Scumbler - William Wharton

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nothing on the backhand. I keep playing to his bad side and picking up on his serve. I’ve got a sneaky drop serve but no backhand either. We come out even: good games, good fun. Sweik and I are both players, not sportsmen; we laugh too much. And God, I tire out fast; can you imagine, tiring out from Ping-Pong!

      DEATH IS A CUP OF COFFEE, OR A DAWN,

      OR ORGASM, ALL THE GOOD THAT COMES IN

      LIFE, AND THE BAD. THAT’S LIFE, THAT’S

      DEATH.

      It’s getting late, time for this old man to go home. I drift downhill beside the Jardin des Plantes, past the morgue and Jussieu, the science part of the Sorbonne. It’s where the Halles aux Vins used to be; I think that represents progress. I cut over the bridge across the back of I’lle Saint-Louis and up Henri-IV to the Bastille again. The motorcycles are gone and it’s quiet.

      I cruise down Rue Charenton, avoiding the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. I can’t take all the crappy furniture in the windows. It’s a long street pretending things that aren’t and never should be. Poor people walk up and down that street Sundays when the stores are closed; they stare into the windows practically genuflecting.

      At the end of Charenton, I see a man lying in the street. He’s under a streetlight with his head propped on the curb. There’s thick blood. I stop. Nobody’s around; it’s quiet. The gutter is full of blood. I yell but nobody opens any windows. I get down; his hands and face are cold, white; there’s no breathing. I jump on my bike and speed up to the Marché Aligre where there’s a police station.

      Two flics are standing spread-legged on the corner. I explain. I know I’m getting myself in trouble. One flic surprises me by jumping on back of my bike while the other phones in. We head back to Charenton. When we get there, my flic leans over the poor blood-drained bastard. People are looking out windows now. The flic asks my name and looks at my passport. I figure I’m set for a night in the pokey.

      He takes off his cloak and covers the dead one, head and all. It’s a damned nice thing to do; it’s not exactly warm. He says I can take off. He’s written my name, address and passport number in his little notebook. I figure I’ll hear from the cops, but don’t; you never know in France.

      I roll the few blocks home. The door’s locked but I have a key. I try to slip into bed quietly. No good. I wake up Kate and snuggle against her. It feels great, spoon tucking, warm body, warm bed feeling. There’s nothing better than sleeping wrapped up with a wife. It’s awful to be dead out there on a street like that, nobody even opening a window to peek out.

      Kate rolls over, loks at me just as I’m drifting into sleep.

      ‘Dear, you really can’t stay up late like this and get your work done. It’s almost three o’clock and it doesn’t make sense. You’re not a kid anymore, you know.’

      I don’t feel much like answering but Kate deserves to know.

      ‘Yeah, you’re right, I know; but sometimes a painter works without a brush in his hand, Kate.’

      It’s quiet, I should leave it there. I’ve sworn I’ll never argue with anyone, especially with Kate. Everybody loses every argument. But I’m so upset by that dead man in the street I can’t keep my mouth shut. Mostly I want to tell her, to spread out my fear.

      ‘On the way home, I found a corpse stretched out in the Rue Charenton. I called the police, and that flic even got on my bike with me and rode back. I thought for a while there I might spend the night in the hoosegow. You know, Kate, I’d’ve called you if something like that happened.’

      I leave it. This kind of thing unhooks me, maybe even more than dead people. I’m probably afraid of becoming one more of the living dead, living all my life’s time for some kind of postmortem postpartum expectation or justification; defensive living. Most people wear out their shoulders from looking over them.

      TORRENTS TRIGGER ENDLESS FAULTS

      WITHIN THIS AMPLITUDE OF WELL-FINGERED

      FAILURE. IN PAINTED ILLUSION TRUST DECLINES.

      5

      The People’s Painter

      Today I begin my painting of Sweik’s place. Sweik did leave his key under the doormat. It’s cold but sunny when I step into the room. There’s strong slanted sun pushing in through his window, but this place smells musty even with that window wide open.

      I stop there in the doorway and set up my easel. I want it just this way; maybe later, I’ll get Sweik to sit under the sunshine, casting unpredictable shadows.

      There’s not so much cat-look in the room. Books, pipe, wine bottle out; pants hanging over a chair; clock crooked on the mantel; little things. Sweik might be a bear or a bear cat; Himalayan bear; hibernating type. I’ll have to find out if he eats honey and berries. Bears tend to gorge on honey, berries, fruit and meat, almost as omnivorous as men.

      This room desperately needs paintings to cover those water stains on the walls; I’ll bring over some sunny Spanish wall paintings. I did them two years ago, when we went down to southern Spain for Easter holidays; never managed to sell even one. Nobody believed them; that can be a problem with paintings or anything else. People don’t seem to want to believe the beautiful hard things.

      I do a fine layout; stand-up view; looking across the table and over his bed; almost one-point perspective. The wall, fireplace, books, a mirror fill up my right side. The window’s dead center. Outside, across the street, there’s an old wall in the shade. The room’s so full of trapped sunlight you can almost wade in it.

      It’d be terrific having Sweik in front reading; alone like a bear; definitely bear. How could I’ve thought cat? His hands, feet are too big. Big soft-moving mountain bear or bear cat; he even lifts his head up every once in a while, sniffs, looks around, the way all bears do – definitely bear.

      RESTING DARKLY IN A MOLDERING CAVE

      A SLAVE TO ALL SEASONS, YET BLESSED.

      First, ultramarine blue, ochre, burnt sienna for the underpainting. No real drawing yet; I’ll get my drawing in the painting. I’m inside the forms and light now; splicing places where walls meet. I’ll use that sagging beam in the ceiling against the rug and light on floor tiles. Leitmotif: yellows, yellow-browns against dark green.

      EATING AIR, RACING LIGHT, FLIGHT

      THROUGH SPACE AND EYES THAT BITE.

      I’m a kind of dog myself. I’d like to be a wolf. Kate’s a full-blooded wolf. Dogs need to be liked; bark a lot; whine. Dogs care. Wolves never give anything away; are very loyal, very uptight about the nest, kids, full of pride; possessive. My first wife was a wolf, too. She brought on the pack and they destroyed me. Sometimes I even think she enjoyed it; I keep trying to wipe that thought out of my mind but it won’t go away.

      THE HOWLING OF AIR IN A CHIMNEY,

      THE CALL OF A WOLVERINE FOR HER CUB:

      I’M EMPTY WITHOUT FIRE.

      I want as much room as I can get in the painting, so I blow out the perspective to a wide-angle-eye distortion. The problem with four major converging forces like walls is they can confuse the point of focus.

      Now I’m drawing over my underpainting. The light’s moving across the room, falling left to right. I’m moving with it, tilted at an angle in my mind, leaning on photons.

      I’ve just put on the first licks of impasto when Sweik comes. He agrees to sit in front of the window; has some studying to do. He sits in his chair, rocks back with a foot on the rail of his bed. It’s quiet. We’re both working hard. I can hear my brushes on the canvas.

      I’m feeling and letting it happen. I’m out there and the room is flowing through me. I don’t even know how it’s happening. I’m watching the painting from far away, like watching God create the world. I drift on the brushes that way an hour or two, controlled falling,

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