The Cartoonist

by Sean Costello

  “ ...your wife is on extension one-one-three,” the nurse was saying.

  “Oh...okay, ” Scott said, feeling oddly transplated, as if awakening from a dream.

  “There’s a phone free in the interview room,” the nurse said, shaking her head. Then she continued on her way.

  As Scott turned away from the wheelchair to pick up his call, the old man ceased his pencil scratching and shifted his gaze toward the doctor’s receding figure. Down the hall Scott hesitated, sensing those eyes on him. He did not turn. He walked on. But in that instant of hesitation his skin crawled avidly, as if someone had danced across his grave.

  He took a bandage from a supply cupboard and put it on his finger, then let himself into the interview room to use the phone. His finger was throbbing like hell. He was thirsty, hungry, and he wanted to go home.

  Krista’s voice, cheerful and rich, made him forget the old man and that queer sensation of déjà vu.

  For the time being, at least.

  * * *

  Alone in his wheelchair by the window in the hall, caught in the slanting light and sharpening shadow of late afternoon, the old man touched the congealing droplets of Scott Bowman’s blood on his forearm with tentative, caressing fingertips. His dark eyes rolled. The corners of his seamed mouth twitched.

  After a while he began to draw again.

  3

  “HI, HON.”

  Krista’s voice sounded small and far away. Scott could hear the drone of a powerboat behind her and knew that she was down by the lake, using the cordless phone.

  “Hi to you, too,” he said, smiling. He knew she’d be getting ready for his party.

  “Glad I caught you—” Her voice angled sharply away, then grew louder: “Kathleen. There’s poison ivy down there, pet...sorry, hon. Just wanted to let you know that we’re out of beer. The Swains stopped by this afternoon and drank us all out...and I know you’ve been thinking more about the big Bud this hot afternoon than you have about your little wifey.”

  It was true.

  “Okay, doll. Thanks. I’ll pick some up and be along soon.”

  “Good. See ya.” She hung up.

  And suddenly Scott missed her. It was an ache.

  He cradled the receiver and left the hospital, heading for the parking lot in long, rapid strides.

  * * *

  The delay with the students—and stopping off at the Brewer’s Retail to replenish his stock of Budweiser—wound up working in Scott’s favor. By the time he got under way again the rush-hour traffic had thinned, and he was able to reach the city limits in record time. Once or twice during the drive out his thoughts returned to that ancient artist and his bizarre drawing, the curious subject of which Scott felt certain he’d seen before. But the day was clear and his mood was fine, and eventually the car captured his full attention.

  The Turbo Volvo was Scott’s baby, the one totally outrageous luxury he’d allowed himself after buying the new house in the Gatineaus, that long range of low green mountains on the Quebec side of the Ottawa river. Quick and responsive, the car gave Scott a wonderfully juvenile feeling. And on this particular August afternoon—his birthday—he was feeling perfectly juvenile.

  A tune played over and over in his mind, competing with the music on the tape deck: Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday, dear Scotty...

  Now he was on the home stretch, guiding the car fluidly along the twists and curves of the narrow Gatineau Road. Signaling, he turned left at a dusty road sign reading Sleepy Hollow and slowed to a crawl, protecting the car’s undercarriage from the pits and pocks of the washboard side road. He stopped in front of a bank of green-painted mailboxes, fished out his mail—bills, journals, a few items of personal correspondence—and resumed the drive home. Soon the lake became visible through breaks in the birch trees hemming its banks. The water looked cool and inviting, its blue-green surface dancing with quicksilver.

  The Bowmans’ winding drive was all but hidden by the dense summer overgrowth, and Scott had to watch carefully to avoid missing it. The gravel entryway was marked with a pine slab that read Sandy Point Hideaway, a name coined by Krista after the tiny Atlantic village of her birth. Her mother lived there still, in a small ocean-side cottage.

  As he rounded the last bend and swung into the drive, Scott saw his angular, cedar-sided house coming into view, and Kathleen, charging up the lane to greet him. He parked in front of the garage, killed the ignition and powered open his side window. Afternoon heat rushed in like dragon’s breath.

  “Dad,” Kath squealed.

