“Don’t tell me you cut your own wood, too?” I say, trying for exasperated-impressed.
A tense silence extends during which I grow sure that Audra is not going to reply. She is not going to grant me a modicum of grace.
Finally, she concedes. “I have it delivered by the cord in the spring so I can stack and season it in the garage over the summer, little by little,” she says, half sighing. She clears her throat, breathes in through her nose again. “Then in the fall I cut the pieces down into kindling and smaller logs.” She’s chewing on something now, testing for flavor. “So, I do need to do some legwork, actually, yeah.” I look at her, that kitchen towel draped over her shoulder, her hair pulled back. She’s wearing a white bodysuit with her beat-up old jeans. She looks a little sweaty and a little feline and completely divine. A shiny flicker at her collarbone. Some delicate pendant or other. She licks Italian dressing off her thumb then sets out two gorgeous-looking garden salads in front of her on the cool marble island; verdant, crisp spinach, arugula, and escarole with crunchy, cold, red onion rings, candy-red cherry tomatoes, and a scattering of homemade croutons. The salads are in wide, white ceramic bowls. “Come. Eat.” She gains a stool at the island herself, picking her fork up hungrily. She pats the stool beside her. An invitation. I hang the fire poker and join her, stowing away the knowledge of its presence. My knife, the poker—items in an imagined arsenal against a danger that doesn’t exist.
“God, is this good,” I say after my first harried bites. I may never have had a better salad. The crisp coolness of it against the swelling, humid warmth of the kitchen is delectable. She nods and continues munching along herself. After a few more bites, she goes over to the cooktop and stirs the chopped potatoes—Maine grown—in the oversize boiling pot and opens the door of the lower double oven to check on the dinner rolls. “Almost time to start the filet.” Filet mignon. She’s gone all out for us. “Oh—and the asparagus.” She hurries over to the fridge to grab it while I happily eat, an anxious rabbit.
“It smells amazing in here,” I tell her, watching her every movement. She nods, coming back to the counter and standing beside me, finishing up her own bowl of greens. We are quiet as we finish eating, my anxiety growing with every empty moment. I close my eyes, finding our avoidance of the topic unbearable. My outburst. Her correct assumption about my motives and agenda. What is this? What do I do?
Audra just continues to work.
My phone buzzes an alert from my pocket. I hesitate and then check. A new email. Sweat that’s not from the heat of the room breaks out on my skin like a rash.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: M + M
Mantis is nothing but the name of a bug.
Audra
Saturday, October 20, 2018
It’s nice and warm in here, like flannel just out of the dryer. The kind of warmth that can send you into a nap. The sleek ovens baking; two of the gas burners aflame; the fire in the kitchen hearth. Our two bodies. There is a fine sheen of perspiration on my brow, between my breasts, at my lower back. Max is red-faced and sweating like a hog.
“Head into the dining room,” I tell him. He shoves his phone, which he’s been fidgeting with since the salad course, in his pocket and continues to lean by the fireplace. He’s looking down into the flames, lost. Off somewhere. But this is not unusual. Max loses himself sometimes. When he gets drunk enough, he’s basically in another dimension. And we’ve taken care of a bottle of wine between us. “And no more wood in that fire for now.” My voice is gentle. An extraordinary expanse of time passes before he responds.
“A little hot I guess, huh?”
“Just a little.”
Max pushes off from the wall, comes to the island and pours himself more wine. Yes, please go ahead. Enjoy yourself. Max’s cheeks are red with the pressing warmth of the room and the flow of drink. His limp is considerable. He looks feverish. So many forces acting on and within that man right now. I’ve outed him to both of us. What he wants from me stands like a third person in the room with us. I think of my beautiful painting, meant to provoke, destroyed by a wine bottle. Not one woman at work, but two. I think of Max, unable to contain his jealousy. Unable to contain his ghost.
“Through here?” He gestures down the hallway as he turns for it.
“That’s right. Right out there. I’ll bring the plates—and here—” I wipe my hands off on the towel slung over my shoulder, turn, and rummage in a cupboard for a box of matches. I fetch them and hand them to Max, who’s come back over. “Light the candle that’s on the table.”
“How very…uhm, romantic, Audie.” He seems charmed by this detail, sheepish that he has used this word. There’s nothing else to do so I smile. His eyes grasp on to it. He looks down at my throat. My necklace. Then he looks up at me and tries the smile again, but he doesn’t quite manage it. Satisfaction ripples through me. He heads out of the room with his glass and the matches. The silverware, napkins, water glasses, and water pitcher are already on the table. I set those out while the filets were resting. I watch Max go. I watch every painful step. Until he is out of my sight.
My hands grip the edge of the cool marble island. It is bracing. It grounds me. I shut my eyes and take some breaths. Then I contemplate the licking flames in the hearth.
