and animated. But now Gerald’s back — paralyzed and bedridden.

“It looks like the patients are in charge of the asylum,” he says to himself, and laughs, realizing he voiced his thoughts out loud. It’s time for me to leave. It was nice while it lasted—and he might’ve stayed for the winter and helped her out — but not now, he tells himself. He can still make his way to California and warmer weather if he leaves now, before the snow comes.

She’s standing at the door, looking at him strangely, and he wonders if she overheard him talking to himself. Does it even matter anymore?

“I need you to help me roll him over,” she says slowly. “He’s so heavy, I can’t move him.”

“Why do you have to move him?”

“He stinks. I want to wash him.”

“You mean like washing an elephant at the zoo?” he says with a smile.

“I’ll get everything I need,” she says, ignoring the comment.

Dan walks upstairs, wondering how the four ambulance attendants managed to get Gerald up the stairs without throwing their backs out. At least they brought extra help, he thinks as he reaches the top of the stairs. Wasn’t there usually only two of them? It’s dark in the hallway — dark and narrow — the air dank and close, and he opens the hall window to let the fresh air in. A light might be a good idea, he thinks. The wood paneling has fresh scratches from where the stretcher scraped up against the wall, and he runs his hand along the scratches without even giving them a second thought.

He stands at the open door of the bedroom, looking at Gerald laying on the bed, dwarfing it with his immense bulk, and looking even bigger now that he’s laying down. The window is open, and the curtains flutter lazily in the breeze. She’s right about the smell though. It has to be the medication seeping through his pores, he thinks. He doesn’t know how to tell her she’ll never be able to wash the smell away. It has to work its way through his system.

“What the ‘ell are you starin’ at?” Gerald asks quickly. He looks angry, his brows drawn down close, his face red, as if he’s struggling like a fish out of water and fighting for breath.

“Agnes said she needed my help,” Dan says, leaning against the door frame.

“Fer what?”

“She wants me to help roll you over.”

“What the ‘ell’s that mumblin’ bitch think she’s gonna do?”

“Wash you down, she said.”

“Oh no she ain’t,” Gerald says quickly. “Vinnie!” His loud voice sounds stentorian, like resonating thunder in the close confines of a dark room. “Vinnie!”

“Stop screaming, damn it. I’m likely to go deaf listening to your bellowing,” Dan says with a note of irritation. “Jesus, my ears are ringing.”

“I won’t let ‘er wash me,” Gerald says slowly.

“Why not? She’s your wife. Who else do you expect to do it?”

“I wouldn’t let ‘em near me in the ‘ospital. Scared ‘em off. No one sees me naked. No one. Un’nerstand?” he says. His anger and frustration wearing him out, he falls back against the pillows, breathing heavily and trying to catch his breath.

“They didn’t wipe you down in there?”

“I wouldn’t let ‘em. Threw a right reg’lar fit, I did. The nurses din’t know what to do. I cleaned myself soon’s I was able.”

“Well, Jesus man, no wonder you smell so ripe,” Dan laughs, not believing him.

“What’s all the screaming and hollerin’ going on up here?” Agnes asks, coming up the stairs with a laugh, the drag-clump, drag-clump of her foot soft and almost unheard. She’s carrying a bucket of warm soapy water and has three towels slung over her right shoulder.

“He says he doesn’t want to be washed down,” Dan explains.

“Well, he’s not in any position to argue now then, is he?”

“Goddamn you bitch, so ‘elp me, if ya come near me wit’ that bucket, I'll throttle you.”

“You stink.”

“I don’t give a damn if I stink ‘r not. You stay the ‘ell away from me.”

“I’ll start with his feet. He can’t hurt me with them. Maybe I won’t need help after all? I’m sorry.”

“So I can leave?”

“I think so. I’ll come down after and make dinner. Then maybe afterwards, we can sit on the porch.”

“Sit out on the porch?” Gerald asks. “What’s wit’ you two? You like ‘im,” he says, thinking she’s more than willing to do anything for Dan — more than she’s willing to do anything for him.