  “Hi, kid,” Scott said, accepting her kiss through the open window. She was wearing a striped orange-and-white swimsuit, which clung damply to her skin. Kath was a pretty girl, with Krista’s tall-and-tan figure and cornflower eyes. She was already in the breast-bud stage, a fact which Scott had remarked only recently, with surprise and a certain dismay. Her growth paralleled his own aging, her development reminding him of how time, at least from his point of view, had managed to shift into overdrive. Right now, on the evening of his thirty-seventh birthday, his daughter looked like a grown woman in miniature. Scott gazed at her with something like awe.

  After a moment Kath stepped back to allow her father out of the car. The cooling engine ticked quietly beneath the hood.

  “Where’s your mom?” Scott said, tucking the mail and the triple six-pack under his arm.

  “Round front, starting up the barbeque. Oh—” Kath held up the baby finger of her left hand for Scott’s inspection. It was swollen and red. “Lookit where the wasp stung me.”

  “Oooh, the nasty beggar,” Scott said. He could see the tiny red puncture-site surrounded by a paler wheal. Thank God she’s not allergic, he thought. This was her first bee sting. “Sore?”

  Kath shook her head and smiled. “Not now. Mom fixed it with baking soda.”

  Scott showed her his bandaged finger. “I got it today, too,” he said, mimicking her pout. “Kiss it better?”

  Eager to please, Kath pressed an overzealous kiss onto the tip of Scott’s finger. Pain flared like sunlight on polished chrome. He smiled through clenched teeth. “Thanks, kid.”

  “Jody Loomis was here today,” Kath said. “You know, she’s twelve, and she’s got this icky white zit right here in the corner of her mouth. No wonder, she never brushes her teeth, and her brother, Tommy, told me she actually kisses boys...yuck, and...”

  Scott hugged his daughter to his leg as they walked and she filled him in on the highlights of her day. As usual, Kath had had more fun than her dad. Krista met them at the front door, wearing a pink ribbon in her hair and a bikini Scott had never seen before...and could scarcely see now.

  He felt an ominous stirring in his briefs.

  “Hi, Doc,” Krista said. “Look what I’ve got.”

  She held up a big freezer-frosted mug, just begging to be filled with beer. There is a God, Scott decided, and cupped Krista’s cheek in his hand. She kissed him and then Scott followed her in, setting the mail on the newel post as he went by.

  In less than a minute he was sipping that long-awaited brew. He stood by the window in the living room, guzzling heartily, watching his daughter as she skipped down the hill to rejoin her pals on the dock. He could hear Krista rummaging around upstairs and his thoughts turned lustily back to that bikini. Feeling suddenly persuasive—and not just a little horny—he drained his glass and headed for the stairs.

  But it appeared Krista was on the same wavelength. Wearing only her bikini bottoms, she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, idly fingering the curls of her thick auburn hair. Her breasts seemed to wink with promise from inside the mirror.

  Something about Krista’s breasts—or more exactly, Scott’s slavering reaction to them—had long ago convinced him of the validity of Darwin’s theory, and of his own descent from the orangutan.

  “Want some?” she said, smiling coyly.

  “Does dogbane bend under the weight of the stinkbug?” Scott said, whi
pping off his pants as if they’d just met the business end of a skunk. In seconds he was standing there naked, semi-erect and grinning, with a sock in one hand and a pair of Fruit of the Loom jockies in the other.

  But Krista was pulling on a wine-colored T-shirt. “Tough,” she said, smirking. Then she was gone.

  Scott growled, his excitement doubled. He knew her game: playful rejection now, unbelievable later. That was one of the things about Krista that helped keep their relationship always fresh and new—Scott was never allowed to take anything for granted.

  He hopped into the shower where he remained for a long time, letting the jets of hot water spear away the tensions of the work week behind him.