The image of an old, rusted-out oil drum springs to mind, fire burning out the top. Pops used to burn garbage in one of those. Had a barrel out at the edge of the driveway and would do a burn every Sunday afternoon, no matter the weather. No trash pickup around here and the dump is ten miles away. Burning was just easier, even if it wasn’t very ecofriendly. I know some people around here who still do that. Take their cast-off trash and burn it to high heaven. It makes me wonder about the letters. My letters. The ones I’ve sent over the past year, postmarked from Boston. I wonder if the man I sent them to kept them or if he ended up tossing them in a fire much like this one. Maybe they were relegated to his burn barrel, not wanting even the ash of them inside the place he lives. I could understand him wanting to be rid of those letters. Wanting the letters to be completely erased from the face of the earth. They’re terrible little reminders. Of a terrible thing he did. Haunty scrawlslips sent by USPS. Just a few. Enough to get his attention. To make him understand. Just enough.
But that is for another day. I look down at the plates. It’s time to go face Max. Time to feed him his last supper.
Juniper
July 27, 1988
“This is the first time a TV has ever been here, I assume?” Zephyr asks, her eyes trained on the two guys up front getting everything hooked up. They’re having some trouble with the AV.
“Yeah. People have been asking for a TV and VCR for a few years,” I reply, trying to talk over the riot of voices that bounce and bang off the concrete floor and high ceiling of the mess hall. “Gus always said too expensive, too distracting, beside the point of Lupine Valley. But he got a deal on these and caved. I doubt this will be more than a once-a-week indulgence, though. And after this we’ll have to buy our own tapes, too, I bet.” I snicker.
“Where are they? I can’t believe they’re going to miss this,” Trillium says, almost anxiously, craning her neck around to look for them. Coral, Moss, and Mantis. “Gus gets us a TV and VCR—”
“And a copy of Fatal Attraction—” Barley adds.
“And these clowns are nowhere to be found?” Trillium can’t believe it. She’s been starved for TV since she’s been here, I know. She mentions at least twice a week that she has to call her girlfriends back home to find out what happened on Days of Our Lives each week. And then she tells us, in exhaustive detail, what happened on Days of Our Lives each week. She seems personally offended that our friends are not here to enjoy this.
I look around, too, in case she’s somehow missed them, but I don’t see them. Not tucked in a far-off corner, not scattered th
roughout the crowd. Not that they would be scattered. They never seem to be apart these days.
“I’m sure the Holy Trinity has better things to do,” Zephyr says sarcastically. “They always seem to, lately. Don’t you think?” Zephyr has a point. Moss and Mantis are pretty chummy these days, and I can’t tell what it is exactly that binds them. If it’s an attraction or repulsion at work. Sometimes they seem like buddies, dicking around under the hood of Mantis’s truck or sharing ciggies. Sometimes they seem like two tomcats squaring off in an alley, not trusting the other enough to turn their backs. Coral hasn’t come to a painters hang in at least a week or two. Since the night we all sat around the bonfire and Mantis told us about Autumn Francis. Something has been…off since then.
“When was the last time the whole gang was together?” I ask Zephyr suddenly. The room erupts in cheers as the TV and VCR start getting along and the VHS goes in.
“Like, us plus the Holy Trinity?” Zephyr slides down in her folding chair into a more comfortable position. She crosses her legs. “The last time we were in Coral’s Clearing, I guess. Right? Has it been that long?”
I bite my thumbnail. “I think it has.”
Mantis has been keeping his distance, I realize. He has popped in to a painters hang once, maybe twice since then. But he didn’t bring his usual six-pack either of those times. And he didn’t bring anything from the Townie Chronicles. That spigot has been shut off. In fact, he listens more than he talks lately. Circumspect, almost. And when he does talk, he’s always asking about Coral. Where’s Coral? Is Coral with Moss? Did Coral go home already? How has Coral seemed today? What did she say?
And lately, the answers to those questions have been:
In Moss’s cabin.
Yes, of course she is.
No, she’s still here.
Not great.
Nothing.
The mess hall plunges into darkness. Someone yelps in surprise and a few others laugh in response. Zephyr reaches over and holds my hand.
The glow of the TV melts over our bodies.
Thesis
Her Dark Things by Audra Colfax
Piece #7: Spread Wide Open
Oil and mixed media on canvas. 24″ x 36″.
[Close-up of the head and breast of a raven upside down. The found objects are incorporated into the black feathers strategically to create a kind of sheen with the notes’ relative whiteness against the black.]
Note on torn graph paper found at the bottom of a produce crate in the Dunn family pantry.
M says stay close now
Do not stray
Keep quiet C, hush C
Who can I trust C, so
M encourages me
he is the only one who understands (M)
I do very small things to EASE the pressure so
so very small
just little things, but they help so much and M thinks it’s GOOD it’s good he says
KEEP GOING
You crazy fuck
a sewing NEEDLE—I prick my big toe with it
PULL nails off my fingers
painful and RED and angry
in the open air but just one finger, so it looks like it could have been
an ACCIDENT
M tells me to put on some white gloves
to cover them
and he laughs at me
cocks his finger
and shoots
a BURN with my curling iron
it’s like it’s nothing
it’s nothing C, don’t speak C, quiet quiet quiet C
M likes me for all of this he says I am making a CANVAS of myself
he draws and paints ME a lot now when I take breaks from cleaning
he says I’m more
interesting
these days
then SENDS me on my way
tying my butterscotch scarf
around my NECK
to hide
the hurts
we put there
—Sep88. CD.