“Yes, I like him,” Dan hears her say as he closes the door behind him. He goes down the narrow stairs because doesn’t want to hear what she’s going to tell him. He doesn’t want to tell her he doesn’t feel the same way. He never intended to stay — he’d been clear about that from the very beginning. That would’ve made it harder to leave, he tells himself. Gerald upstairs in bed will make it even more difficult to leave.

Agnes comes down the stairs ten minutes later, shaken, mumbling to herself, and all but falls into the sofa beside him, looking as though she’s been physically beaten. Dan waits for her to say something.

“Now I know why he didn’t want me to wash him,” she finally says.

“Do you?”

“I couldn’t…” she says softly.

“What? You couldn’t what?”

She levels a look at him as if she’s considering her options before going on. “We haven’t slept in the same bed since he came back from Korea. I’ve never seen him naked; I’ve never even seen him change his clothes. His shutting me out of his life was more than just shutting the bedroom door and locking it. I’ve been living with a stranger all these years. He used to get violent when he drank. He hit me once, ten years ago, and during all that time I told myself no one else wanted me. Not looking the way I am. My dad told me that. He wasn’t much better than Gerald, I guess. I thought it was s’posed to be like this, my life, I mean. And then you came along and everything changed. I let myself fall in love with you, did you know that?”

“I sort of had an idea,” Dan smiles.

“I told myself, that first night — after the call from the hospital — that if you said no, I’d kill myself. And I meant it. What could I expect to get out of life if you turned me down?

“I didn’t want him to live after the call. I went to bed and prayed for him to die. But all the while, I kept thinking about you. I told myself: if I go to you and throw myself at you, will you turn me away? And if you don't take me, who would? I’m plain enough as is, and being a cripple, well, life just wouldn’t be worth going on if I had to live like this.”

“That’s crazy. You can hire college students to pick apples for you. You’d be free to paint. You can become someone, make yourself into something new.”

“Gerald’s wishing he was dead,” she says softly.

“That’s understandable. Anyone who loses his legs is going to feel that way. He’ll get over it — in time.”

“He’s probably been wishing he was dead since he got back from Korea.”

“Then what’s stoppin' him?” Dan asks. “I mean, if a man wants to kill himself, he can.”

“Afraid I guess.”

“Of what?”

“The embarrassment.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“He doesn’t have a penis,” she says gently.

“What?”

“A penis. A pecker? His prick? He doesn’t have one,” she says, looking at him slowly. “Not like you do.”

“Then what’s he have?” Dan asks curiously, wondering how it was even possible.

“A tube. I didn’t really look at it close. He opens it and drains it; at least, I think that’s how it works. I’ve heard him through the door.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Dan says with a note of skepticism.

“A Korean doctor did it. He lost everything, Dan. He’s one huge scar from belly to thighs. I can’t explain it. He’s up there right now, crying. I couldn’t look at him any more. I had to leave.” There are tears in her eyes.

“He said he hates me,” she says after a moment.

“And? Do you hate him?” Dan asks.

“I don’t hate him. How can I? Especially now?”

“You mean you pity him?" Dan says with a sneer. “That’s worse. If he thinks you pity him, he’ll make your life a living hell.”

“What am I s’posed to do?”

“About what?”

“Everything!” she says quickly. “Everything…” The tears and sobs shudder through her body, and she trembles, as if it comes from the bottom of her soul. He can see she’s trying to control herself — trying to fight back the tears — but it’s difficult. He can’t help thinking about the relationship she might have had a with him if he’d only been honest with her from the beginning; and knowing she’ll never find that part of her life again, he thinks, makes it the greatest tragedy of all.

Dan knows if Gerald suspects pity from her, he’ll hate her with a renewed kind of vigour—if there is such a thing. She’s there to remind him of the man he isn’t, which means he hates himself, he supposes. Is it possible he’s hated her because she reminded him of everything he’d lost — and not just the child either — but everything?

Of course, that has to be it, he tells himself.

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