  4

  AFTER SHOWERING, SCOTT SAT IN a fold-out chair on the deck, sipping his second beer and gazing out over Pike Lake. The surrounding hills brought dusk early up here; now, at seven-thirty, the light was already thinning...yet that hot, nearly palpable August haze persisted. It was as if a soft filter had been placed over the lens of the eye, lending a dreamy quality to the scene. Scott could see Bob Anderson out there, the dauntless fisherman, putt-putting along in his aluminum boat, a dim silhouette hunched over a trolling line and a beer. Anderson, a retired dairy farmer, lived with his wife in a refurbished cottage just five minutes’ walk away on Cottage Road. It surprised Scott mildly to see Bob without his perpetual companion, Fred Mills, whose son ran the marina on the opposite side of the lake. As far as anyone knew, those two old boys had been fishing this lake together since the dawn of recorded history.

  It had been this view of the lake, from the deck, which for Scott had clinched the purchase of the house last December. A well-known artist had owned it previously, had in fact designed and constructed it, right down to backhoeing the hole for the foundation. She had used the room beneath the deck, presently the Bowman rec room, as a studio. If you aimed your nose the right way in that room, you could still catch a faint whiff of solvents and oils. Small but well lit, the room was Scott’s favorite. He did his reading in there, his thinking, his relaxing.

  Krista was standing across from him, poking at chops on the open grill. Kath was still down by the lake, laughing and squealing with her friends.

  “So, what do you feel like doing tonight?” Scott said, fishing for hints of his party. So far no one had even mentioned his birthday and he was getting the sinking feeling it had been forgotten.

  “Oh, read, watch TV, feel sorry for myself.” Crinkling her nose, Krista turned to look at him. “Got the curse.”

  “Rude,” Scott said, believing now that she’d actually forgotten. “Not at all cute.”

  “What happened to your finger?” Krista said, closing the lid on the barbeque.

  “Paper cut,” Scott said—and for an instant the puzzle of the drawing flashed again in his mind.

  On the subject of his finger Krista only grunted, and Scott’s mind switched back to the problem at hand. He studied his wife for hints of a grin, a subtle twinkle in the eye, something to let him know she was having him on. But there was nothing. She looked tired, even a little cross.

  Suddenly he felt old, hurt, dejected.

  Krista gave him a weary half-smile, then went back inside.

  Christ, he thought gloomily, she’s really forgotten.

  He got up and fetched another beer, chugged it, poured out a fourth and took that one down to the rec room, spilling some as he went. He scanned the channels, found nothing but news, and switched off the tube with a grunt. He grabbed the evening paper and fingered listlessly through that, but he glimpsed only chaos between the lines and tossed it aside. He glanced at the antique rosewood fernstand he’d been refinishing for better than a year now, and almost slipped on the work gloves—but he decided he’d probably screw up if he tried working on it with a bellyful of beer.

  Finally he picked up the phone and dialed Gerry’s number in Ottawa. Gerry St. Georges was Scott’s best buddy. He never forgot Scott’s birthday. Scott had a twenty-years-running collection of gag Christmas and birthday gifts Gerry had given him: rubber dildos, clay dog shit, plastic puke, fake cracks-on-the-TV-screen, giant strap-on breasts, rude cards of every description. Gerry was six months older than Scott, a big man, powerful, protective. He worked as a provincial policeman.

  No answer at Gerry’s.

  “Dinner,” It was Krista, calling from the top of the stairs.

  Scott gulped down the dregs of his beer. When he stood, he realized he was drunk. He started up the stairs in an unsteady weave, giggling at his altered perceptions.

  She’s just having me on...right?

  But dinner went by without mention of birthdays or parties. Even Kath betrayed no hint of a silent conspiracy. She sat next to Scott, gnawing contentedly on the remains of a barbequed chop.

  Still, he fished.

  “What’cha doing tonight, big girl?”

  What was that? A cryptic flicker of eyes? Some secret message passing deftly between mother and daughter?

  “There’s a sleepover at Lita’s tonight,” Kath said, looking at Scott with pleading eyes. “Mom said I should ask you.... Can I go, Daddy? Please?”

  “Wouldn’t you rather stay home with your dear old dad tonight?”

  Kath looked disappointed. “And do what?”

  “Yeah,” Scott said, finally accepting the truth. “You can go.”

  * * *

  “Are you pouting?”

  It was quarter of nine and almost full dark. Draped in a matronly looking shawl, Krista sat curled on the upstairs sofa, reading Blatty’s Legion. Kath had been gone for about an hour.

  He was pouting.