Note on coffee-stained yellow legal paper found behind the baseboard in Cindy Dunn’s room at the Dunn residence.
I’ve been DRAWING with M drawing with M I’ve been drawing with
M I’ve been drawing
and drawing drawing drawing and drawing BIRDS with M
with (M)
with (M)
in his cabin I’ve been drawing birds and birds and birds and birds with M
in with M in with M in
drawing and drawing with M M
Brady always wonders
where I am I disappear so that
I can breathe so I can feel a little better
it doesn’t last
PROLIFIC M said
Good job good job good job not taking your meds that POISON look how
you are without them
look at these BIRDS and BIRDS and BIRDS look
they are so good
too good
look what your clean brain can do
I was doing good, so good
I am doing good, I am alone I am not alone
There is M there is baby there is ME
I’ve been drawing
I’ve been drawing with M it’s like I can’t STOP drawing with M and he can’t stop drawing won’t stop drawing
ME
—Sep88. CD.
Drawing on sketchbook paper found in an old metal tea tin in an armoire in the attic of the Dunn residence.
[Paper is creased with fold lines. The bottom right corner is torn. At the far upper left corner is a disembodied bird’s beak. The beak is cracked. The detail and shading are obsessively fine.]
Untitled.
—Sep88. CD.
Drawing on sketchbook paper found in an old metal tea tin in an armoire in the attic of the Dunn residence.
[Paper is creased with fold lines. Inadvertent brown stains—maybe coffee, maybe food—mark and blotch the page. A disembodied bird’s wing, snapped in the middle and angled grotesquely, fills the page. The detail and shading are obsessively fine.]
Untitled.
—Sep88. CD.
Drawing on sketchbook paper found in an old metal tea tin in an armoire in the attic of the Dunn residence.
[Paper is creased with fold lines. The page is filled with hundreds of disembodied bird eyes and the fine, tiny feathers just surrounding them. Some are as large as quarters. Others are as small as the head of a nail. Some overlap others. There are clusters in some areas of the page, like tumors, masses. The detail and shading are obsessively fine.]
Title: M Sees.
—Sep88. CD.
Note on loose-leaf paper found inside the wall of the living room after accidental damage was done in the Dunn residence during renovation.
so many birds feathers beaks beady little eyes CLAWS TALONS sometimes all together on one bird a full picture sometimes apart and a part sometimes the birds are HURT or MANGLED like they’ve flown into the windshield of a SPEEDING car sometimes an EYE has been scratched out or large swaths of feathers are MISSING sometimes the eyes are so BLACK that I think I might fall into the pinprick of them and drown in their TAR and never get back out there are all of these BIRDS I have drawn so many of them they are MEAN or BROKEN and it’s like I can’t stop drawing them there’s this one bird some kind of made up bird from my imagination black and terrible who I keep drawing hanging upside down from a branch by its talons WINGS SPREAD WIDE OPEN I keep drawing him over and over again his expression looks different each time but he’s some sort of angel of DEATH I think how I angle his head and eyes makes him different the way his wings sprawl and dangle there are ten of him fifteen of him FIFTY of him I don’t know M loves him M thinks he’s good he thinks I’m good he dr
aws ME even when I tell him NO when I just want to cry and melt into the floor he says you look your BEST in these moments look what you have wrought through me through me through me
I spent three hours just working on a feather or two I need to get more paper I NEED so much more paper my hand is cramped all of this is RUINING me
—Oct88. CD.
Juniper
August 22, 1988
Mantis parks his red Ford pickup at the end of the access road we use when we want to drive up as close as we can to Coral’s Clearing. We get out of the truck, and I survey the area around us as Mantis takes his two handguns from their case under his seat. The woods are more tangled and dense here, less visited than other areas of the property that trails run through.
We walk down through the sprawling, buggy field and then push into the merciful shade of the forest. Cold cans of beer tap against each other in my backpack as we follow the gentle, natural slope down deeper into the woods. Twenty minutes later, we make it to the familiar birch trees and large, prehistoric-looking rocks of Coral’s Clearing.
We gather some branches, moss, and sticks and use twine to wrap these bundles in classic, red bull’s-eye papers we got from Dirigo Hill last time we went shooting. We prop them against trees about ten or fifteen yards ahead of us. He watches me go through the process of safety-checking and then loading the pistol.
“You’re getting good at this.” He smiles, holding up his can of Coors to me.
“Not embarrassed to be my friend anymore?” I ask.
“Not anymore, no.” He laughs. It’s good to see him laugh. I’m so relieved to be hanging with him again, to have him acting more normally. He’s been so distant lately, and I’ve missed him. I suggested we go shooting sometime soon, and something in my face must have softened him. So here we are.
We shoot for about fifteen minutes—Mantis’s target array much tighter than mine—and then take a beer break in the peace of the green forest. We talk about the guns, then we talk about Dirigo Hill, then the characters Mantis knows from Dirigo Hill, then Old Gus, who knows some of the same Dirigo Hill characters, then, finally, Lupine Valley.
Dark Things I Adore Page 18