  But he said, “No.” Seated in a chair across from her, he leafed through a medical journal. “Why should I be pouting?”

  “Well, you’re the shrink,” Krista said, her eyes sparkling, “but I think you’re pouting.”

  Was she baiting him?

  “I’m going down to the rec room,” Scott said, a childish ‘so-there’ tone in his voice. He dropped the journal and stood. As he stalked away, he thought he saw Krista glance furtively at her watch. Then she was reading again. No signs of protest.

  He stumped down the stairs, after pouring out a—what was it now?—fifth brew? Okay, so he was pouting. Being a psychiatrist didn’t protect you from your own little hang-ups and insecurities. Remembering things like birthdays, embellishing them, was a sign of love. And in that department Scott was nowhere near above the need for reassurance. He’d always been insecure with Krista. Physically, she was a far more beautiful human being than he was, always had been. She outclassed him in the looks department by such a wide margin, in fact, that for years Scott had secretly cringed at parties or public get-togethers where Krista was exposed to other men. He knew he couldn’t lock her up at home, and had never breathed a word to her about his fears. But men trailed after her like tail-wagging mongrels. He knew Krista loved him, knew she was happy, but still...it was scary sometimes. Scary how much he needed her.

  At nine o’clock the telephone rang. Still hurt and annoyed, Scott let it ring, waiting for Krista to pick it up. On the seventh ring he crossed the room to Kath’s Mickey Mouse phone and grabbed the receiver. Mickey grinned up at him gleefully.

  “Hello,” he said, a trifle too sharply. He could hear Krista padding across the floor above him.

  “Scott. Happy birthday.”

  It was Gerry.

  Scott grinned back at Mickey. “Hi, man,” he said, instantly cheerful. “Thanks. I’m glad somebody remembered.” Juvenile, he thought. But the words were already out.

  “What? Who forgot?”

  “Just the entire Bowman harem.”

  “Oh, really?” Gerry said, chuckling. “I find that pretty hard to believe. Have you dropped any hints?”

  Scott grunted.

  “Well, you should. Anyway, what’s new? Have you changed your mind about the trip?”

  “No. As much as I’d like to, I still can’t go.”

  The Boston trip h
ad been a dinner table bone of contention between him and Krista for the past several days. Krista planned on leaving this Sunday, overnighting with her sister Klara on the Saint Lawrence, then driving on to Boston early Monday morning to spend a week with her half sister, Caroline. Krista wanted desperately for Scott to join them, but like most things, she had planned this jaunt on the spur of the moment. Next week was going to be a bad one for Scott. He would be up to his neck at work in a dozen or more things he simply could not walk away from.

  “You sure it isn’t because you can’t win an argument with Caroline?”

  Scott chuckled. “It’s damned tough winning an argument with someone who’s always right, this much is true.”

  Caroline, who was a few years older than Scott, had a Ph.D. in social anthropology and held a full professorship at Pine Manor College, a school for rich girls in Cambridge near Harvard. She had earned her degree at Berkeley during the sixties and was very much a product of that radicalized environment. She even had a framed photograph, proudly displayed on the mantel, showing herself giving the finger to riot police during a university uprising. Caroline was a hard-core feminist and, though good-natured and generous, took umbrage at some of Scott’s more traditional views on boy-girl relationships. She was the sole offspring of her mother’s first marriage, predating Krista by nearly nine years. She and Krista were very close indeed, and Scott had to mind what he said about her. But apart from what he viewed as her ‘opinionated nature,’ he cared a lot for Caroline.

  “But, no, Caroline’s not the reason,” Scott said. “Not this time, anyway. I’m going to be up to my ass in all manner of administrative horseshit next week, stuff I just can’t shirk. Sad but true.”

  If there was any single problem in his marriage, Scott reflected in the moment of silence that followed, it was this: in Krista’s opinion he spent too much time at work, and not enough at home with his family. It was an old song, one which most physicians learned to live with—often as divorcés. The majority of the maybe half-dozen totally monstrous arguments he and Krista had had during their lives together had centered on this theme. And once or twice it had gotten quite ugly. The last major spat had occurred only recently, shortly following the purchase of the lake-front home.